Electrician David Fuller has admitted killing two young women 34 years after their bodies were discovered in Kent.
But Fuller, 67, denies murdering shop manager Wendy Knell, 25, and waitress Caroline Pierce, 20, in Tunbridge Wells in 1987.
Ms Knell's boyfriend found her naked body in her bedsit in June that year. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.
Five months later Ms Pierce vanished from outside her home a mile away. Her body was discovered in a flooded culvert 40 miles away on Romney Marsh.
Fuller, a married man, was arrested at his home in Heathfield, East Sussex, last December and charged with two murders.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC told a judge at Maidstone Crown Court: "It is right to note that in a further defence statement of August 19, the defendant admitted responsibility for both killings subject to the potential issue of diminished responsibility."
Fuller, wearing a prison-issue grey top, sat in the dock with his head bowed for most of the 30-minute hearing.
He was remanded in custody until his trial next month.
