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Jolie Rouge
04-29-2004, 11:12 AM
Made of Another Accused Serial Killer

www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1826593

(Baton Rouge-AP) -- A Baton Rouge man was arrested today in the killings of three women since 1999.

41-year-old Sean Vincent Gillis was booked in the deaths of 29-year-old Katherine Hall, 45-year-old Johnnie Mae Williams and 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston.

Gillis was arrested at his home around 1:20 a.m. Thursday morning and charged with three counts of first degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts. Authorities say Gillis did not resist arrest and agreed to a DNA swabbing. At around 7:00 a.m., authorities say Gillis confessed to the murders.

The arrest affidavit says a unique kind of tire led officers to Gillis. The affidavit also says that Gillis had an eight-year relationship with one of the victims, Johnnie Mae Williams.

9 News has also learned that Gillis has had three prior run-ins with the law. On March 9, 1980 Gillis was charged with criminal trespassing; On July 6th, 1982 he was arrested for running a red light and resisting arrest. On January 6th, 1993 he was cited with improper lane usage and DWI.

Hall was slain in January 1999, and Williams was killed in October, 2003. Johnston's body was found February 27th. Each woman had an arrest record for prostitution, drugs or both. Authorities have not said what led them to believe Gillis is a suspect in the women's deaths.

A task force of the Sheriff's Office, Baton Rouge Police, Louisiana State Police, the FBI and the Attorney General's Office have been involved in the investigation. Court records show that Gillis has been arrested once in the past, for criminal trespass in 1980.

We'll have more details on this story as it continues to unfold on 9 News at Five and Six.

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A segment broadcast on the noon news stated they are also linking the murder Hardee Schmidt and others ....



Does Baton Rouge Have ANOTHER Serial Killer ?


http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1690077

One day after authorities formed a task force to investigate the murder of Donna Bennett Johnston as well as the murders of two other known prostitutes, Johnston's family laid her to rest.

Johnston's body was found, brutally murdered, February 27th. An autopsy showed she was strangled to death. Although there is no DNA to conclusively link the murders of Katherine Hall, Johnnie Mae Williams and Johnston, authorities there were several similarities between each case, including the method of how the women were killed and their bodies dumped. Authorities also say all of the women had criminal records involving drugs or prostitution.

Johnston's son tells 9 News that he is not happy with the impression the police description leaves with the public.

"I would like to say that my mother is not just some 'high-risk lifestyle' prostitute. She is a ray of sunshine and there is a lot that loved her. Everything she ever came into contact with she left something with," said Michael Bennett.

"I urge everybody out there who's ever lost a loved one who knows how I feel to please come together at this time because if you know how I feel then you know there's somebody out there walking the street that snuffed out my mom as well as other people and anybody could be next," said Bennett.

Police are asking anyone who may know anything about this murder to call the task force tip line at 866-973-2734 or 866-9SEARCH.

Jolie Rouge
04-29-2004, 01:52 PM
BR man arrested in deaths of three women, suspect in fourth

By MELINDA DESLATTE Associated Press writer

www.2theadvocate.com/livepages4/522.shtml

Less than a year after one man was arrested for the serial slayings of seven women, Baton Rouge police today accused a second man of being a serial killer, arrested in the murders of three women since 1999 and a suspect in the death of a fourth woman.

Sean Vincent Gillis, 41, of Baton Rouge, was arrested in a SWAT team raid early this morning at his home. He was booked on three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts in the deaths of Katherine Hall, 29, Johnnie Mae Williams, 45, and Donna Bennett Johnston, 43.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/images/042904/ssk3.jpg


A DNA swab from Gillis' mouth matched DNA evidence collected from the women's bodies, according to police, who refused to give further details about the DNA. "The goal now is to convict this man and, hopefully, to execute him," said Lt. Col. Greg Phares, with the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office.

No court date was announced.

While police had said they suspected one man likely was responsible for the murders of all three women, they had shied away from using the term serial killer until Gillis' arrest.

Hall was slain in January 1999, Williams was killed in October 2003, and Johnston's body was found Feb. 27. Each woman had an arrest record for prostitution, drugs or both, and law enforcement officials formed a task force to track the murderer.

The women were killed in a similar manner and their bodies were cut and mutilated, according to Gillis' arrest warrant. Police said they tracked Gillis through tire tracks left at the site where Johnston's body was discovered, declining to give further details.

Gillis also was being investigated in the death of Hardee Schmidt, 52, who disappeared from her Baton Rouge neighborhood while jogging in 1999, Phares said at a news conference today, adding police planned to review other unsolved murder cases to see if Gillis was involved.

"We will look at any murder in the Baton Rouge area that is similar to the murders he has been charged with," Phares said.

Authorities said Gillis was unemployed and had previous arrests for trespassing and drunken driving but gave no other details.

Gillis lived in a one-story house with pink trim in a neighborhood with a blend of working people and college students from nearby Louisiana State University.

John Bullock, a neighbor, said he didn't know Gillis but often noticed people going in and out of the home "at all times of the day, early in the morning." Bullock said he saw officers storm into the home about 1:30 a.m. today and heard a boom that deputies later told him had been a concussion grenade.










In the other serial killings case, police arrested Derrick Todd Lee in May 2003 and said DNA linked him to the murders of seven south Louisiana women between April 1998 and March 2003, plus an attack on an eighth woman. Lee has been indicted in three killings and is charged in the other attack.

He has pleaded innocent, and his first trial is scheduled to begin May 10. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Jolie Rouge
04-29-2004, 08:43 PM
http://wafb.static.worldnow.com/images/1826593_BG1.jpg
Sean Vincent Gillis


http://wafb.static.worldnow.com/images/1826593_BG2.jpg
Hall, Williams, Johnston

As 9 News first reported, with the arrest of 41-year-old Sean Vincent Gillis early Thursday morning, authorities say they have a second serial killer suspect in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. Vincent is charged in the murders of 29-year-old Katherine Hall, 45-year-old Johnnie Mae Williams and 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston.

Gillis was arrested at his home on Burgin Road around 1:20 a.m. Thursday morning. Gillis is charged with three counts of first degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts. Authorities say Gillis did not resist arrest and agreed to a DNA swabbing. At around 7:00 a.m., authorities say Gillis confessed to the murders.

The arrest affidavit says a unique kind of tire led officers to Gillis. They say they found the tracks of those tires in the area near Ben Hur where the body of Donna Bennett Johnston was found. The State Police crime lab were able to take that tire track and determine the brand, model and type of tire. Then, investigators learned that this type of tire was only manufactured for a three-year period ending in 2003. They say that particular type of tire had only been purchased 90 times in the Baton Rouge area.

"When you split a piece of firewood, the first few blows might make a tiny little crack and it begins to break wide open. That tire track was the first little crack. The work of the State Police Crime Lab laid it open. Investigators swabbed Sean Gillis and the State Police Crime Lab matched his DNA," said Lieutenant Colonel Greg Phares, with the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office.

On that same date, detectives came into contact with Sean Vincent Gillis and found that he normally operates a vehicle equipped with matching tires. Detectives questioned Gillis and say he admitted that his vehicle was at the scene where Johnston's body was found. He says he was there six days before authorities recovered her body. The affidavit also says Gillis had an eight year relationship with Johnnie Mae Williams and that she was inside his vehicle about 30 days before authorities found her body.

The affidavit says Gillis told authorities they would probably find a lot of evidence of blood in his car and blamed that on a health-related condition of his common-law wife, Terri. 9 News spoke with Terri who said Gillis confessed to her at 7 a.m. She told WAFB's ***** Davidson that detectives kicked in their door around 1 a.m. and sent a concussion grenade inside. She says they were both taken into custody and questioned and calls Gillis "a teddy bear" and a "normal person."

"The door got kicked in and they threw the little bomb in here and got us up and took us downtown," says Terri, "And I saw a ton of sheriff's deputies assaulting the house across the street."

Late Thursday afternoon investigators began taking pictures and collecting evidence from Gillis' home, including a small white car and grey minivan from the scene. Investigators say Terri does not ever remember bleeding in Gillis' vehicle.

Terri says she is still in shock. She says she didn't believe Gillis could kill Katherine Hall, Johnnie May Williams and Donna Bennett Johnston until Gillis called her later in the morning and told her of his confession to the crimes. "He said I confessed at 7," said Terri.

Sources tell 9 News, Gillis has confessed to investigators about other murders. According to our sources, since detectives arrested the accused serial killer, Sean Gillis has made seven taped confessions to detectives concerning women's murders. When asked about other murders, sources tell us Gillis told investigators, quote -- "If you show me photo's, I may be able to remember more."

At 9:12 a.m., Gillis agreed to a DNA test. Joanie Wilson, with the State Police Crime Lab tested the sample and reported that Gillis' DNA matched the suspect in the cases of Katherine Hall and Donna Bennett Johnson. Then, the FBI Crime Lab compared the sample to one taken in the murder of Johnnie Mae Williams. They say it matched the suspect in that murder as well.

Hall was slain in January 1999, and Williams was killed in October, 2003. Johnston's body was found February 27th. All three women were strangled. Authorities also say Gillis is a suspect in the unsolved murders of other women in south Louisiana. They confirmed he is a suspect in the murder of Hardee Schmidt and possibly, Mary Ann Fowler.

9 News has also learned that Gillis has had three prior run-ins with the law. On March 9, 1980 Gillis was charged with criminal trespassing; On July 6th, 1982 he was arrested for running a red light and resisting arrest. On January 6th, 1993 he was cited with improper lane usage and DWI.


http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1826593

Jolie Rouge
04-30-2004, 06:49 PM
Gillis Confession Solves Two More Murders

www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1831138

Hall, Williams, Johnston (top row); Bryan, Schmidt (bottom row)
http://wafb.static.worldnow.com/images/1831138_BG1.jpg


One family has waited a decade. Another five years. The Joint Homicide Task Force says a confession by Sean Vincent Gillis solves the murders of Ann Bryan and Hardee Schmidt. 81-year-old Ann was stabbed more than 50 homes in her inside her residence at the exclusive retirement home, St. James Place on Lee Drive back in March of 1994.

This comes one day after Gillis was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts in the murders of 29-year-old Katherine Hall, 45-year-old Johnnie May Williams and 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston. Detectives have conclusively connected Gillis to these three murders through DNA.

Authorities are now testing evidence in the murders to which Gillis has confessed. Those confessions include graphic details described in arrest warrants release Friday.

According to the arrest warrant, Gillis told detectives he went to St. James Place in the early morning of March 21st, 1994. The warrant says Gillis told detectives he entered Ann Bryan's home to rape the 81 year old, but she started screaming when he touched her. Gillis then told detectives he cut her throat to stop her screaming and began stabbing her. The warrant says Gillis gave them details about this elderly woman's death only the killer could know.

The description of what the killer did to Hardee Schmidt is far more graphic. Detectives say Hardee was abducted while jogging in the Perkins Road/Quail Run area on May 30, 1999. Her body was dumped into a St. James Parish bayou back in May of 1999. Gillis now has additional charges of first degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and stalking in the Hardee Schmidt case and first degree murder in the Ann Bryan case.

The arrest affidavit sheds new light on both crimes. It says that in May of 1999, Gillis saw Hardee jogging in the south Baton Rouge area and then spent the following three weeks driving around the area looking for her. It was about 5:30 in Sunday morning, May 30, 1999 when Gillis was driving on Quail Run Drive and first saw Hardee jogging. The affidavit says he hit her with his vehicle and knocked her into a ditch. It says Gillis got out of his vehicle armed with heavy duty wire plastic wrap, placed the wrap around her neck and pulled it tight. Gillis then forced her into his vehicle, drove to a park in the Highland Road area, removed her clothes and sexually assaulted her.

The affidavit says Gillis then placed her dead, naked body into the trunk of his vehicle and drove to his house. According to that affidavit, Gillis waited until the next day to drive to Highway 61 in St. James Parish and dump Hardee's body into a bayou. Her body was found June 1st--two days after her murder.

Gillis is now officially charged with the murders of five women. Sources tell 9-News he has confessed to eight. While authorities won't talk about any specific cases, Lieuntenant Colonel Greg Phares says investigators will continue to look into the possibility of Gillis's involvement in other unsolved murders in the Baton Rouge Metro and surrounding areas. Both Phares and Baton Rouge Police Chief Pat Englade say the investigation will not be limited and they will go back as far as they can to determine exactly how many murders are linked to Gillis.

"We're going to be very careful not to say anything that would muddy the waters for a successful prosecution of Sean Gillis," said Phares.

