Wichita ? A man facing a possible death sentence in the decapitation killing of a Wichita woman was described alternately as someone wrongly accused and a stalker who raped and sodomized women across Kansas.

Attorneys gave opening statements Wednesday in the trial of Doug Belt, who could face the death penalty if convicted in Sedgwick County District Court for the June 2002 death of Lucille Gallegos, 43. Her head was never found.

Belt, who went unconnected to several rapes for more than a decade because investigators mislabeled a blood sample, also is accused of seven counts of rape in four Kansas counties and three counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault in Madison County, Ill.

Last year, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation admitted an error involving a blood sample taken after a 1991 rape. Evidence from another suspect was mismarked as belonging to Belt, and nobody was charged with the rape.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Marc Bennett told jurors about an attacker who swept in out of the dark, quickly binding women with duct tape before raping and sodomizing them.

Belt was linked to the decapitation killing after his DNA was found on a railing outside Gallegos’ blood-soaked apartment. Besides connecting Belt to Gallegos’ death, a new DNA sample taken from him after his arrest two years ago connected him to the string of rapes.

“You will hear from those six women,” Bennett said, previewing testimony expected next week.

Defense attorney Ron Evans countered that evidence points to Gallegos’ live-in and abusive boyfriend as the real killer.

“He is a big, violent man,” Evans said, someone physically capable of such a brutal killing.

“(He) has no alibi for the night in question that’s verifiable,” Evans said.