Murder In America - EP. 30 LOUISIANA - The Baton Rouge Serial Killer: Sean Vincent Gillis (WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC)

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

In the late 1990's and early 2000's, a brutal serial killer terrorized the community of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, murdering women at random and carving up their bodies for fun. The killer himself was a Star Trek nerd, an unassuming man with a girlfriend and a clean criminal record. But behind closed doors, this psycho was showering with the corpses of his victims, painting the fingernails of dismembered hands and killing at random, whenever he wanted to. However, these crimes cannot carry on forever, and the story of his eventual capture is almost as shocking as the crimes themselves. You're listening, to MURDER IN AMERICA. WARNING: This episode is EXTREMELY graphic. Listener discretion is HEAVILY advised. SUPPORT THE SHOW BY ENGAGING WITH OUR WONDERFUL SPONSORS!! (We wouldn't promote products that we don't believe in!!): Sign up for HELLOFRESH and begin eating healthier, cheaper and with less effort! Just click on the LINK BELOW and use our custom code "STATE14" at checkout for free meals and shipping!! https://www.hellofresh.com/state14 Use PROSE and see the difference in YOUR hair!! Seriously, PROSE gives you a spa experience right there at home. And if you use our custom link, you can get a FREE hair consultation AND 15% off!! Just click the link below!! https://www.prose.com/state Download VODACAST today to view EXCLUSIVE VERSIONS of episodes of our show, complete with crime scene photos and other media that relates to our stories!! https://www.vodacast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned. Throughout the mid-90s and early 2000s, the bodies of over a dozen women began turning up all over Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Law enforcement knew that they had a serial killer. on their hands and the citizens of the city were terrified. But for a brief moment, everyone's fears would subside, because one woman would escape the killer and was able to reveal his identity as a man named Derek Todd Lee. DNA would connect him to seven different murders, and with Lee behind bars,

the people of Louisiana could finally rest easy. Or so they thought. After Lee's arrest, the bodies of women continue to show up across the city. In fact, investigators later discovered that within this 10-year period, there were five different serial killers operating in Baton Rouge. But one in particular was especially heinous. He was abducting women, strangling them, cutting off their limbs, eating their body parts, sexually assaulting their corpses, and dumping their bodies in fields. The killer was unassuming, a man who if passed on the street, you wouldn't give a second glance, a man with no criminal history, and a terribly dark secret. This is the story of the Baton Rouge serial killer Sean Vincent Gillis. I'm Courtney Shannon. And I'm Colin Browne. And you're listening to Murder in America.

In downtown Baton Rouge, the streets are lined with lights, filled with music, and the area is a constant magnet for parties. There are expensive apartments, luxurious businesses, and high-class restaurants. Living down there is the city life, a lifestyle that many people love and adore. And in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it was a place where many people liked to go, to let loose, a place to head down to and enjoy your weekend. But just across the interstate, Baton Rouge becomes a completely different city. In this part of Baton Rouge, the streets are filled with drugs, violence, and a plethora of people that are just trying to make ends meet. As it got closer and closer to the new millennium, the late 90s, many of the local prostitutes who worked those

very streets began to notice that friends of theirs were going missing. Their friends had gotten into a car hoping to make enough money for the night to provide for their families, but they were never seen again. Friends and family of these missing sex workers at the time reported them missing, but of course law enforcement doesn't pay much attention. In the eyes of local law enforcement, these prostitutes were just runaway junkies that weren't worth looking into. But for the people that loved them who were worried about them, they knew that they there was a more sinister force at play, and their fears were right,

because lurking right along these streets was a predator with a desire to kill. In the early hours of January 4th, 1999, this predator would find a victim, 30-year-old Catherine Hall. Catherine was a petite woman with a vibrant personality and she wasn't new to the streets. Years prior, she developed a pretty bad drug addiction.

And in order to feed that addiction, she began dabbling in sex work. And now, after years of working the streets, Catherine knew what she was doing. She knew the regulars on the streets. She knew the men that didn't pay very well. And she knew the men that were far too sketchy to do business with. She was a smart woman with good intuition. So in that cool January night, when a middle-aged, nerdy-looking man pulled up next to her in his white Chevy Cavalier, she didn't hesitate to get inside his car. Once inside the car, the man offers her $20 for oral sex and Catherine gladly accepts the offer. The two start driving down the road where they engage in small talk and listen to some music.

They drive for a few minutes before the man pulls the car over near an empty field in the middle of nowhere. He leans his seat back, unzips his pants and Catherine starts performing oral sex. But what Catherine doesn't know is that as she's doing this, the man is secretly reaching down and grabbing a nylon zip tie. He quickly wraps it around her neck and pulls it as tight as he can. Like Catherine puts up a hell of a fight if she's able to get out of the car. With the zip tie still around her neck, she makes a run for it through the empty field trying to escape her attacker. But unfortunately, with nowhere to run, he eventually catches up to her. He tackles Catherine to the ground and repeatedly punches her.

