A violent sex offender broke into a care home and murdered an elderly widow after fleeing a hostel.
Scott Sorby, 21, was freed from prison for the attempted rape of a lone student and released on licence by the authorities to remain at a hostel.
But in January last year, he left the hostel and went on to commit burglaries, robberies and the attack that killed 95-year-old Elizabetta Pecka.
Despite a full-scale manhunt during which the public were warned not to approach him, it was five days until Sorby was stopped.
Sorby was told on Monday to expect a life sentence after he pleaded guilty at Bradford Crown Court to offences including murder and attempted rape and several counts of burglary, robbery and theft.
The court was told that Sorby was released from jail in October 2010 after serving a sentence for the attempted rape of a student in Leeds.
He was given a curfew intended to keep him at the hostel between 11pm and 6am.
On January 21 2010, Sorby left the hostel at around 8am and spent the day in the city before breaking into the Rosewood Court care home in the city and attacking Mrs Pecka at around 10pm.
A chair had been wedged under the handle of a door leading to the room and she was found with facial injuries in a pool of blood in a bathroom after being sexually attacked and beaten.
Mrs Pecka, who was born in Slovenia, died in hospital two months later.
The court heard that Sorby caused £18,000 of damage in December 2007 during a stay at Castington young offenders' institution in Northumberland.
Sorby, who was serving an 18-month sentence for burglary at the time, armed himself with a steel bed-frame and smashed a window, a toilet, a sink, water pipes, furniture and electronic monitoring equipment.
It was one of several such incidents during his stay.
Sorby, who is formerly of Bradford, was put on the sex offenders' register for life in June 2008 when he was jailed for four-and-a-half years for the attempted rape of a 20-year-old student in Leeds.
A trial was told he sneaked up on the woman after spotting her alone in a building while he was out looking for places to burgle.
In an attack described by police as sustained and terrifying, he punched her in the face until she fell backwards and then pulled down her trousers.
A psychiatrist's report said Sorby posed a risk of aggressive and violent behaviour in the future, and, outside court, detectives described him a dangerous sexual predator.
It was after serving a term for this offence that he was released on licence and attacked Mrs Pecka in Bradford.
Mitigating, Paul Greaney QC, said his client had had no intention of attacking anyone.
"His purpose was to commit a burglary," Mr Greaney said.
Judge Peter Benson told Sorby he would be jailed for life with a minimum tariff to be set at the next hearing.
The Liberal Democrat MP for Bradford East, David Ward, described Mrs Pecka's ordeal as "horrific" and added: “We can only hope that lessons will be learned so that this never happens again.”
A spokesman for West Yorkshire Probation Trust said hostels enforced curfews from 11pm to 6am but they were unable to monitor offenders 24 hours a day.
A spokesman for Handsale Ltd, which took over the care home last November, said that precuations had been taken to minimise the risk of a repeat occurrence.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice said: "We do everything we can to ensure that the public is protected from offenders but sadly risk can never be eliminated entirely."
Under the terms of the 2003 Criminal Justice Act, anyone sentenced to a specific sentence of more than 12 months must be released from prison on licence at the half-way point.