Family Members Form Mixed Emotions From Confessions

The news of the Gillis' confessions has drawn mixed emotions from the family members of his alleged victims. Some are pleased with Friday's developments, while others still feel uneasy.

Hardee Schimdt's husband, Bob Schmidt, says when authorities came to his house at about midnight Thursday night, he wasn't really surprised when they told him Sean Vincent Gillis had been charged in the murder of his wife Hardee. He says by that time, he'd heard that Gillis was a suspect. But it's the details that police shared with him of exactly what happened that affected him the most.

"My feeling was relief. I was happy that finally, we're getting an idea of what happened," said Schmidt.

It's been nearly five years since 52-year-old Schmidt got up for an early morning jog and never returned home. Since then, her family has been living with countless unanswered questions. -- Questions like how Hardee, who was a wonderful runner, could have been chased down on foot.

Schmidt says his late night conversation with police answered that question and many more -- leaving him first upset, but now, relieved. Schmidt admits that at first, he wasn't really sure that police had the right man. But now, he says, he's confident. Schmidt says, "You know you always have to be careful, but I think the police appear to be taking great pains to be sure that they have the right fact and the right person."

Schmidt says he's glad police have captured the man they believe is guilty. But when asked if he would ever like to confront his wife's accused killer, he says "No, there's nothing the person could say to make him understand."

"There can't be a very good reason. He certainly didn't know her," says Schmidt. "I don't know any explanation that would be satisfactory."

Schmidt says police were very open with him and two of his three children. He says as difficult as it was to hear the gruesome details of what Gillis allegedly did to his wife, not knowing may have been even harder.

Meanwhile, the family of Ann Bryan remains cautiously optimistic. Racheal and Jon Ericht say they are almost a 100 percent sure but they still have some doubts. They hope police will now test the evidence they have had for 10 years and get more proof.

In the years following Bryan's 1994 murder, her family says at times they've had to pretty much beg police for answers. However, Bryan's family got some of the answers they were looking for at Friday's news conference. Although detectives say Gillis confessed to killing Bryan and offered exclusive details only Ann's killer could possibly know, her family wants conclusive evidence.

While authorities say they are certain, details that Gillis described were never released to the public, a former detective contradicts that information and says a lot of those details were disclosed.

Ann's family remains hopeful Gillis is telling the truth so they can close a few chapters of their life. "I'm holding back on my enthusiasm. I'm a little concerned it's a confession. I hope there's evidence from my mother's crime scene. I hope they test it to see if there is any DNA," said Rachel Ehricht, Bryan's daughter.

What Led Authorities To Their Man

It was early Thursday morning, when Gillis was booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison. He is now charged with three counts of first degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts in the murders of 29-year-old Katherine Hall, 45-year-old Johnnie Mae Williams and 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston.

Gillis was arrested at his home on Burgin Road around 1:20 a.m. Thursday morning. Authorities say he did not resist arrest and agreed to a DNA swabbing. At around 7:00 a.m., authorities say Gillis confessed to the murders.

The arrest affidavit says a unique kind of tire led officers to Gillis. They say they found the tracks of those tires in the area near Ben Hur where the body of Donna Bennett Johnston was found. The State Police Crime Lab was able to take that tire track and determine the brand, model and type of tire. Then, investigators learned that this type of tire was only manufactured for a three-year period ending in 2003. They say that particular type of tire had only been purchased 90 times in the Baton Rouge area.

"When you split a piece of firewood, the first few blows might make a tiny little crack and it begins to break wide open. That tire track was the first little crack. The work of the State Police Crime Lab laid it open. Investigators swabbed Sean Gillis and the State Police Crime Lab matched his DNA," said Lieutenant Colonel Greg Phares, with the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office.

On that same date, detectives came into contact with Gillis and found that he normally operates a vehicle equipped with the matching tires. Detectives questioned Gillis and say he admitted that his vehicle was at the scene where Donna's body was found. He says he was there six days before authorities recovered her body. The affidavit also says Gillis had an eight year relationship with Johnnie Mae Williams and that she was inside his vehicle about 30 days before authorities found her body.

The affidavit says Gillis told authorities they would probably find a lot of evidence of blood in his car and blamed that on a health-related condition of his common-law wife, Terri. 9 News spoke with Terri, who said Gillis confessed to her at 7 a.m. She told WAFB's ***** Davidson that detectives kicked in their door around 1 a.m. and sent a concussion grenade inside. She says they were both taken into custody and questioned and calls Gillis "a teddy bear" and a "normal person."

"The door got kicked in and they threw the little bomb in here and got us up and took us downtown," says Terri, "And I saw a ton of sheriff's deputies assaulting the house across the street."

Late Thursday afternoon investigators began taking pictures and collecting evidence from Gillis' home, including a small white car and grey minivan from the scene. Investigators say Terri does not ever remember bleeding in Gillis' vehicle.

Jolie Rouge
04-30-2004, 08:50 PM
BR man described as 'loner,' troubled

www.2theadvocate.com/stories/043004/new_loner001.shtml

By PENNY BROWN ROBERTS Advocate staff writer


Several years ago, Carolyn Clay caught a man peeping in the windows of the orange-brick home where her daughter and son-in-law lived on Burgin Avenue. The 64-year-old Clay persuaded the couple not to have the man arrested because she had known him -- and his strange ways -- since he was a teenager.

Now Clay wishes she had reported the incident to police.

The man, she said, was Sean Vincent Gillis, 41, who was arrested Thursday and booked in the killings of three women in East Baton Rouge Parish.

"Oh my God, my family," Clay said, bursting into tears when told the crimes with which Gillis is accused. "I knew he was drunk or on drugs. He jumped the fence and said he was looking for his cats. We could have all been victims."

Gillis made his home in this neighborhood of mostly retirees and college students off Lee Drive in March 1978. He and his mother, Yvonne, settled into a pink brick ranch-style house with green shutters shaded by a magnolia tree in the front yard. Neighbors grew accustomed through the years to the odd goings-on there.

As a teenager, Gillis once pounded on garbage cans as if they were drums, lamenting in the middle of the street that he didn't have a girlfriend. As an adult, the 125-pound, 5-foot-7-inch bespectacled Gillis would lie in what neighbors described as an unkempt, rat-infested front yard and bark at the moon -- or scream obscenities about his mother.

Said Cynthia Cash, a 50-year-old landscape architect who lives just around the corner: "He gave me the willies."

Young Gillis

Gillis was born in 1962 to Norman E. Gillis Jr., a Collier's Encyclopedia salesman, and Yvonne Gillis, who worked as an office secretary at radio station WXOK. Old Baton Rouge city directories also show the couple lived on St. Charles Street in Beauregard Town.

A year later, Gillis' father became an agent for Life Insurance Co. of Virginia and Yvonne Gillis became a "continuity" manager at WBRZ-TV. The couple purchased a home at 875 W. Roosevelt St.

Gillis' father died sometime between 1963 and 1964, the city directory indicates, and Yvonne Gillis went to work as a copywriter for the television station.

In 1978, Yvonne bought the home at 545 Burgin Ave., where she and her son lived until she moved to Atlanta about a decade ago. A woman answering the phone Thursday at the home of Yvonne Gillis in Atlanta said she "is not home right now," and promptly hung up.

Gillis graduated from Redemptorist High School in Baton Rouge in 1980, academic records show. Few classmates reached Thursday remember him, and those who do say he distinguished himself only as a nerdy kid who wore out-of-style clothes and as an obsessive Star Trek fan. Aubin Chustz, 42, said Gillis regularly was "ostracized" by his classmates for being different.
"He was a very weird guy -- always talking about Star Trek."

Joey Frosch, a 42-year-old fire captain with the St. George Fire Department, said Gillis was quiet and kind of kept to himself in high school. "He was kind of in the Star Trek group, and you couldn't really hold a decent conversation with him," Frosch said. "You could never fit on the same wavelength with him -- he was always off on another tangent."

After graduation, Gillis maintained "a series of low-level jobs," said Lt. Col. Greg Phares of the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office. Neighbors say he worked at various times as a clerk at the Circle K on Boone Avenue, and most recently as a copier technician. Phares said Gillis was unemployed at the time of the arrest.

Through the years, he also developed a minor criminal record.

The same year he graduated from high school, Gillis and two friends were arrested on counts of simple trespass -- accused of forcing their way through the fence of a property on Harrell's Ferry Road. He and another man ran into the woods when authorities arrived, but were caught. He was fined $500.

In January 1993, he was cited for first-offense DWI and improper lane usage.

On Dec. 9, 1999, police arrested Gillis for possession of marijuana. He pleaded guilty a month later, and was placed on probation with several conditions, City Prosecutor Carl Jackson said. Jackson did not know what the conditions were, but said Gillis violated his probation at least once. Several bench warrants for the violation were issued, and Gillis was arrested in June 2002.

Gillis also had one traffic violation, for misuse of a temporary tag and failure to register his 1990 gray Mazda van. He was ordered to pay $170 in fines.


Neighbors suspicious

While Gillis failed to distinguish himself in school or a profession, he certainly made an impression in his neighborhood. After his mother left, he lived in the home with his longtime girlfriend, Terri Kay Lemoine, Gillis' arrest warrant shows.

Neighbors say the couple never had any children, but Lemoine has at least one child from a previous marriage. A woman who answered the phone Thursday afternoon said, "We're not interested. We have no comment." No one answered the phone at the residence later in the evening.

Over the years, visitors came and went from the home at all hours of the night -- including a Brown's Velvet truck that stopped by once a week.
"They were almost like people of the night," said Alan Brown, a 23-year-old college student who lives across the street from Gillis. "There were always a bunch of cars there, but we would only see them at night."

Added his roommate, 23-year-old John Bullock: "They were kinda shady."


One night a few years ago, Gillis repeatedly pounded on the front door of June Townsend's home, a retired school teacher who has lived two doors down since 1962. He refused to identify himself. "My antenna went up," she said. "I'm thankful I never opened that door."

Cash said Gillis knocked on her door, too -- shortly after the landscape architect moved in around the corner 12 years ago. He had a message: She needed new drapes, because he could see in her windows. "At first I thought it was sweet," Cash said Thursday as she watched investigators pull a sword from Gillis' attic. "Now I'm thinking, 'What the hell was he doing looking in my windows?' "

When Gillis was arrested for driving while intoxicated in 1993, he asked Clay to retrieve his cat. Inside the home, Clay said, she saw what appeared to be "a lot of stolen merchandise and pot."

Most who live in the neighborhood were horrified to discover an accused killer living in their midst. David Abadie, 23, spent more than a year living in fear of a serial killer who stalked victims on the LSU campus. Police arrested Derrick Todd Lee in those killings.

Abadie added safety features to the home he shares with his wife, Courtney, and young son, David. He came home for lunch every day to check on her.
"I'm in shock," Abadie said. "I can't believe this. Two serial killers in one town. Why?"

But Clay -- who's lived on Burgin Avenue since 1971 -- isn't surprised.
She said she always thought Gillis "fit the profile" of the man who killed Ann Bryan, who lived in nearby St. James Place until she was stabbed and mutilated in 1994. The killing remains unsolved. "He's a troubled fellow," Clay said. "He was a loner who did strange things. He was separated from the mainstream."


[i]Editor's note: Advocate reporter Josh Noel and librarian John Sykes contributed to this report.


*** Note -- since my earlier post at 9:45 the 10 o'clock news added another confirmed victim to the list accrued by this man. **

Jolie Rouge
04-30-2004, 09:06 PM
Murders of dozens of women remain unsolved

By BRETT TROXLER - 2theadvocate.com staff
From a report by WBRZ's Veronica Mosgrove

www.2theadvocate.com/stories/043004/new_unsolvedmurders001.shtml

East Baton Rouge Parish now has two suspected serial killers behind bars, with Derrick Todd Lee and Sean Vincent Gillis accused of a dozen murders between them. But dozens more area murders involving women remain unsolved, according to Baton Rouge Police.

One murder that remains unsolved is that Christine Moore, who was reported missing in May 2002. Nearly a month later her body was discovered off River Road near Ebenezer Baptist Church. The LSU graduate student's body was decomposed and authorities said she was beaten to death. Until now, Moore's family believed Lee was responsible for her death.

"The No. 1 suspect in my daughter's death is Derrick Todd Lee because of his method of operation -- blunt force trauma," said Anthony Moore, Christine's father. But when Anthony Moore learned of Gillis' arrest, he immediately called authorities. "I asked one simple question, 'Did you ask Mr. Gillis if he killed my daughter?" he said. "And they said they'd get back to me."