Then he pulls out a knife and instead of stabbing her, he turns the knife. horizontally and makes deep slices through her eye, her stomach, rest, and genitals. The knife cuts through her skin and muscle a total of 16 times, all while Catherine is screaming for somebody, anybody, to help her, but no one can hear her scream. The man then takes his knife and slits Catherine's throat, delivering a fatal injury. But the man was in finished with Catherine once she died. In fact, his fun had just begun. Once he was sure Catherine was dead,

he removed all of her clothing and stabbed his knife deep into her arm near the shoulder. He then drags the knife through her skin, all the way down to her hand, cutting her arm completely open. Next, he cuts a circle around her right breast and a deep cut through the center of her left breast. He then stabs her stomach and genitals

a total of eight times before cutting off one of her eyelids. He then flips Catherine over, slices open her right calf and proceeds to stab the knife deep into her left buttock. Lastly, he lifts, stretches, and pulls Catherine's skin down from her buttocks, peeling the scalped skin all the way down to her knees. At this point, he had delivered 21 post-mortem wounds to Catherine's body, and now he was finally finished. After carving up the body, the killer picks up Catherine's mutilated corpse

and places it in the front seat of his car. Wanting to toy with the police, he hangs her jacket on the fence before driving away. In the book titled Dismembered by Sue Israel and Susan Mustafa, the author stated that quote, With Catherine's body in the front passenger seat, Sean drove to the splash car wash on Gardier Lane, where he would clean out her blood from the seat. After he had checked the exterior, he pulled her from the car and laid her on the ground in plain sight. while he scrubbed the inside of the vehicle. No one noticed.

Hours later, in the field where Catherine was murdered, the property owner on a routine check of their land noticed Catherine's jacket and the discarded nylon zip tie. He reached into the pockets of the jacket and discovered a food stamp bearing the name Catherine Hall. Going with his gut feeling that something about this discovery just wasn't right, the property owner then decided to call the police. Dispatch took down the information,

but they didn't really think much of it. A few hours later, across town, a man named Herbert Jones was busy squirrel hunting in a rural area. And as he was walking down this dead end road, looking for squirrels, something else caught his eye. Just below the bright yellow sign that read Dead End lay the mutilated, nude body of a young black woman. Law enforcement quickly get to the scene at the Dead End Road and begin processing their crime scene. They noticed that there are no clothes on or around the body and barely in. blood, leading them to believe that their victim had been dumped here. The killing and mutilation had to have taken place at a different location. Authorities found it especially disturbing that

the killer had placed the corpse directly beneath the dead-in sign. It was some kind of twisted joke. Catherine's body was then taken to the medical examiner where investigators' fingerprint and discover her identity. They are then able to connect the corpse to to the jacket and zip tie that were found on the property across town. The dark line around her neck was a perfect match to the zip tie found near the jacket. And law enforcement slowly began to piece together what happened. But the main question at that point was who could have possibly done this to her? During Catherine's autopsy, the medical examiners discover that whoever killed Catherine

had had sex with her body after death. After examining the body, they find a pubic hair wedged in between her front teeth. And they are positive that this hair was from her killer. Unfortunately, in 1999, DNA technology still had a long way to go. And there wasn't much they could do with this hair. So they put it into evidence where it would stay for years. And eventually, Catherine Hall's murder case would go cold. About four years later in 2003, a woman named Johnny May Williams was

walking the streets of Baton Rouge selling her body in order to pay for her drug habit. The last few years of Johnny May's life had been rough, to say the least. At one point, she was considered an ideal mother. She had been very close to her kids, and even though she was a single mom, she had given them everything that they needed. After moving her family to Baton Rouge, Johnny May got involved with a man that had a lot of money, and for the first time in her life, she was living large, eating nice meals, buying expensive things. It was like her dreams had finally come true. Johnny May was head over heels and love, but this relationship wouldn't last long, for she quickly found out that her new boyfriend was cheating on her. Johnny May went from

living large with a lot of nice things to barely making ends meet almost overnight. She eventually got addicted to crack cocaine and lost everything. These losses included her health, her money, and the custody of her children. She was now broke and addicted to drugs, so she worked a number of odd jobs to feed her addiction, including housekeeping and sex work. On this particular day, October 9, 2003, Johnny May was walking the streets searching for a John when a friend of hers pulls up in his white Chevy Cavalier. Johnny May was very familiar with the man in the white Chevy Cavalier. In fact, she had been cleaning his house for years, and she was so comfortable with him that they had even shared a Thanksgiving dinner together years earlier. So when he pulls up

and offers to give her a ride, she of course agrees. The two drive down the rural roads of Baton Rouge, and at the time Johnny May was completely unaware of her friend's devious plan. But in his mind, it didn't matter at all that the two were friends. Once she stepped into that car, his mind was already made up. He was going to kill her. So he didn't. drives her down a secluded road, parks the car, and pulls her out onto the ground and clutches her in the face and stomach until she dies. He then takes off all of Johnny May's clothes and begins to stab her. He stabs her legs, her left and right buttocks, and he makes a deep cut all the way from her neck to her butt. After that, he turns her body over, grabs her hand,

and starts violently slicing at her wrist. He does this over and over until her hand completely detaches from the arm. He then proceeds to do the exact same thing to her other hand, smiling the entire time. After mutilating her body, he bags up her hands and clothes and puts her body in the front seat and drives away.

The killer would drive for quite some time trying to find the perfect spot to dump her body, and he eventually comes across an embankment, which he thinks is the perfect spot. He takes Johnny May's body out of the car and places her face down with her arms lying beneath her, chillingly. Before leaving the area, he takes out a camera and snaps some pictures of his disturbing knife works. And in the most disturbing twist of all, he keeps Johnny May's hands as a trophy. And as he drives away from the dumping site, he rubs.

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Go buy a product from pros. Go help our sponsors out. They're awesome. And really, we do love their products. But anyways, guys, let's get back to this incredibly gruesome story. Johnny Mae Williams' corpse would be discovered shortly after her murder by a young kid searching for his lost dog.

