00:00:03
[suspenseful music] NARRATOR: On the 31st of
May, 2001, 22-year-old Charlotte Murray Pace had just
graduated from Louisiana State
00:00:13
University and was looking
forward to moving to Atlanta to begin a new career. But she had no idea that
someone was watching her,
00:00:22
and he had plans of his own. A lot of his victims-- he had stalked them for
days, weeks, sometimes months
00:00:31
to get a feel for
what they were doing and what would be the best
way for him to get them.
00:00:36
He kept an eye on these
women and then pounced. NARRATOR: 32-year-old
Derrick Todd Lee had already
00:00:43
stalked and killed
at least three women before he took away the
future of the recent graduate.
00:00:49
SUSAN MUSTAFA: Charlotte
Murray Pace was very athletic, and she fought Derrick Todd
Lee through that whole house.
00:00:57
He stabbed her 81 times
with a flat head screwdriver before he raped and killed her.
00:01:05
NARRATOR: Lee would go on
to kill another three women before DNA evidence finally
brought an end to his brutal
00:01:12
and heartless career of murder. GEOFFREY WANSELL: What was the
motive for Derrick Todd Lee?
00:01:18
It wasn't simply
sexual pleasure. That would be easy. It was much more about anger.
00:01:25
It was about power. It was about control. NARRATOR: Derrick
Todd Lee had been unmasked as one of the
world's most evil killers.
00:01:35
[theme music] [ominous music] NARRATOR: In October 2004,
35-year-old Derrick Todd Lee
00:02:03
was sentenced to
death for the murder of Charlotte Murray Pace. She was one of seven confirmed
victims of the serial rapist
00:02:11
and murderer. Detective David McDavid had
been on the trail of the killer since 1998.
00:02:18
He'd always been
determined to prove that Lee had murdered
28-year-old Randi Mebruer in Zachary, Louisiana.
00:02:25
Her death had brought
fear to the community. You had a lot of tension here. You had a lot of women and their
daughters, they were scared.
00:02:34
You had people buying guns. You had people buying tasers. You had a lot of women
taking self-defense classes.
00:02:41
NARRATOR: Most of Lee's murders
happened in nearby Baton Rouge. Writer Susan Mustafa recalls
the panic his killing spree
00:02:49
caused in the state capital. Before Derrick
Todd Lee, everybody felt safe in Baton Rouge.
00:02:56
People didn't lock their doors. They didn't lock their windows. Nobody was afraid
to be out and about.
00:03:03
When the killings
started happening and the women in Baton
Rouge realized they weren't
00:03:08
safe in their
homes, everyone was just terrified to go anywhere. NARRATOR: These violent
and deadly attacks
00:03:18
meant that no woman was safe. David McDavid had
a tenacious desire to put the killer behind bars.
00:03:25
But even as a
hardened detective, he was fearful that Lee
might strike closer to home.
00:03:31
DAVID MCDAVID: The
way he attacked women and the brutality
he attacked them, I was worried and
scared for my family.
00:03:36
And, you know, it
was something-- in my career, I hoped we
was able to solve this case
00:03:41
before he got close to my
family, which he was probably, you know, half a mile away
from-- some of his attacks--
00:03:48
away from my family,
where they lived at. It worried me real bad. NARRATOR: This killer's story
begins in the small town
00:03:59
of St. Francisville, Louisiana. Derrick Todd Lee was born on
the 5th of November, 1968.
00:04:07
His life was unconventional
from the very start. SUSAN MUSTAFA: Derrick Todd Lee
had a childhood similar to most
00:04:16
children, with the
exception that his father went to prison for the attempted
murder of his father's ex-wife.
00:04:26
His mother later remarried,
and she and Derrick Todd Lee's stepfather raised him.
00:04:33
But, for the most part,
he had a normal childhood. NARRATOR: Lee had
a low IQ and didn't
00:04:41
perform well academically. He soon became a social
outcast at school. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: There
is one particular detail
00:04:49
that is rather sad. He used to suck
his thumb in class and he used to call
his teacher Mama.
00:04:54
So this really does
highlight that he's kind of looking for an authority
figure to be protective of him.
00:05:01
He's looking for a mother
figure outside of the family. NARRATOR: Even as
a young child, Lee
00:05:08
had developed a sinister trait
that would become a defining factor in his career of murder.
00:05:15
SUSAN MUSTAFA: Derrick Todd
Lee began peeping into homes, looking at women from
a very early age.
00:05:22
I think six, seven
years old, he was caught peeping in his cousin's window. And over the years he was
arrested several times.
00:05:31
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Now, this is a really significant red flag for me. Because when we
see people engaging
00:05:36
in this kind of behavior,
what they are doing is that they are
gaining gratification.
00:05:41
They are gaining enjoyment
through watching other people without their consent. So we've got this sense
of power over others
00:05:48
from doing something
to them that they are not aware of, that they
would not be happy with.
00:05:54
And this is something that we
see in the backgrounds of quite a lot of serial killers.