Anthony Moore said without a confession he believes his daughter's murder will remain unsolved because there was little evidence left at the scene, including no DNA evidence.

In addition to Moore's death, there are dozens of other women whose murder cases remain unsolved in south Louisiana. Cpl. Don Kelly of the Baton Rouge Police Department said there are about 40 unsolved cases in the capitol city alone.

As for Christine Moore's family, they said they will not rest until they can get closure on her death. "I want to know who killed her," Anthony Moore said. "I want to know what circumstances. I want to know what weapon was used. I want to know why."



[i]As reported on April 30 on WBRZ's 6 p.m. telecast. If you have information or comments related to this story, e-mail them to news@wbrz.com.
[i]

Jolie Rouge
05-01-2004, 02:00 PM
*** Note -- since my earlier post at 9:45 the 10 o'clock news added another confirmed victim to the list accrued by this man. **


Gillis Confesses To Another Murder

www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1831138


http://wafb.static.worldnow.com/images/1831138_BG2.jpg

Lillian Gorham Robinson


After continued questioning, sources tell 9 News that Sean Vincent Gillis has confessed to yet another killing. Sources say Gillis has confessed to killing prostitute Lillian Gorham Robinson. Robinson's family members say they've now been told Gillis confessed to killing 51-year-old Lillian after police showed them her picture. This comes just hours after the Joint Homicide Task Force says Gillis confessed to the murders of 81-year-old Ann Bryan and 52-year-old Hardee Schmidt.

Gillis was arrested Thursday and charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts in the murders of 29-year-old Katherine Hall, 45-year-old Johnnie May Williams and 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston. Detectives have conclusively connected Gillis to these three murders through a voluntary DNA sample.

Lillian Robinson turned up missing in January of 2000. Months later, someone found her body in the Atchafaylaya Basin near Whiskey Bay, just two miles from where Pam Kinamore's body was recovered. Lillian had been strangled and thrown off from bridge. The coroner's office says she also showed signs of drowning.

Authorities are now testing evidence in the murders to which Gillis has confessed. Those confessions include graphic details described in arrest warrants released Friday.

According to the arrest warrant, Gillis told detectives he went to St. James Place in the early morning of March 21st, 1994. The warrant says Gillis told detectives he entered Ann Bryan's home to rape the 81 year old, but she started screaming when he touched her. Gillis then told detectives he cut her throat to stop her screaming and began stabbing her. The warrant says Gillis gave them details about this elderly woman's death only the killer could know.

The description of what the killer did to Hardee Schmidt is far more graphic. Detectives say Hardee was abducted while jogging in the Perkins Road/Quail Run area on May 30, 1999. Her body was dumped into a St. James Parish bayou back in May of 1999. Gillis now has additional charges of first degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and stalking in the Hardee Schmidt case and first degree murder in the Ann Bryan case.

The arrest affidavit sheds new light on both crimes. It says that in May of 1999, Gillis saw Hardee jogging in the south Baton Rouge area and then spent the following three weeks driving around the area looking for her. It was about 5:30 in Sunday morning, May 30, 1999 when Gillis was driving on Quail Run Drive and first saw Hardee jogging. The affidavit says he hit her with his vehicle and knocked her into a ditch. It says Gillis got out of his vehicle armed with heavy duty wire plastic wrap, placed the wrap around her neck and pulled it tight. Gillis then forced her into his vehicle, drove to a park in the Highland Road area, removed her clothes and sexually assaulted her.

The affidavit says Gillis then placed her dead, naked body into the trunk of his vehicle and drove to his house. According to that affidavit, Gillis waited until the next day to drive to Highway 61 in St. James Parish and dump Hardee's body into a bayou. Her body was found June 1st--two days after her murder.

Gillis is now officially charged with the murders of five women. Sources tell 9-News he has confessed to eight. While authorities won't talk about any specific cases, Lieuntenant Colonel Greg Phares says investigators will continue to look into the possibility of Gillis's involvement in other unsolved murders in the Baton Rouge Metro and surrounding areas. Both Phares and Baton Rouge Police Chief Pat Englade say the investigation will not be limited and they will go back as far as they can to determine exactly how many murders are linked to Gillis.

"We're going to be very careful not to say anything that would muddy the waters for a successful prosecution of Sean Gillis," said Phares.

Jolie Rouge
05-01-2004, 02:34 PM
We sure live in a small world. DTL knew Lillian Robinson - Lillian Robinson was killed by Sean Gillis. Lillian Robinson also knew Veronica Courtney.

The first task force secret victims (I say secret because they did not publicly state which cases they were studying) were:

Tannis Walker - strangled
Florida Edwards - strangled
Patricia Hawkins - strangled
Veronica Courtney - strangled
Shirley Mikell - beaten
Dianna Williams - beaten

I know I have read that Tannis Walker's case had DNA, I believe they let a suspect go because he didn't match. When are they going to test Walker's DNA to match against Gillis or are they going to let him confess and put him away and sweep all this garbage under a rug where no one will ever look?

I would like to know whether Derrick Todd Lee knew Sean Vincent Gillis, period.

http://boards.courttv.com/showthread.php?threadid=123146




This is my theory on Lillian. Yes, she did know DTL and we assume that on occassion he hung out where they lived.

In the apts. behind old Bon Marche Mall.

Veronica Courtney was one of her friends, so she probably knew DTL as well.

IF Gillis killed Lillian and dumped her in the basin, it's possible that DTL knew this from mutual "friends" and took his clue from Gillis as to where he could dispose of his victims.

Lillian and Veronica were both scared, in the weeks before they were killed. Lillian had told several family members that she was being followed and apparently the police knew it also, because they "relocated" her, due to something she had witnessed.

Veronica would not talk to family members, because she was scared, after Lillian died. So did she know something? Did the police know something?

Then 4 months after Lillian, Veronica is dead. Odd?

The pattern seems to show that Gillis also disposed of his victims, killed them in one area, and took them to another.

The water connection between Gillis and DTL is erie to say the least. Could be DTL took this from Gillis. ??

I believe that Christina Daigle will be a victim of Gillis







http://community.webshots.com/user/crimewatch1

Be sure to click on the POI that is showing. There are more photo's in the album.

Pay attention to Lafayette POI and Suspect Joe.

http://thumb3.webshots.com/s/thumb4/5/58/63/86255863XeJpzJ_th.jpg Colomb Person Of Interest

http://thumb8.webshots.com/s/thumb4/0/99/98/87809998kzHqTG_th.jpg Suspect JOE / Person Of Interest


http://thumb8.webshots.com/s/thumb4/7/82/8/86878208meKKvM_th.jpg Lafayette Person Of Interest

http://wafb.static.worldnow.com/images/1826593_BG1.jpg
Sean Vincent Gillis

Jolie Rouge
05-01-2004, 02:48 PM
www.2theadvocate.com/stories...deaths001.shtml


....City Police Chief Pat Englade said after the news conference that detectives "are still going full-bore" to re-examine unsolved murders dating back to the early 1980s -- Gillis' late teens. An FBI profiler might be flown in to help, he said.

"I think there are going to be more, but I don't want to stick a number on it," he said. "As long as he wants to talk, we'll talk."

However, Gillis' lawyer, public defender Bert Garraway, asked for the talking to end Friday. Garraway said he called Sheriff's Col. Mike Barnett about 3 p.m. and asked that detectives stop questioning Gillis without a lawyer present. "He assured me he would and he and I understand each other," Garraway said. "So far I don't know who has questioned the guy or about what."

Garraway, who was assigned the case Friday afternoon, said he'll probably meet with Gillis for the first time today.

Englade said that detectives have taken Gillis from Parish Prison to conduct the interviews, but he would not say where. All the questioning has been legal, he said. "We followed the book and Miranda was absolutely done," he said. "He was Mirandized and Mirandized." Police must recite the Miranda warning before questioning suspects to tell them of certain rights.

A SWAT team arrested Gillis at his home at 545 Burgin Ave., early Thursday morning. Investigators said DNA evidence linked him to the killings of Katherine Hall in 1999, Johnnie Mae Williams in October and Donna Bennett Johnston in February.

He was booked into Parish Prison on three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts, accused of mutilating their bodies after death.

Sudden resolution

The Sheriff's Office formed a task force to investigate the killings of Hall, Williams and Johnston based on several commonalties, particularly their "high-risk lifestyles" and the fact that their bodies had been mutilated. All three had been arrested for drugs, alcohol or both.

However, few suspicions had ever been uttered about the killings of Bryan and Schmidt being related to each other or to the "high-risk" killings. Bryan lived in a retirement community and Schmidt in Pollard Estates with her husband and children.

Both deaths have long-confounded investigators, with a total of three arrests being made in the two cases. All three suspects ended up being released for a lack of evidence.

Englade said Friday that detectives have not been able to find Gillis' name in their files as a suspect in either case, but continue to look.

Gillis also was not asked for a DNA sample in the investigation of another series of serial killings in the Baton Rouge area, Englade said. Derrick Todd Lee, 35, is scheduled to stand trial May 10 in those crimes.

Bryan was found stabbed to death March 21, 1994, inside her apartment at St. James Place on Lee Drive, about a third of a mile from Gillis' home.

According to a warrant for Gillis' arrest, he told police he intended to rape, not kill, Bryan, but stabbed her and cut her throat when she screamed. Investigators found the bloody imprint of a large hunting knife and shoe prints on the carpet near her body, the warrant says. Bryan died of a wound to her throat, but there were numerous stab and slash wounds on her body.

During interviews with detectives, Gillis cited details of the attack, including the wounds to Bryan's body and the weapon used, neither of which had been made public, the warrant says.

Bryan's daughter, Rachel Ehricht, said she is skeptical of the confession, and would prefer police had arrested Gillis based on physical evidence, such as DNA. After two previous arrests in the case that ended with the suspects being freed -- in 1994 and 1996 -- she said she had "been down this road before. You have to reserve your enthusiasm," she said. "I'd love to have closure and if this is it I'm truly thankful."

She said Englade and Detective John Colter visited her at home about 10:15 p.m. Thursday to tell her and her family of the confession.

Stalker

Schmidt was kidnapped about 5:30 a.m. May 30, 1999, -- a Sunday -- while jogging in a Baton Rouge subdivision. Her body was found three days later in St. James Parish.

According to a warrant for Gillis' arrest in her case, he told police he saw Schmidt jogging in south Baton Rouge about three weeks earlier, and had been driving in the area in the early morning hours ever since to look for her.
When he finally found her on Quail Run Drive, he ran into her with his vehicle to knock her into a ditch, the warrant says. He used a "heavy duty plastic wire wrap" to choke her and drove her to a park in the Highland Road area, where he sexually assaulted her, the warrant says.

Gillis put Schmidt's "dead naked body" into the truck of his vehicle, drove home and left it there. The next day, Gillis took Highway 61 to St. James Parish and dumped Schmidt's body into a bayou, the warrant says.

Semen was found in the body during an autopsy, but authorities have not said it is linked to Gillis. No physical evidence, such as DNA, ties Gillis to either crime, but both Englade and Phares said that should not be a matter of concern. "A confession is actual evidence," Phares said. "Many people are in penitentiaries, and rightly so, on confessions."

Englade said "other supporting evidence" will bolster the cases once they reach the courts, but he declined to name it. However, Englade did say the State Police Crime Lab has been asked to re-examine evidence in both cases to look for a DNA match to Gillis. "Things have changed so much in the last 10 years, it's time to re-evaluate all that stuff," he said.

Based on the confessions, police booked Gillis Friday on counts of first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and stalking in Schmidt's case and first-degree murder in Bryan's.

Gillis' father

No one at Gillis' home answered the door Friday even though lights were on in a front room. In a window in the carport, a sign taped to the door invokes an "Area 51 warning." "Restricted area," the sign says. "Use of deadly force is authorized." Area 51 is a government site in Nevada where some people believe the United States conducts experiments on UFOs.

A woman answering the phone at the home said, "We have no comment" and hung up.



However, reached Friday at his home in Lathrop, Calif., Gillis' father, Norman E. Gillis Jr., said he had no idea his son had been arrested in the murders of five Baton Rouge women.

"Oh my God," he said. "I haven't heard anything about it."

Norman Gillis Jr. married Sean Gillis' mother, Yvonne Marie Bourgeois, in Mamou in November 1960, according to a petition for separation filed in court in East Baton Rouge Parish. The couple immediately moved to Baton Rouge, and Sean Gillis was born in 1962.

In April 1963, Norman Gillis Jr. abandoned the family after seeking treatment for alcoholism, the petition says. A divorce was granted in September 1965.

