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A Pasadena, Texas, man is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing his two young children and burning their bodies in June 2008, according to the Harris County District Attorney's Office.

Randy Terrell Sylvester, 27, pleaded guilty to capital murder on May 5, 2010. Prosecutors had planned to seek the death penalty, but the plea removed that possibility.

The children, 7-year-old Randy Sylvester Jr. and 3-year-old Denim Sylvester, were reported missing from their apartment complex on Burke Road on Father's Day, June 15, 2008. Their mother contacted authorities after the children could not be found, Pasadena police said.

Sylvester was arrested two days later on a charge of assaulting the children's mother and was held in the Harris County jail. Investigators said he gave shifting accounts of where the children were for roughly a week.

The remains were recovered after Sylvester spoke for about an hour with Houston community activist Quanell X near a pond in Pasadena. Sylvester then guided authorities to a wooded area in southeast Houston, about five miles from the family's home, police said. The children's bodies had been burned and packed inside a suitcase and a wooden chest.

Quanell X told reporters that Sylvester described the deaths as accidental and said the killings were 'about the money.' A Harris County grand jury indicted Sylvester on capital murder charges later that summer.

Sylvester was found incompetent to stand trial in 2009 and committed to a state mental hospital for treatment, the district attorney's office said. He was restored to competency and entered his guilty plea the following year.