Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Baton Rouge Serial Killer” Derrick Todd Lee Pt. 2

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

Derrick's fixation with stalking, raping, and murdering women leads him to the University of Louisiana campus, where he terrorizes students and locals alike. As police work to crack the case, a false assumption leads them down the wrong path. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode contains discussion of domestic violence, sexual assault, rape, and murder that some listeners may find disturbing. Extreme caution is advised for listeners under 13. On the evening of September 23rd, 2001, 33-year-old Derek Todd Lee walked down Stanford Avenue in stoic concentration. Around him, university students rushed by, ready to party the night away. Countless young faces passed him, but Derek didn't care about them.

These people were nothing more than a distraction. As the night progressed, he walked up and down the same block, waiting for the crowd to thin out. He watched as the lights went out in a neat row of houses, one by one. Finally, after midnight, the street was quiet again, and Derek was alone. He could begin. Slowly, he made his way to a house he'd been watching for the last several weeks. He was aching to find a way inside to get close to the woman who lived there.

At 4 a.m., he decided to make his move. Derek moved quietly towards the back door and gripped the doorknob, but as he turned it, an alarm blared. Derek leapt backward in surprise, rushing back to his hiding place. As he sat in the dark catching his breath, he watched the bedroom light click on inside the house. While the alarm continued to shriek, Derek sat perfectly still, seething with frustration. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. He was supposed to have control. And now that he'd lost it, he'd stop at nothing to take it back.

Hi, I'm Greg Paulson. This is Serio Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today, we're finishing the story of Derek Todd Lee, otherwise known as the Baton Rouge serial killer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify.

Last time, we took a look at Derek's childhood and early adult life as an obsessive peeping Tom and how his fixation turned deadly. By 1998, he'd killed. killed at least one woman and was hungry for more. Today, we'll follow Derek as he terrorizes the city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and evades the police until a major technological advance stops his killing for good. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter.

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Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. In 1998, 30-year-old Derek Todd Lee had finally stepped into his darkest fantasies, graduating from peeping on women to murdering them. He killed one woman in the small town of Zachary, Louisiana, and may have been responsible for a second, but his predatory streak was far from over.

Still, by the spring of 1999, Derek was tired of searching for women in Zachary, plus he knew it would be risky for him to dip into the same pool for a third time. And he had a point, though he wasn't on any official suspect list. Two Zachary police officers liked him for the brutal murders. Detective's David McDavid and Danny Mixon had a hunch that Derek was connected to those crimes. Given his history of peeping Tom charges and violent behavior, they thought Derek could easily be the murderer,

but they had no solid evidence to prove it. Derek likely didn't know that these two officers were keeping an eye at him. But all the same, he was careful not to return to Zachary. Instead, he prowled around his hometown, St. Francisville. That's where he spotted 36-year-old Colette Walker. Once he'd seen Colette, Derek couldn't take his mind off her. By the summer of 1999, he'd been stalking her long enough to know where she lived, and something about him made him bolder this time.

He wanted to talk to her. So on June 21st, he made his move. Derek approached Collette just after she parked in front of her building. He blocked the path to her house and came on strong. He asked her a series of questions. that got increasingly invasive. Did she have a boyfriend? Would she give him a ride somewhere?

Would she go out for a drink with him? She turned him down and asked him to get out of the way. Eventually, Derek stepped back and allowed Collette to pass. But that wasn't the end of it. Two days later, Derek watched as Collette parked her car and walked toward her apartment. As she opened her front door, he rushed up behind her,

following her inside before she could stop him. In one swift move, Derek closed the door, barring Colette's only way to escape. She stared at him with horror, stunned by how quickly he had appeared. But unlike his earlier crimes, he didn't attack her right away. No, he made himself at home. He picked up a framed photograph and asked Colette if the girl in the picture was her daughter. When she didn't answer, he asked her again if she'd go on a date with him.

As Collette stood there and stunned silence, Derek moved around her apartment as if it was his own, picking up items and turning off lamps. She followed him, her shock turning into an urgent desire to get rid of this creep. She turned the lights back on and told him to get lost. She didn't want to go on a date with him. Not that night, not ever. But he wasn't backing down. He simply asked her, why not?

