:eek:
You be careful
:eek:
You be careful
Gillis warrants details told
Documents allow police to seize cutting tools, books on serial killings, photos of victim of serial killer and more
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/...illis001.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.
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."......
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..........
Read his letters...........
http://files.wafb.com/gillis_letters.pdf
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/...ealth001.shtml
this case continues to evolve ... SVG has confessed to further crimes ...
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/g...ased-this-week
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/10...rrick-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!
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.
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...-investigators