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Louisiana Killer
"From The Lookin' For A Killer" Series & PC Book #19:
By
Bonnie M. Wells
This page consists primarily of news articles: My comments are in this {{color}}.
{{On July 14th, 1998, I wrote to Louisiana Chief of Police, Richard Pennington and said ...."Psychic work reveals: Ullman killed by different killer than other women in New Orleans: Other's killed by man of 5' 10", lean build, early 30's in age, blue eyes, shaggy hair of dark blond or light brown, almost shoulder length. Wears jeans and tennis shoes, also black boot type shoes occasionally. Owns vehicle, but has trouble with it. Something about oil leak - transmission leak, ... something leaking. Vehicle is light in color ...cream, pale gray, etc. Bulky type vehicle, not sports model: Tan colored fibers may be found on victims.....also red fibers.. don't know source: Drugs and alcohol trigger kills. Sadistic, but not rage killer. Ullman was killed by a "rage killer."
By May 2003, I had to wonder if I was right. Derrick Todd Lee was apprehended on May 27th, 2003. Reports contend that his DNA has been linked to at least five of the murdered women.
It now appears that I was as wrong as any, or all of the other profiler's that were working the Louisiana cases.
The arrest of Derrick Todd Lee revealed just how wrong I had been. He is a black man of 6' 1" height and weighs 210 pounds. Whether he dresses in jeans and tennis shoes, I do not know, but it is of no importance what so ever at this point and time. He is said to have worked construction work, so I'm guessing the black boots might have been accurate. There again, it is so insignificant that it makes no difference at all. I do not know the type of vehicle Lee drove, nor the color of it, but I noticed in one article that it said he'd been driving a dump truck for a construction company. I guess this could be considered a "bulky" vehicle, but I doubt it was gray or cream in color.
It appears that I got his age correct. I said he'd be in his early 30's, and facts show he is 34 years old.
Probably the only thing that stands out at this time is the fact that I wrote to Chief of Police Richard Pennington. I suppose this was natural since the man was the chief of police in the city where the Ullman murder occurred. However, Pennington was chief of police in New Orleans, not Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge was where the serial killer had been operating. And yet, I sent the information to Pennington.
I couldn't help but shake my head when Derrick Todd Lee was arrested in "Fulton" County Georgia! As if this is not weird enough, Richard Pennington is now the chief of police in that area!!!
Following are some of the news articles I've ran across concerning Derrick Todd Lee .....
PS: Special words within the articles will appear in this color: Any comments that I have will be listed at the bottom of the articles: News articles do NOT appear in Pure Coincidence Book #19 except for reference or verification purposes:
{{end of my comments - for now.}}
November 24th .... 2002
Dene Colomb's body was found on November 24th, 2002, but it wasn't until December 23rd that DNA evidence linked her death to the Baton Rouge serial killer.
"At the time Miss Colomb was discovered in Lafayette parish, we didn't have a full time forensic pathologist," says Roy Provost, Forensic Investigator. "She had to go to Jefferson Parish."
City-Parish Government approved the hiring of Lafayette's first forensic pathologist in over a decade. Dr. Cameron Snider's first order of business was becoming acquainted with South Louisiana's serial killer.
"Since he's been hired he's been briefed on all evidence that was found, on all the victims that were linked to the serial killer," says Provotst. "So he knows what to look for, and we're better prepared to handle that, God forbid, if we do find another female victim here in Lafayette parish."
If a body is found, Dr. Snider is more likely to notice a pattern, and get that information back to police much faster.
"We'll be able to recognize it and react more appropriately," says Provost.
State Legislators are also doing their part. Just last month they approved $650,000 to test a backlog of rape kits. They hope the DNA in one of those kits might match the evidence the serial killer left behind.
Profile Fits Aspects Of Suspects Life
By Penny Brown Roberts, James Minton and Derrick Nunnally
Advocate staff writers
"I have viewed my incarceration as a concrete measure in the understanding of what I want to do, and what I do not want to do. I do not want any more life of crime. I want to commit myself to good behavior."
That's what Derrick Todd Lee wrote from a prison cell in November 2000, but it wasn't enough to persuade 20th Judicial District Judge George H. Ware Jr. to shorten his sentence for fleeing from a police officer and stalking.
That is the only known commentary by the prime suspect in at least five and possibly more murders in the Baton Rouge and Lafayette areas and a string of other crimes since 1992.
But just what might have driven Lee from petty crimes and voyeurism to possibly rape and murder still remains a mystery.
"A look over the past I can see a better person than I once was," Lee wrote less than a year before Gina Wilson Green -- the first of five serial killer victims linked to Lee by DNA -- was found dead in her home. "I am … trying to become a better person whose life will not run astray of the laws."
But a vastly different picture has emerged since federal, state and local authorities initiated a nationwide manhunt for the man nabbed in Atlanta late Tuesday.
