Michael Bambrick, who in the early 1990s butchered two women and buried their bodies, is to be released from Arbour Hill prison at the end of the month.

Bambrick (56) killed and cut up the bodies of his common-law wife Patricia McGauley (43) and Mary Cummins (36) within months of each other.

He confessed to the killings in 1995 after being arrested in relation to a firearms incident. He was formally charged with the killings and in May 1996, pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter.

Bambrick, of St Ronan's Park, Clondalkin, Co Dublin, was sentenced in 1996 to 18 years for the manslaughter of Cummins and 15 years for killing McGauley, with the sentences to run concurrently. McGauley was reported missing in September 1991 and Cummins went missing in July 1992.

Bambrick told gardaí how he had killed McGauley, with whom he had two children, Adrienne and Louise.

He said she died when he stuffed tights into her mouth after tying her up while they were having sex. Bambrick claimed that she sometimes let him tie her up with tights and it gave him a thrill.

He then cut off her arms, legs and head using a hacksaw and buried the remains in a Dublin Corporation dump at Balgaddy. He told gardaí how a similar sex session had led to the death of Mary Cummins in 1992 after he had met her in a pub on Capel Street, Dublin.

Gardaí believe the killer was constantly on the search for women and had a number of relationships before and during his common-law marriage.

Cummins was a single mother. She lived with her daughter Samantha in the Liberties before she was killed by Bambrick. After she agreed to go to his house in Clondalkin, he said that he had tied and gagged her before she died. He dismembered her body the following day and buried it in a field at Kishogue, west Dublin.

Bambrick's former girlfriend, Stella Mooney, who has had a child with him, made a statement to gardaí in 1995. She said he enjoyed tying her up and engaged in unusual sexual practices and liked to dress in women's clothing.

She said Bambrick had told her he killed a girl in Clondalkin but didn't want to remember it because it was "too disgusting".

After verifying his statements at an inquest into the two women's deaths in 1998, Bambrick was led away in chains by prison staff before the court heard details of how gardaí identified the remains of the two women. Experts told the court how skull fragments, blood stains and teeth allowed gardaí to identity the remains.

The court heard evidence from British DNA expert Joan Shadwell who matched samples taken from McGauley's blood and bones with samples belonging to her daughter Adrienne. The killer will not be placed on the sex offenders register upon his release as his sentence pre-dates its establishment in 2001.