Perhaps hoping to keep him calm, Colette tried to be patient with him. Derek. She explained that he was a stranger and she didn't trust him. She even reasoned that he could be some kind of crazed killer. Amused, Derek calmly responded, If that's how I am, I could rape you right now and no one would know. At that, Colette told him to leave. Isolid, David stood up, scrawled his phone number on a piece of paper, and walked out of the apartment. A few days later, Colette reported Derek. to the police, which landed him another peeping charge and two years of supervised probation. And while Collette had escaped the worst of Derek's impulses, the incident offered a brief

glimpse into his mind. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. As a reminder, she is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. In a 1993 study published in the American in Journal of Psychiatry, researchers created a method of categorizing stalkers. They grouped them into five separate types, rejected, intimacy seeking, resentful, incompetent, and predatory. And Derek seems to fit the predatory stalker profile. This type may hope for a relationship with their victims, but that desire comes from a greater need for power and control. These killers find

delight in learning about their victims and often fantasize about physically or sexually attacking them. By 1999, Derek had stalked and murdered at least one woman, proving himself to be violently predatory. But his interactions with Colette demonstrate how his stalking now affected all elements of his so-called romantic pursuits. He couldn't simply approach an attractive woman and ask her for a date. He needed to assert his dominance too. This need for violent authority seeped into Derek's other relationships. Shortly after Collette rejected him, he took out his frustrations on his longtime girlfriend, Consandra. In February of 2000, Consandra arrived at a local bar where Derek was waiting to meet her for a drink.

Once she'd parked her car, Derek threw open the driver's side door and beat her with his bare hands. The bar owner witnessed this sudden, brutal attack and called the police. Once again, Derek had to face the consequences of his actions. Unlike his earlier crimes, he didn't get away with a slap on the wrist. This time, he was convicted of assault and sentenced to a year behind bars. But as they admitted Derek into prison, local law enforcement made a huge mistake. In 2000, prisons were required to take a DNA sample of every convicted felon to add to a criminal database. But DNA sampling was expensive in a small town like St. Francis'

so the law wasn't often enforced there. So Derek's DNA wasn't logged into the database. Not that he was paying attention to that. He just wanted to serve out a sentence and go home. His plan was to keep his head down and hope the year passed quickly. As far as we can tell, his sentence flew by without incident, and in January of 2001, 33-year-old Derek was released from prison. It took him a few months to realize.

adjust to civilian life, and he kept a low profile during most of the year, but by the fall, he was on the prowl again. He knew that all eyes were on him in St. Francisville, so it would be too risky to try to revisit Colette. That didn't bother him, though, because he had another far more exciting option 34 miles away in Baton Rouge, the Louisiana State University, or LSU. In September of 2001, throngs of students took over this slughey. of the city, and Derek quietly joined them, wandering the neighborhood in search of someone new. He found his way to Stanford Avenue in no time. It was the heart of everything, containing a mix of townies and students. Most importantly for Derek, there was a whole new

crowd of women who wouldn't notice a stranger in their midst. One of them was 41-year-old Gina Wilson Green. By this point, Derek's stalking methods were second nature. He figured out where Gina lived and watched her through the window. She likely had no idea he was there. But on the night of September 23rd, she got her only warning. That night, Derek tried to break into Gina's house, but he set off the alarm. As he watched from the darkness, Gina wandered her house looking for signs of an intruder. She found nothing, and eventually she went back to bed. It was too much of a close call for Derek, but he wasn't in time. entirely deterred. He decided to wait a few more hours before trying again.