The boy came across Johnny's mangled corpse in the woods and immediately ran back home to tell his parents. At first, his parents didn't believe him, but when they went out to the embankment to look for themselves, they discovered that, indeed, there was a dead body out in the woods. When law enforcement arrives on scene, they see that the woman is missing her hands, and they can't seem to find them anywhere around her body. When they take the corpse to the medical examiner, they find out that it was none other than 45-year-old Johnny Mae Williams. And on her body, once again, investigators discovered a single hair belonging to a Caucasian male,

Very similar to the hair found on the previous dead-end road victim, Catherine Hall. After this discovery, law enforcement suspects that a sadistic serial killer is targeting sex workers in Baton Rouge, and they know that if they don't stop him soon, he will kill again. And sure enough, about five months later, that day would come. This time, the victim was a 43-year-old woman named Donna Bennett-Johnston. Donna, like the previous victims, had a drug addiction. When her marriage started failing, she began to drink heavily. Then she progressed to pills and then eventually crack cocaine.

By 2004, her addiction was at its worst. So when a friendly man and a white Chevy cavalier pulled up and offered her money for oral sex, she agreed and got in the car. The man could tell that Donna was drunk and he knew that it would be an easy kill. As he drove around looking for a secluded spot, he finds an area near a chemical plant and pulls over the car. Donna was already asleep at this point, so he grabs the zip tie, puts it around her neck, and begins to pull.

But as soon as he does this, Donna wakes up and realizes what's happening. So she pulls the zip tie off and runs as fast as she can through the open field. Her attacker eventually catches up to her, puts the zip tie around her neck, and right before she dies, Donna whispers, I can't breathe. Once she's dead, the killer whips out his camera, takes pictures of her body, undresses her,

takes off her wig and dental plate, and begins sawing off her arm. As he's doing this, he realizes that she has a blue butterfly tattoo that would make for a great trophy, so he takes his knife and cuts a circle around the butterfly, peels the skin off of the body, and sets it aside for later.

Then he examines her breasts and cuts off both of her nipples. He holds the nipples in his hands for a moment studying them before putting them in his mouth. He sucks on them for a while, then chews and swallows. The killer felt a huge rush as he consumed a part of his victim. And before leaving the site, he takes a total of 45 pictures of Donna's mutilated body. The killer finds another secluded spot down the road and dumps Donna's body near the woods.

But just before leaving, he decides to walk over to her and give her a big, stomp on her back, leaving a bloody shoe print behind on her skin. Donna Johnson's body was quickly discovered by a couple walking in the area. When the police arrived, they discovered Donna's battered body, lying face down with bruises and cuts everywhere. Her arm had been chopped off, and there was dried blood covering her genitals. Investigators are positive that whoever killed Donna was also responsible for the murder of Catherine Hall and Johnny May Williams. Like the previous victims, Donna had been dependent on drugs.

She had a ligature mark around her neck and had been brutally mutilated and dumped in a remote area. By this time, in 2004, DNA technology had advanced significantly. But when law enforcement tested the hair at the crime scenes against the DNA in their databases, the search came up empty, meaning that their killer didn't have a criminal record. And other than the hair found at the crime scene, investigators have no leads on who their suspect could be. But there was one interesting piece of evidence that investigators discovered at Donna's crime scene. There, in the mud by her body, was a set of tire tracks. And these very tracks would solve the case. After further investigation, law enforcement discovered that the tire tracks came from a very rare type of tire, a 13-inch aquatred 3.

Investigators got together a list of all the people who purchased this type of tires in Baton Rouge in the last year or so, and they came up with a list of 60 people. The task force assigned to the case quickly begins to go through the list, heading door to door, asking people for samples of their DNA. And they're certain that someone on this list will match the DNA found at their crime scenes. Most of the people on the list were innocent, so they happily offered up their DNA. Agent Jeff Methfin had spent a number of hours going door to door, taking DNA samples, and eliminating people one by one. On this day, he was to visit the 26th person on the list, a man named Sean Vincent Gillis. When he knocked on the door, a friendly-looking woman named Terry Lemoyne answered. The agent introduced himself to her and asked if Sean Gillis was home, to which she called out,

Sean, the police are here, they want to talk to you. A few moments later, Sean comes to the door. He's a small guy, kind of nerdy looking, and he looks absolutely nothing like a killer. I'm sure the agent assumes that this can't be their guy. But he tells him anyways that there had been a murder nearby, and that they're taking DNA from everyone who owns a Quadra 3 tires to try and narrow down their search. Sean immediately agrees to the DNA swab, and the agent is even more sure at this point that this most likely isn't their guy. Most guilty people never offer up their DNA.

But before the agent leaves the property, he asks Sean a few questions. Have you been on Ben-Hur road recently? Yes, I agree. grew up around that area. Do you know Donna Bennett-Johnston? Sean looks at the agent with a perplexed look on his face, shakes his head, and says, No, I don't know her. What about a woman named Catherine Hall?

Did you know her? No, I didn't know her either. Johnny Mae Williams? Did you know her? And to the agent's surprise, Sean gets a look on his face and replies. Yes, she was a friend of mine. She sometimes cleaned my house. Then, with no further questions, Agent Methfin thanked Sean for his time and leaves the property.