Norman Gillis Jr., now 68 and retired from hospital administrative work, said the last time he saw his ex-wife or son was when he visited for two days when the boy graduated from Redemptorist High School in 1980.

"The family has been estranged for quite some time," said Norman Gillis Jr., who described himself as a recovered alcoholic. "I haven't seen or heard from Sean since then. He wanted to go his own way."

"He was just an ordinary boy," Norman Gillis Jr. said. "I was out of contact, he was out of contact. He was only about a year old when I left. I had no influence in his life. His mother was the sole influence in his life."

Norman Gillis Jr. said he has no plans to contact his son.

Jolie Rouge
05-01-2004, 03:06 PM
Senior Member

http://boards.courttv.com/showthread.php?threadid=123044

Just me typing out loud...here goes.

For me, the only thing we have linking DTL as the serial killer is his DNA.

Let's consider this. From what I can tell about Mr. Gillis, he appears to be a drama queen, your typical psycho, is willing to take credit for his crimes and seemed to enjoy sadistic behavior.

Ann Bryan, a KNOWN victim, was murdered March 21st, 1995.

She was murdered in her home and her body was left there. She was stabbed 42 times and suspect says he stabbed her in the throat to stop her screaming. She was 82 . She was a resident at St. James Place, an up scale retirement home on Lee Drive which was approximately 1.2 miles from suspects home. No signs of forced entry.


Eugenie Boisfontaine, 34

(I include her because she was also abducted while jogging and her body was also foudn in a Bayou, this time in Manchac in Iberville Parish). She had a skull fracture but was too badly decomposed for DNA. She disappeared June 14th, 1997. Her home was approximately 2.1 miles from Mr. Gillis.

Katherine Hall's body was found in JANUARY 1999.

She was a KNOWN victim of Mr. Gillis. Her body was found off of Poujeaux Road. She was 30.

Hardee Schmidt, a KNOWN victim, was abducted WHILE JOGGING in Pollard Estates on MAY 30th, 1999.

She was strangled. Her body was found along Hwy 61 in a Bayou. Her abduction site is between 2 to 3 miles from where Mr. Gillis lived. She was 52.

Lillian Robinson, a KNOWN victim, was last seen JANURY 9th, 2000.

Her body was found at the Whiskey Bay and Butte La Rose Bridge in the Atchafalaya Basin. She was 53.


Gina Green, a DTL/SK victim, was murdered September 24th, 2001.

She was murdered in her own home. Reports are that she was strangled and beaten. It has also been reported that her body was posed, but this is not verified. It was also reported that suspect left the imprint of a ring he wore from the beating. Just FYI her house is approximately 2.1 miles from Mr. Gillis.

Geralyn Barr DeSoto , age 21, was murdered on January 14th, 2002

shortly after leaving LSU campus. She had been stabbed and her throat had been cut. She was killed between noon and 2:00 pm at her home. At the time it was said that "DNA was not taken because she had been redressed." but ironically after DTL's arrest DNA magically turned up. LSU campus is approximately 2.1 miles from Mr. Gillis home.

Christine Moore, (I am including her because she was abducted while jogging) was murdered May 24th, 2002.

Her body was later found dumped along River Road behind a church. She was 23. Cause of death was determined to be blow to the head, but too decomposed to tell much else.

Charlotte Murray Pace , age 22, was murdered May 31st, 2002 in her own home.

She was stabbed and her thoat cut. She was able to fight her attacker with a vengence. (Could this because the perp only weighed 125 pounds?) Her home is 2.1 miles from Mr. Gillis, plus she used to live just up the street from Gina, who lived just up the street from Eugenie. Lots of people close to the investigation of Murray's death has said her throat was cut to stop her screams.

Pam Kinamore , age 44, was abducted July 12th, 2002.

She was abducted from her home. Her body was found four days later off I-10 Exit at Whiskey Bay. ( Just up the road from Lillian's body dump site. She had been stabbed and her throat cut. Pam had visited the LSU campus the week prior to her murder. And a truck driver says he saw a white man in a white truck with nude female pull off whiskey bay exit the night/ early next morning of her abduction. Under hypnosis he says the driver had blonde/red arm/leg hair (Mr. Gillis appears to have such).

Trineisha Dene Colomb, age 23, was murdered November 21st, 2002.

She was most likely abducted while visiting her mothers grave in Grand Coteau. Witnesses say they saw a white man in a white truck near the abduction and dumping locations.She died from a blow to the head.

Carrie Lynn Yoder , age 26, was abducted March 3rd, 2003

She was reported missing from her home. Her body was found in Whiskey Bay. (near Pam and up the road from Lillian).Cause of death listed as asphyxiation. She had also been beaten and sexually assaulted. She lived 2.1 miles from Mr. Gillis and the grocery store she had just visited prior to her abduction was just up the block from Mr. Gillis' home. Also, even though police had staked out Whiskey Bay and had already searched it, they did not turn up Carrie's body. However, a week later, a fisherman found her in Whiskey Bay. Where was Carrie's body all that time? We know Mr. Gillis tended to drive around with his victim's in his trunk. Where did DTL keep Carrie? For that matter, where did DTL take Carrie and Pam after he abducted them, but before he killed them?

Mona L. Burt, age 35, is murdered March 11, 2003 in Hammond, LA in her own home.

She was found stabbed and her throat slashed in her home at 109 Rosewood Circle. She was found by her roommate at 11:00 pm

Johnnie Mae Williams, October 11th, 2003.

Found near Pride Port Hudson Road, badly decomposed. Mr. Gillis says he had her in his trunk for a while. Was she in there alive or dead?

Donna Bennett Johnston , February 27th, 2004 .

Her body was dumped on Ben Hur Road, which is just up the street from Mr. Gillis' home.


Plus, add to this the fact that from Gina's murder until Carrie's murder I have a difficult time trying to find any other murders that fit this guy's MO, i.e. stabbing, prostitutes and strangulation. But after Carrie, we know of TWO KNOWN victims, one in October 2003 and one in February of 2004, just four months apart. There was four months between Gina and Geralyn, There were four months between Geralyn and Murray. There was 1 1/2 months between Geralyn and Pam. There was four months between Pam to Dene. There was four months from Dene to Carrie.

I'm just saying that these similarities are too in your face to completely ignore. He was a white man with a white truck who had no clear cut choice of victims. He murdered black and white or all ages. He murdered some in their homes and some while jogging out in the open. He left their bodies in their home or he dumped them in a bayou or Whiskey Bay. He liked to use a knife and he liked to cut throats. He also strangled. He appears to have a comfort zone that the SK victims just happened to live in. He also apepars to have a comfort zone of dumping bodies that the SK just happened to dump in. He also appears to have NO KNOWN VICTIMS during the time the Serial Killings attributed to DTL were being committed.

Hmmm, is all I can say. And I will continue to search.


Were DTL & SVG working together ?

Jolie Rouge
05-01-2004, 03:11 PM
http://boards.courttv.com/showthread.php?threadid=123044&perpage=10&pagenumber=2

I will also add that after the murders of Johnnie Mae Williams and Donna Bennett Johnston the police devised they had a second serial killer and formed a new task force. They included KATHERINE HALL as a possible victim linked to these three also, but said they were still trying to determine whether KATHERINE was a victim of DTL or not. From this I deduce the following:

We know that there was mutilation going on that linked these victims. From the facts as they unfolded, we can conclude that Johnnie Mae and Donna Bennet must have for sure had the same "DISTINCT" mutilation. Katherine Hall must have been similar, but she also must have been similar to DTLs work for them not to have cleared her as one of his victim's yet. They only link Katherine Hall as a victim of the "new SK" after DNA testing confirms they match.

Hardee Schmidt, Ann Bryan and Lillian Robinson ARE NOT including in the group of the "new SK" victims. From this I conclude that Mr. Gillis DID NOT mutilate Hardee, Ann and Lillian in the same manner as Johnnie and Donna, and that possibly Kathleen was not mutilated in the same manner either. So I further conclude that it is all together possible that Mr. Gillis did not start performing this "DISTINCT" mutilation until the death of Johnnie Mae Williams, who we all know IS NOT his first victim. So, I ask myself, why start mutilating in a different way? The first thing that pops out at me is that Johnnie Mae is the first murder AFTER the capture of DTL. Is Mr. Gillis, if he had any involvement in the SK murders, attempting to set himself apart from all prior murders by creating a new calling card, thus making police think they have a "NEW KILLER" in town.

Also, he starts dumping bodies out of his norm. Katherine Hall was dumped in a bayou. Hardee was dumped in a Bayou. Eugenie, if a victim, was dumped in a bayou. Christine Moore, if a victim, was found behind a church near the banks of a pond just North up the way from where Eugenie was found. Lillian Robinson was dumped in Whiskey Bay. Ann Bryan was left in her own home. Why now, after the capture of the SK, does Mr. Gillis start dumping in "new territory"? He dumps Johnnie Mae in a vacant lot and he dumps Donna just of Ben Hur Lane. Just some things to think about.





I would also question whether Francis Baldwin was a victim of this nut. She was beaten and her throat slashed I believe in 2001, yet four years earlier SHE HAD HAD HER THROAT SLASHED AND BEEN LOCKED IN A TRUNK. This guy seems crazy enough to have done the first attempt and then came back four years later to do the job right.


This person is brillant ...

Jolie Rouge
05-01-2004, 03:20 PM
One other thing I keep thinking about, Dene.

Dene never fit in with the SK victims. I say this because of her adbuction location and the fact that the police said that her killer attempted to hide her body well and did not expect for her to be found.

We know that in all the other cases of victims their bodies were either left in their homes. or were dumped in a remote area, but not exactly "hidden" as Dene was.

I remember several people saying that Dene would be the key to solving the crimes. Did the killer know Dene? Did the killer have an obvious connection with Dene that would cause him to want to hide her body so well that no one would know what happened to her?

From the beginning of DTLs arrest my problem always was his level of intelligence. Of his ability to carry out these murders, get access to the home, in and out with no one seeing him, plus remove the women from their homes with no one seeing him and then successfully dump their bodies with no one seeing him, plus all the stalking time that he would have to split between being home in St. Francisville and spending time with his girlfriend(s). He would have had to have been an incredibly busy guy plus a very lucky man.

However, this man could basically sit and observe any of these victims from his own front porch so to say. His regular daily comings and goings to the grocery store perhaps on Burbank, to the car wash, just cruising around his neighborhood within a three mile radius looking for women jogging or watching them get out of their cars and go into their home. Who knows?

And the shoe size situation along with the brand of shoe. I know most disregard it as just a possible margin of error. But forever they were looking for a guy with a size 10 to 11 shoe. DTL wears a size 12 does he not? I will be very interested to see what type/size of shoe Mr. Gillis wears.

As to the phone cord found at Whiskey Bay, I have questioned is authenticity from the beginning. When asked about it the police knew nothing, yet when Pam's mom reminds them they asked her about a phone cord they "find it" and say they just failed to log it into evidence with the other items collected.

Then you have DNA magically turn up at Randi's crime scene to link DTL to her murder, YET THEY NEVER HAD ANY DNA to link Randi during the serial killer investigation, AND THEY NEVER HAD ANY DNA back when Zachary police said DTL was their prime suspect for Randi's murder yet they couldn't arrest him because they had no evidence to link him to the crime. How does evidence turn up YEARS LATER?

And the same goes for Geralyn Desoto. NO DNA evidence available to link her with the SK victims. It is reported that her killer redressed her thus they were not able to take any DNA . :confused: I will say that although this excuse is bogus I was told by the investigators from the AG's office in charge of Geralyn's murder investigation that the reason there was no DNA evidence was because the first police responding on the scene CONTAMINATED IT. So another miraculous recover of DNA when from the beginning they said "they didn't have any DNA". No DNA to link Geralyn, thus her murder was not included under the task force's umbrella.

I don't know. Alot of fishy sounding stuff going on.

And, don't let me forget to ask, WILL DENE be the clue?

http://boards.courttv.com/showthread.php?threadid=123044&perpage=10&pagenumber=3






I have been going through all of the same things in my mind.

The major thing that bothers me, is that where was Carrie for days. I did hear that she had only been in the water for about 6 hours. Fact or Fiction, I don't know. But they did send to FL for her dental records, so it leads me to believe that it is fiction.

Pam's case also bothers me a lot. The white truck, white male, and the phone cord.

It is strange that they didn't have DNA for Randi and Geralyn until DTL was in custody.

Also it seems they had ample clues to swab DTL long before they did.