By the early morning, Derek tried again with a more direct approach. It's unclear exactly what happened, but he likely knocked on the door and attacked Gina when she answered. As usual, Derek was brutal and unrelenting. He assaulted Gina with his fists and tore at her clothes. He chased her to the bedroom where he sexually assaulted her, then strangled her to death. As the life disappeared from Gina's eyes, Derek felt that same familiar release wash over him. He stood up, draped a sheet over the naked body, and left the house through the back door. Later that day, one of Gina's co-workers found her body and called the police. When the cops arrived, they wandered through the carnage that Derek left behind,

looking for clues to explain what happened. Meanwhile, Derek was back home in St. Francisville. Killing Gina had fulfilled his desires for the moment, but that feeling wouldn't last. He thought about lying low for a few months just to make sure that the police didn't catch up to him. But he wouldn't wait too long. Now that he knew what Stanford Avenue had to offer, he knew he had to go back. Coming up, Derek goes on a killing spree, and the Baton Rouge police take notice. It's October 20th, 2018, one day until the end of the world.

I'm on the compound of a secretive religious organization, interviewing a longtime member. Their leader has predicted that tomorrow will be the beginning of the apocalypse. The prediction? Yes, I am prepared. It will purify life from a lot of illusions. When I started working on this story, I was hoping to profile a unique apocalyptic group that had survived through many failed doomsday predictions. But the end of the world was just the beginning. The only way to get to heaven was to allow him sexual activity with me.

I didn't specifically give my consent. I was frozen at the time. The angels, they arranged that he is supposed to have sex with his students. He is an amazing teacher, and also he's a sick f***. This is Revelations, a Spotify original from Parcast, premiering Sunday, October 3rd. Snoring, gasping during sleep, Feeling fatigued? Ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved

prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zetbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram in. injection. Zepound contains terseptitide and should not be used with other terseptide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pins or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or if you've

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Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. Now, back to the story. In September of 2001, 34-year-old Derek Todd Lee killed his second confirmed victim near the Baton Rouge campus of Louisiana State University. But for the rest of the year, Derek kept his head down. He likely knew that the Baton Rouge police would be investigating the murder, and he didn't want to become a suspect. Elsewhere, Zachary police officer David McDavid and his colleague Danny Mixon followed the news

of this newest killing with grim conviction. They were still sure that Derek Todd Lee was responsible for two murders in their town, and now they were trying to gather some convincing evidence to tie him to this third. McDavid and Mixon noticed that the killings had taken place near locations where Derek worked, but this wasn't enough to make him an official suspect. So all they could do was wait, hoping that something else might surface to justify their hunch. However, the Baton Rouge police didn't share their suspicions, To them, the murder of Gina Wilson Green was a stand-alone crime,

with no connections to any murders committed in other parts of Louisiana. That was good news for Derek. He flew under the radar. And as 2002 began, the cops didn't seem suspicious of him at all. Even so, the alluring pull of Baton Rouge's Stanford Avenue was too dangerous right now. He would have to satiate his urges somewhere else. And he found the perfect spot. In January of 2002, Derek was working at a new job at the Dow Chemical Plant just outside of Baton Rouge.

After a string of firings, the position finally gave him the kind of stability he desperately needed. Mostly, the salary helped him support himself, his family, and his girlfriend. He traveled to work on Louisiana's Highway 1, a lonely strip of road that wove through the state's marshy landscape. Usually there wasn't much to look at, just the swamp and a few birds. but there was one spot on his route that Derek liked best. It was a small, unassuming trailer park off the side of the highway in an isolated town called Addis, about 40 miles away from St. Francisville. There, Derek spotted a woman with dark hair and fair skin,

21-year-old Geraldine DeSoto. He stalked Jerelyn from a distance, moving closer all the time. Eventually, he was watching her from her window, getting to know her evening routine. As usual, he wasn't in any rush to take action. But on January 11, 2002, Derek received news that made him speed up this process. That day, Dow Chemical laid him off. Derek had lost countless jobs over the years, but this hit him as hard. All of a sudden, his life was thrown into uncertainty.

And with two teenage children, a wife and a girlfriend, who all relied on his financial support, he couldn't afford this kind of financial setback. His stress levels were through the roof, and it led him back down a dark path. The study posted in the 1999 issue of American Journal of Psychiatry provides useful information about the things that trigger this kind of behavior. Dr. Paul Mullen explains that stalking can often provide a facade of power, so when individuals face destabilizing life events, like being rejected or dumped, they turn to stalking to take back control. One of the most powerful triggers is rejection because it puts the person in an unbalanced position.