00:06:01
NARRATOR: By the
age of 16, Lee had become well accustomed to being
on the wrong side of the law.
00:06:07
As well as peeping
through windows, he had arrests for
burglary and assault. GEOFFREY WANSELL: You now
have a boy who's really
00:06:15
on the edge, a volcano almost. He's very sexually
precocious, very rebellious. But he's also got
that violent streak.
00:06:26
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Here is somebody who does not live by the rules. Here is somebody who wants
to get what he's after.
00:06:33
And rules, and laws,
and all of those things that prevent the rest of us
from behaving in these ways
00:06:38
does not prevent me
from doing these things. NARRATOR: Age 20,
Lee got married. But that didn't mean that
he planned on settling down.
00:06:51
SUSAN MUSTAFA: Soon
after they married, her father was killed in an
explosion at a plant near Baton
00:06:58
Rouge and there was a lawsuit. And they got a lot of money from
the lawsuit, which Derrick Todd
00:07:06
Lee immediately began spending. He had flashy cars. He had gold chains. He liked to dress well.
00:07:14
And even though
he was married, he didn't have a problem in
the world using his wife's
00:07:20
money to attract other women. GEOFFREY WANSELL: There
is something about him that is very attractive.
00:07:29
There is an element-- a twinkle
in his eye, if you like, that a lot of women
find interesting.
00:07:37
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: He's
quite a dangerous person, because he can appear to
be charm syndrome man.
00:07:42
He can sweet talk his way. He can get women to let
their barriers down for him. NARRATOR: In April 1993, David
McDavid was a uniformed police
00:07:56
officer in Zachary, Louisiana. The vicious attack on a teenage
couple in a local cemetery
00:08:03
had always remained
fresh in his memory. DAVID MCDAVID: They were doing
what teenagers do, making out.
00:08:09
One of our police officers
was driving down the roadway, saw a dome light on,
went into the cemetery,
00:08:14
and came up on both the
kids who had been attacked brutally with a hack blade. Both of them lived,
but the boyfriend still
00:08:23
today won't talk about it. My understanding, he
sleeps with the light on. That was a pretty brutal attack.
00:08:33
NARRATOR: The girl who survived
the assault, Michelle Chapman, tried to help David
and his colleagues
00:08:39
identify her assailant. We brought in a
police sketch artist. He spoke to Michelle,
was able to get
00:08:45
a photograph of the attacker. NARRATOR: David
didn't know it yet, but this would be his first
glimpse of Derrick Todd Lee.
00:08:54
Over four years later, David,
who was now a detective, would meet the killer face to
face for the very first time.
00:09:03
DAVID MCDAVID: July
of 1997 we got a call. They had a prowler
over in Oak Shadows.
00:09:08
A Black male was
peeping in a window of a house of a
single white female who had a daughter at home.
00:09:14
The call we got, if
I remember correctly, he was standing in, like, a
kid pool looking into a window
00:09:20
at the apartment complex. We went to that location and
saw him run across the roadway
00:09:26
and go south back toward the
cemetery and graveyard area. NARRATOR: Lee's car
was known to the police
00:09:33
from previous arrests. And David and his colleagues
soon found it parked in the vicinity of the crime.
00:09:39
DAVID MCDAVID: So we
blocked the vehicle in. We backed out and
did surveillance.
00:09:42
We caught him coming across
the roadway from the graveyard, and we made an arrest on him.
00:09:47
NARRATOR: In January 1998,
29-year-old Derrick Todd Lee was given two years probation
for spying on women.
00:09:55
But, crucially, he
didn't go to prison. And, three months later,
a woman would be dead.
00:10:03
[suspenseful music] In the spring of
1998, Derrick Todd Lee had been regularly
in and out of trouble
00:10:11
with the police in
Zachary, Louisiana. The 29-year-old peeping
Tom was about to escalate
00:10:18
his perversion into murder. On the 18th of April, Randi
Mebruer's three-year-old son
00:10:27
was found looking for his
mother outside the family home when a neighbor came over
to find out what was wrong.
00:10:35
The neighbor saw him,
and she went into the house and saw blood covering that
house, and she called police.
00:10:42
And the police came and
they found the bedroom was covered in blood. They found Randi Mebruer's
contact lens on the floor.
00:10:53
They found clumps
of her hair mixed with blood in the hallway. They knew instantly that
something really bad
00:11:00
had happened to Randi. NARRATOR: Detective
David McDavid was called in to search for
the missing 28-year-old nurse.
00:11:09
DAVID MCDAVID: My partner
called me. he said, look, we have a lady missing. We have blood in the house.
00:11:14
The child was left at the house. He had went next door
to the neighbor's house. They came up to the
house, saw all the blood,
00:11:21
backed out, called us. And I told him on the way,
I said, you know who it is. It's gonna be Derrick Todd Lee.
