Sex Fiend Pleads Guilty To Murdering Two Coeds

A predator already serving three life sentences for sexual assault pleaded guilty today to murdering two Virginia college students and had an additional four consecutive life terms tacked onto his punishment.

Jesse Matthew, 34, had been charged with capital murder in the September 2014 death of University of Virginia student Hannah Graham, 18, and a first-degree murder charge in the 2009 death of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington, 20.

By pleading to first-degree murder and abduction with intent to defile in Albemarle Circuit Court today, Matthew avoids the death penalty he would have faced had he been convicted at trial in Hannah's (pictured) case.

"Mr. Matthew will never be able to inflict his depravity on other women," said John Graham, Hannah’s father. "He was far too dangerous to be allowed to ever go free."

"They say it takes a village to raise a child," said Gil Harrington, Morgan's mother. “I know it takes one to bury a child. No one gave up. We didn't give up, law enforcement didn't give up. The media didn't give up."

Morgan’s father Daniel said the family felt the pain of Morgan's (pictured) loss "every second of every day" and "struggled to cope in a world that's gone gray."

Morgan disappeared during a Metallica concert at the University of Virginia. Hannah was recorded on surveillance video at Charlottesville's downtown pedestrian mall, leaving a restaurant with Matthew.

Hannah's body was found five weeks later on abandoned property in Albemarle County, about 6 miles from a hayfield where Morgan's remains were found (pictured). A DNA sampling after he was arrested connected Matthew to a 2005 sexual assault in Fairfax County, Va., and evidence from that attack linked Matthew to Morgan’s disappearance.