Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - "The Other Baton Rouge Killer" Sean Vincent Gillis Pt. 1

Episode Date: August 1, 2022

As a kid, Sean Vincent Gillis would visit his grandmother's funeral home and sleep in the empty coffins. He'd sometimes hold the bodies' cold hands or fondle them. The corpses gave him precisely what he was looking for: a female partner who wouldn't say "no.” 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 discussions of domestic violence, rape, and murder. Extreme caution is advised for listeners under 13. Late in the evening of March 20, 1994, 81-year-old Anne Bryan ran a bath to soothe her broken ribs. She'd recently been in a car accident and was exhausted, but the hot water felt good on her aching body. Later, Anne finished her bath, put on her pink nightgown, and carefully slipped into bed.

She didn't lock the front door before she did, but this was a quiet neighborhood. She drifted off to sleep in peace. But a few hours later, a sharp sound startled her awake. She looked at the clock. It was 3 a.m., still the middle of the night. She clutched her blanket and glanced around the deep black of the room, looking for the source of the noise. Her eyes soon settled on a shape in the darkness, a figure, a man standing next to her bed, an intruder.

Anne screamed in terror, but it didn't help. The man climbed onto her bed and pinned her down. She was an old woman, helpless. She didn't deserve this. But for Sean Vincent Gillis, that was exactly the point. Anne couldn't fight back. She would be under his will. So, with her held still,

Sean pulled out a knife. It was time to see what she looked like. Inside. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parcast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today, we take a look at Sean Vincent Gillis, otherwise known as the other Baton Rouge 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. In today's episode, we'll unravel Sean's complicated and painful childhood, his rageful father and possibly codependent mother. We'll explore how these fraught relationships led Sean to struggle to connect with other people and how it caused a loneliness that mutated into deep sexual frustration and a thirst for

violence. Next time, we'll explore Sean's 10-year career of murder, necrophilic rape, and cannibalism, and how nobody knew about that side of him until he made one tiny mistake. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer,

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Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. 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. We all know the tale of Pinocchio, the little wooden doll who became a real boy. It's a story about wanting to grow up, something many children can relate to. Kids can be jealous of the things that grown-ups have, cars or clothes or no one to answer to.

The freedom of it all seems endless. Grown-ups also have romantic relationships. Children figure someday they will have these two. They will grow up, have their first kiss, their first love, maybe one day get married. And many do exactly that, or some version of it. But what if that's not how the story went? What if Pinocchio, instead of becoming a real boy, just got stuck? Everyone around him grew up, but he got left behind.

How would he feel? And perhaps, more importantly, what would he do? Sean Vincent Gillis was that kind of broken Pinocchio. Of course, not everything about Sean's life resembled Pinocchio's. For example, Pinocchio's father figure, Geppetto, was a kindly loving woodcarver. Sean's father couldn't be more different if he tried. In 1963, Sean was a one-year-old boy lying in his crib in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when his father barged into the bedroom, angry and waving a gun.

Norman's rage seemed directed at Sean's mother, Yvonne. He yelled at her, and with that didn't feel like it was getting his point across, he jammed the gun against his son's temple. That got Yvonne's attention, and she sprinted to the doorway, wide-eyed with terror. Norman shouted again, threatening to shoot her and the boy, too. Yvonne wasn't going to let that happen. She bull rushed Norman and wrestled him for the gun. Somehow she pulled it from his hands without it going off,

raced to the bathroom and locked herself in, pocketing the weapon. Then she climbed out the window, got down to the street, and ran to a neighbor's house to call Norman's father. But she'd left Sean all alone with Norman. Norman's entire adult life had been a spiral of mental health struggles and binge drinking. He was a human time bomb, and that night he detonated right in front of his son. Vanessa's going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode.