00:11:26
NARRATOR: As part of the
investigation into Randi's disappearance, David once
again found himself face
00:11:33
to face with Derrick Todd Lee. The 29-year-old was
a person of interest, as he lived just a few
blocks from Randi's home.
00:11:42
Lee agreed to a voluntary
search of his house. DAVID MCDAVID: I'll never forget
that night I was in there.
00:11:49
You know, he was kind
of pacing back and forth in the area in the house. And I thought somebody
was watching him.
00:11:54
When I was searching his closet
area, all of a sudden my hair stood on the back of my neck.
00:11:59
And I turned, he was
right there behind me. So I kind of pushed him
back, told him to step back,
00:12:05
you're too close to me. It just bothered me that
he was that close to me. And I don't know if I was
getting close to some evidence
00:12:12
or what. Right after that, he told
us to leave the house. He didn't want us
there the more.
00:12:16
He had gave us
consent to search, but he also had the right
to revoke that consent.
00:12:21
And I guess either I was
getting close to something there in the closet-- but he asked us to leave.
00:12:27
NARRATOR: David
and his colleagues continued to search for
clues at Randi's home.
00:12:33
And an unusual looking
item caught their eye. DAVID MCDAVID: We were
collecting evidence
00:12:37
that next day, and
there was a pink trash can liner outside the front
door of Randi Mebruer's house.
00:12:42
So we just kind of found it odd. Was is this, you
know, pink case-- you know, garbage can
case was out here, bag.
00:12:50
And we knew that her car had
been used to evidently removed the body, because
it had been moved
00:12:55
and the keys were missing. We really didn't know if we
had evidence on that bag.
00:13:02
NARRATOR: With all the evidence
collected, the case went cold. Without a body, it
was difficult to press
00:13:09
charges on any suspect. But David was determined
to get Lee off the streets and behind bars.
00:13:17
In March 1999, he
revisited the cemetery attack of the young woman
and her boyfriend from 1993.
00:13:25
[ominous music] DAVID MCDAVID: I had got a photo
lineup in Derrick Todd Lee. I presented it to her
and she picked him out--
00:13:33
without hesitation,
picked him out that that is the guy that
attacked us in the cemetery.
00:13:37
I prepared a warrant
for his arrest. I brought the warrant down
for the judge to sign,
00:13:43
and I was told the statute
of limitations had ran out. I think it's after five years.
00:13:47
NARRATOR: It was another
frustrating turn of events. David was certain Lee was
responsible for a long list
00:13:54
of crimes across Zachary,
but he couldn't prove it. DAVID MCDAVID: You had the
attack in the graveyard,
00:14:00
then July of '97, where he
was peeping in the area, was arrested and charged. And then, in 1998, you had
the murder of Randi Mebruer.
00:14:08
So every time you looked
back around there, he was always in that area. From '92 to '98, he was
committing crimes in that area.
00:14:17
And that's where our focus
was, was on Derrick Todd Lee. If you could draw a
circle in that area,
00:14:22
he was always there
from '92 to 1998. NARRATOR: Derrick Todd
Lee remained a free man,
00:14:29
but his luck was running out. In January 2000, whilst
he was still married, he was arrested for assaulting
a girlfriend in the parking
00:14:40
of a bar just north of
Zachery, after she found him flirting with another woman.
00:14:46
He ended up quite
brutally attacking her. And what this says
to me is that he is the one who is in control.
00:14:57
It doesn't matter that
he's been engaging in this entirely inappropriate
behavior with other women.
00:15:03
How dare she question me will
be the way that he sees it. I'm the one who decides what
happens in this relationship.
00:15:10
I'm the one who calls the shots. You do not have a right to
call me out on my behavior.
00:15:15
NARRATOR: Still on probation
for the peeping Tom incident 2 and 1/2 years earlier,
Derrick Todd Lee
00:15:23
was finally sent to jail. SUSAN MUSTAFA: Derrick Todd
Lee spent a full year in prison
00:15:29
for beating up his girlfriend
in that parking lot. And when he got out
of prison is when he
00:15:35
began killing in Baton Rouge. [ominous music] NARRATOR: Derrick Todd Lee
had changed his hunting ground
00:15:43
from Zachary to Baton Rouge. And now he had
murder on his mind. With the new area
came a new victim.
00:15:51
In September 2001, he chose
40-year-old Gina Wilson Green, who told her mother
just two days
00:15:59
before she was
attacked that she felt like someone was watching her. SUSAN MUSTAFA: On the
night of September 23,
00:16:07
Derrick Todd Lee forced
his way into her house. He strangled Gina, he beat
her, and he raped her.
00:16:15
He placed her in
her bed, and she would be found two days
later by her coworker who got concerned when she
didn't show up for work.
00:16:27
This victim was beautiful,
and successful, and ambitious. And it was scary for those
who lived in the area
00:16:37
because the killer had
attacked her in her home. NARRATOR: Detectives
had no leads.
