Guilty plea in 3 deaths

LA GRANDE, Ore. – A self-employed La Grande house painter who told reporters he was responsible for killing three people last summer has pleaded guilty to aggravated murder in a plea agreement that spares him the possibility of the death penalty.

Gregory Alvin Cook pleaded guilty Thursday in Union County Circuit Court to three counts of aggravated murder, plus abuse of a corpse and a firearms count, county District Attorney Timothy Thompson said.

The agreement calls for three consecutive life terms without possibility of parole, plus additional time on the corpse abuse and firearms counts. Cook acknowledged killing Shannon McKillop, 51, Frank Scaramuzzi, 50, and Jeremiah Johnston, 28, last July.

Cook told Judge Phillip Mendiguren he has cooperated with investigators and he denied being insane or suicidal, KGW-TV reported.

Formal sentencing is set for Nov. 9.

McKillop’s dismembered body was discovered July 24 in an Elgin pond. The bodies of Scaramuzzi and Johnston were found in woods north of Elgin.

Cook was arrested Aug. 3 in Washington state. As he was being escorted into an Olympia jail, he confessed on camera to a KING-TV news crew from Seattle.

He confessed to reporters again later that week as he was returned to La Grande, saying he was “high on drugs” at the time of the killings.

“Methamphetamines were largely responsible,” he told reporters. “It changes who you are as an individual when you’re under the influence of that stuff for days and weeks at a time.”