As a note, Vanessa's not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. Although Sean was only one at the time of this incident, studies have suggested that infants may be more susceptible to negative effects from severe emotional trauma, such as domestic violence. In particular, some of those affected infants have shown impact on the emotional and physical development of their brains as they grow, while Sean was certainly too young to understand

how close he came to death, he was likely extremely distressed by his father's rough handling, his parents' fighting and screaming, and Norman's threats. It's a lot to handle for anyone, let alone an infant. We don't know exactly what happened in the minutes after Yvonne left the house, but they were likely long and painful for Sean. He was a helpless baby, left alone with his rageful father. Eventually, Sean's grandfather, Norman Sr., arrived and led Norman out of the house as Yvonne was able to safely return. When back in the house, she held Sean to her chest and promised him everything would be all right.

He was her little boy. Norman didn't return home after that night, which left Yvonne to raise Sean by herself. With no one to help provide for her son, the now single mother relied solely on her job writing advertisements for a local television station. It was a good job, but not a great one. Money was always tight,

as Norman couldn't always pay child support. He spent much of his adult life institutionalized, but Yvonne always made ends meet and tried to make Sean's life enriching and fun. Sometimes she took him to work with her, showing him the bustling television studio with its production equipment and busy people. At home, she read to him, often from her collection of classic literature. When Sean was around 10, she bought them a new house on tree-lined Bergen Avenue near Louisiana State University,

All through his childhood, Yvonne worked hard to give Sean a happy, healthy childhood. Except Yvonne never dated or remarried while Sean was growing up. The only man in her life was her son, just like she was the only woman in his life. Yvonne called Sean Blue-eyed Angel, as she told Susan Mustafa and Sue Israel in the research for their book dismembered. And even though his teachers said he was just average, Yvonne thought of him as a genius. They loved each other in a way that felt almost obsessive. Given what we know about them, it's possible that Yvonne and Sean's relationship was

codependent. According to the American Psychological Association, that can be a relationship between two individuals who are emotionally dependent on one another. Ivan, with no love life to speak of, may have depended on Sean for love and affection, and Sean, wanting to be a good son, reciprocated, never realizing it might have been doing him harm. You see, some therapists have observed that boys who have codependent relationships with their mothers during childhood sometimes struggle to develop mature, independent adult identities. They may also have difficulty forming intimate relationships with romantic partners, which is perhaps why Sean had difficulty forming relationships amongst his peers. At school, he formed close relationships with only two

other boys, John Green and John Rosas. According to one neighbor, most people seem to find Sean creepy. It's unclear why exactly, but that neighbor noted that her daughter avoided him whenever she could. Mostly spurned by other kids, Sean retreated into various hobbies. He became passionately obsessed with the television show Star Trek, and it's possible he identified with one of the show's heroes, Mr. Spock. Mr. Spock was smart and brave and strong, but had trouble with emotional relationships, just like Sean. And just like Mr. Spock, started playing chess. Even in elementary school, he became good enough to not only play the game, but to teach it to his friend, John Green. Sean even started coming to school with a Star Trek

briefcase, which probably didn't win him any new fans. Sean's difficulty with relationships and obsessive interests may have been symptoms of a developmental disorder. Commenting on Sean's case in 2008, clinical psychologist Dr. Donald Hoppe believed that Sean's Star Trek obsession was associated with Asperger's disorder. Asperger's disorder and autistic disorder are now both categorized as different severities of autistic spectrum disorder, or ASD. Criteria for diagnosis of ASD from the diagnostic and statistical manual of disorders include varying degrees of difficulty sharing emotions, reading social cues, communicating with

others, and forming relationships. People with ASD may also develop fixations or obsessions with random subjects. that happen to deeply fascinate them. These can be sports, computer programming, the stock market, or Star Trek, anything. And while Dr. Hoppe's opinion isn't an official diagnosis, there are some who theorize that Star Trek can hold a special allure for people with autistic personality traits. Renowned science writer Dr. Oliver Sacks observed that many autistic people loved Star Trek,