00:16:43
And just four months later,
Lee would strike again. On the 14th of January, 2002,
21-year-old Geralyn DeSoto
00:16:54
was found lying in a pool
of blood by her husband. DAVID MCDAVID:
Geralyn DeSoto lived
00:16:59
across the Mississippi River
in West Baton Rouge Parish. She lived in a trailer.
00:17:05
You know, she had been going
to LSU and studying and that. And, obviously, he
gained her trust.
00:17:14
SUSAN MUSTAFA: The killer
knocked on her door and asked for a phone. And we know this
because Geralyn was
00:17:23
hit in the head with
that phone so hard it caused a skull fracture. She ran down the hallway.
00:17:30
She knew that her husband
kept the gun in their bedroom. She fought with Derrick
Todd Lee with that gun,
00:17:38
and we know because
there were etchings in the ceiling from that gun. He chased her back
down the hallway,
00:17:44
where he stabbed
her viciously over, and over, and over again
until she was dead.
00:17:51
NARRATOR: Due to previous
domestic disturbances, Geralyn's husband was the number
one suspect for her murder.
00:18:01
Detectives had yet
to make the link that an active serial killer
was at large in Baton Rouge.
00:18:07
Derrick Todd Lee appeared to
be targeting similar victims. He had a wife, he
had a girlfriend,
00:18:15
but the women that he killed-- the women that he
attacked so viciously were the women who
would reject him.
00:18:21
They were the women
he couldn't have. And I think that's why he went
after those particular women.
00:18:27
They were beautiful. They were intelligent. They were independent. And this is very deliberate.
00:18:33
He is killing women who he
sees as behaving in ways that women shouldn't behave.
00:18:38
He believes that women should
be docile, and compliant, and do what men tell them to do.
00:18:47
NARRATOR: Another four months
passed until Lee claimed a third Baton Rouge victim.
00:18:53
On the 31st of May, 2002,
22-year-old Charlotte Murray Pace was found dead in
her apartment by her roommate.
00:19:04
SUSAN MUSTAFA:
Charlotte Murray Pace lived on Stamford
Avenue, just a few houses
00:19:08
from where Gina Wilson
Green had lived. She had just graduated from LSU. She was looking forward
to moving to Atlanta
00:19:16
to start her career when this
killer knocked on her door. NARRATOR: Charlotte had
defensive wounds, which
00:19:25
suggested she doggedly
fought for her life during the hideously
vicious attack. That case there was
a very violent case.
00:19:32
I saw the photos. He stabbed her many, many times. Each case, he'd become
angrier and angrier.
00:19:38
You can tell by the
brutality on the cases. GEOFFREY WANSELL: When
he killed Charlotte
00:19:43
Murray Pace he stabbed her
81 times with a screwdriver. Now, that's a degree of overkill
that indicates something.
00:19:51
Indicates, perhaps, the
level of rage is feeling. It's part of what makes
Derrick Todd Lee so chilling.
00:20:01
That level of arrogance-- that
level of brutality against a woman who's already been
effectively beaten to a pulp,
00:20:13
raped-- then to stab her 81
times is horrific. There's no other word for it. It's depravity of
a very high order.
00:20:20
This level of violence
shows an absolute contempt for the victim, a
hatred for the victim.
00:20:26
And when we look at the kind
of person that Charlotte was, she was independent. She was successful.
00:20:32
She was somebody who could
well stand on her own two feet. She didn't need a man.
00:20:36
This is the kind of woman
that Lee absolutely detested. NARRATOR: Detectives
in Baton Rouge
00:20:45
began to think the
murders may be connected. When Charlotte
Murray Pace was killed,
00:20:51
the fact that she had lived
on Stanford Avenue so close to Gina Wilson Greene
really gave police
00:20:58
their first inkling
that they might be dealing with a serial killer. NARRATOR: The police
may have finally been
00:21:04
putting the pieces together. But Derrick Todd Lee was
nowhere near finished. His reign of terror was
only just beginning.
00:21:14
By the summer of 2002,
33-year-old Derrick Todd Lee had raped and murdered possibly
four women in Louisiana-- one
00:21:24
in Zachary, and the other
three in Baton Rouge. And it was in the state
capital on the 12th of July
00:21:31
where he chose to
kill for a fifth time. Pam Kinamore had
an antique shop in Denham Springs, Louisiana.
00:21:40
Derrick Todd Lee had been
doing surveillance on her, followed her home that night.
00:21:44
From what I understand, she
left the key in the door and he attacked
her in the house.
00:21:50
SUSAN MUSTAFA: She
went to take a bath, and it was there in the
bathtub that Derrick
00:21:55
Todd Lee walked in and got her. There was a struggle. They found drops of
blood in the bathroom.
00:22:02
Different little things
through the house were askew. And Derrick Todd Lee took Pam
Kinamore naked from her home,
00:22:10
put her in his vehicle. As he was driving down Airline
Highway in Baton Rouge, away
00:22:16
from her house, he was weaving. And a woman behind
him noticed that. They pulled up to a red light.
