Twenty-nine-year-old Robert Lawrence Staudinger signed away the rest of his life Monday after pleading guilty to murdering three acquaintances in Tumalo.

Deschutes County Circuit Court Judge Alta Brady then sentenced him to three consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of parole.

Staudinger admitted to killing his roommate, Sharon E. Morris, 51; Michael G. Morton, 27; and Morton’s friend Dawn R. Phillips, 22.

”My worst day is over, but yours is yet to come,” Colleen Phillips, a relative of Dawn Phillips, told Staudinger during his sentencing before a courtroom packed with family and friends of the deceased. ”You’ll have to go face to face with God and tell him what you did and why you did it. When that day comes, may God have mercy on your soul.”

Earlier, Phillips showed Judge Brady photographs of Dawn Phillips’ two daughters, ages 4 and 5.

All three murder victims had children.

”You took three people, people with places to go and unfinished lives … they never had a chance to say goodbye,” she said.

Sharon Morris’ brother, Brendon Morris, told Staudinger via speaker phone that he had ”killed half his family. … I hope you have a hard time living with what you have done, I hope you live a long time and suffer.”

Later in the sentencing, Staudinger, dressed in standard blue jail garb with his hands and feet shackled, turned and faced the families sitting in the courtroom.

His hands stretching out to the people and then pulling back into a prayer-like clasp, he apologized.

”I’m sorry. If there is anything I could do to change this, I would. I’m so very sorry. Please pray and find mercy … I know this is so hard for you. I’m so sorry.”

In court records, prosecutors said Staudinger, a former mailroom employee at The Bulletin, told detectives he and Morris, a fellow Bulletin employee, got into an argument about 10:30 p.m. on July 26, 1999. He said he shot her twice with a .22-caliber rifle.

A short time later, Morton and Phillips drove up. Staudinger told detectives he feared they would discover the killing, so he invited Morton inside and shot him. The medical examiner said Morton also received a fatal stab wound to the neck. Prosecutors said Staudinger then attacked Phillips with a kitchen knife.

Staudinger was scheduled for trial last year, but the Oregon Supreme Court postponed it. The court ordered the stay to decide whether to grant Staudinger’s request to obtain hundreds of names and addresses of people in the jury pool before trial.

But in August, the state Supreme Court dismissed the request because the 2001 Legislature passed a law creating a procedure for obtaining such a list of jurors. One of Staudinger’s attorneys said last week her client had agreed to a plea bargain that would net him three life terms.

In the plea agreement with the Deschutes County District Attorney, Staudinger gave up all of his rights to appeal the sentence, and now has nothing but life behind bars to look forward to. In exchange, the DA’s office agreed not to seek the death penalty.

The agreement was forged in September after Staudinger agreed to and completed a psychological evaluation in August, said Deputy District Attorney Mary Anderson.

The evaluation completed by Daniel Martel of Newport Beach, Calif., found Staudinger would not be a danger to other prisoners while locked up. Being a danger to other prisoners is a criterion for the death penalty, Anderson said.

Staudinger’s attorney, Walter Todd of Portland, said he allowed the evaluation, the first he knew of in a capital murder case in Oregon.

”This was such an extraordinary step,” Todd said. ”It’s never done. You never let the state’s expert evaluate your client. But I was so sure the expert would not find he was a future danger.

”He has been a model prisoner,” he said, pointing out that Staudinger saved the life of Steven Michael Gage, a convicted sex offender who tried to hang himself when they shared a jail cell at the Deschutes County Jail in March.

Standing on the courthouse steps after the sentencing, Todd said Staudinger has fetal-alcohol syndrome that affects one of the frontal lobes in his brain, which is essential for reasoning. Todd also said Staudinger was ”hopelessly addicted to meth” at the time of the killings. Staudinger was also drinking before the killings.

Several family members said after the hearing that they wanted Staudinger to receive the death penalty for the murders.

”They did not have a chance when he took their lives,” said Wade Phillips, whose wife Staudinger killed. ”They should take his life, too.”