In fact, with a few notable exceptions, an FBI profile of the serial killer prepared in September presents a picture of Lee's life that described aspects of his life with striking accuracy.
The profile surmised the serial killer:
Is a male between the ages of 25 and 35, who is physically strong. Lee is 34, and was known by neighbors to lift weights. He had recently bragged of bulking up to 210 pounds.
Is a physical laborer earning below-average wages, with tight finances.
Lee worked off and on -- usually for a few months at a time -- in construction for companies throughout south Louisiana. A 1997 graduate of Diesel Driving Academy in Baton Rouge, Lee often worked as a truck driver. Around the time of the first known serial killings, he was a dump truck driver for J.E. Merit.
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In November, he and his wife filed for bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Baton Rouge, claiming $84,742 in debts. Two weeks ago, a judge issued an order permitting a mortgage company to evict them from their home.
Tulane University School of Medicine Professor Dr. Sarah DeLand, a forensic psychiatrist, said a gregarious person like Lee might have been able to get away with being unreliable at work and in brushes with the law because being superficial can be mistaken as being forthcoming.
Said DeLand: "He had a side he showed to the world, and that's all anybody saw."
She added that Lee's scattering of crimes from Lake Charles to Baton Rouge and Zachary might track his apparent work history in the construction industry as a truck driver.
"If there was someplace that was way off Interstate 10, I would suspect he had some kind of business there or someplace to work there," she said. "From Lake Charles to Baton Rouge for a serial killer is really not that long a stretch of highway."
Wants to be seen as attractive and appealing to women.
Those who know Lee say he often flirted with women in the workplace. News reports from Atlanta on Tuesday indicated Lee had gone around asking women if they were married, promising them cognac if they would go to his room.
Has a history of run-ins with the law for seemingly minor offenses, including trespassing, breaking and entering and peeping. This might also include home intrusions at times when people are around.
Lee has been in trouble with the law on a near-annual basis for many years, arrested and charged with voyeurism, trespassing, criminal neglect of his family, stalking, aggravated battery, attempted first-degree murder, criminal damage to property and attempted flight from an officer.
In more than one incident, Lee was discovered in other people's homes by the homeowners.
Jacqueline Helfgott, a Seattle University professor of criminal justice who has researched psychopathic personality development, said Tuesday that it is not unusual for serial killers to have a track record of lesser offenses, such as the voyeurism and exhibitionism. However, she is not familiar with the Louisiana killings or Lee.
Said Helfgott: "It takes a while for most people for fantasies to evolve into serial killing."
May be abusive to the women with whom he has relationships.
In January 2000, Lee was accused of beating his girlfriend, Consandra Green, in a bar in Solitude. He also was arrested for simple battery on his wife in September 2001, but the charge was dismissed a month later at her request, West Feliciana Parish records show.
Is very determined and mission-oriented.
Dr. Jill Hayes Hammer, a forensic psychologist with the LSU Health Sciences Center, surmised that the short period between the attempted rape in Breaux Bridge in which Lee is a suspect and the serial killer's abduction and slaying of Pam Kinamore three days later may be related.
"Most of the time, if people are interrupted during the killing and they're not able to complete what they're doing, it leaves them very frustrated, angry and upset," Hammer said. "So Pam Kinamore may have been more of an impulsive killing so that he could finish what he had started before."
Hammer said she had been an "interested observer" of the investigation "with my fingers crossed, hoping something would happen."
DeLand also surmised a possible connection between Kinamore's July death and the attempted rape in Breaux Bridge.
"Something like that happens, and then their stress and frustration rises up even more," DeLand said. "Then their urge can increase even more. They already had it enough to take this incredible risk, and now they're frustrated" and angry.
The FBI profile does not match Lee's behavior in other respects. The profile hypothesizes that the killer probably is awkward around women. But those who know Lee describe him most often as gregarious, charming and flirtatious.
Helfgott said such accounts also seem typical of the personalities of some serial killers. Although a stereotype exists of serial killers as brooding loners, Helfgott said many have been noted extroverts, as Lee apparently is.
"It might not fit with the Jeffrey Dahmer-type, but it sure fits with the Ted Bundy-type," Helfgott said, noting that Bundy was often characterized as "very charming and outgoing" in general. "Serial murder is a behavior, and different types of personalities will produce that behavior. … Of course, the people who are charming have a lot easier access to victims."
Hammer said the "flashy and flirtatious" Lee apparently didn't fit the archetype of the serial killer who wants to blend in with a crowd to avoid detection -- another FBI profile detail that doesn't match Lee's apparent behavior.
Hammer said serial killers are usually "a little bit more intelligent than most impulsive killers" because they plot their exploits.
Said Hammer: "Most of the time, serial killers don't get caught."
DeLand said the months of "dormancy" between some killings in which Lee is suspected would fit the pattern of known serial killers if they were part of a "stress cycle" Lee felt.
Said DeLand: "They may have periods of time when things are going smoothly and they don't have the overwhelming urge to do this."
