The Associated Press

MARION, Ohio - An Ohio inmate serving a life sentence for the abduction and killing of a 9-year-old girl in 1988 is heading to Texas, where he could face the death penalty for three other child slayings.

Marion Correctional Institution inmate David Elliott Penton, 45, maintained his innocence but did not fight extradition during a Thursday hearing in Marion Municipal Court.

A grand jury in Collin County, Texas, about 30 miles north of Dallas, indicted Penton on June 17 for the death of three Texas girls. Gov. Bob Taft signed extradition papers Aug. 1.

Penton is accused of killing Roxann Hope Reyes, 3, whose mother, Tamela Reyes Lopez, is a native of Minford, Ohio, where she now lives. The girl was abducted Nov. 3, 1987, while she picked flowers for her mother outside her apartment in Garland, Texas. The girl's scattered remains were found six months later about seven miles away.

Penton also was indicted in the slayings of Christi Lynn Meeks, 5, of Mesquite, Texas, and Christie Diane Proctor, 10, of Dallas.

They disappeared in 1985 and 1987, respectively.