But despite Sean's calm demeanor and the fact that he willingly offered up his DNA, something wasn't sitting right with Agent Methfin. When he gets back to the station, he tells the task force that, quote, Something's not right here. This guy placed himself at the crime scene on Ben Hur Road, and he knew Johnny Mayer. Williams." So at that point, the detectives decide to go back to Sean's house and bring him in for questioning. At 2.18 p.m., authorities put Sean in an interrogation room and read him his Miranda

rights. Sean made sure to let them know that he was a smart man and he did not need a lawyer present. So the detectives start to establish a rapport. And they quickly discovered that Sean is a very talkative guy. After a bit of small talk, before the investigators even have a chance to ask him, Sean admits, Yeah, I've been on Ben Hur Road many times. That field was a party place on the weekends when I was young. I used to do mushrooms there. Sean then veered away from the conversation, talking about crime rates in the neighborhood and his plans for retirement. And the entire time he was calm and collected, he casually sipped on his Dr. Pepper and even made jokes with the investigation. Detective Brian White then asks him, So tell us, when was the last time you were on Ben Hur Road?

Sean thinks to himself for a moment before saying, Probably a week before the murders. I had to pee, so I stopped in the field. McDonald's was full, that would put it on a Saturday. I think there was an LSU game because there was a lot of traffic. We were able to find a few clips from the interrogation tapes where he went on to say this. I had had some beer, he needed to go to the bathroom real bad, and knew I wasn't going to make it to the house.

And you know what I'm saying? My bladder was how they put it, teaching John put it when my eyes are floating. Yeah, that's how that's how it felt. And after he already thoroughly explained how bad he needed to pee, Sean goes even further with his explanation, saying, I pulled into the gate and hung left near some trees and bushes. The gate was busted open. I had to get behind some bushes because I didn't want to expose myself.

It was between midnight and one. I backed in, hopped out, did my business, shook, looked around to make sure no one saw. But this didn't make any sense. Sean lived just a few blocks away from the road, and he could have easily just gone home to use the bathroom. But the detectives move along and ask him how he knows Johnny May. To which he replies, I hired her to clean my house four or five years ago. I'd give her money to buy drugs.

I just gave her a ride in my car about a month before she died. The investigators continue to fire questions at Sean. And he seems to have an answer for everything. When they ask him if they are going to find anything incriminating in his vehicle, he tells them the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Sean, in response to this question, says, quote, Well, you might find some blood in my car, but don't worry, it's just my wife's blood. end quote. He goes on to say that when he first got the car, his wife Terry got her period,

and that her blood started splattering all through the car. He even stated that the scene resembled a massacre. And I just need to take a second to say that, hopefully you already know this, but that is not how menstrual cycles work. Blood doesn't just start flying around getting all over the windows and seats when you start your period. But here's a little clip from that interrogation. But just wait, it gets even better. So, among that, we got the car. She got her period. And it just so,

I mean, it's like I said, it looked like a massacre in the front seat. When the investigators ask him if there will be any blood in the backseat of his car, Sean tells them that the windows were down at the time when his wife got her period. So her blood probably flew out of the window and into the back seat. At this point, investigators know that Sean Gillis's stories are all wise, and they are positive that he is the killer. But without a confession, they can't arrest him. As for the DNA testing, it usually takes a while to get the results back, so until then,

they had to let him go. But law enforcement kept tight surveillance on Sean. When he arrives back at his house, his girlfriend, Terry, is understandably confused. He reassures her that it's nothing and that the police just had to question him about the murders because of his tires. Sean and Terry had been together for nine years at this point in our story. They were just boyfriend and girlfriend from what I could find, but he does refer to her as his wife several times.

And Sean and Terry had an interesting relationship. They met through a mutual friend who said that the two would be perfect for each other because they were both obsessed with Star Trek. In the True Crime Daily's video on this case, they interviewed Terry and she says this. My best friend walks in and says, Sean, this is Terry, Terry, this is Sean. Y'all have everything in common. You have to get to know each other. We both love science fiction. We both loved Star Trek. We both loved collecting things.

He was cute in a little teddy bear sort of way. Type of person you'd want to bring home to mom, actually. After dating for a while, Terry ends up moving in with Sean. But their relationship was far from normal. Once again, in True Crime Daily's interview, Terry says this. Sean didn't believe in sex. I asked him about it one time and he told me that he had been taught that it was a nasty thing and that he shouldn't do that. And Terry was right. Sean's upbringing was not ideal. He was born to Norman and Yvonne Gillis on June 24, 1962. And unfortunately, him and I share the same birthday. But Sean's father was an abusive alcoholic and his mother was a very strong.

Catholic. And they fought a lot in his early childhood. In one instance, during an argument, Norman, Sean's father, held a gun to Sean's head when he was just one years old and threatened to kill him. His father ended up leaving the family shortly afterwards and was in and out of mental institutions. And he didn't really play a huge part in Sean's life after that. Yvonne would go on to raise Sean all on her own, doing her best to instill in him her Catholic values, which clearly didn't work out too well. When Sean met Terry in the mid-1990s, they were immediately infatuated with each other, but Sean made it clear that he was not interested in having sex. Terry would often try to seduce him,

but Sean would refuse. Terry would later find out that Sean had a pretty bad pornography addiction, and she claimed that this was the reason why he didn't like to have sex. Another interesting part of their relationship was that Sean didn't have a job, and the house that the couple lived in was paid for by Sean's mother, so he had a lot of free time. The only thing he had to do every day was bring Terry to and from work. The two had a strange relationship, but regardless, she loved him and they would go on to date for nearly 10 years. After Sean came home from the police station that day on April 29, 2004, Terry had absolutely no idea that her world was about to be turned upside down. As the two slept in bed later that night, cuddled up next to one another, the detectives working the case received a call. The perpetrator's DNA found on Catherine Hall, Johnny Mae Williams, and Donna Johnston was a perfect match to the DNA sample provided by Sean Vincent Gillis.