00:22:26
A woman in that pickup
truck turned around and looked at the woman
that was behind them.
00:22:32
And she said that
there was something about the way Pam Kinamore
looked at her, that she
00:22:39
felt like she needed help. And so she called
police, and she gave police a partial license plate.
00:22:46
NARRATOR: But the police didn't
catch up with Derrick Todd Lee. 44-year-old Pam Kinamore
was about to become
00:22:56
his fifth victim. SUSAN MUSTAFA: He drove
underneath the bridge into a wooded area
that's near the bay.
00:23:04
And there he raped, and
stabbed, and slashed Pam Kinamore, almost beheading her.
00:23:10
And there, he killed her. Her body was found four
days later by fishermen. And when Pam
Kinamore was killed,
00:23:21
everybody realized we have
a serial killer in Baton Rouge taking women
from their homes,
00:23:29
killing women in their homes. And terror just
overtook the city. NARRATOR: Local TV
reporter, Jim Shannon,
00:23:37
remembers the
collective fear that spread across the
Louisiana State capital. The men were worried
about the women.
00:23:44
The women were worried
about themselves. Record gun sales were
made in Baton Rouge
00:23:50
at that time, record
amounts of ammunition that was being bought. Gunsmiths couldn't get
enough guns in here,
00:23:56
and they couldn't get enough
ammunition for the demand that Derrick Todd Lee
made in this community.
00:24:06
NARRATOR: The loved ones
of Lee's latest victim were desperate for the
killer to be caught.
00:24:12
JIM SHANNON: Pam
Kinamore's family spent money to buy billboards
to put up their own reward.
00:24:19
They had their own
reward for whoever could identify who killed Pam. And that was a piece
of the frustration
00:24:27
that the family members were
going through at the time. NARRATOR: By August 2002,
investigators knew for certain
00:24:36
that a serial killer was
responsible for three of the Baton Rouge murders. DNA collected from
Pam Kinamore's body
00:24:45
matched the same DNA recovered
from Charlotte Murray Pace and Gina Wilson Green.
00:24:50
They decided to pull together
their resources to see if they could crack the cases.
00:24:56
A multi-agency homicide task
force was set up in Baton Rouge that included Baton Rouge PD.
00:25:03
It included the
Sheriff's Department. It included the FBI,
the state police, but it also included
members of other parishes
00:25:12
that joined Baton Rouge,
where bodies had been found and where murders
had taken place.
00:25:19
NARRATOR: Zachary police
Detective David McDavid was sure that Derrick Todd Lee
was responsible for the Baton
00:25:25
Rouge killings, as well
as the murder of Randi Mebruer on his own patch. He shared his findings
with the task force.
00:25:35
DAVID MCDAVID: We came together
with all the agencies involved, and we showed our
cases, and our evidence,
00:25:40
our photographs of them. They showed theirs on
a big projector screen. Pretty much, their cases
matched up to ours.
00:25:47
And I said, hey,
this is our guy here. You need to look at him. You know, this is
similarities here.
00:25:54
NARRATOR: But the task
force had set their sights on a different suspect. Witnesses near to the Charlotte
Murray Pace and Gina Wilson
00:26:04
Green crime scenes
had told police they'd seen a white man
in a white pickup truck
00:26:09
around the time of the murders. They opened it up and
they looked at the file. They saw he was Black
and they said, no,
00:26:16
our killer is a white man
in a white pickup truck. And they closed the file. Because of that, several
more women would die.
00:26:24
[suspenseful music] NARRATOR: Because of their
certainty that a white man was committing the murders, the
task force missed an opportunity
00:26:33
to capture Derrick Todd Lee just
three days before the murder of Pam Kinamore. On the 9th of July,
2002, Dianne Alexander
00:26:46
was attacked at her home in
Breaux Bridge, 35 miles west of Baton Rouge. She'd been overpowered by a
man who'd knocked on her door
00:26:56
and asked to use the phone. SUSAN MUSTAFA: He forced
his way in to her home. He beat her.
00:27:03
He tried to rape her. He took a computer cord
that led to a phone and he cut that cord.
00:27:09
And he was trying to strangle
her with that cord, when he stopped for a minute
and he heard her son
00:27:15
pulling up in the driveway. NARRATOR: Lee fled from
the scene of the crime. Six days later, once she'd
recovered from her ordeal,
00:27:26
Dianne Alexander gave
detectives a description of the man who'd attacked her. It's the first time,
indeed the only time
00:27:35
in Derrick Todd Lee's reign
of terror, if you like, that he's made a mistake. There are obvious clues
to what's going on.
00:27:47
They have a suspect. Then they get a sketch of
what the suspect looks like. And that, of course,
illuminates a number
00:27:54
of police officers in the
area to the fact it looks awfully like Derrick Todd Lee.
00:28:01
DAVID MCDAVID: They had
done a photo sketch. And we had done a photo
sketch from Michelle
00:28:05
Chapman on Derrick Todd Lee. If we'd have saw both
photographs at the time, they were very, very
much similarity.
