A man who prosecutors described as an aspiring serial killer has died in jail, where he was awaiting trial for allegedly killing two Northwest Missouri prostitutes. Derek Richardson died yesterday at the hospital five days after attempting suicide inside his jail cell in Clay County.

Richardson, 27, who was arrested earlier this year, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of abandonment of a corpse in the deaths of Tamara R. Sparks and Nicoleone Reed.

Sparks, 40, was found dead in October 2011 along a gravel road in Kansas City. Reed, 24, was found last August next to a gravel road in Kearney. Investigators linked the two cases in February, and tied Richardson to the crime through a shoe found at one of the crime scenes.

According to court documents, Richardson described in “great detail” how he killed the women during sex acts and abandoned their bodies. He told witnesses interviewed by police that he was a serial killer.