especially the stoic Mr. Spock, who struggles to understand and express human emotion. And while children with ASD may have minor struggles forming relationships, those difficulties can become more pronounced as they age. But Sean may also fit another pattern. Michael Stone is a professor of clinical psychiatry who researches the psychology of murders. In 2014, he spoke to the New Yorker about the trajectory of children who later end up killing people. He said, they're a little weird in school, but as they get to the age when kids begin to date and find, partners, they can't. So the sense of deficit becomes very acute. That certainly fits with what we know

about Sean's trajectory throughout his teenage years and beyond. While other boys began to date and get girlfriends, he floundered. One night in Sean's adolescent years, he lay in bed unable to sleep. His thoughts were racing, a churning volcano of teenage angst, frustration, bitterness, sadness, and rage. He wanted a girlfriend and didn't understand why he couldn't have one. He lay in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling and stewing. His frustration might have been lessened were it not for his mother's religious teachings. Yvonne was devoutly Catholic and had possibly taught Sean that masturbation, fornication, and looking at pornography were all sinful acts.

By 3 a.m., he had had enough. He threw off the blankets and stormed out of bed and stomped into the front yard. He paced back and forth in front of the family's tin garbage cans, fists clenched and muttering to himself. Then he whirled and punched a garbage can. It clanged. He punched it harder. It clanged louder.

He punched it again. Over and over and over. He beat the garbage cans and screamed into the air. Some of Sean's neighbors were awoken by the noise and staggered into the street, exhausted and confused. No one could understand what the Gillis boy was doing in the middle of the night beating up the trash cans. Finally, someone got Sean's attention and asked him what was wrong. Sean stopped, fists clenched, chest teething as he sucked air into his skinny frame.

He told them he was mad because he couldn't get a girlfriend. It wasn't a completely odd thing for a teenage boy to say, but his reaction definitely seemed extreme. Eventually, Sean calmed down and went back to bed, and so did his neighbors. But Sean's problem hadn't gone away. He wanted a girlfriend, and he just couldn't get one. His frustration boiled, his mind cracked. No girl alive would love him, would spend time with him, but even touch him. So maybe what he needed wasn't a living girl.

Maybe he needed a dead one. Coming up, Sean's frustration. lead him down a dark rabbit hole. Right. Let me paint a picture for you, Ian. Yeah? I'm going to set the scene. This is the bit that I like.

Right. Okay, go for it. It's a beautiful Saturday in early July 2001. Do you remember back about 21 years ago? I remember 2001 fondly. Okay, well, imagine that time, but we're in Germany. So, good entag. Gooden toad.

There's this university in the city of Witten. It's high summer. It's really incredibly hot. The students, the locals, they're out, they're enjoying the sun, they're getting their tan on. But behind the door of a small one-bedroom apartment, things couldn't be more different. Darkness, death and destruction lurk inside. And unaware of what they are about to walk into, the local Witten Police Squad are trying to get in.

Bang, bang, bang. What are you doing? I'm doing like the sound effects, that's the police coming in. You know, this is like a big podcast We can actually like Get proper sound effects in Right, okay Let's just do that then

There's no answer And as the offices force Their way indoors That's not a force sound As a squeaky door That's you taking a shit sound It sounds like a tricky poo doesn't it? That's not what I don't sound like that

When I do a tricky poo It's to be very clear So they break down the door But gosh They're greeted with a scene straight Out of a Gothic horror novel Yeah, we do The apartment is almost pitch black.

The officers have to squint as they make their way down the corridor, reluctantly groping the walls to keep from tripping over. They inch their way towards a door at the end of the corridor, not knowing what they are about to be greeted with. They creep towards the bedroom. It's as dark as the corridor. An officer pulls back one of the blackout curtains, and the first thing to catch their eye is a full-size coffin laying on the floor.

A coffin? Yeah, a coffin. The entire apartment is painted black and in the living room Cemetery lights illuminate and ultra-fashioned from fake human skulls. So this is the bit

when it gets really messed up. In the middle of all of it, there's a body. No way. So the body, the victim, has been stabbed 66 times and a pentagram has been cut into the stomach. There's a message smeared in blood

on the window when Satan lives. This is seriously dark stuff. Totally. And it's about to get a whole lot darker. Ooh. That was the last sound effect. From Spotify, I'm Laura Whitmore.

