The change of venue murder trial being held in Nacogdoches has ended with the defendant pleading guilty to murder in the first degree.

Michael Kevin Hailey had been accused of the brutal killing of a woman and her two young daughters in Atlanta, Texas, in 1992. Hailey plead guilty to the murder of the mother but not murders of the two girls.

Because of pre-trial publicity in Cass County, where the murders took place, the trial was moved to Nacogdoches County.

After originally pleading innocent during the trial in which prosecutors were seeking the death penalty, Hailey pleaded guilty to the murder of the mother, Gerri Faye Butts.

Court documents say that Hailey strangled Butts with his hands, and other affidavits say that the girls were killed with a telephone cord used to strangle one, and another child was forcibly drowned in the bath tub.

Hailey, already serving an 87-year sentence in Louisiana for attempted murder, must serve out a that sentence before he is shipped back to Texas for the Butts' murder, according to various media reports.

The guilty plea marked the end of a weeks long search for jurors in Nacogdoches to serve on the jury for the capital punishment trial.