Kansas City, Mo. ? A northeast Kansas man who admitted killing a Missouri teenager because he hoped the confession would improve his life in prison was sentenced to death Wednesday by a federal jury.

Jurors deliberated 10 hours over two days before pronouncing the sentence for Wesley Ira Purkey, a 51-year-old plumber from Lansing, Kan., with a long criminal history.

Purkey was convicted Nov. 5 by the same jury of kidnapping, raping and fatally stabbing 16-year-old Jennifer Long, of Independence, Mo., on Jan. 22, 1998. He dismembered the teenager with a chain saw and burned her body in his fireplace.

Long accepted a ride from Purkey after leaving her eastern Kansas City high school after a fight with other students.

The girl’s disappearance was a mystery until December 1998, when Purkey admitted kidnapping and killing Long to officers investigating the October 1998 beating death of 80-year-old Ruth Bales at her home in Kansas City, Kan. Purkey was earlier sentenced to life in prison for killing Bales.

Purkey told the investigators he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in a Kansas prison because he had previously had problems with other inmates in state facilities, and hoped that admitting he took Long across state lines and killed her would get him into a federal prison.

A jury’s sentencing decision in a federal death penalty case is binding on the court. U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan will impose the sentence on Purkey on Jan. 23.

U.S. Atty. Todd Graves, who prosecuted the case himself, along with assistant prosecutor Matt Whitworth, said the federal death penalty was intended for offenders like Purkey.

“He has a serious criminal history and committed some violent and heinous acts,” Graves said.