TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) – Calling him “an evil human being,” a judge ordered consecutive life sentences Friday for a former nurse convicted in the murders of a businessman and a gay prostitute whose remains were dumped along New Jersey highways.

Richard W. Rogers, 55, stood stoically during his sentencing, declining to explain what drove him to kill.

“He did it because he could, and because he wanted to,” said 32-year-old Tracey Mulcahy, whose father was one of the victims.

Both victims disappeared in New York in the early 1990s, but Rogers, a surgical nurse at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, wasn’t caught until 2001, when investigators matched fingerprints taken from the plastic bags containing the victims’ remains.

Rogers’ fingerprints were on file in Maine, where he was acquitted in 1973 in the hammer-beating death of a fellow student at the University of Maine. He had claimed self defense.

Rogers also was acquitted in a 1990 case in which the victim testified he met Rogers in a New York bar and woke up in Rogers’ home bound at the legs and wrists.

Investigators still don’t know the motive behind the killings for which Rogers was sentenced Friday.

Thomas Mulcahy, 56, of Sudbury, Mass., disappeared on July 8, 1992, during a business trip. His remains were found a month later – some at a state Department of Transportation maintenance yard in Burlington County, others in a trash barrel at a Garden State Parkway rest stop.

The remains of Anthony Marrero, 44, were found 10 months later near a road in Manchester, also in double-knotted plastic bags.

Rogers was convicted in November, despite his lawyer’s assertion that police arrested the wrong man.

The lawyer, David Ruhnke, plans to appeal. He contends that prosecutors never proved the men were killed in New Jersey and that the court didn’t have jurisdiction as a result.

Superior Court Judge James Citta, during the sentencing Friday, called Rogers “an evil human being” and said he hopes he dies “in some hole in some prison without ever having freedom again.”

“That’s the judgment of this court,” Citta said. “We’re done. Take him out of here.”

In the 1973 Maine case, Rogers, then 22, was studying French at the University of Maine when he became a suspect in the death of Frederic A. Spencer, who lived in his apartment building in Orono. Spencer’s body was found a few days after his death by two bicyclists riding along a deserted road near Old Town.

After his arrest, Rogers told police he caught Spencer in his apartment and that Spencer came at him with a hammer. He said he managed to get the hammer away and beat Spencer until he died.

Six months later, Rogers was acquitted of manslaughter in Penobscot County Superior Court.

AP-ES-01-27-06 1450EST