Man enters plea, is sentenced to 85 years in slayings of nurse, daughter in Maryland county

A man accused of killing five women in a suburban Washington county entered an Alford plea in the slayings of a nurse and her daughter and has been sentenced to 85 years in prison.

Thirty-year-old Jason Scott entered the plea Wednesday in Prince George's County Court in Maryland in the strangulations of 42-year-old Delores Dewitt and her 20-year-old daughter, Ebony, in 2009.

With an Alford plea, a defendant doesn't admit guilt but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him.

In exchange for the plea, prosecutors dropped charges in the slayings of another woman and her daughter in 2009 and in the 2008 killing of a woman who was shot in her home.

State's Attorney Angela Alsobrooks says she wanted to spare the victims' families the ordeal of several trials.