Connecticut prisoner to be charged with six additional murders

Trying to identify the remains of seven people has been filled with challenges and twists and turns, including police eventually determining they were all murdered by a serial killer.

William Devin Howell, 45, who grew up in Hampton, Virginia, will be charged with multiple counts of capital felony, murder and felony murder at a 2 p.m. appearance in New Britain Superior Court, authorities said. Many relatives of the victims attended the brief proceeding and several cried after Howell was brought into the courtroom in an orange prison jumpsuit, shackled on his arms and legs.

A hunter came upon the bones of the first three victims in 2007 behind the strip mall in New Britain, 12 miles southwest of Hartford.

He is already serving a 15-year sentence for her death.

A suspected serial murderer with ties to Hampton Roads will be served an arrest warrant Friday charging him in connection to the homicides of six people.

Howell had previously been charged in connection with the death of Nilsa Arizmendi, of Wethersfield, Connecticut.

Police in May identified Howell as a suspect in the deaths after partial remains of four bodies were found buried in a wooded area behind a shopping mall where the bodies of three women were discovered eight years ago. Wardwell said three of the victims were sexually assaulted. Michael Ross, who was executed in 2005, killed six women in Connecticut and two in New York. He also admitted to raping three of them in conversation with a cellmate.

Howell’s case has remained open because authorities were unable to find the source of additional blood found in his van.

He then “kept her wrapped in the van for two weeks because it was too cold outside to bury her” and slept next to the woman’s body, the warrant says.