Losing his job may have given Derek the urge to seek out something, anything, that would restore his sense of control. For Derek, that meant murdering the recent subject of his fascination, Jerylind de Soto. Three days later, Derek picked up his final paycheck and drove in furious silence down Highway 1, then headed toward Addis. It was the middle of the day, but he didn't want to wait until nightfall. He wanted Jerylind now. When he arrived at the small trailer park, Derek pulled off the road and parked. He strode right up to Jerylind's front door and knocked. In a beat, Jarlane opened the door and Derek asked if he could borrow her phone to make a call.

She ushered him inside happy to oblige. From her perspective, Derek didn't seem dangerous. But when she handed him the phone, everything changed. In a sudden, terrifying motion, Derek struck Jerylind with the phone. She fell backwards, stunned, then scrambled toward the bedroom. Her husband kept a shotgun there, and she hoped it was loaded. But when Jerylind got to the gun, there was no ammunition inside. Derek quickly caught up to her, overpowered her, and ripped the useless weapon out of her hands.

He tossed it aside as Jerylund clawed at him fighting for her life. In a desperate lunge, Jerylain rushed toward the back door of the trailer, but Derek pulled out a knife from his sheath and stabbed her seven times. Then determined to finish the job, Derek dragged his knife across Jerylund's throat. Now this was the kind of power that Derek craved. In silence, he stood up, re-sheathed his knife, and left the same way he came in, through the front door.

He didn't even bother closing it. Later that day, Gerilyn's husband Darren discovered his wife's mangled body. He called the police and they descended upon the crime scene. Unsurprisingly, Darren became a person of interest and was interviewed several times.

He'd been abusive toward Jerylind, which might have given him motive, but he also had an alibi. After months of digging, investigators had to accept that they had the wrong man. Meanwhile, in St. Francisville, Derek reveled in the fact that he'd gotten away with yet another slaying without any attention from the police. He carried on with his life and even landed

another job. But a few months later, Derek got fired again. After that, he was itching to prowl, and he figured that enough time had passed, so he paid Stanford Avenue another visit. While stalking his previous victim, Gina Wilson Green, Derek had noticed another woman who'd lived down the street, 22-year-old Charlotte Murray Pace. She was an LSU graduate student, and he'd never forgotten her. Charlotte must have been on high alert after hearing about the brutal murder of Gina, a woman who lived only three doors down from her. But Derek was good at keeping his distance when he needed to. As usual, he lurked outside Charlotte's apartment, watching her from afar for a long time. He even was able to figure out

when she moved out of her place on Stanford Avenue and into a new townhouse on Charlo Avenue. She never noticed him until it was too late. On May 31, 2002, Derek drove to Charlo Avenue in the middle of the day. Wanting to feel in control once more, he strode up to Charlotte's front door and knocked. When she answered, he asked to use her phone.

Charlotte handed Derek her telephone and immediately he swung it at her, striking her in the head. As she stumbled backward, he stepped inside, raising his arm for another strike. Charlotte pulled herself up from the floor and ran toward the back door. Derek followed while pulling out his weapon, a flathead screwdriver. Derek quickly caught up to Charlotte and started slashing her with a tool. He chased her into the bedroom, where he ran. raped her while continuing to stab her with the screwdriver. By the time Charlotte was dead, Derek had stabbed her 83 times.

Once he was done, he left through the front door. Charlotte's roommate came home and discovered the gruesome aftermath a few hours later. She called the police and they took what evidence they could find, blood, tattered clothing, and semen samples, hoping that something would point them in the right direction. In the wake of Charlotte's murder, LSU erupted in shock and fear. This made two murders in just five months, and both victims at one point lived on the same street. Someone was out for blood and showed no sign of stopping.

While investigators scrambled to interview more potential witnesses, forensic analysts poured over the bloody evidence taken from both murders. They wanted to find proof that the murders were connected. They found what they were looking at. for in the blood from each crime scene. It matched. But because Derek's DNA wasn't in the criminal database, they weren't any closer to finding their killer. Still, the information helped Baton Rouge police form a picture of their suspect. He was a repeat offender and had a particular interest in the SLO's campus. Although Derek wasn't that particular, he simply chose women who thrilled him.