Then the chain of evidence on the DNA of DTL is questionable.
The AG takes the swab, gives it to ZPD, it sits on the shelf overnight, then goes to the LSP lab, sits there for 3 weeks.

More questions than answers. I would also like to know about the shoes, truck, if Gillis has ever been in the military, and if he has a relative here that may have a vacant house, or camp.

Jolie Rouge
05-02-2004, 09:35 PM
Gillis' Attorney Says Defense Will be a Challenge

www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1831765

Baton's Rouge's second suspected serial killer was once again talking with detectives today... without his court appointed attorney. Sean Gillis has already confessed to murdering eight women, and more confessions could possibly be on the way.

Gillis' attorney, Bert Garraway, met with Gillis this morning for about 20 minutes at the Sheriff's office. Garraway says Gillis specifically asked him not to do any on-camera interviews in regards to this case. Garraway says his client seemed very intelligent, articulate and remorseful, but Garraway says defending this newest serial killer suspect will be an enormous challenge.

According to his court appointed attorney, Gillis has a lot to say to police. We're told detectives questioned Gillis Saturday morning, despite Bert Garraway's request for police not to ask Gillis any questions without him being there. Garraway tells 9 News he pleaded with Gillis not to talk, but says Gillis insisted on talking to police anyway.



Last night our cameras caught the first glimpse of Baton Rouge's second suspected serial killer. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffed, shackled and escorted by numerous police officers. The beard and glasses we saw in the still pictures of Gillis were both gone.



At a news conference Friday, Gillis was linked to the Hardee Schimdt and Ann Bryant murders. He's now been charged with five murders officially, and sources inside law enforcement say he's confessed to three more. Police say a confession was all they needed to connect Gillis with these previously unsolved cases. "A confession is actual evidence and many people are in the penitentiary now and rightly so on the basis of chiefly a confession," said Lieutenent Colonel Greg Phares.

G arraway says these confessions make defending Gillis extremely difficult. But he points out while confessions are strong evidence, he says there's numberous cases where people confess to crimes they haven't committed. He also says this case will be tough on the public defender's office-- an office already cash-strapped from defending another serial killer suspect, Derrick Todd Lee.

Garraway says he plans to ask the District Court on Monday to appoint a Sanity Commission to see if Gillis is mentally competent to answer questions and stand trial.



WAFB's Matt Clough spoke with Gillis' father, Norman Gillis, who lives in California. Norman Gillis says he left his son when Gillis was just one year old. He says he last had contact with him when Gillis graduated from Redemptorist High School in 1980. Gillis' father says he's shocked that his son has been arrested for these murders. "I was just very sad," he said. "I was surprised. I don't know what I said. I was just surprised."

Norman Gillis says he doesn't plan on calling or visiting with his son now that he's been arrested. He said, "I don't see how I can help him."

Jolie Rouge
05-03-2004, 12:07 PM
Computer Seized From Accused Serial Killer

www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1831765

Experts with the Attorney General's High-Tech Crimes Unit are sifting through the computer seized from the home of accused serial killer Sean Vincent Gillis.

Meanwhile, a hearing scheduled for one o'clock this afternoon most likely will not happen. Gillis' defense attorney, Bert Garraway, was expected to ask Judge Todd Hernandez to appoint three doctors to determine if Gillis is sane enough to stand trial. However, Garraway tells 9-News he's not sure if he will remain Gillis' attorney. That's because the case will not remain in Judge Hernandez's court.

9 News has obtained a letter from Assistant District Attorney Prem Burns claiming Judge Tony Marabella should preside over the case rather than Judge Hernandez. That would mean Gillis would likely be assigned a different Public Defender.

Jolie Rouge
05-03-2004, 08:42 PM
Suspect in serial killings allegedly confesses to three more

www.2theadvocate.com/stories/050304/new_gillisconfess001.shtml

By BRETT TROXLER 2theadvocate.com staff


In addition to the five murders Sean Vincent Gillis has been charged with in East Baton Rouge Parish, the suspect in the serial killer has confessed to three more, according to sources familiar with the investigation. The latest alleged victims of Gillis are 52-year-old Lillian Robinson, 36-year-old Joyce Williams and 38-year-old Marilyn Nevils.

Robinson disappeared from Baton Rouge's Melrose East neighborhood in January 2000. A month later a fisherman discovered Robinson's badly decomposed body four miles west of Whiskey Bay.

Hunters found Joyce Williams' body January 22, 2000, near the ferry landing on Highway 75 in Iberville Parish. Williams was last seen alive in Baton Rouge in November 1999.

Sources also said Gillis has confessed to Nevils' murder in November 2000. Her body was found along River Road in Baton Rouge, but she was from Lafayette.

Terri Lemoine, Gillis' girlfriend, said investigators have taken two home computers as well as two vehicles from their residence. She also said they wrote on an inventory list that they took an antique dagger that was hanging on the wall.

Another development in the Gillis case was the appointment of Judge Anthony Marabella today. According to prosecutor Prem Burns the earliest murder -- that of Ann Bryan -- falls under Marabella's section. Burns said by law that means the other ones will be handled by Marabella as well.

Burns will also handle the prosecution of Gillis. Today Burns met with the homicide task force to discuss the case. The assistant district attorney has 60 days from Gillis' arrest to take the case to the grand jury.

Burns said he expects to do that in early June, and added that Gillis will be arraigned after an indictment.

Defense attorney Bert Garraway also said today he is no longer representing the suspect in the serial killings. Garraway said he was told by Mike Mitchell of the Public Defender's Office that the Gillis case falls under another section

Jolie Rouge
05-03-2004, 08:49 PM
Girlfriend never suspected Gillis of anything out of ordinary

www.2theadvocate.com/stories/050304/new_gillisgirlfriend001.shtml

By BRETT TROXLER 2theadvocate.com staff
From a report by WBRZ's Ben Lemoine


Terri Lemoine lived with serial killings suspect Sean Vincent Gills for eight years, but on Sunday she said she never suspected Gillis of anything out of the ordinary. The two spent most nights watching movies or playing on the computer, and life was rather boring, Lemoine said. "Our biggest discussions were on politics, computers, science fiction shows," Lemoine said Gillis was meticulous about his video collection and organized his movie library by genre. His favorite was the original Star Trek series.

Lemoine said she always thought Gillis was a genius and that he was too compassionate to kill a bug. "In everyday life, to know Sean, you would think he should be teaching at LSU or something," she said. "He has that kind of demeanor."

But on Friday, he told her he was guilty of murdering women. He told he was sorry when they talked that morning. "I asked him, 'Sorry that we're having to go through all this and it's a mistake or sorry because you did it?'" Lemoine said "And that's when he told me, 'Because I did it.'"

Lemoine said Gillis drove around by himself a lot, and now police are telling her they know why. "I mean, he had done so well all of these years keeping it hidden," Lemoine said. "I don't know, nothing's happened recently that would make him want to change." She added, "I didn't know he could act."

Lemoine said she and Gillis had talked about getting married just two days before his arrest. She said that is now unlikely because of his confession.
"If you can turn around and see what you've done, why would you want to go on?" she said "That's the feeling I feel like he has."




Gillis' Girlfriend Speaks Out

www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1836628

Terri Lemoine's life changed the instant police slammed through this door at 1:15 the morning of April 29th. Later, Sean Vincent Gillis, the man which she had spent a faithful 8 years with was arrested for a string of murders that has her baffled. Terri says she had no idea that Gillis was capable of committing the terrible acts he has admitted to. While Gillis is officially charged with 5 murders sources say he has confessed to 8.

"This is not the Sean that I knew," says Terri. "I still need to talk to him because I've got questions that need answers."

Terri is disabled, a victim of epilepsy. During the interview the WAFB's Jim Shannon, she suffered a mild attack. It's something she says she has dealt with for years, but in the recent days has become more active. Terri says she depended on Gillis for her daily living.

Terri described Gillis, "As someone whose quiet, fun, he's a thinker. He's very intelligent, very intelligent."

Terri says it did not sink in until Gillis confessed to her over the phone. She says, "I got the answer from him you know that he told me it was him."

Terri says if Gillis had told her that he was innocent she would believe him without question. She says he hid his double life that well. But in the wake of the past 5 days things have changed. When asked if she can be supportive of Gillis, Terri says, "Not if what he says is so."

Terri has talked with Gillis only once since his arrest. However, she has thought long and hard about the one thing she has to know. -- She says she wants to know, "Why.................why?"

Meanwhile, Terri says she wants to talk with Gillis again, but is waiting for his attorney to make arrangements

Jolie Rouge
05-10-2004, 08:43 PM
EBR Public Defender's Office Asks To Be Removed From Gillis Case


http://wafb.static.worldnow.com/images/1855626_BG1.jpg
Sean Vincent Gillis

www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1855626


There are new developments in the case of accused serial killer Sean Vincent Gillis. 9 News has learned some interesting details concerning Gillis' DNA and how that could affect the case of serial killer suspect Derrick Todd Lee. WAFB's ***** Davidson explains.

A source close to the Gillis investigation says experts at the State Police Crime Lab have compared Gillis' DNA to that found on the murder victims in the Derrick Todd Lee case. According to the source there is no match. That could be important considering one of the reasons the East Baton Rogue Public Defender's Office is asking to be taken off the Gillis case.

Gillis is accused in the murders of five women in the Baton Rouge area , may soon find himself without an attorney. A motion filed by Mike Mitchell in the Public Defender's Office asks Judge Tony Marabella to remove his office from the case due to conflict. Attorney Bruce Unangst says one conflict is the fact he represented at least one victim in the Gillis case. Sources close to the legal team say another conflict is due to the public defender's office representing Derrick Todd Lee: that it would be incumbent upon them to look at the possibility Gillis committed the murders Lee is accused of committing. If removed, Judge Marabella would have to give Gillis a private attorney.

"I think it's going to be very difficult to find anyone from the private bar who is able and willing to take on the case," said defense attorney Michele Fournet.

Fournet is one of twelve local attorneys certified by the Louisiana Indigent Defense Assistance Board to defend a capital case. She says the lawyer appointed to represent Gillis would most likely have to work for free.

"I don't want the case," said Fournet. "A case of this magnitude can completely devastate a private attorney's practice. I'm sure it would completely devastate mine."

Fournet says defending Gillis would be worse because of recent decisions in the Lee case not to provide additional funding to the defense. "The stage seems to be set in Baton Rouge at this point for the notion that it is not necessary to fund these cases properly," said Fournet.

Of the twelve lawyers listed as certified to take a capital murder case in Baton Rouge, only five would be able to accept the case. Six of them say they can't take Gillis as a client either because of conflict or workload. And one of the lawyers on that list, which was last updated April 15th, recently passed away. Judge Marabella will hear the motion at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Officials in the District Attorney's Office say they will not fight the motion.

Jolie Rouge
05-10-2004, 09:14 PM
[b]Gillis claims one victim was good friend

By BRETT TROXLER 2theadvocate.com staff
From a report by WBRZ's Ken Pastorick & Veronica Mosgrove


Family members of murder victim Johnnie Mae Williams spoke out Thursday in reaction to comments made by suspected serial killer Sean Vincent Gillis through his girlfriend Terri Lemoine.

www.2theadvocate.com/stories/050604/ser_gillisfriend001.shtml

According to his girlfriend, Terri Lemoine, accused serial killer Sean Vincent Gillis claims that one of his victim, Johnnie Mae Williams, was a good friend to him. Williams, who was killed last October, is one of five murder victims connected to Gillis, according to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office.

Lemoine said Gillis called her from jail Wednesday evening and apologized. She said he talked about his eight-year good friendship with Williams.
Lemoine said Gillis told her, "Johnnie Mae was as good a friend as I could want. I don't understand why I would kill her."

James Patterson, who is Williams' uncle, said Thursday he is angry at the comments Gillis made to Lemoine the day before. "Either she saw some evidence in that van or he himself revealed something, or somebody told her something, and when he found this out he had to silence her," Patterson said. "That is my gut feeling."

As reported Wednesday evening on WBRZ, post mortem pictures of some of Sean Gillis' alleged victims were found on the suspected serial killer's computer by investigators, according to sources familiar with the investigation. The Attorney General's crime division took the computers form Gillis' home last week. Sources close to Gillis said three pictures of victims were taken from his home with a digital camera he owned.

Also reacting to the latest Gillis comments was Octavia Jackson, aunt to the deceased Williams. Jackson said her niece brought Gillis to Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago. From her home in Mississippi, Jackson described Gillis as strange, and said that "He looked like he was on drugs."

"I think he's sorry he got caught," Jackson said. "I think in another couple of days he would have gone out and found another target of opportunity."

