Milwaukee ‘Strangler’ : Serial Killer Dies Three Years Into Prison Sentence for Murder of Seven Women [VIDEO]
A serial killer serving a life sentence in the strangling deaths of seven women died Sunday, Dec. 1 in a South Dakota prison after serving only three years for his crimes.
Walter Ellis, 53, was pronounced dead at Sioux Falls hospital, MSN reports. His cause of death is being reported as natural causes, though an autopsy is being conducted as part of standard investigation procedures by the South Dakota Department of Corrections.
Ellis was arrested in 2009 for the suspected killings of seven Milwaukee women from 1986 to 2007. His victims ranged in age from 19 to 41, and he was dubbed by local media as the "The Milwaukee North Side Strangler."
After his arrest, he was sentenced in February 2011 to seven consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole after pleading no contest to first-degree intentional homicide in the killings.
Ellis was captured for his crimes after his DNA matched semen samples on six of the victims, as well as blood on a can of pepper spray at the seventh murder site.
His seven victims were reportedly African-American prostitutes, according to the Daily Mail. Ellis was brought up on first-degree murder charges for the deaths of 31-year-old Deborah Harris on December 10, 1986 and 19-year-old Tanya Miller on December 11, 1986. He later murdered 25-year-old Irene Smith in 1992, 28-year-old Florence McCormick and 37-year-old Sheila Farrior in April and June of 1995, 41-year-old Joyce Mims in June 1997, and Ouithreaun Stokes, 28, in April 2007.
