OAKLAND, Calif. -- An Alameda County prosecutor Monday told jurors that an Oakland roofer accused of murdering one ex-girlfriend and brutally assaulting two others was "a predator" who takes advantage of women with drug problems.

In his closing argument in the Earl Stefanson trial on 18 felony counts, including murder, assault and false imprisonment, prosecutor Casey Bates said the three alleged victims in the case were "lost souls" who succumbed to drugs.

Bates said their drug problems caused the women "to be vulnerable and susceptible to a predator," namely Stefanson, 43.

Bates described Stefanson as "a dark soul" and said, "all we see is darkness."

When police searched Stefanson's home on the 3400 block of Coolidge Avenue, they found a basement chamber that homicide Sgt. Tony Jones said was reminiscent of a scene from the 1991 movie "The Silence of the Lambs." The home was boarded up and covered with soundproofing material.

The most serious charge against Stefanson is that he murdered 36-year-old Leslie Lamb at his house on Coolidge Street in Oakland on Aug. 26, 2006.

Bates noted that a doctor who has been exposed to numerous brutal cases during 22 years at Highland Hospital in Oakland testified that the injuries suffered by Lamb were the worst he's ever seen because of the nature and extent of her injuries.

Bates said Lamb "was beaten from head to toe, from front to back and from one side of her body to the other."

Stefanson, who has a 1995 conviction for running a methamphetamine laboratory in Butte County, faces life in prison without parole if he's convicted of all the charges against him.

The courtroom of Alameda County Superior Court Judge Leo Dorado was packed Monday with relatives of Lamb and the other two alleged victims in the case. Also attending is Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, who is Casey Bates' father.