All language subtitles for Butchers.of.the.Bayou.S01E03.WEBRip.x264-ION10

- The body of a woman has
been found at Whiskey Bay.

- It was pretty tense here.

- Who's next?

- This killer was attacking
all over South Louisiana.

The panic level skyrocketed.

- There's a monster out there.

- These were women
going about their lives

and being murdered in a
violent and brutal way.

- It did make you
look around to wonder,

could it be someone that
I'd come in contact with?

- There are witnesses that
came forward that said

they saw a white male

and that this white male
was driving a white truck.

- And then that was a
guy named Dr. Fanakas

outta Florida that said
he can take that DNA

and tell the race of
the person from the DNA.

That changed the
whole trajectory,

the whole concept of
what we were looking for.

- An arrest warrant
has been issued

for the arrest of
Derrick Todd Lee.

- When we heard that
Derrick Todd Lee was caught,

it's like a weight had been
lifted off of all of us.

- Little did they know what
was about to come next.

♪ The call me the
butcher in the Bayou ♪

♪ They call me the
butcher in the Bayou ♪

♪ They call me the
butcher in the Bayou ♪

♪ The butcher in the Bayou

♪ The butcher in
the Bayou, yeah ♪

[intense country music]

- When we heard that
Derrick Todd Lee was caught,

it's like a weight had been
lifted off of all of us.

It was like, there was a
blanket over our community,

just a blanket of
fear that was like

somebody kind of pulled it off

and you could finally
breathe again.

- It was like suddenly,
he was in prison,

we didn't have to worry anymore.

We didn't have to be scared
to walk to our vehicle.

We didn't have to be scared
to go to bed at night.

We didn't have to be
scared to take a bath

because this man who
perpetrated such horrific crimes

was behind bars
where he belonged.

- It's like a whole
different city.

People out riding their bikes,

people are walking their
dogs, people are jogging

and none of this was going
on in this neighborhood

before this guy was caught.

So it was very much
affecting women's lifestyles.

- People were very relieved.

I especially was
relieved to feel like

we could just maybe go
back to life as usual.

- There weren't a whole
lot of people that said

they were shocked.

A lot of times you'll see,
oh, I never saw that coming.

But with this case, once
he was named a suspect,

a lot of people were like,

okay, now I see
it, now I get it.

- My life had been so disrupted,

the life of everybody I
knew had been so disrupted

that I was really
angry with him.

I didn't wanna have
anything to do with him,

but I was interested
in his background.

What made him become
what he became?

[eerie music]

[sad music]

- He had a little bit
of a troubled past.

Just looking down through the
years at his police record

and things of that nature.

But I personally never
had any problems with him.

My mom taught Derrick in school.

He was a few years
younger than me.

So he would also
frequent my mom's bar

when he was of age
on the weekends,

but never gave us any trouble

other than maybe once or twice.

- One police officer told me

that while he was
surveilling Derrick Todd Lee,

he watched Derrick
Todd Lee go into a bar,

pick up a woman,
bring her to a motel,

do whatever, bring
her back to the bar,

pick up another one, bring
her to the same motel,

have his way with her,

go back to the bar and
pick up a third one.

He watched this in one night.

Derrick Todd Lee
could get women.

He had a wife and two children
and he had a girlfriend,

Cassandra Green, and he
had a son with her as well.

- He was involved
with Cassandra Green.

He got into a
confrontation with her

at my mom's bar one night.

This is the old Liz's lounge.

This is a bar that
Derrick frequented.

He brought different women
in at different times.

As you can see, that sign
has been painted over,

but come close.

If you see what it says,

it says Liz's Lounge,
where good friends meet.

It's hard to see it.

No miners were allowed,

admission on Fridays
was $3 back then,

Saturdays was five bucks.

It says no weapons,

no outside drinks
allowed in the building.

You will be checked at the door.

We did everything we could

to ensure the safety of people

that wanted to come here.

This was a place where they
could have a good time,

go home and regroup
for work the next week,

come back on the weekend
and unwind without drama.