Whether that was at the college or somewhere else, he didn't really care. And by July of 2002, he already had his sights on a woman who lived a few miles outside of Baton Rouge, Pamela Kinnamore. 44-year-old Pamela was older than Derek's last few victims, but she fit the physical profile of the kind of woman he liked, bare-skinned with dark hair. And after watching her from her window for an unknown period of time, he decided it was time to strike. On the night of July 12, 2002, Derek lurked in the shadows. He saw Pamela drive up to her building and watched her enter her apartment. He waited a few moments, then approached the back door of her unit. When he got there, he couldn't believe his luck.

Her keys were still in the door. So he let himself in. Derek walked through the apartment looking for his prey, but then he heard it, the gentle sloshing of bathwater. He followed the sound of the bathroom, threw open the door, and stared down at Pamela, who was in the tub. He lunged forward and grabbed Pamela, throwing her onto the bathroom floor and striking her with his bare fists.

He dragged her out of the bathroom and backed down the hallway. Pamela fought and clawed at him, drawing blood in the process. But Derek's blows didn't stop. In a matter of minutes, Pamela was bloodied and probably losing consciousness. Derek picked up her limp body and carried her out to his large white truck. He threw her into the passenger seat and sped away. Derek drove through the night for nearly an hour before he swung the truck toward an exit. He stopped underneath the Achafalaya Basin Bridge, almost 30 miles from Baton Rouge.

He dragged Pamela out of the car and threw her on. the ground. He raped her, then cut her throat, and watched her die. Afterward, he loosely covered Pamela's naked body with leaves. Then he calmly returned to his truck and drove away. Four days later, on July 16, 2002, local police found Pamela's body. Working quickly, officers took blood samples from her house and sent them for forensic testing. To the horror of the analysts, the blood matched the specimens found at Charlotte Murray Pace and Gina Wilson Green's murders. That's when police finally realized they had a serial killer on their hands. They nicknamed him the Baton Rouge serial killer. Hearing the news, Southern Louisiana locals began to panic.

LSU students feared for their lives, but so too did practically everyone else in the Baton Rouge area. The killings felt random. No woman was safe, and no one knew who would be next. Not even Derek Todd Lee knew that. Not yet, anyway. Coming up, Derek capitalizes on a major police mistake. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session.

And this summer, Prime originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Now back to the story. In July of 2002, 33-year-old Derek Todd Lee murdered his fourth confirmed victim, and it was this crime that made the Baton Rouge police realize they were dealing with a serial killer. So in August of that year, they created a task force to investigate the slayings.

Baton Rouge officers joined with state police and other members of local law enforcement, hoping their combined efforts could crack the case. Two of the members of the group were David McDavid and Danny Mixen, the Zachary officers who have been keeping an eye on Derek Todd Lee for years. Now that they were part of a larger investigation, they felt emboldened to voice their theory. To their surprise, the rest of the task force wasn't convinced. Sure, Derek had a track record of peeping and of being violent toward women, but the other cops just didn't think that Derek could be the killer.

In their minds, the Baton Rouge serial killer had to be a white man. With that in mind, the task force enlisted an FBI profiler to give them an idea of who they were looking for. After examining the killer's known murders, the Bureau, returned with its findings. The profile pointed to a strong and impulsive male, who was likely between 25 and 35 years old. And although the profiler didn't specify the race of the killer, the Baton Rouge Task Force continued to focus their efforts on white men. It's possible they were also operating under the commonly held belief that serial murders tend to kill only those of their own race.