The task force quickly gathered a SWAT team, and at 1.20 a.m. that night, they broke down the door to Sean's home and placed him under arrest. In True Crime Daily's interview, Terry says this. I'm yelling what's going on, what's going on. And I look at Sean, and Sean just shrugged his shoulders and says, sorry, honey, bunny. And one of the officers turns around and looks at me and says, didn't you know you're living with a serial killer? The whole world came tumbling down that night. When everything happened, I laughed at the police when they told me why they arrested.

I literally laughed and told them, boy, do you have the wrong house. Terry was an utter disbelief that her boyfriend of nine years was being accused of murder and she refused to believe it was true. This had to be a huge mistake. She desperately wanted to talk to Sean, but so did the detectives. Once back at the police station, they put Sean in another interrogation room, read him his Miranda rights, and began their questioning. And to the surprise of the detectives, Sean admits to everything. The murders, mutilation, necrophilia, cannibalism, all of it. Here is a clip from that interrogation.

I'm sorry, I heard people. No. You let me out on the street, I'll find somebody. Before some down. When you say hi, I was strictly going out, looking. He used zip ties, and he showed how effective a zip tie was. White nylon tie. And we were up two and a half feet long.

And he made the sound as he was doing it, and it was quick. and it was quick. To that, you know. Do you remember saying anything to you doing it? Just before investigators are about to wrap up their interrogation, Sean turns to one of the detectives and asks for a pencil. When they hand it to him, Sean begins to write down the names of five women. Ann Bryan, Hardy Schmidt, Joyce Williams, Lillian Robinson, and Marilyn Nevels.

As the detectives read the names off the list, they're in shock. All five women were victims of unsolved, murder cases throughout the city, and investigators were not prepared for what Sean was about to tell them. Hey, guys, we're going to take a pause for a moment to tell you about one of our favorite services, Hello Fresh. With Hello Fresh, you get fresh, pre-measured ingredients and mouth-watering seasonal recipes delivered right to your door. You can skip trips to the grocery store and count on Hello Fresh to make home cooking easy, fun, and affordable. That's why it's America's number one

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been signed up for HelloFresh. Seriously, it helps you keep accountable with the food you bring in and, uh, I guess, toss out of the house. Yeah, we really love it. With our podcast and Collins' YouTube channel, we are a very busy couple. And we barely even have time to see friends and family, and it seems like we're almost always working. So that's why we love HelloFresh. Seriously, guys, we love HelloFresh and we're so happy that we get to work with them. If you want to help support this podcast and take a major step forward towards healthier, easier at home meals, then use our custom promo code and sign up for HelloFresh today. Just go to hellofresh.com slash state 14 and use code state 14 for up to 14 free meals and free shipping.

If you guys love our show and you want us to produce more episodes more frequently, please help us out by signing up for the services we're promoting and use our promo codes. It means a lot to us, and it's the only way we can keep the show afloat and continue bringing you all of these crazy stories. Once again, just head to hellofresh.com slash state 14, sign up and enjoy. Anyways, let's get back to our story. There had been a number of murdered women whose bodies had shown up around Baton Rouge throughout the last decade. And Sean Vincent Gillis had just confessed to eight of those murders. He goes on to tell investigators about his very first kill 10 years prior in 1994. And it was a case

that investigators were all too familiar with, the murder of 81-year-old Anne Bryan. At the time, Sean was just 32 years old. He and Terry had just recently started dating and, and But on this particular day, he had dropped Terry off at her job working the night shift at a Circle K, which happened to be right across the street from a retirement home. After dropping her off, Sean noticed that the St. James Place retirement home had very little security, so he decided to go snooping around. Once on the property, he walked up to the very first door he could find, and he turned the knob. This tragically turned out to be the room belonging to 81-year-old Anne Brian,

who had been living in the facility for years. After her husband died years before, she had needed more assistance with her day-to-day activities as her body and mind were slowing down due to her advanced age, and she also wanted to be a part of a community. Anne absolutely loved the St. James retirement home. She had a number of friends there, and she was very close with all the nurses and staff, which was why she normally left her door unlocked at night. And on this night in 1994, at around 3 a.m., Sean walks into Anne's room as she sleeps. Sean had never committed a murder at this point in his life, and he later tells investigators that he only planned to rape Anne. After entering her room, Sean walks over to Anne and attempts to rip her clothes off. She abruptly

awakens and begins to scream for help, but no one hears her. Sean then takes out his knife, and stabs Anne over and over before slashing her throat so badly that she's nearly decapitated. But as we all know by now, Sean doesn't stop there. Even after Anne is dead, he continues to stab her until her intestines and bowels are hanging outside of her body. He then cuts off her breast and slices through her face and genitals before quietly leaving the room without anyone noticing. Anne was found the next morning with 47 stab wounds,

and the only evidence left behind was a bloody knife print and a shoe print. Because the murder of Anne Bryan was so random, the 81-year-old's case would go cold for nearly a decade, leaving her family with nothing but heartache. Sean wouldn't murder his next victim for another five years, but within those years, he often thought back to his first kill. And with time, the urge to kill again grew soon. stronger and stronger. It was in 1999 when he murdered his second victim, Catherine Hall,

the very first girl mentioned in our story. And after murdering Catherine, Sean realized that he wasn't going to stop killing. The urge was far too strong. And just five short months later, he would go on to kill his third victim, 52-year-old Hardy Schmidt. Hardy was different from Sean's typical victim. She came for money and lived in an upper-class middle neighborhood. She had three children and a loving husband of 20 years. Hardy was also very fit for her age and participated in a number of marathons. So jogging was a part of her daily routine. And May 30, 1999 was a day like any other.

