Alex Bridges Deaton pleaded guilty to the Feb. 2017 murder of Brenda Pinter Friday in the Eighth Circuit Court and was sentenced to life without parole. 

Neshoba County Sheriff Tommy Waddell confirmed the conviction.

Waddell’s office had identified Deaton as a suspect in the death of Pinter, 69, shortly after she had been found shot to death while cleaning the office of the Dixon Baptist Church on Feb. 23, 2017.

“I’m glad that this chapter is now over but in a case like this there’s no winners,” Waddell said. 

Waddell said Deaton had been in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections since he pleaded guilty in August to the February 2017 murder of his girlfriend, Quitman native Heather Robinson, a drive-by shooting and motor vehicle theft in Rankin County. He was sentenced to life in prison in that case.  

Following the strangulation of Robinson, Deaton killed Pinter and then shot at a jogger in Rankin County. He then went on a cross-country crime spree, allegedly kidnapping hikers in New Mexico and attempting to murder a gas station clerk in Kansas. Deaton was convicted of armed robbery and attempted murder in Kansas.