00:28:15
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Had her son
come back 10 minutes later, she would have been dead.
00:28:19
And there would have
been no description of Derrick Todd Lee. That's the most significant
moment in the case.
00:28:27
SUSAN MUSTAFA: But
it was not connected to the Baton Rouge murders,
because Dianne Alexander's
00:28:32
assailant was Black. And, by this time,
police in Baton Rouge were looking for a white man.
00:28:41
NARRATOR: During the search
for the elusive killer that the press were now calling
the Ghost of Baton Rouge,
00:28:47
1,200 white men in
white pickup trucks had their mouths
swabbed for DNA. JIM SHANNON: During the
height of the killings,
00:28:57
they were swabbing
people left and right. Hundreds of people were
being swabbed and tested.
00:29:04
That was just something
that happened. When you got pulled over,
if you were a white male
00:29:08
and if you were in
a certain age group, you were going to get swiped. NARRATOR: With the task force
hunting for the wrong man,
00:29:16
Derrick Todd Lee
was able to continue his killing spree undetected. In November 2002, four months
after the murder of Pam
00:29:26
Kinamore, the body of
23-year-old Trineisha Dené Colomb was found in a wood
just outside Lafayette, over
00:29:35
50 miles west of Baton Rouge. DAVID MCDAVID: Trineisha
was visiting her mama's graveyard over there.
00:29:42
Derrick Todd Lee
happened up on her, attacked her, and killed
her in the graveyard there.
00:29:47
She had been raped. She had been beaten. Her head had been
bashed against a tree.
00:29:53
She suffered a horrible end
at the hands of this killer. Police immediately realized
that this could be connected
00:30:02
to the Baton Rouge cases. NARRATOR: DNA found
on Trineisha's body identified her
as another victim
00:30:11
of the Ghost of Baton Rouge. Lee killed for a seventh
time the following spring,
00:30:19
this time back in Baton Rouge. 26-year-old Carrie
Lynn Yoder was kidnapped from her apartment
on the 3rd of March, 2003.
00:30:29
Her body was found
10 days later. SUSAN MUSTAFA: Carrie Lynn's
body was found in Whiskey Bay,
00:30:35
near where Pam Kinamore's body
had been found months before. She had been beaten.
00:30:40
She had been raped. She, like the others,
had experienced a horrific death at the hands
of this maniacal killer.
00:30:50
[ominous music] NARRATOR: DNA on
Carrie's body linked her to the other victims. When the task force was
offered the services
00:31:02
of a genetics expert to
analyze the killer's DNA, the results shocked them. The profile suggested
the murderer's
00:31:10
ancestry was 85% African. That changed the whole
course of the investigation. At that time they realized
perhaps Dianne Alexander's
00:31:22
attacker had been their
killer, and the composite that Dianne Alexander
had helped police create
00:31:29
started going up on
billboards around Baton Rouge. The police did press
conferences saying, yes,
00:31:36
we know we told you all
the killer was white. But now you need to be
looking for a Black man
00:31:42
to attack you, not a white man. So that pretty much
told us then, hey, we were looking for
an African-American
00:31:48
male involved in these cases. And, of course, my thought's
that it's Derrick Todd Lee.
00:31:57
[siren wailing] NARRATOR: In May 2003,
armed with a subpoena, David and his colleagues knocked
on Derrick Todd Lee's door
00:32:06
and were able to obtain
a swab of his DNA. Three weeks later, the results
proved that Lee was the Ghost
00:32:17
of Baton Rouge, responsible
for the murders of Gina Wilson Green, Charlotte Murray Pace,
Pam Kinamore, Trineisha Dené
00:32:26
Colomb, and Carrie Lynn Yoder. Police everywhere were just
astonished that it turned out
00:32:33
to be Derrick Todd Lee,
except for David McDavid, who had suspected him all along.
00:32:39
[somber music] When I walked in you had
all these dignitaries here, sheriffs, chiefs, and there
was a lot of people there.
00:32:46
I said, what's going on. They said, well, we just want
to let y'all know the DNA
00:32:50
y'all got off
Derrick Todd Lee has been connected to all
the cases in Baton Rouge and Lafayette area.
00:32:56
And it was a relief off of me. I mean, because it's
something-- in my career, we hoped to solve this case.
00:33:03
But also, in the back of my
mind, you know, I said, hey, all along we had
this piece of pie.
00:33:08
And here it is
today, we solved it. You know, I smiled but I
knew we had work to do.
00:33:14
We had to find him. We had to get him off the
street before he killed again. NARRATOR: But Derrick Todd Lee
was no longer in Louisiana.