As we've discussed in previous episodes, there's also a prevailing stereotype that all serial killers are white males. But we know that isn't true. This fallacy is dangerous because it can lead murder investigations in the wrong direction, and Derek Todd Lee was just one glaring example. In a 2012 article published on Practical Homicide.com, former NYPD lieutenant commander Vernon J. Geberth examined why this happens. In the 1970s, when the FBI's behavioral science unit began profiling convicted serial killers. It chose a subject pool that was predominantly white, so the typical serial killer profile became a white man by default. Then throughout the following decades, white serial killers were often granted an immense amount of media attention. People

like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer became the de facto image of what a serial killer looked like. It's hardly surprising that this assumption crept into murder investigations. Not to mention, it is statistically evident that more than half of all documented serial killers are, in fact, white men. But Geberth explains it meant that police often ignore clues that point to a non-white suspect, like Derek Todd Lee. So the Baton Rouge Task Force immediately set to work searching for white men who might fit the FBI's profile. Throughout 2002, the police asked over 1,000 local men to submit DNA samples, Of course, none matched. As the summer drew to a close, the task force was nowhere closer to the killer,

so the police just issued a weak warning to the Baton Rouge women to remain vigilant. But by this point, that wasn't good enough. Baton Rouge's residents were worried, and law enforcement was clearly floundering. As for Derek, he was far from finished. While fear gripped the city, Derek began wandering outside his usual, hunting grounds. Sometime in November, he ended up in Lafayette, 55 miles away from Baton Rouge. There, he spotted 23-year-old Trinisha Cologne and stalked her from a distance for a while. On November 21st, 2002, he decided to get closer.

Trinisha was visiting her mother's grave at a nearby cemetery outside Lafayette. Derek probably spoke to her first to set her at ease, but at some point, He went to the auntie snapped, grabbing her and throwing her into his truck. He drove back toward Lafayette, eventually pulling onto a street filled with abandoned buildings and surrounded by woods. The area was totally isolated, perfect for what Derek planned to do next. After parking the car, he dragged Trinisha into the woods, where he beat and sexually assaulted her. Then he killed her.

Three days later, on November 24th, a local hunting. Enter found Trinisha's naked body. Lafayette police informed the task force of this latest slaying, and they descended upon the crime scene to gather evidence. Blood samples proved what everyone already suspected. The Baton Rouge serial killer had struck again. But this murder confused many of the task force officers. To their knowledge, serial killers didn't usually kill outside of their race. The police had believed that their killer was a white man killing white women.

But Trinisha was black. Eventually, investigators were forced to admit that their assumptions about the killer may have been wrong. But there was a new technology that would help them find out for sure. At the time, DNA racial profiling was a relatively experimental form of analysis, but it was worth a shot. So on February 25th, the task force sent a sample of the killer's blood to a genomics lab in Sarasota, Florida. Then while the police waited for the results, Derek struck again. He raped and physically assaulted LSU employee Carrie Yoder, dragging her under the Achafalia Basin Bridge before killing her.

He abandoned her there in the same spot where he had left Pamela Kinnamore the previous summer. When Carrie's body was discovered several days later, the people of Baton Rouge looked to the task force for answers. found none. Police were getting frantic. They needed an accurate image of their killer before he struck again. A week later on March 7th, the Baton Rouge Task Force finally heard back from the genomics lab. The results determined that the killer was 85% sub-Saharan African and 15% Native American. For David McDavid and Danny Mixon, this moment was the one they'd been waiting for. They began gathering evidence against Derek Todd Lee.

Mixon studied Derek's file for two months and eventually noticed a pattern. Some of the murders had taken place around the same time that Derek was fired or experiencing some kind of financial trouble. The others occurred on days when Derek wasn't at work. In other words, Derek was either highly stressed or unaccounted for at the time of each slaying. He had no alibis. This was enough to warrant swift action on May 1, May 1,000.

May 5, 2003, Danny got permission to take a DNA sample from Derek. If Derek had any inkling that the police were onto him, he didn't show it. When the cops arrived and asked to take a sample from inside of his cheek, he didn't protest. He sat calmly as he was swabbed, thanked the officers for their time, and then watched them leave. Mixen rushed off, excited to submit the specimen for analysis, but Derek wasn't worried. waiting around for the results. The moment the officers left, he got moving. He told his wife Jackie that they needed to leave Louisiana because the police were after him.

