Iran's state-owned newspaper says authorities have arrested a man suspected of killing 16 people since 2005.
The IRNA daily quotes prosecutor Shapour Mehrabi as saying the suspect confessed to the killings. The victims were all women or girls except for one boy. The killings took place in the towns of Abadan and Khoramshar, 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) southwest of Tehran.
The newspaper identified the suspect as 40-year-old Farid Baqlani. Authorities accuse him of killing the victims by hitting them in the head with a metal pipe and stealing their gold jewelry.
The report says Baqlani served a five-year prison term for attacking women in 1999.
It is the third case of serial slayings in Iran since 1997.