Lemoine also said her boyfriend told her, "If I could end it all now, I would. I don't want to go through a trial, I want to die."

Jackson responded by saying, "Killing him is too good. God didn't put us on earth to kill each other. What I would like to know from him, if I had a chance to talk to him, why did you do it?" Patterson said. "At least if nothing else it will satisfy my observation of what happened."

Lemoine also said Gillis told her, "I am so sorry I've put those families through what I did."




As reported on May 6 on WBRZ's 6 p.m. telecast. If you have information or comments related to this story, e-mail them to news@wbrz.com.

Jolie Rouge
05-14-2004, 11:04 PM
Pictures of Murder Victims Found on Sean Vincent Gillis' Computer

Sources close to the investigation of accused serial killer Sean Vincent Gillis say technicians have found some rather disturbing images on Gillis' computer

www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=1846081


The question is are they photos of the victims released to the media, or crime scene photos ....

Just found on another site that Gillis has post mortum photos of Hall, Williams and Johnston on his computer. They know he had a digital camera according to Veronica Musgrove at WBRZ but she didn't say whether or not LE has that camera. She also said that LE has learned that Gillis frequented a website about mutilations etc.


http://www.2theadvocate.com/scripts...ein.htm#LEMOINE


News Two has learned that investigators have found on Sean Gillis' computer post mortem pictures of one of the alleged victims. That means the pictures were taken after the victim was dead.

Last week, the Attorney General's crime division confiscated a computer from Gillis' home. Sources close to Gillis say he owned a digital camera.

Sources close to Gillis also say police confiscated three pictures of victims from Gillis' home. Sources close to Gillis say the post-mortem pictures were of these three women. who authorities say Gillis has confessed to murdering.

Jolie Rouge
05-14-2004, 11:22 PM
Ann Bryan
http://www.2theadvocate.com/sk/images/100bryan.jpg
Baton Rouge resident
Found dead March 1994
Linked to Gillis by confession

Katherine Hall
http://www.2theadvocate.com/sk/images/100hall.jpg
Baton Rouge resident
Found dead January 1999
Linked to Gillis by DNA

Hardee Moseley Schmidt
http://www.2theadvocate.com/sk/images/100schmidt.jpg
Baton Rouge resident
Found dead May 1999
Linked to Gillis by confession

Joyce Williams
http://www.2theadvocate.com/sk/images/100joyce_williams.jpg
Baton Rouge resident
Found dead Jan. 22, 2000
Linked to Gillis by confession

Lilian Robinson
http://www.2theadvocate.com/sk/images/100robinson.jpg
Found dead Feb. 10, 2000
Linked to Gillis by confession

Marilyn J. Nevils
http://www.2theadvocate.com/sk/images/100nevils.jpg
Found dead November 2000
Linked to Gillis by confession

Johnnie Mae Williams
http://www.2theadvocate.com/sk/images/100williams.jpg
Baton Rouge resident
Found dead October 2003
Linked to Gillis by DNA


Donna Bennett Johnston
http://www.2theadvocate.com/sk/images/100johnson.jpg
Baton Rouge resident
Found dead Feb. 27, 2004
Linked to Gillis by DNA

Jolie Rouge
05-16-2004, 08:46 PM
Police, experts doubt that Gillis killed only eight

www.2theadvocate.com/stories/051604/new_gilliseight001.shtml

By JOSH NOEL Advocate staff writer

If Sean Gillis can be believed, he killed for the first time at the age of 31. Not many people believe him, however. "I'd bet my medical license he killed before the age of 31," said Helen Morrison, a Chicago psychiatrist who has studied and interviewed dozens of serial killers.

"I'd assume his first killing was before that -- in adolescence," she said. "Most serial murderers begin earlier and increase in their late 20s or early 30s."

By all accounts, Gillis has been cooperative since his April 29 arrest, admitting to not only the three killings Sheriff's officials say DNA ties him to, but five others, including two that seemed unrelated and might never have been solved if not for his confession. But sources close to the investigation and Gillis' girlfriend have said Gillis steadfastly insists he killed eight women -- no more, no less.

According to his timeline, he killed for the first time in 1994 then stopped for five years. He says he killed five more women in 1999 and 2000 then stopped again, for three years. Finally, Gillis has said, he killed twice more, in October 2003 and February 2004.

Both the on-again, off-again pattern of the killings and his supposed late start are suspicious to both experts and law enforcement officials. "We can't go by what he tells us," said Sgt. Ike Vavasseur, commander of the Baton Rouge Police Department's Homicide Division. "We go by what we can prove."

Widening parameters

Gillis, 41, was initially thought to be killing only women with "high-risk lifestyles" -- those addicted to drugs and who had worked as prostitutes. The task force that arrested Gillis was created after the killings of three women who lived such lifestyles -- Katherine Hall in 1999, Johnnie Mae Williams in 2003 and Donna Bennett Johnston in 2004. Authorities have said DNA evidence connects him to the killings.

However, Gillis' subsequent confessions have changed the initial perception.
In addition to confessing to killing Lillian Robinson, Joyce Williams, and Marilyn Nevils -- women whose lives could be considered high-risk -- authorities have said Gillis confessed to killing 82-year-old Ann Bryan in her retirement community apartment and Hardee Schmidt, a 52-year-old married mother of three who lived in a subdivision.

"The Schmidt and Bryan cases make you widen your parameters some," said East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Lt. Col. Greg Phares.

The warrant for Gillis' arrest in the Schmidt case accuses him of abducting her on May 30, 1999, while she jogged in Pollard Estates. He drove into her with his car to subdue her, strangled her, sexually assaulted and beat her, the warrant says. He dumped her body the next day in a St. James Parish bayou.

Based on Gillis' claims to have killed Schmidt, the door suddenly is opened to the killings of Melissa Montz, Christine Moore and Eugenie Boisfontaine -- three cases Police Chief Pat Englade said detectives are reviewing.

Montz and Moore, both LSU graduate students, were abducted while jogging near campus and found weeks later dumped in south Baton Rouge. Montz was killed in 1985, when Gillis was 23 years old (and apparently living in Baton Rouge according to city records), and Moore in 2002.

Boisfontaine, 34, disappeared in mid-June 1997. Though it is unknown if she was abducted from her home or in public, a jogger found her driver's license and credit cards on a jogging path near the LSU lakes, where she often walked and jogged. Her body was found that August in Bayou Manchac in Iberville Parish. Like Schmidt, she had blond, shoulder-length hair and was athletic. Also like Schmidt, her body was found in water.

The Police Department had two detectives assigned to the task force that arrested Gillis, but all the department's 12 homicide detectives -- among whom the cold cases are spread -- are looking into his background, Vavasseur said. They also are reviewing evidence to look for a match to Gillis, particularly by DNA. "I don't think anyone is willing to accept (that Gillis stopped at eight), and I don't think the public wants us to," Vavasseur said. "The whole homicide division is considering him."

Vavasseur said he is particularly skeptical about Gillis committing his first killing when he was 31 years old. "You don't just wake up one day and begin killing," he said. "Even if that wasn't my opinion, it would be our obligation to re-examine these unsolved crimes."

Detectives also are paying close attention to the unsolved killings of several other women who lived high-risk lifestyles. About six such women were killed in the Midcity area east of downtown in 1999 and 2000 -- a time Gillis has already admitted that he killed. Police formed a task force in 2000 to determine whether a serial killer was responsible for the deaths, but disbanded without reaching a conclusion.

Though Gillis hasn't claimed responsibility for those killings, "he's made admissions he's driven through those parts of town," Englade said. DNA evidence from those cases is being re-examined in the State Police Crime Lab for potential matches to Gillis, he said. Also, FBI behavioral scientists are comparing details of the killings to those Gillis has already confessed to.

But detectives are staying open-minded about other cases, too. Much as they did for another serial killer suspect from the Baton Rouge area, 35-year-old Derrick Todd Lee, detectives are assembling a timeline of Gillis' life, Englade said. Because Gillis apparently has lived in Baton Rouge for most of his life and spent relatively little time in prison, the possibilities are wide, he said.

"He's stood pretty firm on (eight)," Englade said. "We suspect there are more, but until there is evidence, this is where we are."

Addiction

Mac McIlwaine, a former FBI profiler who lives in Flagstaff, Ariz., said the gaps between killings in Gillis' confessions give him the most pause. "The bunch-ups are strange, but other things may have precluded him from going on the hunt," McIlwaine said. "But it also sounds like this guy was pretty smart and able to cover his tracks."

Morrison, the Chicago psychiatrist, said she is less suspicious of the gaps. She called serial killing an addiction, and said that once the need is satiated, the behavior can stop for years, especially after the first kill. "They feel better but they can't exactly tell you what that means," she said. "It's not until they get the need again that they start doing it on a typical basis."

She said there are two reasons Gillis might not admit to more killings if he has committed more: Either he's not being truthful or he doesn't remember them all. Morrison said serial killers have used confession as an opportunity to get out of their jail cells and possibly get outside, directing detectives to homicide scenes.

The interrogation can be "a big power thing" for an accused serial killer, she said. Killers only like to reveal information at their own pace, and will often clam up if leaned on too heavily, she said.

Morrison also said that serial killers form memory differently than most people, which could cause certain killings to become obscured. Either way, investigators face a challenge, she said. "Unless they're capable of getting some great DNA, they won't get all the ones he's done," she said.

One person who believes that Gillis stopped at eight is his girlfriend of eight years, Terri Lemoine. The day after his arrest, Lemoine said Gillis told her on the phone that he had killed eight women. In another phone call a week later, she asked him whether there were any more. He said there were not. "Why would he lie at this point?" Lemoine asked.

Jolie Rouge
05-16-2004, 09:00 PM
The Advocate (Baton Rouge, La.) archived excerpts

March 11, 1987

Clues on missing, murdered women sought outside BR
Detectives hoping to find similar cases in other cities in South Louisiana


Frustrated by a lack of leads, Baton Rouge law enforcement officers are looking to other cities for new clues in the cases of at least seven women who either mysteriously vanished or were murdered in the past several years.

By sharing information with law agencies in other cities, detectives are hoping to find similarities or differences in their respective cases. Police want to know whether other South Louisiana cities have cases that are similar, according to Detective Ike Stubbs, in charge of missing persons for the city police detective office.

"What we need to do is get the various departments in the area together to discuss unsolved homicides, concentrating on females and also females who are missing," Stubbs said. "Over the past several years, there have been a number of unsolved homicides involving females, and this is an organized effort to focus on those homicides."

Some of those cases -- about 30 percent, Stubbs said -- are similar in that there are no suspects. "Many of those cases," he added, "have different suspects and are obviously not related."

Stubbs said even solved cases will be studied again in the hope that they could provide a lead in some of the unsolved cases.

Some of the Baton Rouge cases which will be re-examined include the disappearance of 18-year-old Eleanor Parker, who mysteriously vanished Nov. 10, 1981, after dropping by her parents' Southdowns home. Her car was found a week later parked not far from the downtown Maison Blanche/Goudchaux store, where she worked. Extensive searches for the young woman turned up nothing.

The body of 27-year-old LSU graduate student Melissa Montz was found in October 1985 near the LSU golf course two weeks after she was
reported missing after an early morning jog. She had been strangled. No suspects have been located in the case.

On Oct. 13, 1986, 24-year-old Laurie Samson was found strangled in her Tigerland apartment. Few clues have turned up and no suspects have been located, police said.

In an East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff's office case, the body of 25-year-old Teresa Moore was found July 5, 1985, after she was abducted from a Hooper Road convenience store. Her throat had been cut, and an autopsy revealed that she died from a loss of blood. The case has baffled detectives.

In the most recent case, the sheriff's office is actively investigating the disappearance of Mary Keller Thornton, a 38-year-old woman who has not been seen since a man stopped to help her at 2 a.m. Feb. 5 when her car ran out of gas on Jefferson Highway.

Authorities have released a drawing of the man, but no traces of the woman or the man who stopped to help her have been found. The woman told convenience store clerks that the man was acting strangely, but that she guessed it would be OK to ride with him back to her car with $2 worth of gas.

Thornton has not been located, and Litchfield said Tuesday that deputies don't know what happened to the woman.

Two other cases -- in which police found decomposed bodies of unidentified females -- also will be reviewed.

Sheriff Elmer Litchfield said his office will be glad to meet with city police and other agencies in the investigations into murdered and missing women. While the sheriff said he hasn't noticed similarities in the cases his detectives are investigating, the cases could be similar to cases being investigated by other agencies. "The more input you can have, especially from out of town, the better off you are," Litchfield said.

