World's Most Evil Killers - Season 6, Episode 17 - Derrick Todd Lee - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[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]

The story of the Baton Rouge Serial Killer, known for murdering seven women in the area and sentenced to death for his chilling crimes.

An in-depth look at the lives and crimes of some of the world's most evil killers. New episodes including Lee Ford, Pawel Relowicz, John Shaw, John Allen Muhammad, Derrick Todd Lee and more.

Brief Summary

Derrick Todd Lee, a serial killer, stalked and murdered women in Louisiana, causing widespread fear before his capture and conviction.

Key points

Charlotte Murray Pace's Tragic End. Charlotte was brutally murdered just as she was starting her career.
The Rise of Derrick Todd Lee. Derrick Todd Lee escalated from peeping Tom to a serial killer in Baton Rouge.
DNA Evidence Links Lee to Victims. DNA evidence connected Derrick Todd Lee to multiple murders, confirming him as the killer.
Derrick Todd Lee Arrested. Derrick Todd Lee was arrested in May 2003, finally bringing relief to Baton Rouge.
Lee's Death Brings Relief. Derrick Todd Lee's death in 2016 brought relief to those affected by his crimes.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He stabbed her 81 times with a flat head screwdriver.

Susan Mustafa on Charlotte's murder

0:57WatchAug 10, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.