This is where his confrontation
with Cassandra Green

was on this parking lot,
right in this area right here.

He commenced a beating,
her stomping her,

she ultimately went inside,

she ended up hiding behind
the DJ in the DJ booth

laying down on the floor,

he went back in looking for her,

he couldn't find her,

he ultimately left
and he ended up

in a pursuit with the police

and they ended up ultimately
arresting him at that time.

- From all accounts of
people that knew him

and that talked about
him after the fact

said he was very nice,
he was very charming

and maybe that was
what, you know,

made people open
their door to him.

I'm not really sure.

- Derrick Todd Lee may
have targeted women

who might have been naive
to something like that.

Somebody that grew up like me,

who really didn't have
a reason to suspect

someone of wanting
to do harm to them.

- He may not have been educated,

but I thought he was very savvy,

very manipulative, very smart,

and in my world,
somebody like that

that turns to
crime is dangerous.

[thunder claps]

- After Derrick Todd
Lee was arrested,

police began to try to connect
him to other cold cases.

At that time in Baton Rouge
over a 10 year period,

there were 60 cases of missing
or murdered unsolved cases

in the Baton Rouge area.

It wasn't long before
everyone discovered

that there were more victims.

- Derrick Lee
unfortunately was lucky.

He got away with a lot of stuff.

There were chances where
he should have been caught,

that he was able to
slip through the cracks.

- There are still some cases

that I think should be
connected to Derrick Todd Lee

and have not, Christine
Moore being the most notable.

- Another case which was not
attributed to Derrick Todd Lee

in any way, the case
of Geralyn Barr DeSoto

in West Baton Rouge Parish,
in the small town of Addis.

She was one of his earlier
victims in the Baton Rouge area.

She was an LSU student,

she was young, 21,

she was married
to Darren DeSoto,

she was not very
happy in her marriage

according to a
journal that she kept.

- What threw the wrench into
the DeSoto investigation

were two things.

One, that she was not
sexually assaulted.

And the investigators
believe that Lee

probably intended to
sexually assault her

like he did the other women,

but her husband was calling her

on her cell phone repeatedly.

Like she wouldn't answer,

then he'd hang up,
he'd call back,

then he'd hang up
and he'd call back.

And it just threw him off.

And then additionally,
the information they found

in her journal about her,

you know, her husband
physically abusing her,

the police, you know, tended
to focus on him as a suspect.

- Geralyn's murder was
connected to Derrick Todd Lee

through scrapings
that were taken

from underneath her fingernails,

where she had scratched her
attacker and got his DNA

so that she could tell
police who had killed her.

[intense music]

- At this point, Derrick
Todd Lee is under arrest.

He's put away, folks are
thinking everything is safe.

And then other bodies
start to turn up of women.

- [Narrator] You're
watching WAFB9 News at six.

- It has happened
again, still again,

a woman with a history
suggesting prostitution

has been found murdered
in one of the most

painful forms of murder.

- When police found her,
her hands had been cut off.

They were shocked by this.

They had dealt with
Derrick Todd Lee,

they had seen his crime scenes,

they knew how he killed,

but this was something
totally different.

And typically when police
arrive at a crime scene

where dismemberment is involved,

they kind of know that
this isn't the only time

this is gonna happen.

- Meanwhile, we have some
important new answers

about the body of a
woman found murdered

on Pride Port Hudson
road three weeks ago.

- This victim had been reported
missing by her daughter

and ended up being identified
as Johnnie Mae Williams.

Johnnie Mae Williams had
a high risk lifestyle,

she was on the streets
a lot at night.

- Johnnie Mae hadn't
always been a prostitute.

She had once lived a normal
life just like everybody else.

She had been married,

she had children who
she loved dearly,

she had a very
sweet personality,

she was always trying
to help people,

but then her husband
cheated on her.

And when she found out her
husband cheated on her,

they got divorced.

She had a difficult time
dealing with that situation.

And like so many people
do, she turned to drugs.

