PARIS – Christian Nielsen, the 32-year-old man who pleaded guilty last week to four murders, had thought about becoming a serial killer for five years before committing the crimes, according to the prosecutor in the case.

In a sentencing recommendation filed with the court Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson explained that Nielsen told Maine State Police Detective Jennifer King he would have killed again if he had not been apprehended.

“That’s what I do,” Nielsen said when King asked him why he killed his victims, Benson said.

The prosecutor is asking Justice Robert Crowley to sentence Nielsen to four life sentences, three to be served consecutively. Nielsen will be sentenced Thursday in Oxford County Superior Court.

Nielsen, who was 31 at the time of the 2006 slayings, said he had been considering committing murder since he was 26.

“This anti-social thinking is absolutely chilling,” Benson stated in the 18-page memo filed with the court.

Nielsen admitted murdering James Whitehurst, 50, of Batesville, Ark.; Julie Bullard, 65, of Newry; Selby Bullard, 30, of Bethel; and Cindy Beatson, 43, of Bethel over Labor Day weekend.

The plea is conditional, allowing Nielsen to withdraw it if he wins appeals on pretrial rulings about his competency and suppressing statements he made to police and to his father.

Benson recommended that Nielsen serve two concurrent life sentences for Selby Bullard’s and Cindy Beatson’s murders, in addition to two life sentences for Whitehurst’s and Julie Bullard’s murders.

Currently, Nielsen is a patient at Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta while awaiting sentencing.

Defense attorney Ron Hoffman said in an e-mail that he would be replying to the sentencing memorandum today.

Nielsen was living at the Black Bear Bed & Breakfast in Newry and working as a cook at the Sudbury Inn in Bethel at the time of the grisly killings.

According to Benson’s memorandum, Nielsen purchased a .38-caliber revolver at a Hanover gun shop on Sept. 1, 2006, for the purpose of killing Whitehurst. On the same day, he invited Whitehurst, who was staying at the inn, to go on a fishing trip in a remote area near Upton.

Nielsen shot Whitehurst once in the back of the head and twice more into his body to make sure he was dead. Nielsen returned the next day and dismembered, burned and buried the body.

According to Benson, when asked for an explanation for the killing, Nielsen told King that Whitehurst, just “read, read, read, and one thing led to another, and I chose Jim.”

Benson stated that Nielsen grew worried that Julie Bullard, the inn’s owner, would become suspicious of Whitehurst’s absence. On Sept. 3, 2006, he broke into her room and shot her multiple times in the head, chest and back. He then dismembered her body and dragged the remains into the nearby woods.

Each afternoon, Nielsen showed up to work for his shift at the Subdury Inn, according to Benson.

Benson stated that Nielsen felt Selby Bullard, Julie’s daughter, would become suspicious of her mother’s absence and decided to kill her, as well.

“He also decided that with Selby Bullard dead, there would be nothing to stop him from taking over the Black Bear inn and running it himself as the proprietor,” Benson stated.

On Sept. 4, 2006, Nielsen told his father, Charles Nielsen, that Julie Bullard had left him in charge of the inn. On the same day, Nielsen fatally shot Selby Bullard and her friend, Cindy Beatson, who arrived at the inn to check on Julie. Both women were shot in the head, and Beatson was shot once more in the torso.

Nielsen then dismembered both bodies and dragged them into the woods. He also shot one of Julie Bullard’s dogs, which he disliked, and two others to prevent them from bringing human remains where they could be discovered.

The bodies were discovered by Nielsen’s father, who came to the inn with his wife, Lee Graham, later in the day to discuss how Nielsen should run the inn. Nielsen admitted the slayings to his father, initially saying he thought he had killed five people.

According to state law, a life sentence must be justified by at least one of seven aggravating factors. Benson argued that all four killings were premeditated and that Nielsen intended to cause multiple deaths, meeting two of the factors.

Benson also listed aggravating factors in the crimes, including that the motive for the murders of the Bullards and Beatson was apparently for financial gain, while Whitehurst’s slaying was without motive, aside from Nielsen saying he was “objectionable” and a “pain in the ass.”

“One is led ineluctably to the conclusion that Whitehurst was simply a victim of choice because the defendant simply wanted to kill someone,” Benson said.

He said the only mitigating factor in the case is “the defendant’s entry of a plea and acceptance of responsibility at the eleventh hour.”

Benson said that while the state will not pursue Nielsen’s criminal history as an aggravating factor, it also may not be used as a mitigating factor due to a history of operating-under-the-influence convictions.

State law requires that no time may be suspended from the sentence in murder cases.

Benson lists the mutilation of the bodies, the impact of the killings on family and friends of the victims, Nielsen’s lack of remorse in the killings, the unnecessary slaying of the dogs, and Nielsen’s anti-social personality as further aggravating factors justifying the maximum prison sentence.

“His psychological condition and anti-social thinking make it chillingly likely that he will re-offend in the future,” Benson said.

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