Kyle Flack, accused in a 2013 quadruple homicide in Franklin County, listens to defense attorney Tim Frieden during a hearing on Friday, Aug. 29, 2014.

Ottawa ? Statements made to police by the man accused in a quadruple homicide here last year are admissible in court, even though he mentioned hiring an attorney during the interrogation, Franklin County District Court Judge Eric Godderz ruled Friday.

Kyle Flack, 29, is accused of killing Kaylie Bailey, 21, of Olathe; her 18-month-old daughter, Lana-Leigh; Andrew Adam Stout, 30, of Ottawa; and Steven Eugene White, 31, of Ottawa.

In a March hearing, Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Detective Jeremi Thompson testified that during an interview on May 8, 2013, Flack described shooting White. According to Thompson, Flack said in an interview that Stout first shot White with a shotgun during an altercation inside an outbuilding on Stout’s property, but that Flack delivered the fatal blast after Stout handed him the gun.

“‘I shot him. He dies.'” Thompson said were Flack’s words.

According to a transcript of the interview, before Flack made these statements, he asked Thompson, “should I get a lawyer, honestly?” Thompson said he told Flack he could not offer legal advice and continued with the interview.

Flack’s lawyer, Tim Frieden, argued that because these statements were made after Flack asked Thompson if he should hire an attorney, they should not be admissible in court.

Frieden argued that it is unclear what a person in custody has to say to exercise Miranda rights, therefore Flack’s question should have ended the interview.

“What does a person have to say or do to exercise these rights?” Frieden asked the court on Friday. “Where is the line? If a person is timid, do they then have to stand up and say, ‘I want to end this interview and talk to an attorney?'”

Godderz said Flack’s statements about retaining counsel were equivocal and that it was evident that Flack knew how to end the interrogation. Flack eventually ended the interrogation by explicitly telling detectives he wanted to speak with a lawyer.

“It is clear the defendant did know what he needed to do to stop the interview,” Godderz said. “‘Should I get a lawyer, honestly?’ is not an unambiguous assertion of his rights.”

Frieden said he plans to continue to object to using the statements.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Flack in connection with the deaths of Bailey and her daughter, saying that Bailey was killed “in an especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel manner.”

Prosecutors have charged Flack with first-degree murder in connection with the slayings of Stout and White and will seek a “Hard 50” sentence in each case, which provides 50 years in prison with no possibility of parole.

The bodies of the adults were found in May 2013 at a rural house where Flack had once lived, about five miles west of Ottawa. Investigators believe the child was killed there, too, but her body was found in a suitcase in a creek in Osage County about 20 miles west.

Flack will next return to court Nov. 25 for another motions hearing. His trial has been tentatively scheduled for September 2015.