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MILWAUKEE, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- A Milwaukee serial killer remained silent as he was sentenced Thursday to seven consecutive life terms for seven slayings over the course of 21 years. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Dennis Cimpl said everyone wants to know why Walter E. Ellis committed the crimes, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
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"Unfortunately, Mr. Ellis has the right not to tell us," the judge said.
On Friday, Ellis, 50, pleaded no contest to seven counts of first-degree intentional homicide for strangling seven women between 1986 and 2007.
Two of the homicides took place while Ellis lived at a halfway house and some happened after he was a government informant, the Journal Sentinel said.
He was arrested in 2009.
The court was packed with the slain women's loved ones, the newspaper said. "What went wrong in his life that would make him kill these women?" said Tina Lewis, mother of Ouithrean Stokes, Ellis's last apparent victim.
She said she wished the state could give the death penalty and hoped Ellis would be murdered in prison like serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
