A West Virginian prostitute may have inadvertently ended a serial killer’s states-wide murder spree when she shot him dead in her own house.

A number of weapons and items used to conceal a murder were found in Neal Falls’ car, along with a list of prostitutes he planned to kill, according to police.

Neal Falls had organised to meet up with the unidentified sex worker through online sex site Backpage.com, but when he arrived at the escort’s house in Oregon he immediately held a gun to her stomach and asked “live or die?”

The woman told journalists that Falls then began attempting to choke and strangle her.

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“I was telling him to please just let me breathe, but he wouldn’t,” the woman, aged in her late 20s, told the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

“He said, ‘I’m going to call the shots and you’re going to be quiet.”

When the woman grabbed a rake in self defence, Falls laid down his gun to wrench it our of her hands.

The escort took the opportunity to pick up Falls’ gun and fired a shot, killing him instantly.

Shaken, the woman ran to a nearby neighbour’s house where they called the police.

When police arrived, they discovered a raft of weapons in Falls’ car, including a sledgehammer, several knives, axes, a machete.

Police also found four sets of handcuffs, bleach, a bullet proof vest, garbage bags and a list of women’s names.

Police say the names were of other escorts Falls intended on killing.

“We have been able to locate most of them and they were all on a website advertising for escort services,” Lieutenant Steve Cooper told the Huffington Post.

The items in Falls’ car coupled with the conditions of the attack have led police to believe that they have found the serial killer wanted for a number of murders of prostitutes in Illinois, Ohio and Nevada – all states where Falls has lived.

It is believed Falls had been living off the grid and had been out of contact with his family since his mother’s death in January.