And I'm Ian Sterling. This is partners in crime. Every week we rifled through the case files of some of the most infamous, fascinating and bizarre crimes in history. So, if I'm... Like us, your perfect date night involves turning down the lights real low, cozing up on the sofa and delving into the braved minds of some seriously messed up criminals.

You're very much in the right place. Welcome to episode one, the vampire killers. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor about zeppbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zetbound 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 injection.

Zetbound contains terseptitide and should not be used with other terseptide-containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zetbound is safe and effective for use in general. 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 had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type two. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop set bound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth

control pills. Taking Zepbound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsened kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99 or visit Zepbound.lily.com. Now back to the story. As Sean Gillis progressed into adolescence during the 1970s, the social gap between himself and girls' age stretched into an unbridgeable chasm. They just weren't interested in him, which made him frustrated and angry at first, and then depressed. Sean may not have had the emotional skills to cope with these feelings, and perhaps there what drew him to his grandmother's nearby funeral home. To Sean, the home might have felt

like his very own haunted house, the perfect silence of the foyer, the chemical smell of the embalming room, the beautifully crafted coffins. Being in the building probably aroused a weird mix of feelings, cold but also intimate. Then there were the bodies in caskets waiting for their funerals. To Sean, they were like giant dolls, toys waiting for him to do anything he wanted. And he let his imagination run wild. He slept in the empty coffins. He held the body's cold hands.

He poked their rubbery skin. Sometimes he fondled their bodies. These corpses may have given Sean what he had always wanted, unresisting female partners. It seems that Sean had a tendency towards necrophilic fantasies, something that can develop out of fear of rejection. According to a 1989 review of more than 100 cases of necrophilic acts and fantasies by researchers Jonathan Rossman and Philip Resnick, the development of necrophilia tends to occur like this. First, a person, typically a man, develops poor self-esteem. He's terrified of rejection by women, so he looks for a sexual object that can't reject him. He encounters a dead body and develops an exciting fantasy about sex with a corpse.

It's possible that this is where Sean was in the process of his unfolding desires. That meant the next step was to search for a way to make the fantasy a reality. Outwardly, teenage Sean kept these darker impulses secret, but on the inside, his emerging fascination with dead bodies bled into his feelings about his mother. He began to think of her as beautiful and fantasized about what he could do with her body if she were dead. She'd be his own life-size, Barbie. But Sean didn't tell any of this to his mother or his two best friends, the Johns.

Instead, he carried on with his relatively normal life. The three boys went to the mall, they hung out and talked about girls, they watched TV. But soon, other teenage impulses started bubbling to the surface. Sean and the Johns began drinking and smoking pot together, though Sean seemed to like it more than his friends. Later, he made a habit of driving them out to private properties for the thrill of trespassing. We don't know much about this period, but perhaps Sean's desire to grow up made him eager to test boundaries and limits. Then again, maybe he saw drinking, smoking, and trespassing as a way to connect with his friends before life took them in different directions.

That moment was fast approaching. 1979 was the beginning of Sean's senior year, which meant graduation was just around the corner. This was Sean's coming-of-age moment after the veritable obstacle course life had thrown at him, his toxic absentee father, his possibly codependent mother, his struggle to form intimate relationships and his latent necrophilic impulses. After all of that, graduation was an opportunity to leave everything behind and step into the world of adults. It was time for Pinocchio to become a real boy. But then, Sean's grandfather died and it was a hard loss.

