Former Vegas father of year pleads guilty to killing wife, mother

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Former father of the year William Rundle, on trial for murdering his wife, abruptly ended the proceedings Wednesday by pleading guilty to killing her -- and his mother.

The 57-year-old Rundle had been on trial for more than a week in Clark County District Court when he switched his plea to guilty.

In exchange for pleading guilty to both killings, the state will recommend Rundle serves life in prison without the possibly of parole, court spokesman Michael Sommermeyer said.

He faced the death penalty if he had been convicted of killing his wife, Shirley, with a baseball bat.

Rundle's defense lawyers told a jury during the trial that Rundle killed his 63-year-old wife in self-defense. Her body was found in August near Susanville, Calif., and was identified through dental records.

Previously, Rundle said his wife killed his elderly mother by tampering with her medication, and then hired two men to dispose of her body.

Rundle told police his wife had increased the morphine dosage in capsules taken by Willa Rundle, 87. He has insisted that he didn't know the location of his mother's body, and police say it has not been found.

It remains unclear how Rundle's mother died, Sommermeyer said. Police think the mother was killed in 1997.

Rundle was the object of a manhunt that led investigators from Las Vegas to Seattle to Fredericksburg, Va., to Orlando, Fla., where he was arrested.

The investigation was delayed initially while Las Vegas police checked a note left in the family home saying the couple had gone to the Philippines, where Shirley Rundle had relatives.

Rundle first came to the public's attention when a Las Vegas organization honored him as a model father in 1986. A year later, his 11-year-old son Richie Rundle was run down on a sidewalk and killed in a high-profile 1987 drunken driving crash.