Confessed serial rapist Blaine Hogge Nelson, already serving up to life in prison, made his first court appearance Wednesday on 12 charges stemming from attacks on five southern Utah women.
Nelson, sentenced last week to a minimum 30-year prison sentence on his guilty pleas in the rapes, sodomy and burglary of four Ogden-area women, appeared before 5th Circuit Judge Robert Braithwaite on the Cedar City sexual assaults.
The judge ordered Nelson held in the Iron County Jail in lieu of $120,000 bail pending his preliminary hearing.
Despite Nelson's May 11 sentence of 30 years to life stemming from four Ogden rapes, the Harrisville truck driver, 33, is being prosecuted in the Cedar City cases to serve the demands of justice from the victims and community, said Iron County Attorney Scott Burns.
In Cedar City, he is charged in connection with five burglaries and assaults, including one rape, of young women near the Southern Utah State College campus.
Investigators in Arizona, Nevada and Wyoming also have questioned Nelson about burglary-sex crimes in their states.