00:33:21
He'd taken off soon after
the DNA swab was taken. The task force had
their man, but now they
00:33:27
had to track him down fast. On the 26th of May,
2003, a warrant had been issued for the arrest
of serial killer Derrick Todd
00:33:38
Lee. Three weeks after
a swab of his cheek had yielded undeniable proof
that he was the killer,
00:33:45
the 34-year-old had fled town. But he was soon tracked down
500 miles away from Baton Rouge,
00:33:53
in Georgia. DAVID MCDAVID: The US
Marshals called me that night from Atlanta, said, hey, look.
00:33:58
We know he's in this area. I said, I'm telling you
something, you better find him.
00:34:03
He knows the gig is up. The game is up. He's going to kill again
before he gets caught.
00:34:07
And, luckily, they found him I
think walking down the street close to a college area
there in Atlanta that night,
00:34:14
and was able to arrest him
and get him off the street before he killed again. NARRATOR: Derrick
Todd Lee was arrested
00:34:20
on the 27th of May, 2003, and
extradited back to Louisiana. The killer was
finally in custody,
00:34:28
much to the relief of everyone
in and around Baton Rouge. JIM SHANNON: When Derrick Todd
Lee was arrested and brought
00:34:36
back here from Atlanta,
he was the most talked about item anywhere--
in the coffee shops,
00:34:43
and restaurants, and bars. Everyone in Baton Rouge just
sighed a huge sigh of relief.
00:34:48
I mean, we were so
happy that we didn't have to be afraid anymore. NARRATOR: Lee was in
custody, but he wasn't
00:34:56
saying a word to detectives. Even without a confession,
though, the police were finding out more and more
about the killer by the day.
00:35:05
When the investigators
figured out that he was the prime suspect,
they executed search warrants
00:35:12
and found different items-- cell phones, keys,
and other things that belonged to the victims
that helped convict him.
00:35:20
Derrick Todd Lee always took
an article, but most of his was keys. And what he was doing,
based on my experience,
00:35:27
he had these items
so he could believe them cases over and over again. That's what a
serial killer does.
00:35:32
They go back and relive
these cases over and over again for sexual gratification.
00:35:37
NARRATOR: As the investigation
into Lee's past continued, his DNA linked him
to a sixth victim.
00:35:45
SUSAN MUSTAFA: When Derrick
Todd Lee was arrested, his DNA had been found
on five of the victims--
00:35:52
Pam Kinamore, Charlotte Murray
Pace, Gina Wilson Green, Carrie Lynn Yoder, and Dené Colomb.
00:35:58
After Derrick Todd
Lee was arrested, his DNA was tested
against DNA that had been found underneath
Geralyn DeSoto's fingernails.
00:36:08
And everyone was
surprised when that DNA matched, because everyone had
thought that her husband had
00:36:15
killed her. NARRATOR: And Zachary
Detective David McDavid was about to get an
unexpected result over 5
00:36:23
and 1/2 years in the making-- proof that Lee had killed
Randi Mebruer in April 1998.
00:36:33
DAVID MCDAVID: We didn't know
a whole lot about DNA evidence, being from a small agency.
00:36:36
But once we were able to
connect his DNA profile to all other cases, we had
them please check our evidence
00:36:45
and see if we had any DNA
evidence on any of our stuff we submitted. And, sure enough, we found
semen on the pink trash
00:36:52
bags that came back
to Derrick Todd Lee, positive for his profile. And I was able to do an
arrest warrant for murder
00:36:59
for him on that case. NARRATOR: Despite the
validation for the police, Randi Mebruer's body
has never been found.
00:37:09
Investigators wanted justice
for all seven of Lee's victims and began to prepare
for the trials.
00:37:16
But the killer's
defense team were hoping to use these
lack of intelligence to their advantage.
00:37:22
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: People
will look at the case of Lee and highlight the fact
that he had quite a low IQ.
00:37:28
And, very often, defense
teams will try and use this as some kind of
mitigation, claiming
00:37:36
that this individual isn't
responsible for what they did because of their low IQ.
00:37:40
But I'm in no
doubt that this guy knew exactly what he was doing. And he knew what he
was doing was wrong.
00:37:48
SUSAN MUSTAFA: Derrick Todd Lee
was deemed fit to stand trial. They argued that
although he wasn't
00:37:54
intellectually maybe as smart
as others, he was street smart. He had maintained jobs.
00:38:01
He had lived like
anybody else does. And he was smart enough to
plan out every single one
00:38:08
of these murders. So it was ruled that he was
deemed fit to stand trial. NARRATOR: In August
2004, Lee was
00:38:18
in court charged
with the January 2002 murder of Geralyn DeSoto. There were two trials
held for Derrick Todd Lee.
00:38:26
The first one was in
West Baton Rouge Parish. Prosecutor Tony Clayton tried
Derrick Todd Lee for the murder
00:38:34
of Geralyn Barr DeSoto. He was charged with
second degree murder because there were no
underlying felonies,
00:38:40
and he was convicted and
sentenced to life in prison. NARRATOR: Lee was safely
behind bars for life.
00:38:48
But the community of Baton
Rouge wanted him to pay an even heavier price for his murders.
