KANSAS CITY, Mo.—A former cab driver has admitted strangling a passenger who authorities said couldn’t pay her fare.
Lawrence E. Jensen is expected to be sentenced to 21 to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder under the terms of his plea deal.
Jensen pleaded guilty to strangling 21-year-old Veronica Neverdusky in August 1993 and dumping her body in a park. Authorities have said he became enraged after Neverdusky was unable to pay her fare.
Jensen, 57, gave no explanation during his plea hearing Tuesday. He is to be sentenced Dec. 7.
Jeff Gedbaw, Jensen’s public defender, said Wednesday that the plea offer was fair and spared Neverdusky’s family from having to sit through a trial.
Jensen is charged with murder in the strangling of another woman, Anita Fratzel, 27, in Kansas City, Kan., two days before Neverdusky’s body was found. Prosecutors in Kansas said Jensen did not yet have an attorney in the Fratzel case.
Jensen disappeared after the slaying of Neverdusky, who had three children. Authorities said he showed up at a Nevada police station in May 2002 and reportedly confessed that he had “taken the lives of two innocent people” in the Kansas City area.
Jensen was sent for a psychiatric evaluation and mistakenly released, but police arrested him in Denver in March.
