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