Reinaldo J. Rivera (right) speaks to sheriff's Investigator Wayne Bunton before a pretrial hearing in Richmond County Superior Court. On Tuesday, attorneys played taped interrogation sessions between Mr. Rivera and the investigator. JOHNATHAN ERNST/STAFF

"I thought I'd take a shot at her,'' Mr. Rivera says on tape-recorded statement played Tuesday in Richmond County Superior Court during a pretrial hearing.

Judge Albert M. Pickett, who will preside over Mr. Rivera's death-penalty trials in Richmond and Columbia counties, stopped Tuesday's hearing short to give Assistant District Attorney Ashley Wright an opportunity to try to enhance the quality of the tape recordings, which investigators made of their conversations with Mr. Rivera after his arrest. Judge Pickett will determine whether the tapes can be used during the trials.

While muffled and difficult to hear, the tapes played in court Tuesday revealed more chilling details of Mr. Rivera telling investigators how he stalked, misled, raped and strangled two Augusta women and then tried again Oct. 10 with 18-year-old Chrisilee Barton.

Calmly, Mr. Rivera, 37, described to Richmond County sheriff's investigators how he had sexually assaulted the Augusta teen-ager in her home and thought he had strangled her. He left the house to move his car, Mr. Rivera says on the tape, and returned to find the teen-ager still alive.

``I couldn't kill her. She's really, really tough,'' Mr. Rivera said. That's when he went to her kitchen for a second knife - the first he had used to threaten her during the sexual assault; the second he used to stab her.

Before Ms. Barton, Mr. Rivera said, there was Marni Glista, 21, a Fort Gordon soldier he attacked Sept. 4 in her home. Before Sgt. Glista, there was Tabatha Bosdell, 18, who disappeared June 22. And even before that, Mr. Rivera told investigators from South Carolina, there was Melissa Dingess, 17, who disappeared July 17, 1999, and Tiffaney Wilson, last seen alive Dec. 4, 1999.

``WHEN I APPROACH women ... (rape and killing) has never been what I was thinking of doing,'' Mr. Rivera told the officers. He just wanted the ``turn-on'' of getting women to talk about personal, sexual topics, he said. ``I have this whole spiel that I had memorized. It came out quite easy.''

Mr. Rivera told officers that he started raping women while living in the Washington, D.C., area. At the time, he was in the Navy, assigned to the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from December 1986 to March 1991. Mr. Rivera said the women he approached were prostitutes. He told the investigators how an attempt to pick up two teen-age girls in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1995 led to his less-than-honorable discharge.

Mr. Rivera told investigators that he refined his pitch - that he worked for a modeling agency willing to pay women to take their photographs in the Texas case - and used it dozens of times in the Augusta area, including the days he said he killed the four local women.

IN RICHMOND COUNTY Superior Court, Mr. Rivera faces charges of murder, three counts of rape, four counts of aggravated sodomy, four counts of aggravated assault, burglary and possession of a knife during the commission of a crime.

Judge Albert M. Pickett reads a transcript of the taped sessions. He will determine whether the recordings can be used during Mr. Rivera's death-penalty trials in Richmond and Columbia counties. JOHNATHAN ERNST/STAFF

Mr. Rivera faces a charge of murder in Columbia County Superior Court in the death of Ms. Bosdell. Although Mr. Rivera told investigators he raped and strangled Ms. Bosdell in Richmond County, she might still have been alive when he drove to Columbia County, strangled her some more and then left her body in a field a couple of miles off Interstate 20. No one knew she was dead until Mr. Rivera told investigators where to find her remains.

During Tuesday's hearing, which was cut short in response to Judge Pickett's questions, Mr. Rivera said he was pleased with defense attorneys Peter Johnson and Jacque Hawk. But the defendant said he was still unhappy with his treatment at the Richmond County jail. He complained about his lack of opportunity for exercise and isolation from other jail inmates.

``I'm not going to point out that's a violation of the Eighth Amendment, a violation of (the provision against) cruel and unusual punishment,'' Mr. Rivera said after complaining he had had only 21/2 hours of exercise in the past month.

Reach Sandy Hodson at (706) 823-3226.