Norman Sr. had been a kind, steady presence in Sean's life since he was a baby, and if his grandfather's death wasn't enough to deal with, the teen was hit with another unexpected shock. His father was coming home for the funeral. Norman hadn't been to Baton Rouge for 16 years. After he'd left the family's home, he'd been institutionalized 19 times, diagnosed with seven different mental conditions, and survived several suicide attempts. But by 1979, Norman's life was more stable and he decided that he and his son should get to know each other. So, when Norman flew to Louisiana for his father's funeral, he and Sean's spent some time together. It was a bit awkward at first, but Norman continued visiting Baton Rouge,

and the two started to build a relationship. When Sean graduated high school the following year, he could look to the audience and see his parents, both of them, sitting together cheering him on. Unfortunately, the feeling of family pride didn't last long. That night, Sean was relaxing at home when he got a call from his dad. Norman was in intensive care at a local hospital, after a hallucinatory episode while out drinking. He didn't mention that to Sean and said it was nothing to worry about, but that he might be there for a while. He asked Sean to collect his things from his hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Sean agreed and asked the Johns to go with him. The three teens drove to New Orleans and found Norman's room in a small inn. But as they were packing up his belongings, they found a stack of photographs next to his bed, all images of men in explicit sexual positions. In 1980, society was much more close-minded about queerness than they are today, and given Sean's mother's Catholic faith, it seems likely that he'd been taught that being gay was a sin.

So it's hardly surprising that the teenager felt shocked, angry, and betrayed when he realized what the photos meant about his father. After that, he never wanted to see Norman again. So a day that was supposed to mark Sean's transition from childhood into adulthood, instead signaled the beginning of a backslide. He returned to the bad habits he picked up in recent years, smoking, drinking, and exploring others' property. At some point later that year, he was arrested for the first time,

for criminal trespassing. After that, he did, well, nothing. He could have moved out of his mom's house, but he didn't. He took some computer classes and could have pursued a career in computers, but he didn't. Whatever modicum of pride shone. Sean felt in himself, his family, and his masculinity, the revelation about his father's sexuality seemed to shatter it.

As he moved into his 20s, Sean spiraled. He worked unskilled jobs. He drank. He smoked pot. He obsessed over Star Trek. He hung out with the Johns. His emotional and intellectual development just stopped. Twelve years went by this way.

For all that time, Sean stewed in his loneliness and his inability to get a girlfriend. It was a constant loop that seemed doomed to repeat endlessly, unless something shook things loose. That shake-up came when Sean was almost 30. In 1992, his mom got a job in Atlanta and announced that she was moving away. She said he could stay in the house and she would continue to pay the mortgage,

but she was leaving. And then she left, just like that. Suddenly, the only woman in Sean's life, the only woman who had ever really been in his life, was gone. He felt abandoned and bereft. Now, living alone for the first time, he leaned even harder on the crutches that had kept him going until now. Star Trek, alcohol, weed, and his computer. Sean had owned a computer for years, but it had never been anything other than a fun toy, but in the early to mid-1990s, the computer became more like a powerful drug. That was when he

first experienced the Internet. Sean was entranced. At some stage, he discovered internet pornography and looked at it often. But he didn't settle for just any porn. He sought out fetishized photos of dead women. It was better than his days at his grandmother's funeral home had ever been. And the disturbing images were at his fingertips whenever he wanted. Given Sean's solitary, sheltered lifestyle, it's not surprising that internet pornography was so alluring to him. A 2021 study published in a time. frontiers in psychology, found that people were more likely to look at internet pornography

because they were lonely, bored, and or sexually aroused. The study also found that compulsively viewing internet pornography when feeling lonely correlated with increased feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress. It's possible that Sean turned to internet pornography to relieve his negative emotions about his mother moving away, but the habit likely made those feelings worse. Finally, Sean couldn't take it anymore. He was so frustrated and angry at his mom for abandoning him, and the loneliness felt crushing. The alcohol and weed weren't numbing his feelings enough, so he decided that he needed a woman. The porn wasn't cutting it anymore. He needed a body, a flesh and blood woman. So he left the house to find one. Coming up, Sean's fantasies lead to murder.