As her addiction to
drugs progressed,

Johnnie Mae began to
become a prostitute

and North Baton Rouge
is the place to do that.

Prostitutes tend to
be the easiest victims

for serial killers

because a serial
killer can drive up,

offer them money and they
will get into their vehicle.

All the serial killer
has to do is drive off,

find a remote location
and kill them.

Women who live this lifestyle
tend to become easy prey

for serial killers.

- The rate of
success dealing with

these particular homicides
depends on what is available

forensically from
the crime scenes.

If you're dealing with a
body dump in a swamp area,

all you have is a
body find location.

You don't necessarily
and probably do not

have the actual crime scene,

you don't know where the
abduction took place,

you don't have a
transport vehicle,

all you have is
a body dump site.

That's what Baton Rouge and
the East Louisiana Parish

Sheriff's Department
was dealing with.

And that created a tremendous
amount of public panic.

- You know, that
fear that was back on

but then also, I guess
we wondered, you know,

did they catch him?

You know, was it him?

How many of them could there be?

So to have that back in
our community, it was like,

you know, here we go again.

[intense music]

- I'm Dr. Cecile Guin,
I'm a social worker

and I was at LSU during
the 1990s and 2000s.

The scariest times I had
were in the mornings,

I would do morning television
shows with both channels,

channel two and nine,

but I would have to leave
my house at 05:00 or 05:30

and I would be walking
out the front door with,

I would have my cup
of tea in one hand

and I'd have a knife
in the other hand.

And by the time
I get to the car,

my hands were shaking so badly

that I probably didn't
have any tea left.

I had a number of
people on death row

that I communicate
with regularly,

call me and they'd say,
you better get off that TV.

This guy's crazy, he's
gonna come kill you.

And that they'd call
and give me advice

on how to protect myself.

It was, it was...

It was very funny
having them call me

and tell me be careful
about this crazy guy

because they were the
ones sitting on death row

for what they had done,

but all the criminals
I was involved with,

every single one of
'em distanced themself

from serial killers.

You know, they would say
that, I may be on death row,

or I may have killed someone,
but I'm not that guy.

[eerie music]

- We did recognize in the 90s

that we had a lot of
prostitutes that were dying

in the East Baton Rouge area.

And that was before
state police had DNA

and the Baton Rouge
Police Department,

along with our district
attorney's office

found funds in various places

to have DNA testing
run on those samples.

The problem with
prostitutes was that

because of their lifestyle,

we couldn't always find a
common DNA profile between them

to actually link them.

So we didn't know,
were they just a victim

of their circumstance or were
they actually being killed

by a serial killer?

I think sometimes there's gonna
be some people in the public

that are gonna say, well,
that's their choice,

that's their lifestyle

and that's kind of maybe what
they get or what they deserve.

I wouldn't say that
all the population

would feel that way though.

- Their cases just did
not get the attention

because people could not really
relate to their lifestyles.

- And I remember
as a journalist,

always thinking
that that was wrong.

I wanted to give these
cases as much attention

as we gave the cases
with Derrick Todd Lee,

to Pam Kinamore, to
Charlotte Murray Pace.

They all deserved that,

it just didn't happen.

[lively music]

- A body found just
off the LSU campus

has Sheriff's detectives
looking for answers.

An autopsy has been performed

and the victim has
now been identified

as Donna Bennett Johnston,
43 years old of Baton Rouge.

The cause of death,
strangulation.

[sad music]

- Donna Bennett Johnston also
worked at North Baton Rouge

and her story was similar
to that of Johnnie Mae's.

She turned to drugs, the drugs
led her into prostitution,

but like Johnnie Mae,

she always kept in
touch with her family

and she always did her
best to take care of them.

- Now we recover the remains
of another nude female

who had been posed on the
side of a small creek bank.

They had substantial amount
of postmortem cutting.

We had some dismemberment there.

She had her arms
severed at the elbow

and there was an area on her
thigh which had been removed,

about a four by four inch square

that had been taken
from her thigh.

