The first in a series of Massachusetts slayings blamed on a serial killer has been resolved with a guilty plea.

Alfred Gaynor admitted Tuesday that he killed Vera Hallums. It was his eighth murder conviction and places the 43-year-old among the deadliest serial killers in Massachusetts history.

Hallums was bound and strangled in her Springfield apartment in April 1995. She was the first of several Springfield women killed over the next few years, most of whom were raped.

Gaynor received an eighth life sentence during his sentencing Tuesday in Hampden Superior Court.

He also has admitted to killing a ninth woman and leaving her toddler to die in her sweltering apartment, but has not been indicted in those cases.