Stubbs said he hopes several law enforcement agencies will be able to
meet soon to compare notes. "The purpose of the meeting is to exchange information to draw any parallels or similarities in the cases and to share any leads that might separate the cases or bring them together," he said. "At this
point, no one case is being tied to any other case."

"Any homicide that's solved that could be a parallel to other homicides will be looked at," he said. "We may in fact be wasting our time," Stubbs said, but he added that detectives are trying to find "anything that would establish a
pattern."

Investigators will look at the method of the murder, a description of the victims, the time of day when the murder occurred and the location of the crime in relation to the victims' homes and workplaces, he said. "It's not going to be something that's done overnight or at one meeting," he said. "We're laying the groundwork."

Each city police detective with unsolved cases involving women will contribute information to the project, and Stubbs said he hopes other departments will do the same. "Several detectives in the office were discussing it and they feel there is a need to coordinate the efforts of each individual officer and each agency," he said. "We're trying to organize to develop new leads," he said. "We don't want to put them on the back burner and forget about them."
[
Police have no reason to think there is a serial killer or any other sensational angle to the cases, but are simply trying to determine whether any of the disappearances or murders might be connected, the detective said. "At this point we don't know, but we can't rule anything out," Stubbs said.

the fugative
05-18-2004, 08:59 PM
:eek:


You be careful

Jolie Rouge
05-20-2004, 08:50 PM
Gillis warrants details told

Documents allow police to seize cutting tools, books on serial killings, photos of victim of serial killer and more

www.2theadvocate.com/stories/052004/new_gillis001.shtml

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.

Jolie Rouge
10-13-2004, 08:49 PM
SVG sent letters to Tammy Purpera....very disturbing letters....he apologizes to 8 women...

www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=2421873


....Gillis then goes into great detail about the murder of Donna Bennett Johnston. About how he used a nylon tie wrap to strangle her, quote "She was so drunk it only took about a minute and a half to succumb to unconsciousness and then death. Honestly, her last words were I can't breathe."

"I still puzzle over the post mortem dismemberment and cutting. There must be something deep in my subconscious that really needs that kind of macabre action."

Gillis then writes Tammie that it was in the area of Geranimo and Prescott Streets, where he found Johnston. He writes, "We did not talk much. Just about price and for what; you know... There were no advances, sex was not my intent... I was pure evil that night."......

Jolie Rouge
10-13-2004, 09:02 PM
autopsy reports released to media......


www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=2421873


.....The court filings include the autopsy reports for three of Gillis' alleged victims. The report for Donna Bennett Johnston says the killer strangled her. It also states Johnston's killer mutilated her chest after her death, as well as a tattoo on her right thigh. It goes on to say her killer amputated her left arm at the elbow.

The filing says experts found DNA matching Gillis under a fingernail. The autopsy report for Katherine Ann Hall says the killer cut her jugular vein and stabbed her 16 times while she was alive. The report then says the killer cut her body another 21 times after she died. Court filings say experts found dna matching Gillis in a hair lodged between her teeth.

The autopsy report for Johnnie Mae Williams says she died from blunt force trauma: that the killer beat her to death. The report goes on to say there were multiple sharp force post-mortem injuries below the waist and the killer amputated both hands. Filings say experts found DNA matching Gillis in a hair recovered from one of her wounds..........

Jolie Rouge
10-13-2004, 09:06 PM
Read his letters...........

http://files.wafb.com/gillis_letters.pdf

Jolie Rouge
03-16-2005, 11:39 AM
Mental health officials subpoenaed
Judge denies seal on Gillis action; trial set Oct. 11
By ADRIAN ANGELETTE -- Advocate staff writer

Mental-health officials and the principal of a Baton Rouge high school will receive subpoenas to testify in the case of serial-killer suspect Sean Vincent Gillis. Defense attorney Kerry Cuccia filed the motion Monday seeking to have the subpoenas issued. Cuccia did not specify if the people he wants are being called to testify during Gillis' first-degree murder trial or at pretrial hearings. Cuccia also requested that the motion, which included the subpoena list, be sealed, meaning the documents would be closed to the public.

State District Judge Bonnie Jackson denied that request.

Subpoenaed are:

John C. Fabre, principal at Redemptorist High School. Gillis graduated from Redemptorist in 1980.

Don Shaw, director of medical records for Baton Rouge General Hospital, Behavioral Health Services of Baton Rouge General.

Jennifer Hardin, director of health information for Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center.

Darlene Davis, medical records supervisor for Southeast Louisiana State Hospital in Mandeville.

The custodian of records for the East Feliciana State Mental Health System, East Division in Jackson.

Cuccia said Monday he could not comment on the motion. He also said he could not confirm or deny whether he is preparing an insanity defense for Gillis. "The motion speaks for itself," he said.

Gillis is scheduled to go on trial Oct. 11 in the February 2004 strangulation of 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston.

Prosecutor Prem Burns has said she is seeking the death penalty.

Burns declined comment on the motion Monday.

Johnston's body was found Feb. 27, 2004, by people looking for a lost dog on Ben Hur Road.

Gillis also has been booked in the deaths of four other Baton Rouge women and another from Acadiana.

Gillis has confessed to killing all six women and has told authorities he's killed two others. The other two deaths remain under investigation.

In addition to Johnston, Gillis has been booked in the deaths of Johnnie Mae Williams, 45; Katherine Hall, 30; Hardee Moseley Schmidt, 52; Ann Bryan, 82; and Marilyn J. Nevils, 38, of Abbeville.

The two killings that remain under investigation involve the deaths of Lillian Robinson, 52, and Joyce Williams, 35, both of Baton Rouge.

Gillis' next scheduled court date is May 19 to handle any remaining pretrial motions.

Jackson has said she will know after the May 19 hearing whether the Oct. 11 trial date is feasible.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/031505/new_health001.shtml

Jolie Rouge
11-03-2010, 08:12 PM
this case continues to evolve ... SVG has confessed to further crimes ...

Jolie Rouge
07-07-2011, 07:59 PM
Gruesome book on Sean Vincent Gillis to be released this week
July 07, 2011 8:31 PM CDT

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - A new book released nationwide this week about notorious serial killer Sean Vincent Gillis is so graphic, it actually comes with a warning label on the back cover. It's called "Dismembered," and one of the authors says that one word sums up Gillis' crimes.

Susan Mustafa spent two years researching Gillis, who was convicted of the 2004 murder of Donna Bennett Johnson. Police back then would soon learn Johnson wasn't his only victim.

"It's a psychological look at a serial killer, much of it told in his own words," said Mustafa.

Gillis preyed on women in high-risk lifestyles. A jury never heard the confession tapes because he confessed to other murders on the tapes after he asked for an attorney, but was denied.

"For him, it wasn't about killing them," said Mustafa. "It was about what he did after he killed them and it's so gruesome at times that my publisher put a warning label on the book. His acts are so horrific, I compared him to Jeffery Dahmer."

She also interviewed Gillis' live-in girlfriend of 10 years, Terri Lemoine, to get a feel for that relationship.

"The psychological aspect of Sean Vincent Gillis is fascinating," Mustafa added. "How a human being could go through life doing the things he did, and then live a double life with his girlfriend."

She says the book is a complete account of what Gillis says happened, but wasn't reported.

"There was a lot in his confession that never made it into the media," said Mustafa. "The book title is "Dismembered" and I feel like that's a gruesome title for a book, but it's one word that aptly describes what Sean Gillis did to his victims."

The book is co-authored by Sue Israel and published by Kensington.

http://www.wafb.com/story/15045009/gruesome-book-on-sean-vincent-gillis-to-be-released-this-week

Jolie Rouge
08-22-2014, 05:42 AM
For some reason the thread regarding DTL has vanished ??



Derrick Todd Lee’s case to go to state Supreme court
Joe Gyan jr.| August 21, 2014

Ann Pace was delighted to hear Wednesday that a Baton Rouge state judge rejected condemned serial killer Derrick Todd Lee’s request for a new trial in the 2002 slaying of her daughter, Charlotte Murray Pace, but knows years more of appeals remain.



Lee’s case now goes to the Louisiana Supreme Court, and if the justices also reject his arguments, the case would move to the lengthy federal post-conviction relief stage.

“We are only part way through a series of appeals. In a forensically supported case, that seems almost madness,” Pace said, referring to the fact that DNA linked Lee to the murder of her 22-year-old daughter.

At the penalty phase of Lee’s 2004 first-degree murder trial in the killing of Pace, prosecutors introduced evidence of four other murders that he allegedly committed: Pam Kinamore, Gina Wilson Green and Carrie Lynn Yoder, all of Baton Rouge, and Trineisha Dene’ Colomb, of Lafayette.

Kinamore, 44, disappeared July 12, 2002, from her home in Briarwood. Her body was found four days later under Interstate 10 near Whiskey Bay.



“It’s been over 12 years and I hope to see justice done as soon as possible,” Kinamore’s 78-year-old mother, Lynne Marino, said Wednesday.

East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III said his office continues to seek justice for the families of the murder victims and for a Breaux Bridge woman who survived an attack by Lee.

“In October it will be 10 years since Derrick Todd Lee was convicted for first-degree murder,” he said. “We have fought to have the sentence pronounced by the jury carried out and will continue to do so. We are glad that we are one step closer to giving the families the only closure we can offer.”

The federal post-conviction relief stage can take years, noted New Orleans lawyer Nick Trenticosta, who is handling the federal post-conviction appeal of condemned killer Kevan Brumfield in the 1993 ambush slaying of Baton Rouge police Cpl. Betty Smothers.

Brumfield was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995, and his federal post-conviction relief petition is only now before the U.S. Supreme Court, Trenticosta pointed out. He noted that he was appointed for the federal post-conviction work in Brumfield’s case a week before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.



If the Louisiana Supreme Court turns Lee down, his federal appeal would begin at U.S. District Court in Baton Rouge, then move to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, and ultimately to the nation’s highest court, he said.

The state Supreme Court affirmed Lee’s first-degree murder conviction and death sentence in 2008.

State District Judge Richard Anderson on Tuesday denied Lee’s state court petition for post-conviction relief. He rejected, among other things, Lee’s claims of ineffective assistance of counsel at the guilt and penalty phases of his trial in Baton Rouge.

Lee, 45, of St. Francisville, was found guilty and sentenced to die in the May 31, 2002, killing of Pace — a former LSU graduate student — in her Sharlo Avenue home. Authorities testified she had been raped, bludgeoned and stabbed more than 80 times. DNA lifted from semen found on her leg matched Lee’s profile.

In the post-conviction relief stage, defense attorneys typically seek to raise broad, constitutional issues to demonstrate that the trial was unfair. The constitutional issues often deal with alleged improper actions of attorneys or flawed decisions by judges.



Gary Clements, director of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana, contended in Lee’s petition for post-conviction relief that Lee was incompetent when he was put on trial, and he also alleged Lee is mentally ill and brain-damaged and cannot be executed.

“The jury obviously rejected the testimony of the defense witnesses that the petitioner was mentally retarded …” Anderson wrote in his ruling.

He said nothing in the court record supports the contention that Lee was not competent to stand trial.

“He was able to communicate with his attorneys and with the Court during all proceedings,” the judge noted.

Clements could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Anderson also rejected Lee’s complaint that a juror brought a Bible into the jury deliberation room and consulted it prior to voting for a death sentence. Clements, in Lee’s petition, accused the juror of “trying to impose her religious beliefs on the other jurors.”

“The petitioner cannot demonstrate that he was prejudiced by the juror’s reading or quoting from the Bible,” the judge stated.

Lee also was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in the January 2002 killing of Geralyn Barr DeSoto, 21, of Addis.

He is suspected of killing seven south Louisiana women between 1998 and 2003.

At the penalty phase of Lee’s trial in the slaying of Pace, prosecutors also offered evidence that accused Lee of attempting to rape and kill Diane Alexander, of Breaux Bridge. She testified against Lee at the DeSoto and Pace trials.

Clements argued in Lee’s petition that Lee’s court-appointed trial attorneys were “forced to defend against this onslaught of evidence with insufficient funding and time to mount a complete defense.”

