A convicted serial killer facing the death penalty in California pleaded guilty Friday to killing two women in New York City in the 1970s.

Rodney Alcala, 69, said he was eager to get back to California and work on his death penalty appeal.

Prosecutors identified his two victims as Cornelia Crilley and Ellen Hover.

Crilley was strangled with a stocking in her apartment in 1971.

Hover disappeared in 1977. Her body was found hidden in the woods a year later.

Alcala will receive an automatic sentence of 25 years to life for his crimes in New York, to be served concurrently with his other convictions.

His death sentence in California has been stayed pending an appeal.

He has been behind bars since 1979.