Jackie believed her husband was innocent, so they came up with a plan. She'd take the children to her aunt's home in Detroit while Derek fled to Atlanta. He said he'd wait until he'd saved enough money to eventually join her. Luckily for them, time was on their side. The police had to wait weeks for the DNA results. giving Derek ample time to escape. A day after the cheek swab was sent for testing, he was already gone. He found a low-paying job at an Atlanta motel and settled in there.

He probably hoped that everything would blow over, but the DNA test wouldn't lead to him after all. But he was wrong. Weeks later, on May 25th, the police finally got the results. Derek's DNA was a match. After over a year of looking in all the wrong places, the task force finally had their killer. But there was no time for celebration. Two officers immediately drove out to Derek's home to arrest him, only to find the house empty.

As it turned out, this was nothing more than a minor setback. The police shared their findings with the public and the news hit national television soon after that. Derek Todd Lee was the Baton Rouge serial killer. Networks asked anyone with information about his whereabouts to come forward. In Detroit, Jackie watched in horror as her husband's name and photo crossed her TV screen. Suddenly, his years of late-night disappearances made sense. So on May 26, a day after the news broke, she decided to speak to the authorities. Jackie contacted the Detroit office of the FBI.

She told them that Derek was in Atlanta, working at a motel. She wasn't sure which one, but that was enough information for the police. The cops moved quickly. A massive squadron of officers descended on Atlanta and fanned out across the city, patrolling darkened alleys. They showed Derek's picture to anyone and everyone. It didn't take long for their efforts to pay off. Around 9 p.m., the same day Jackie made her call. Police received an anonymous tip.

Derek was in the parking lot of a tire shop. Cops descended on the scene within minutes, surrounding Derek in a sudden rush of sirens and flashing lights. He didn't resist. He was completely silent as the officers placed him in the back of a squad car. He knew it was all over. After at least half a decade of killing, the Baton Rouge serial killer was finally caught.

The following months were a blur of interrogations and news coverage. Derek proved to be a difficult person to interview. He was remorseful and kept declaring that he was ready for death. But when pressed, he never admitted exactly what he was so sorry about. As Derek sat in jail awaiting trial, more murders were linked to his DNA. A year later in February of 2004, analysts placed Derek at the crime scenes of seven different murders. Randy Mabrewer, Geraldine De Soto, Gina Pace, Pamela Kinnamore, Trenisha Cologne, and Carrie Yoder. But investigators believe Derek was likely responsible for many other murders in the Baton Rouge area, including that of Connie Lynn Warner.

But her case had no genetic link. By the time police found her body, any traces of Derek's DNA had been erased by a hurricane. And without that connection, it was never confirmed. Out of the seven cases that had strong DNA evidence against Derek, two were brought to trial, Charlotte Murray Pace and Jerylind de Soto, and in the late summer of 2004, the trials began. He was found guilty of both murders and sentenced to life in prison for killing Jerylain, but for Charlotte he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. As Baton Rouge celebrated, 36-year-old Derek Todd Lee, was taken away to a maximum security prison in Angola, Louisiana.

But it can take years, even decades, for prisons to complete death sentences. And Derek Todd Lee was no exception. He never faced lethal injection. On January 21, 2016, he died of heart disease in a prison hospital at age 47. In time, the memory of the Baton Rouge serial killer faded. Students continue to fill the LSU campus and populate the busy strip of Stanford Avenue. The story of Derek Todd Lee may be little more than a ghost story now, something to scare your friends during freshman year. But for the families of Derek's victims, those wounds may never heal.

There are many others who are still convinced that his death toll is much higher than people thought. They believe that Derek killed their friend, their child, or their mother. For these people, any sense of closure is long gone. It died along with Derek Todd Lee. Thanks again for tuning into serial killers. We'll be back soon with a new episode. For more information on the Baton Rouge serial killer, amongst the many sources we used,

we found Bloodbath by Susan D. Mustafa, Tony Clayton, and Sue Israel, extremely helpful to our research. You can find more episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week.

Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Michael Motion, with production assistants by Ron Shapiro, Trent Williamson, Carly Madden, and Bruce Kitovich. This episode of Serial Killers was written by Georgia Hampton, with writing assistance by Mallory Kara and Joel Callan, fact-checking by Cheyenne Lopez,

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