Authorities also believe Lee is responsible for the death of Randi Mebruer, of Zachary.

http://theadvocate.com/sports/lsu/10044979-123/convicted-killer-derrick-todd-lee

killed in 2002; convicted and sentenced in 2004; it is now 2014 AND HE HASN'T STARTED HIS FEDERAL APPEALS YET? shows we (the citizens of la. and the U.S.) MUST restructure our broken "justice/legal" system. it is inexcusable for "justice" to have failed the victim(s) and their families (as well as the citizens) for so long. just because Charlotte Murray Pace is dead and Todd Lee is still alive shouldn't give extra weight to Lee's time on this earth. if this was the only case where justice and the victims had been abused, it would be corrected and hopefully never happen again. it's not. this is just one of many in La. and countless more in the U.S., it is now the "norm". prima facie evidence the system is broken.

there may be some people on death row that have been convicted incorrectly, but the number is miniscule. the vast majority of those freed are freed on a technicality, not because they did not commit the crime of which they were accused. nothing is perfect on earth, mistakes will be made. to compound your errors which create further errors is unforgivable. when you hear about murderers, cold blooded murderers getting out and committing their second, third or more murders, whose to blame for it? when you have a murderer in prison for life w/o parole kill again, and be given another life sentence, who the hell do you think is being punished?

the only people who like our current system is criminals and lawyers (here I throw in judges as lawyers, cause that's what they are). we, the people, had better pull our collective heads out of our backsides and fix this problem. or sooner or later it will affect you!

Jolie Rouge
05-02-2015, 04:20 PM
Cases of 10 women killed in Baton Rouge from 1996 to 2003 have similarities
Daniel Bethencourt | Advocate staff writer
May 02, 2015

Diana Williams’ family suspected she worked the Baton Rouge streets as a prostitute in the late 1990s.

That’s not how they remember her now, focusing instead on the outgoing woman who cooked for her mother or recalling her skills at the pool table. In early 2000, however, the 35-year-old Williams was in a dark place. She had begun using crack cocaine, would disappear for days at a time and was drinking more.

The last time she disappeared, her family waited three days before reporting it to police. They weren’t sure whether she was missing or living elsewhere while working the streets. But she didn’t come back. On April 13, 2000, a person strolling on a footpath at the edge of North Street Park spotted Williams’ nude body. She had been beaten and strangled, her body left in a posed position.

Williams is one of 10 women killed between 1996 and 2002 whose deaths have stumped investigators for well over a decade. The cases have similarities: Each woman was beaten or strangled, or both. They were found partially or completely nude a day or more after they were killed. Five of the 10 bodies were found within a mile of North Street Park.

All but one were known prostitutes, and at least seven of the bodies were “posed” in a particular way, though police won’t describe how. “We feel really confident that the vast majority of those were committed by the same person or the same persons,” said Baton Rouge police Detective John Dauthier, a member of a cold-case homicide team that has been taking a fresh look at the deaths.

The deaths have come under scrutiny before. In the late 1990s through the early 2000s, the bodies of nearly 20 other women were found across the capital city. The women fell roughly into two groups: those from stable middle- or upper-class homes and those living what police called “high-risk lifestyles.”

By 2004, two men had been arrested, each accused of being a serial killer: Derrick Todd Lee in 2003, and Sean Vincent Gillis in 2004. Gillis is thought to have killed eight women, while Lee was connected to seven women, including many of the victims who dominated headlines during that time period. In 2009, Baton Rouge police arrested a third suspected serial killer, saying they had evidence linking Jeffery Lee Guillory to the murders of three women from 1999 to 2002.

All were convicted of murder and are in prison, with Lee on death row.

While the three slayings blamed on Guillory occurred in the same general area as several of the unsolved cases, authorities could not tie him to any of those killings. Likewise, investigators say no solid evidence connects Lee or Gillis to any of them. And even now, after two years of a fresh look by cold-case detectives, the outlook on solving the 10 murders remains grim. Leads have dried up, and DNA is not likely to be the miracle evidence that it turned out to be in so many of the other killings.

“It can be frustrating,” Dauthier said. “When you have this many cases … (and) we have all this information from all these different crime scenes, yet we’re unable to link them together or to anyone else — it’s frustrating.”

The victims

Patricia Carter, 25, was the first of the 10 victims. Severely beaten, she died soon after being found in a parking lot on Winnebago Street in April 1996.

Later that same year, in July, 36-year-old Terry Jackson’s nude body was found in a vacant lot about six blocks from BREC’s North Street Park. She had been strangled.

About 1½ years later, in February 1998, 47-year-old Claretha Thomas was beaten to death in her kitchen.

Another year and a half had passed when Shirley Mikell, 33, was found in October 1999 just yards from the south end of North Street Park, behind a Florida Boulevard restaurant. She died from blunt-force injuries to her head.

About five months later, on April 13, 2000, Diana Williams’ body was found near the park.

The body of Tannis Walker, 36, was found four days later in the same general area. She also had been strangled. Williams and Walker had been high school classmates.

The next month, Patricia Hawkins, 39, was found in a patch of bushes behind an empty business on Plank Road, just feet from Interstate 110.

Eleven days later, on June 8, Veronica Delcourt-Courtney, 44, was found strangled behind an apartment complex on Monet Drive.

About two years later, Frances Baldwin was found dead in her Progress Street home in August 2002. Baldwin, 47, was not a prostitute, but police include her case for its other similarities — she was nude, posed and had been beaten as well as strangled.

Later that year, in December, Tawanna Hayes, 29, was found naked, choked to death and lying out in the open on North 14th Street.

Of the 10 victims, only Williams’ family could be found to talk about the killings. Her family members are devastated by the lack of progress in the case. Some worry that Williams’ lifestyle might be the reason that police haven’t solved it. They suspect that, especially in the early stages of the investigation, detectives didn’t work the case hard enough.

“I still have so much anger,” said Williams’ daughter, 25-year-old Gabrielle Williams. “I think everybody did it. I just want to be able to sit there and have that trial. I deserve that as a person. Prove to me that you care. That she wasn’t just a drug addict, that she was a human being.”

But Greg Phares, who was police chief at the time some of the bodies were found, says his officers did pursue the cases and were frustrated by their lack of success in solving them.

“You can ask any homicide detective, and they’ll tell you they are passionate about speaking for those who can no longer speak for themselves,” Phares said. “It doesn’t matter whether the victim is in the Junior League or what their lifestyle was, they’re human beings and it’s your duty to speak for them and solve the crime.”

The Baton Rouge Police Department created a task force in June 2000 that focused on women killed near the North Street Park.

“When you looked at the geographical closeness of the crimes and the closeness of the timeline, it will suggest to even an old cop like me that it could be one person operating,” Phares said.

Phares said he put his best detective on the task force along with other officers. But, ultimately, they were unable to link all of the killings and made no breakthroughs in any of the cases.

Now the investigation has fallen to Dauthier and his fellow cold-case team members.

Jolie Rouge
05-02-2015, 06:51 PM
DNA challenges

One might think that with so many similar deaths, police could find a way to at least establish they are linked.

But investigators point out that hurdles stand in the way, not the least of which is DNA.

Not a single piece of DNA evidence collected from each scene confirms that any two of the cases are related. “A lot of work has been done on those cases,” said Joanie Brocato, head of the State Police Crime Lab.

The lab still checks a national database weekly to see if any DNA matches can be made to newly entered evidence, which could point investigators to a suspect. Despite the ongoing effort, Brocato said, no proof has been found that a single killer is responsible for more than one of the killings. “We just haven’t been able to show that with physical evidence,” she said.

That doesn’t mean that a critical piece of DNA evidence never existed on any of the bodies. It’s just that DNA collection can be hit or miss.

The technology was fairly new to the parish in the early 2000s, and the accepted processes for collecting it were not nearly as exacting as they are today, said Ike Vavasseur, a former Baton Rouge police homicide detective who investigated some of the deaths.

Investigators say the lack of results isn’t for lack of trying — the killings happened about the same time as most of the other deaths that were ultimately linked to one of the three convicted killers — Lee, Gillis and Guillory. In the early 2000s, police didn’t know which deaths were related and which ones weren’t. “We were working all of them together,” Brocato said. “Now we’re left with these. There’s no repeating pattern like those produced.”

‘High-risk’ lifestyles

The 10 targeted cases have proved challenging for another reason, investigators say — almost all the victims led “high-risk” lifestyles as prostitutes.

While police emphasize they don’t want to blame the victims for living the way they did, they also note that prostitute killings are among the most difficult to solve.

Prostitutes are likely to be estranged from their families, which means fewer people know of their movements, Dauthier said. The only others who are likely to have seen them, besides clients, are fellow prostitutes.

And perhaps most challenging is that prostitutes regularly encounter strangers in private spaces with few or no witnesses. Any evidence found on the body could lead to the killer — or to a client, Dauthier said.

That is what happened recently. When State Police retested all of the evidence in the 10 cases, investigators developed a potential suspect. But in an interview with police, that man said he had been the woman’s client. Police had no evidence that could prove otherwise, and he was let go, Dauthier said.

In some high-profile cases elsewhere, serial killers claim to have purposely targeted prostitutes because their deaths would be hard to investigate. As Gary Ridgway, a Seattle-area serial killer, said in court: “I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.” Ridgway pleaded guilty to strangling 49 women, mostly prostitutes and runaways.

Frustrated family[

Diana Williams’ family members feel her lifestyle affected how police handled the investigation.

Two of Williams’ sisters, Ora and Sheila Williams, note that when they went to the crime scene after their sister’s body had been taken away, they saw an undergarment that belonged to Diana lying just feet from the crime-scene tape. Ora Williams said she picked it up with a stick, placed it in a plastic zip-close bag and gave it to a detective that day. “They weren’t hidden,” Sheila Williams said. “They were in clear view.”

Ricky Cochran, a retired Baton Rouge police crime-scene investigator who collected evidence in Williams’ slaying, disagreed with the notion that police didn’t try. “We worked hard on these,” Cochran said. “It didn’t matter who the person was. We did our best.”

As for the underwear, Cochran said police were searching through a heavily wooded area at night, and it’s possible to overlook things. “How we missed it, I don’t know,” he said.

Vavasseur, the former homicide detective, acknowledged that living without answers can be emotionally taxing. “It’s absolutely horrible for a family to live in that anguish,” he said. “They don’t want answers six years from now. They want answers now. And to speak to them today, this many years later and then not have an answer, I certainly can’t deny them feeling that way.”

Sheila Williams said she has her own ways of remembering her sister. She still wears a necklace with her sister’s name on it and releases balloons every year on Oct. 11, her sister’s birthday. “I can’t say that I’ve given up hope,” Sheila Williams said. “I hold onto hope that one day we’ll get a chance to see who took her.”

http://theadvocate.com/news/10451581-123/decades-old-unsolved-deaths-haunt-investigators

Jolie Rouge
05-18-2015, 03:58 PM
Lynne Marino loses battle with cancer
Posted: May 18, 2015 4:38 PM CDT

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) -
When convicted murderer Derrick Todd Lee was hauled off to Louisiana's Angola state prison in 2004, there was one voice heard above all others. "You coward," she said. "Hey, Lee. Who's laughing now, you coward?" The voice was that of Lynne Marino, mother of serial killer victim Pam Kinamore.

Marino, who often said she wanted to live long enough to see the "monster" die, has passed away after a battle with cancer. She was 78. Lee remains on death row while his case is under appeal. Marino was a frequent and outspoken critic of the amount of time it takes for a death penalty case to make its way through the judicial system.

Marino's daughter, Pam Kinamore, was one of seven woman police believe were murdered by Lee. The accused serial killer has only been tried in two of the killings and was found guilty of both.

Kinamore disappeared in July of 2002. Her body was found four days after her disappearance near the Atchafalaya River at the Whiskey Bay exit of Interstate 10. When Lee was arrested two years later, Marino became a rock for other families suffering from the pain and torture he unleashed.

Lee was convicted in deaths of Geralyn Desoto and Charlotte Murray Pace. Pace's mother, Ann, became very good friends with Marino over the years. In an interview from her home in Mississippi Monday, Ann Pace recalled the rallies Marino would lead and the tremendous support she gave. "She was the energy, the activity that drove all of our efforts," Pace said.

Marino followed the appeals process through court with a passion and was critical of the length of time the process was taking. "It's ridiculous to have all these post-conviction appeals", she once said.

In 2007, on the fifth anniversary of her daughter's disappearance, Marino echoed what she had public said many times. "I will not rest until he's dead," she said. "She often said that she wanted her face to be the last one he saw," Pace recalled.

Angola Warden Burl Cain also became friends with Marino over the years. She even toured Angola to see where Lee is housed. "You always knew how she felt and you always knew where she stood regarding her daughter's murder and Derrick Todd Lee," Cain said Monday. "I am sure her desire to see justice completed before she died was her desire because she told me so."

Marino will be laid to rest in Metairie on Friday. She would have turned 79 this Saturday.

http://www.wafb.com/story/29095494/lynne-marino-loses-battle-with-cancer