Mr. LaFond, 24, is an unemployed handyman who lives in Crown Heights.

The other defendants, among them men who said they were a short-order cook, a deli owner and an unemployed handyman, accepted court-appointed lawyers.

An unemployed handyman has confessed to killing seven women whose remains were found at his Philadelphia apartment house, the police said today.

The police arrested a 29-year-old unemployed handyman, Angelo Esposito, in the killing.

A crossing guard, a nurse's aide and an unemployed handyman were among those who allowed the men into their homes.

An unemployed handyman charged in the deaths of seven women was convicted today of seven counts each of first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse.

Three weeks after that they arrested the man who did it, an unemployed handyman who had once worked on the air-conditioning unit at the Wallaces' home.

"They did the right thing by closing it," said Nestor Collazo, 42, an unemployed handyman who lived in a tiny room on the ground floor.

Still, Gerard Joseph, an unemployed handyman, said he liked what he heard, "especially the promise to build schools and create jobs, because that is what we really need."

Kenneth Garnsey of Denison, Tex., a 51-year-old unemployed handyman who did not attend high school, sees the Iraqi confrontation as ridiculous for another reason.