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Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. all pay off your home travel for life drive a Ferrari in celebration of the world premiere of the monopoly big board buck slot machine by aristocrat gaming yamava resort and casino at san manuel is giving one person a 1.6 million dollar dream package the biggest prize in yamava's history club sorano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale may 29th don't pass go and own it all only at yamava celebrating its 40th anniversary you win details at yamava dot com must be 21st winter please gamble responsibly monopoly is a trademark of hasbro hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion Now back to the story. In 1992, 30-year-old Sean Vincent Gillis was upset and alone. His mom had left him, and he was stifled by his lifelong inability to connect with other people. Sometime after Yvonne moved, he left the house, and it seems that he went looking for a woman.

However, we don't know exactly what his intentions were. Maybe he planned to peep in some windows, perhaps catch a couple in an intimate moment, or find somewhere to break into. Then again, maybe he had something much worse in mind. One night he crept into his next door neighbor's backyard and peered inside the house. The lights were on and Sean could see the young woman who lived there. Excitement building, he moved in for a closer look. But he got too close.

The woman saw him and called the police. The threat of arrest looming, Sean retreated back to his house. Later, when a police officer knocked on Sean's door to ask about the complaint, Sean admitted he'd been in the backyard but claimed he was looking for his cat. The cop was skeptical, but all he could really do was arrest Sean for some outstanding traffic violations. He was released a few hours later. The shame and humiliation must have weighed on Sean. He had looked at a woman, just looked at her, and she'd had him thrown in jail.

It was the lesson he'd learned again and again. No living woman wanted to spend time with him. Even his mother had abandoned him. Eventually, he started to realize all of his pain was her fault. Sean's resentment toward his mother boiled over. Just like he had when he was a teenager, he took to the front yard in the middle of the night to vent his anger, screaming profanities at the top of his lungs. But unlike when he was a teenager, Sean didn't do this just once.

There were many nights when he was out in the front yard, howling in pain, cursing his mother. If Sean did live with autistic spectrum disorder, he likely lacked the capability to handle his emotions. A 2013 article in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry states that ASD is associated with amplified emotional responses and poor emotional control. So it's possible that this could have followed him into adulthood. But shouting in the front yard didn't solve Sean's problems, just as it hadn't when he was a teen. Nothing brought him relief, not even pornography. And yet somehow, as he was entering a dangerous spiral, life presented Sean with a chance at a normal, healthy, romantic relationship. In March of 1994, a friend brought 31-year-old Sean to a convenience store. She wanted him to meet someone.

When they entered, Sean's friend introduced him to the woman behind the counter. Her name was Terry, and the two of them apparently had a lot in common. Sean looked at the woman behind the counter. She was tall, blonde, a turt. There was no way she'd go for him. Terry was finalizing a bad divorce and looking for some fun. In front of her was a slight man with a messy, boyish side part, large glasses and a short beard. Not exactly what she had in mind. But Sean and Terry did have a lot in common.

Most importantly, Terry was a trekkie, just like him. Sean was fascinated by that. He stayed at the convenience store while Terry worked the graveyard shift and the two chatted all night. A few days later, when Sean asked Terry out, she said yes. But one date with a living woman didn't cancel out Sean's interest in necrophilia. In fact, necrophilia and long-term romantic relationships aren't mutually exclusive. A 2010 study published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences reviewed 16 cases of necrophilia

associated with homicide and found that six of the offenders were either married or in committed relationships. The study also found that two of the offenders lived with their spouses when they committed their crimes. Earlier, we noted that a man may tend towards necrophilia in response to loneliness, but killing a person and then also having sex with their dead body may have different motivations entirely. But even though he seemed on his way to our relationship, Sean was beyond loneliness now. Research suggests that necrophiliac killers don't just want to have sex with a dead body, some just want to degrade the victim. Others may want to demonstrate their disdain for society's acceptance to show that they don't care what anyone thinks of them. For Sean,

it seems necrophilia was no longer about getting a girlfriend. It appears it was about his deep-seated rage. And in his mind, there was only one way to express that emotion. Violence. On March 20th, 1994, Sean went out on the prowl. He had no plan. He had no plan. He didn't know who he was looking for, and he didn't know what he would do when he found her. He just knew he had to do something. About a block from his house, he came to St. James Place, an assisted living facility. It was right across the street from the convenience store where Terry worked, and it was a veritable buffet of potential victims.