She woke up early, put on her running shoes, and started her morning jog. But what she didn't know was that Sean Gillis had been watching her for weeks, studying her routes and routine. And on this day, when he saw her on the road, he pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor and ran her over. This didn't kill her, though. So Sean got out of the car, grabbed his zip ties, and strangled her to death.

Sean would later say, quote, I drove with her to the BREC Park on Highland. I knew nobody would be there that early in the morning. So I played with her body, I raped her, and then I put her in the trunk and went to pick up Terry. End quote. And Sean was especially obsessed with Hardy, so much so that he left her body in his trunk for a few days. But after a while, the smell of her corpse was beginning to draw unwanted attention. One day, when Sean picked up Terry from work, she mentioned something about the horrible smell in his car.

After this, scared of being caught red-handed, Sean would dump Hardy's body into a canal. Terry would later say this. One morning he came and picked me up, and the car had an awful odor in it. And I was so tired, and I was like, what is that smell in the car? And he said he had hit an animal on the way picking me up. Came home, I came inside, went to bed, he went to washing the car. Terry also notices Gillis is racking up a lot of miles on the car And what's his explanation?

Well, I got kind of concerned and wanted to know who he was driving around with. You thought he was cheating. I thought he was. But that's not what he was doing. No. What was he really doing? I found out from the police that he was hunting. Hunting in what sense?

Looking basically for someone to kill. The death of heart. Hardy Schmidt shocked the Baton Rouge community. She was a loving and responsible mother who would never leave her husband or children, and as soon as she went missing, people knew that foul play was involved. Her body would be found in the canal the very next day, and everyone was shocked. Unfortunately, her husband would go on to be the prime suspect in her murder until Sean's confession in 2004. Sean loved the attention that Hardy's case got in the media. Because of her affluent status, news stations constantly covered her story, which Sean. wasn't used to. He usually chose victims that didn't get any news coverage and any time he saw Hardy on the news, Sean would watch it and masturbate. And just six short months after murdering Hardy Schmidt, Sean was ready to kill again. In November of 1999, a 36-year-old named Joyce Williams was walking down Highway 19 when Sean passed her in his white Chevy Cavalier. He thought that Joyce had beautiful legs, so he immediately made a U-turn and drives by her again,

this time stopping to chat. Joyce tells Sean that she was on her way to a friend's house to pick up some drugs. Sean offers her a ride and says he would pay her $10 for oral sex, to which she agrees. Surprisingly, Sean actually did drive her to her friend's house, where she got her drugs and quickly got back into his car. The two drove around for a while singing along to the radio without a care in the world. According to Joyce's family, she absolutely loved to sing and dance. She had a very bright personality and everyone loved her.

Joyce had two children who she loved dearly, but like many of Sean's victims, she too had issues with drugs. Joyce was overly trusting and often got involved with shady people, which was exactly what happened on that fateful November afternoon. Her joy soon turned to concern when she noticed that Sean was driving out of town, and she even told him, quote, If you weren't so nice, I'd be worried. End quote. Soon after this, he pulled over near a sugar cane. field. Joyce tells him that she's going to get out and pee. And while her back is facing him, he decides that it's time to go in for the kill. He takes out his zip tie, runs up behind her,

and places it around her head. But instead of it landing around her throat, it catches Joyce's mouth and she realizes exactly what's happening. She begins to kick and scream, but before she can get away, Sean kicks Joyce's feet out from underneath her, slips the zip tie around her throat, and pulls it tight. He continues to pull it for about three minutes until Joyce Williams eventually dies. He then takes her body back to his house, where he plays with it for hours, giving it a shower, and even painting her nails. And here are Sean's words on exactly what happened next. I laid her down in the kitchen by the barn sink and stroked her body, the usual sick playing with her. She had beautiful legs.

I wanted to keep those legs. I used a sharp knife to cut through the muscle of her leg, but it took a while to get through it. I cut too low. I finally got it off with the hacksaw and went for the next leg. The blade snapped on me when I was about halfway through the femur. I remember trying to get her arm off next. There was a lot of blood. I sopped it up with paper towels, packing paper, which is very absorbent, 409.

and water. You got to be careful handling it. I tried to get the arm at the elbow, then the wrist. Things were popping out of joint, but I couldn't get it off, even though I twisted real good. At that point, I pretty much went for the head. The knife went through just like that. It was like cutting butter. There was a lot of blood, so I washed her head in the sink. I inserted my penis into her head, in her throat. Her spinal cord or something pricked my scrotum. It was very uncomfortable. I guess I got what I deserved. It wasn't a sex thing. It was a mind thing. It was more just to see what it was like. I didn't, you know, get off. Then I put my penis in her mouth. After that, I picked up her leg, holding it with the foot close to my face, severed and down. She had lovely

legs. After this, he cuts off each of her nipples, puts them in his mouth, and eats them. He then looks at the time and realizes that he needs to pick up Terry from work soon. So he puts all of Joyce's body parts in a trash bag and begins to scrub the blood off the kitchen floor. Once it's clean, he puts Joyce's body in the back of his car and then drives to pick up Terry. When Terry gets inside of the car, she has no idea that there's a body in the back seat. And with the same mouth that had just eaten a pair of nipples, Sean greets Terry with a kiss. Once Terri's, goes to bed that night, Sean gets back into his car and drives to a nearby levee to dump Joyce's body. He later stated, quote, I got the box out of the trunk and slung her leg down first. Then I slung

