Gillis warrants details told
Documents allow police to seize cutting tools, books on serial killings, photos of victim of serial killer and more
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By JOSH NOEL Advocate staff writer
Within an hour of arresting serial killer suspect Sean Gillis, authorities seized several newspaper clippings about an LSU student who was the victim of another serial killer, cutting tools, books about serial killings and photos of one of Gillis' alleged victims, documents show.
The clippings about LSU student Carrie Lynn Yoder were described in the warrants authorizing searches of Gillis' home. The warrants, obtained Wednesday, also say three of the women Gillis is accused of killing had been partially dismembered after death and that "body parts had been removed."
The three warrants were written in late April and early May during the investigation into the killings of Katherine Hall, 30, who was killed in 1999; Johnnie Mae Williams, 45, killed in October; and Donna Bennett Johnston, 43, killed in February.
Gillis was arrested in his Burgin Avenue home April 29 after detectives traced a tire print near Johnston's body to his car. He has since confessed to five more killings, according to sources close to the investigation. In two of those additional cases, he has been booked on counts of first-degree murder.
The three warrants detail dozens of items detectives seized from Gillis' home.
Between two of the warrants, several cutting tools were seized -- seven saws, three kitchen knives, two hacksaws without blades, a 14-inch bayonet, an ax and a machete with a red and black handle.
Also taken were three plastic zip ties, which Gillis' longtime girlfriend, Terri Lemoine, has said he apparently used to kill some of his victims. Lemoine said Gillis detailed for her after his arrest how he killed Williams, and said he strangled her with a zip tie. One of the search warrants says two of the women Gillis is accused of killing had marks around their necks "similar in appearance to that of plastic tie wraps."
Items seized by detectives less than an hour after a SWAT team burst into Gillis' home to arrest him also included three pictures of Williams, eight hardback books, six Playboy Pocket Playmate books, 14 condoms, a wood club, a digital camera, several computers and "eight printed pages of photos and articles about Carrie Lynn Yoder."
Yoder, 26, was killed in March 2003 in another string of local serial killings. Derrick Todd Lee has been arrested in those deaths and awaits trial.
Also seized from Gillis' home the day of his arrest was a newspaper dated May 27, 2003 -- the day after police identified Lee as a serial killer suspect.
A second search warrant after detectives had interviewed Gillis says they took the bayonet, two pieces of shoe molding, a Hewlett Packard scanner, a cooler featuring the NASCAR logo and three kitchen knives.
The third warrant allowed authorities to seize Gillis' 2002 white four-door Chevrolet Cavalier. The warrant says the car contained "trace evidence from a homicide," but does not specify the evidence.
Detectives first contacted Gillis on the morning of April 28, after his name surfaced on a list of 90 people who had bought the Goodyear Aquatred 3 tire, which matched the tread left near Johnston's body off Ben Hur Road.
Detectives have said Gillis admitted driving to that spot but six days before Johnston's death.
According to one of the warrants, Gillis also said during that interview that he was a frequent visitor to Web sites that showed "various types of crime scenes." "While visiting an Internet Web site given by Gillis, investigators observed that the Web site contained numerous violent and bloody crime scenes," the warrant says.
The books taken from Gillis' home were "The Blooding," "The Hillside Strangler," "Alone with the Devil," "The Silence of the Lambs," "Son of Sam, "Cops and Robbers," "Sudden Fury" and "An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness." On Wednesday, Lemoine said those books belonged to her mother, not Gillis. "I tried to tell them that, but they didn't listen," she said.
The head of the task force that investigated the killings, Sheriff's Lt. Col. Greg Phares, declined to comment about the warrants. "Any comments I would make would be about evidence and we're not going to talk about evidence," he said.