Sean carefully circled the perimeter of the facility, checking windows trying to recreate the feeling of voyeurism and looking at internet pornography gave him. And then, through an open curtain, he spotted Anne Bryan. Anne's apartment was tidy in a way that felt familiar. She kept a nice home like Sean's house had been when his mother had lived there. She was a mother. There were photos of her children and grandchildren around the apartment. There was also a Bible on the coffee table, which meant she was religious, also like Yvonne.

Sean watched in silence as the 81-year-old woman went about her evening. She drew a hot bath, slipped out of her clothes, and carefully lowered herself into the steaming water. He stared as she washed, as she relaxed in the water for a few minutes. Sean was enthralled as Anne emerged from the bath and dried off. He watched her slip into her pink nightgown get ready for bed. Sean was aroused. Here was a woman so much like his mother, but in his eyes she was damaged. She was weak, broken, just like him.

As he stood there thinking about that, he knew he needed to get closer to her. He wanted to attack her. He circled to Anne's front door and found it unlocked, so he tiptoed into her apartment, made his way to her bedroom, and stood in the dark watching her sleep. He waited for a long while, thoroughly enjoying the thrill it gave him. By 3 a.m., Sean was ready to do what he had come to do. He approached Anne's bed. But he made a noise and accidentally woke her up. Sean saw her move, saw her eyes settle on him.

He touched her and she screamed. He climbed on top of her, tore her underwear, and she kicked. Sean was terrified. The screaming, the kicking, the physical closeness. It shocked him. He'd never had a human interaction like this. Anne Bryan was not a dead body in a funeral home or a picture on the internet.

She was a living, breathing human being, and she was fighting for her life. He was totally unprepared for the experience. Whatever his intention had been earlier, there is only one thing he could do now. He had to make the screaming stop. So Sean pulled out a knife and stabbed her multiple times. The attack became easier as Sean continued, and he might have felt a sense of accomplishment. Eventually, Anne stopped kicking, stopped moving. She had given up, and maybe Sean felt redeemed after decades of rejection.

Finally, Sean cut Anne's throat so deeply, he nearly decapitated her. And then she was dead. All his to play with. What he did next was like something out of a grotesque slasher film. We'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that Sean mutilated Anne's body in a haphazard, curious fashion, like an animal playing with its food. Sean finished by posing her body. He kept her legs on the bed, put her torso on the floor,

and cut her nightgown open to reveal everything he had done. From what we know, Sean went home right after he left Anne's house. He returned to his life as if nothing had happened. The next day it was like his usual routine. He may have drank, smoked, and thought about Star Trek and internet pornography. Maybe he even thought about calling Terry. When staff members found Anne the next morning and called the point, police. Sean wasn't even thought of as a suspect. If anyone thought of him at all, it was just as a

slightly odd kid down the street. But he was anything but, and even after what he'd done, his violent impulse was still there, though now it lay dormant. It would be back soon, though, with a vengeance. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. We'll be back soon with part two on Sean Gillis. Next time, we'll follow his 10-year frenzy of murder, rape, necrophilia, and cannibalism. For more information on Sean Gillis, amongst the many sources we used, we found dismembered by Susan D. Mustafa and Sue Israel, extremely helpful to our research. You can find more episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from podcast 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 designed by Alex Button, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Trent Williamson, Carly Madden, and Joshua Kern. This episode of Serial Killers was written by K. Adam Bloom, edited by Stacey Nemic and Joel Callan, fact-checked by Lori Siegel, and researched by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood. Serial Killers stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. Ryan Reynolds here for MintMobil with a message for everyone paying big wireless

way too much. Please for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again.

I'm global news crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.