00:38:54
Prosecutors were
determined that Lee should get the death penalty. And the following
month, September 2004,
00:39:02
he was back in court-- this time charged with
the capital murder of Charlotte Murray Pace.
00:39:08
Reporter Jim Shannon was a
regular in the East Baton Rouge courthouse. JIM SHANNON: I covered
every bit of it.
00:39:15
The media, circus as
it was, was because you had crews from New Orleans,
Baton Rouge, and Lafayette,
00:39:25
and Lake Charles. All of South
Louisiana was covering this case, because everybody--
00:39:30
or many of the victims
had families and all of those different areas. NARRATOR: Jim had the
opportunity to see
00:39:37
the serial killer up close. JIM SHANNON: When you would
see Derrick Todd Lee come
00:39:42
into the courtroom, he would
be dressed extremely well, closely shaved, trimmed
up, so to speak.
00:39:50
So he was very cognizant
of what he looked like and what he wanted to
present as himself.
00:39:58
NARRATOR: On the 12th of
October, 2004, after just 19 minutes of deliberations,
the jury returned
00:40:06
an overwhelming verdict. SUSAN MUSTAFA (VOICEOVER):
Derrick Todd Lee was convicted of the
murder of Charlotte
00:40:11
Murray Pace and the jury
sentenced him to death. JIM SHANNON: Had they not
gotten the death penalty,
00:40:17
they could have used any
one of the other victims to try him again until
they found a death penalty.
00:40:23
They were determined to get
Derrick Todd Lee on death row. NARRATOR: Although only
convicted of two murders,
00:40:32
DNA linked Lee to
seven in total. And experts believe
he could have been killing as early as 1992.
00:40:41
In August of that year,
23-year-old Connie Warner was bludgeoned to
death with a hammer
00:40:48
just a few blocks away from
the home of Randi Mebruer. GEOFFREY WANSELL: It was
difficult to track down
00:40:54
who might have
killed Connie Warner. Because there was
a hurricane, which all the evidence was
washed away and they didn't
00:41:00
find the body for seven days. DAVID MCDAVID: Connie Warner's
family knew In their hearts--
00:41:05
and from all the evidence
I told them that he was involved in her case. If you looked out Randi
Mebruer's house right
00:41:12
now and looked around
the corner like that, you could see Connie
Warner's house.
00:41:16
The family knew. They knew he was involved. They were satisfied
with the case. You know, they were satisfied
with the convictions.
00:41:24
NARRATOR: Susan Mustafa
went to speak with Lee in the Louisiana State
Penitentiary in Angola
00:41:30
while he was on death row. But she was met
with short shrift. SUSAN MUSTAFA: He certainly
never showed any remorse
00:41:37
or guilt. He never confessed. I sat outside of his
cell and watched him, and he climbed underneath the
covers and wouldn't look at me.
00:41:46
And then he finally
sat up and he started playing with
his toilet paper and refused to look at me
the whole time I was there.
00:41:53
He wouldn't talk to
anybody, and he never showed any signs of remorse. NARRATOR: Derrick Todd Lee spent
less than 12 years on death
00:42:02
row, but he was never executed. He died of heart disease on
the 21st of January, 2016.
00:42:10
He was 47 years old. DAVID MCDAVID: My understanding
was he was already in bad shape
00:42:15
leaving from Angola and he died
the next day, you know, and-- you know, he had to
go meet his maker
00:42:22
and, you know, he had to
answer for what he did. NARRATOR: Lee's
death was a relief
00:42:27
for the man who'd
invested a lot of time in making sure the
killer was caught. DAVID MCDAVID: I knew that he
could not harm nobody else ever
00:42:34
again, that he would never
be able to escape from jail if he ever tried to
harm anybody else.
00:42:41
I think the good Lord took him. And, you know, and I
think that, you know, he had to answer
for what he did.
00:42:52
And it just-- it was a relief. You know, I don't want
to ever see nobody die, but this type of evil person
had no business living on Earth.
00:43:03
NARRATOR: In the
community, Lee's death was greeted with relief. The Ghost of Baton Rouge
had finally been exorcised.
00:43:13
SUSAN MUSTAFA: He was vicious. He was violent. He invaded people's homes,
invaded their lives,
00:43:20
and then took their lives. He wasn't even really human. He had an ego. When he was rejected, he killed.
00:43:30
DAVID MCDAVID: You know,
there was other people who worked this case. But all along my
gut feeling was him.
00:43:36
We held that piece of pie,
and then we solved this case. One of the most brutal serial
killers I knew of, you know,
00:43:42
we stopped him from
killing anybody else. [suspenseful music] NARRATOR: Lee was
extremely dangerous--
00:43:50
a seemingly charming
man who could talk his way into women's
homes before raping
00:43:56
them and ending their lives. He was brutal,
callous, and ultimately remorseless in his quest to
fulfill his sexual perversions,
00:44:06
making Derrick Todd Lee one of
the world's most evil killers. [theme music] [audio logo]