OAKLAND -- An Oakland man who was part of a group called the "Nut Cases" was sentenced Friday to more than 141 years in prison without parole for series of thrill killings that terrorized Oakland residents over a three-year span.

Prosecutors demanded the death penalty for 21-year-old Demarcus Ralls of Oakland, but on April 18, at the end of the penalty phase of his trial, jurors recommended life in prison instead. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner accepted the jury's recommendation and made sure Ralls would never walk out of prison.

Ralls was given three life sentences with parole and one life sentence without parole for the first-degree murders and a second-degree murder. Additional time was added for the other charges.

On March 22, at the end of the guilt phase of his trial, jurors convicted Ralls of three counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder, two counts of attempted murder, 17 counts of robbery, one count of kidnapping and one count of shooting into an inhabited dwelling.

It took Horner's clerk 15 minutes to read all the verdicts against Ralls.

In the penalty phase of Ralls' trial, prosecutor Darryl Stallworth introduced evidence, including a taped confession by Ralls, that he was responsible for a fifth murder.

Stallworth couldn't introduce that evidence in the guilt phase because Ralls was a juvenile, a few months shy of his 18th birthday, at the time. But he was permitted to present that crime in Ralls' penalty phase as an aggravating circumstance that bolstered the bid for a death penalty verdict.

Ralls was one of a group of six people who called themselves the Nut Cases because authorities said they engaged in a crime spree in Oakland in late 2002 and early 2003, mainly for thrills.

Ralls is the first of the Nut Case defendants to be prosecuted and the other five are expected to be tried later this year and next year.