her head. It went blunk, gloom, gloom all the way down, and the torso was last because that was harder. End quote. Joyce's body wouldn't be found until about three months later when two men that were walking near the levee made a shocking discovery. The two men spotted what they believed were human bones and quickly alerted authorities. When law enforcement arrived on scene, they confirmed that the bones were indeed human. About a month later, the remains were identified through dental records as belonging to missing woman Joyce Marie Williams, but no one had any idea who had killed her. Until now. At this point in the story, it seems as though Sean's cooling off periods are getting shorter and shorter. His next kill would be just two short months

later when he would end the life of a 52-year-old woman named Lillian Robinson. Sean had seen Lillian walking down the road and thought to himself that she looked prettier than the other prostitutes on the street. So he pulled over and asked her for oral sex. Sean drove her to a secluded location, put a zip tie around her neck, and strangled her. Just like he did, with most of his other victims. Sean would go on to say that killing Lillian was easier than his other kills because she didn't fight back as much.

Sean would then bring her body back to his house and he stated later on that, quote, I propped her body up against the cabinets in the kitchen and played with her nipples and vagina. I didn't have as much time with her as I wanted because Terry was coming home. End quote. After using Lillian as his toy,

he drives her corpse. to a basin and dumps her body into the water. Because he dumped her in a swamp, Sean knew that he was in the clear when he heard her body make a splash in the water. He, at the time, assumed that alligators would eat her remains. But they didn't. And Lillian's body would be discovered weeks later,

badly decomposed. And just like with all of the other victims, no one had any idea who was responsible. Sean's next victim would be the last of the five he added to his confession during his interrogation, and she was 38-year-old Marilyn Nevels. Sean had seen Marilyn walking one day, the two made eye contact and exchanged a smile, and in that moment Sean then knew he had to kill her. So he pulls his car over and asks her if she'd be willing to give him oral sex for $10. Marilyn agrees and hops in his car. The two drive down to a

secluded area, and when Marilyn starts to perform oral sex, he puts the zip tie around her neck. But this time, the tie wouldn't lock. Marilyn was freaking out at this point, screaming and kicking as hard as she could, so much so that she actually broke Sean's windshield. At this point, Marilyn hops out of the car and makes her run for it, but not far behind her is Sean Gillis, and he was holding some metal rebar. When he reaches Marilyn, Sean beats her over and over and then strangles her to death with the zip tie. He then places her dead body in his car and brings her back to his house, where he sits in the shower with her corpse for a while. Knowing that Terry would be home soon, Sean then takes her body out to the levee where Joyce's body was found and dumps her corpse. Her badly decomposed body would be discovered 11 days later by a man and his dog.

But unfortunately, Maryland didn't have any loved ones. No one reported her missing and no one was notified when authorities discovered that she had been murdered. So her case would go cold, along with the cases of the many other dead women found around Baton Rouge. After Marilyn Nevels, Sean Gillis wouldn't kill for her. another three years. His next victims would be Johnny May Williams and Donna Johnston, the second and third women we mentioned in her story. And after 10 years and 8 murders, Sean Gillis was finally going to be put away. At this point, Terry, Sean's girlfriend, was still in denial that Sean had had killed these women. And when she gets a chance to talk to him through the prison's plexiglass,

she asks him, did you really do what they're saying you did? To which he nods his head and replies, Sorry, honey bunny. Terry then left the prison without saying a word to the man that she had spent the last 10 years of her life with. A criminal profiler named Mary Ellen O'Toole would later evaluate Sean and she learned a lot of disturbing details about him.

She said that Sean had been obsessed with necrophilia since he was 10 years old. He had also been having incestuous thoughts about his mother since puberty. Here's a little clip from the confession. Did you think about having sex with her? Of course. She was not an unattractive woman. I don't know if she was left here or a mirror now.

I thought if she passed away, y'all would find me in bed. After Sean's arrest, a search warrant was issued for his house in car, and investigators found a lot of evidence, including a pocket knife, a two-inch blade, a belt, a machete, two hacksaws, a box cutter, eight large knives, seven saws, one axe, eight different books about infamous serial killers, and of course, those nylon zip ties. They then rip up the flooring in the kitchen and find that the blood of Joyce Williams had soaked beneath the flooring where Sean had dismembered her.

On his computer, investigators find dozens of pictures of Sean's victims, including pictures of victims lying dead in the trunk of his car. And in one incriminating photo, Sean even captures his license plate. But as Sean's trial approaches, the prosecution faces a problem. In the interrogation tapes at some point, Sean tells detectives, I think I should have a lawyer. But right after he says this, he keeps talking, confessing to the murders at this point. And the detectives keep listening. This is a big problem because if someone at any point requests a lawyer, investigators are to stop the interrogation immediately.

And because they didn't, almost all of Sean Gillis' confession could not be used in court. Everyone was devastated by this news. Without Sean's confession, their case was not nearly as strong. And the prosecution was starting to worry that Sean could actually get away with murder. But one day, the prosecutor in the case was handed a note from her friend of Donna Johnson's, Sean's very last victim. The friend's name was Tammy Purpara, and she had been absolutely devastated when she learned that Sean had murdered her friend.