She added that the dormancies could correspond to when he was in jail on other offenses -- or it could be a time when Lee committed crimes authorities haven't yet connected to him.
"Sometimes, people are physically unable to act out even if they want to because they've been in jail or in a hospital," she said. "But unfortunately, unless somebody really wants to come clean about everything, there could be tons of things nobody knows about."
DeLand added that reports that Lee didn't flee Louisiana for weeks after being swabbed for the DNA that connects him to the serial killings of five women make sense for several reasons, given his track record.
"For some people, it's such a cat-and-mouse game that they cannot resist trying to win even if the odds are upped," DeLand said. "For other people that are sort of charming, they think there's some way they can talk their way out of it."
Lee Timeline:
AUGUST 1992: Connie B. Warner reported missing from her Oak Shadows Subdivision home in Zachary. Her body is found two weeks later in a ditch near Capitol Lake. Lee later named a suspect.
NOVEMBER 1992: Lee breaks into a Fenwood Hills Subdivision home and is discovered by the homeowner. Captured after fleeing to Azalea Rest Cemetery, where he was found with a bike stolen from the home. Charged with simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling. Lee is also charged with criminal neglect of family but the charge is dropped a year later because he is already in jail in East Baton Rouge Parish for burglary.
JANUARY 1993: Lee and another man charged with aggravated burglary in the beating of a 74-year-old Independence man and theft of cash from his home.
APRIL 1993: Two teen-agers attacked in a cemetery and injured by a man wielding a cane knife or machete. Investigators later say Lee was identified as the attacker by one of the victims, but too late to prosecute.
JULY 1993: State District Judge Curtis Calloway sentences Lee to prison for the November 1992 burglary.
JULY 1995: Lee released from prison. Remains under supervision until July 1997.
SEPTEMBER 1995: Lee arrested Sept. 6 in Lake Charles on suspicion of being a Peeping Tom and resisting arrest by flight. According to the police report, two residents complained about a man looking into their windows. Officers searched the area and spotted Lee nearby. He was arrested after a foot chase. He later pleaded guilty.
SEPTEMBER 1995: Lee arrested Sept. 24 in Lake Charles with another man for stealing bundles of clothing and a suitcase from a Salvation Army bin. Lee pleaded guilty and was placed on probation.
AUGUST 1997: Arrested on suspicion of being a Peeping Tom after a Zachary woman bumped into him while she was taking out her garbage off La. 964. He was caught after a Dixon Correctional Institute tracking team was called in, and booked with six counts of criminal trespassing, two counts of being a Peeping Tom and one count of resisting arrest.
APRIL 1998: Randi C. Mebruer abducted from her Oak Shadows Subdivision home in Zachary, where there were signs of a bloody struggle. Her body has not been found, but Lee is the prime suspect in her disappearance.
AUGUST 1999: Arrested as a suspected Peeping Tom and stalker in a series of incidents since June at St. Francisville Square Apartment off Commerce Street. One woman told police Lee walked into her residence uninvited. Received a suspended sentence for misdemeanor stalking.
JANUARY 2000: Booked with aggravated battery, attempted first-degree murder, criminal damage to property and aggravated flight from an officer. Accused of beating a woman in a bar in Solitude and trying to run over a deputy at a roadblock during his flight.
APRIL 2000: Lee convicted of flight from an officer in West Feliciana Parish and sentenced to prison for two years. A judge also revoked his probation on the stalking charge and orders him to serve nine months.
JANUARY 2001: Lee released from prison.
SEPTEMBER 2001: Gina Wilson Green found strangled in her Stanford Avenue home in Baton Rouge. Lee linked by DNA.
MAY 2002: Christine Moore reported missing May 24. Her remains were found June 16 off River Road in East Baton Rouge Parish near the Iberville Parish line. Lee named the prime suspect.
MAY 2002: Charlotte Murray Pace found stabbed to death May 31 in her Sharlo Avenue home south of LSU. Lee linked by DNA.
JULY 2002: Lee wanted in the July 9 attempted aggravated rape and attempted first degree murder of a north Breaux Bridge women in her home. Arrest warrant issued Tuesday.
JULY 2002: Pam Kinamore is abducted from her Biarwood Estates Subdivision home on July 12. Her body was found four days later near Whiskey Bay. Lee linked by DNA.
NOVEMBER 2002: Trineisha Dené Colomb attacked Nov. 21 near Grand Coteau north of Lafayette and found dead three days later in Scott. Lee linked by DNA.
MARCH 2003: Carrie Lynn Yoder abducted March 3 from her Dodson Avenue home south of LSU and found dead 10 days later near Whiskey Bay. Lee linked by DNA.
MAY 2003: Lee forced to submit a sample May 5 for DNA testing. Identified Monday as the only serial killer suspect.
MAY 27, 2003: Lee captured in Atlanta.
Serial Killer Suspect Waives Extradition
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