- Even though we did not
publicly reveal details,

the crime scene,
those sorts of things,

particularly when they are
sensational as these were,

tend to leak out.

police officers talked
to other police officers,

Those police officers have
wives and daughters and sisters

and they are naturally
and understandably

going to tell them,

this is what's going
on now in Baton Rouge.

You need to be very careful.

So details of what this
second killer was doing

were very gruesome, very
perverted and very frightening.

- It was obvious that these
women were not attacked

and forced initially.

That they were lured,

that then a zip tie

put around their
neck and tightened

and only in postmortem,

were they harmed more.

[eerie music]

It was definitely a more
opportunistic type of kill.

- Some of the things that were
done to some of these victims

made Derrick Todd Lee's
murders look like child's play.

I can imagine that
even though the public

may not have been able
to relate to a woman

with a high risk lifestyle,

I know these investigators
knew something big

is going on here for an
individual to be able to do this

and then just go about
their normal lives

and operate in our community.

When will it just stop
being high risk women

and move into the suburbs
or move elsewhere?

And I know the investigators,

they were really concerned
about what was going on.

- There's only one
way to stop him

and that's to get 'em
as fast as you can

and create a situation where
they can't do this anymore.

- It seemed to police that
this was a serial killer

who was a little different.

He was not really
interested in the kill,

he killed strictly
to be able to play

with the bodies of dead women.

That was what his
fascination was

and that's really
all he cared about.

This was not the first
murder where a zip tie,

an industrial size
plastic zip tie

had been used by this
killer to strangle a woman.

Police began to realize that

that was kind of his signature

along with the dismemberment.

- For somebody to want
to and I hate to say

play with the body
or to mutilate the
body after the fact,

they generally-- forensic
psychiatrist will tell you

or psychologist will
tell you that's a whole

different level of
what they, you know,

he's clinical psychopath.

- When Donna Bennett
Johnston was murdered,

people in Baton Rouge
began to get very antsy.

It's like, uh-oh,
here we go again.

Women are being
murdered and again,

the level of fear in this
city rose tremendously.

- Baton Rouge Police Department

and the East Baton Rouge
Parish Sheriff's Office

requested assistance of the FBI

in identifying and apprehending
the unknown offender.

The FBI gains its
ability to assist

in serial homicide investigation

through the
protection of children

from sexual predators
act of 1998.

Underneath that act, the
FBI can provide resources

in serial murder investigations

provided there are
three linked homicides

and those linked homicides can
be linked either behaviorally

or they can be linked
through forensics.

[sad music]

- It wouldn't be long before
police connected the murders

of Donna Bennett Johnston
and Johnnie Mae Williams

to the murder of Katherine Hall
who had been killed in 1999.

- She herself was a substantial
amount of postmortem cutting

displayed nude beneath
a dead-end sign

in a new residential
construction area

in the Southeast
part of the Parish.

- [Susan] Police had
learned their lesson

through Derrick Todd Lee

and this time, the first
thing they did was test DNA.

- When we began
the investigation,

we wanted to identify every
bit of evidence that we had

and we wanted to make sure
that every bit of that evidence

had whatever forensic
test done to it

so that we could glean as
much information as possible.

With regards to the
Katherine Hall crime scene,

the main piece of
evidence there was a hair.

- And so a new task force
was formed in March of 2004.

East Parish Sheriff's
office was the lead agency

on the task force.

We had members from the Baton
Rouge City Police Department,

Louisiana State Police, the FBI,

and then the Louisiana
Department of Justice to work on

now another set of
unsolved homicides.

- It's like the scab hadn't
even formed over Baton Rouge

after Lee and here you
have another serial killer.

And of course, given
the short timeframe

between the Lee arrest
and the connection

between these murders, it
caused a lot of concern.

We needed to get this
guy, need to get him down.

[calm country music]

- The task force that helped
identify Derrick Todd Lee

wasn't entirely disbanded.

There's a lot that comes into
play after someone's arrested.