So she decided to write him a letter asking why. And to her surprise, he responds. Hey guys, thank you again for listening to this latest episode of our little podcast, in America, but before you go any further, stop. I have to tell you about an amazing new immersive podcast app, Vodicast, that will allow you to experience this podcast and others in a way that you haven't been able to until now. Vodicast will provide you a deeper version of the show and allow you to view photos of the people and places that we're talking about in the episode. For example, you can see our killer as we're talking about him, photos of his house, photos of the victims,

and the locations we're describing, Vodicast is honestly a really cool service that we both really enjoy. Through using Vodicast, you'll also get links for articles about the case. When you experienced a podcast on Vodicast, you not only will be listening to your favorite podcast, but you'll be getting stories that come alive with supplemental digital content that allows you to have everything being discussed in the episode at your fingertips. If you're like me, after you listen to a podcast, you search for more details, more photos of the people and the events discussed in the episode. It honestly takes so long to find all the media that you're looking for.

But with Vodicast, it's all right there for you. So go ahead, try Vodicast out today. You won't regret it. We love it. Click the link in our show notes to learn more about Vodicast. Or download the app today in the app store and change the way that you experience podcasts forever. That's Vodacast, V-O-D-A-C-S-T.

Seriously, guys. they've put together some episodes for us on their app, and it's so cool. We saw crime scene photos that we didn't even know existed. So if you want to check what it's all about, go download Vodicast today. Anyways, let's get back to our story. Sperpara, first of all, my sincerest condolences on the loss of your friend. I cannot express how beyond sorry I am for murdering Donna. For your own sake, Tammy, you must forgive the sinner, but you may hate the sin.

In her last moment, Donna was strangled with a device. She was so drunk it only took about a minute to succumb to unconsciousness and then death. Honestly, her last words were, I can't breathe. Please tell me more about Donna. I think I would have liked her. Yours, oh so beyond sorry, Sean Vincent. There, on that piece of paper was a written confession from Sean Gillis. A confession that would prove to be a crucial piece of evidence that the prosecution would

would use at trial. Donna's friend Tammy would unfortunately die of cancer before the trial would ever start, but she played a huge role in helping convict Sean for his crimes. Because on July 21st, 2008, a jury of his peers found Sean Vincent Gillis guilty, a first-degree murder, and they sentenced him to a life without the possibility of parole. Sean terrorized the streets of Baton Rouge for 10 years, and he prayed on vulnerable women. He specifically targeted women that he believed he could overpower with ease. Women he could easily kill. Women whose cases were ignored by law enforcement because of their circumstances.

And even after their deaths, Sean defiled his victim's corpses, carving them up and taking souvenirs home with him. Sean is still alive to this day, and a prison in Louisiana, where he continues to suffer and pay for his crimes. Interestingly enough, Terry still lives at the house that she once shared with Sean, the house that Sean brought dead women's bodies back to, the home where Sean cut up and butchered corpses,

the house where Sean painted the fingernails of the dead. And chillingly, Terry kept Sean's car. There it sits behind the house, rotting, wasting away in the Baton Rouge heat. Now, obviously, we always like to ask the question on this podcast. The dead don't talk, or do they? That house, definitely, to us, seems like a place where the dead would talk. It was a place where dead bodies were mutilated, defiled, disrespected, and butchered like animals. And the car that many of these women were killed in, the car that carried all of these bodies

and body parts back to the house, sits only feet away. out back, but everybody has their own set of beliefs, their own ideas about death and the afterlife. So, we're going to end this podcast with Terry's own words, her own thoughts about living in that house taken directly from her own mouth. The police told me that he had dismembered one of his victims in the kitchen. We're sitting in the kitchen. And is correct. Where was the spot?

Was it literally right here? Literally right there. I would say in those four squares right there. Do you ever have feelings when you're standing here at the kitchen sink and think back to the horrible things that happened here? No. That would be like thinking of, I can't live on this piece of property because there was a war here.

It's a building. That's the way I look at it. And the memories of madness aren't confined to the house. Gillis's blood-soaked car. Gillis nicknamed Buffy after the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer still sits rotting in Terry's backyard. You bought this car for Sean. Yes. And what did he end up doing with it?

Hunting for women to kill and transporting dead bodies. Do you think you're going to end up selling this to someone who has like a morbid collection of things having to do with serial killers? I have no idea. I've thought of donating the thing. The company that I bought it from, they didn't want it back because they said it was a biohazard. Oh, yeah. And I've never bothered myself with it, actually. You still live in the house and you still have the car. Why? The house didn't do anything wrong. I mean, what was left of what he did has been disposed of. It's been taken away. So you don't feel a bad or negative energy in this house? No. Too much good has happened since.

Hey, hey, everybody. It's Colin. And Courtney. Thank you again for listening to another brand new episode of Murder in America. We're so glad to have you guys out there listening. Courtney, you picked this case out. This one is brutal, wasn't it? Oh, my gosh.

I've literally never heard of such a depraved person in my entire life. I'm surprised I'd never heard of this guy either, but this is a sad, sad story. Shout out to all the people that are in Louisiana right now. We hope if you're listening from Louisiana, you're safe in this hurricane. Follow us on Instagram at Murder in America and on Twitter. You can become a patron of our Patreon. We're posting two bonus episodes in the next week, and they're going to be really, really good episodes. But it makes us wonder, too, the murders, the chopping up of the bodies, that happened in the house, in the car.

And if those spirits, if they can possibly linger, we're wondering now, the dead don't talk. Or do they? Thanks for listening, everybody. See you on the next one.