A 23-year-old Evesham man accused of killing one woman and assaulting two others in a 2003 rampage yesterday pleaded guilty in Superior Court to one of the assaults.
Christopher Kornberger surprised prosecutors with his plea, which prompted Judge Thomas Smith Jr. to postpone his trial on the other charges until Tuesday. Smith will decide Monday whether to accept Kornberger's plea.
"There was no plea agreement. We didn't anticipate this," said Deputy First Assistant James Ronca, of the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office.
"The jury had been selected . . . and we were going to have opening statements."
Kornberger pleaded guilty to attempted murder, two counts of aggravated assault, attempted sexual assault, and possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes.
He told Smith yesterday that he attacked jogger Nancy Clark with a knife on Nov. 3, 2003, in Evesham's upscale Sanctuary development, where she lived.
Kornberger, who was unemployed and lived with his parents in the Marlton section of Evesham, was linked to the assault through DNA found on a cigarette butt that Clark said Kornberger flicked away before stabbing her.
In addition to the Clark case, jurors also were scheduled to hear testimony in the May 10 rape and murder of 24-year-old Krista DiFrancesco, and in the Aug. 3 assault of Elisabeth Loetzner-Jung.
DiFrancesco, the mother of an infant daughter, had been out with friends and was returning in the early-morning hours to her townhouse in the Kings Grant section of Evesham when she was stabbed.
She was found in the bushes a few hours later by a neighbor and died the next day.
Kornberger is charged with murder, aggravated sexual assault, and weapons violations in DiFrancesco's death.
He is charged in the same indictment with using his car to run jogger Loetzner-Jung off the road with the intent of raping her. She was spared when a witness intervened, authorities said.
Separately, Kornberger was convicted last year of the March 2003 attempted rape and assault of a Waterford woman in Camden County.
He hit the woman from behind with a tire iron, then pinned her down, and tried to undress her. She fought back, and he fled.
He was convicted of two counts of attempted aggravated sexual assault and weapons charges and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He could receive consecutive sentences for yesterday's plea.