And so we had a skeleton crew
of that task force in play.

- My people were
pretty much done.

I had worked them to the
point that they were just,

I mean, they were
fried at this point.

So we got together another group

and we sent them over
to the Sheriff's office.

At that point, I'm still going
through the motions on Lee,

trying to make sure we've
got everything in order

the way we did.

So I was on the
sidelines of those cases.

- They were doing as much as
they could with what they had.

And I say that because
with Derrick Todd Lee,

you had a hotline, people
were calling, giving tips,

24 hours a day.

You had that public engagement.

And I don't know if
that helped or hindered

because is it better to
run down four good leads

or try and run down
20,000 bad leads?

- In this particular
investigation,

there were not as many
leads that we had to cover.

And also in the very
beginning of the case,

we had forensics to work with.

And that's where we
put all of our effort

and seeing what the forensic
evidence could tell us

about the unknown offender.

- We couldn't look at
the typical samples

that we were used to looking at.

So like in the Derrick
Todd Lee case, you know,

we could look for the semen
samples or the drops of blood

and this particular case,

we knew that that wasn't
gonna work in the prostitutes.

That we had to find
some other means

and that's where we got lucky

because he did leave
his DNA behind.

He was having to hold
their hands so tightly

when he would saw them off,

that he would leave
his DNA behind

on the remainder
portion of their arm.

And that was where
we were getting

good DNA sources collected.

[eerie music]

- Anytime you work a serial
homicide investigation,

there's an inherent
pressure that the killer

will strike again
before you can stop 'em.

And so all the investigators,

when we are looking
at a case like this,

we do have that pressure.

We do have a desire to
identify who the offender is

as quick as possible so we
can put 'em behind bars.

And one of the easiest
ways to do that

with regards to Baton Rouge

is if you can identify
the race of the offender

or the unknown offender.

- Months and months
and months of knowing

that he was still out there,

knowing that he could
kill again anytime,

not knowing what
his trigger was,

not knowing anything about him

definitely put a rush and a
stress on us at the laboratory

to do everything we could.

And it would make going to court

even that much more conclusive.

You'd be able to say that
this evidence or this blood

found in this particular
knife at a scene

or something like that,

you'd be able to actually
say it was this person

instead of having just
to leave everything else

to circumstantial evidence

that what the law enforcement
could actually present.

- As we look back
through the crime scene

from Johnnie Mae Williams,

we located a hair in
Johnnie Mae's wrist

where a hand had been severed.

This hair had a root attach,

which allowed us to
submit it for analysis

to the Louisiana State
Police Crime Lab.

They were able to
conduct mitochondrial DNA

and obtain the profile,

which also meant
the profile obtained

from the fingernail scrapings
of Donna Bennett Johnson.

When we were reviewing the
evidence from Katherine Hall,

there was a shaft hair
that had been located

in the mouth of Katherine Hall.

That hair was submitted
to the FBI Crime Lab

for nuclear DNA.

And a profile was
developed by the FBI,

which produced the same profile

that Louisiana State Police
Crime Lab had obtained

from Donna Bennett Johnson
and from Johnnie Mae Williams.

Therefore we had, you know,

physical evidence connecting
three of our victims

with the same unknown profile.

- And that was a
very key finding

because we knew
since those three

were more or less matching,

that we were looking
for a Caucasian offender

and with regards to
the Baton Rouge area,

that knocks out
anywhere from 40 to 48%

of the potential population

and we successfully culled
our suspects in half.

Even though the three
victims were linked

by the East Baton Rouge Parish
Sheriff's Office detectives,

initially that was done
through behavioral linkage.

- Now we had forensic linkage

and that is something
you can bring into court.

[calm country music]

- I'm John Sinquefield and in
the 1990s through the 2000s,

I was the first assistant
district attorney

here in East Baton Rouge Parish.

I prosecuted, for the most
part, capital murder cases.

I got the job 'cause I
was the most experienced

in capital cases and I felt
the responsibility to do it

because I thought I
was the best person

to seek the death penalty

against Derrick Todd Lee.

And I fully believe that
for the crimes he committed,

the only justifiable sentence

would be that he'd be
tried, found guilty,

sentenced to death and executed.

The trial was a two week trial

that was very stressful

and I was against
three very talented

criminal defense attorneys.

DNA was not new, but
it was relatively new

and I was trying a case
based almost entirely on DNA.

And there hadn't been a lot
of experience in those days

on how juries view DNA evidence.

And I felt a tremendous
responsibility in that case

because I thought I was trying
a very dangerous individual.

[intense music]

- I look at him as a monster

because I don't know
what other human being

could do what they did.

I have a hard time
reconciling this in my mind

that I can go do something
like he did to Murray Pace

and then walk out of that
place and the next day,

you show up at work
and you go back to work

like nothing happened and
eat your sandwich for lunch.

I have a hard time
reconciling that.

- It was definitely
power and control.

I mean, no doubt.

I mean, he was not interested
in torturing the victims

or anything.

His whole entire game
was learning about them,

stalking them and almost
like hunting 'em down

and knowing when
he could get 'em.

- We actually went to
trial on October of 2004.

Part of which was
a 404B hearing,

which we were able to
bring six cases together.

Although the case against
Charlotte Murray Pace

was our case in chief.

The rest of 'em were other
crimes evidence cases,

that's allowed
under Louisiana law.

And then finally, you know,
it comes up to the trial date.

- [Announcer] You're
watching WAFB9 News at five.

- Hello everyone,
I'm Paul Gates.

It was an emotion
filled first day

at the first degree murder
trial of Derrick Todd Lee.

- On the stand, Rebecca Yager,

the roommate of Murray Pace
at the time of her death,

she took the stand.

Yager tearfully recounted
the events of May 31st, 2002,

the day she found Murray's
bloody and naked body.

Prosecutor John Sinquefield
carefully maneuvered his witness

through the testimony,
which lasted nearly an hour.

Defense attorneys
also questioned Yager

asking her if she
knew of any enemies

that Pace may have had.

Anne Pace, the mother of Murray

quietly wiped streaming
tears off her cheeks

during Yagers testimony.

- We wanted to get
him, we got him.

Now we want a conviction and
we want a death sentence.

And that's all I care about.

- That courtroom was packed
on the first day of trial

but it reminded me
of something from

"To Kill a Mockingbird".

The courtroom was
missing everything

except the low ceiling
fans from that movie.

Blacks were on one
side of the courtroom,

and whites were on the other
side, the whites thinking,

oh, he did it.

The blacks were like, I
don't know about this one.

Black guy serial killer?

I don't know it because
of the fact that

law enforcement had
gone all the way

after some white guy
and a white pickup truck

and all of a sudden under
this YSTR new concept

that has never
been tested before,

you pick a Black guy
to kill white girls.

So Black community
wasn't buying it.

- Because it was
such a large case,

they did it in a big open room

and he was free to roam
around in street clothes.

And I remember him
just, you know,

casually talking to people,
laughing, joking with people.

He did not seem like
the monster that he was.

I don't think you would pick
him out of a lineup and say,

that's the guy who
brutally murdered a woman

right after the other and
tried to hurt so many people

and was the reason why all of
us were just living on edge

for a long time.

- He was very well
behaved in the courtroom.

He had a sense of humor
because I was questioning

one of his psychiatric witnesses

and I caught him in kind
of a humorous situation.

And I noticed it even
Derrick Todd Lee laughed

as did most of the courtroom.

So I found him in the courtroom,

I found him the same,
calculating, in control,

he didn't seem to be
afraid, observant.

The defense put on evidence

and alleged that
he was retarded.

I had a psychiatrist,
psychologist that said

he was not retarded.

But in addition, I put on
people that worked with him

and showed that he had
obtained certain licenses

to work in chemical plants.

People that were around him
demonstrated his intelligence.

There was just no
way that he could be

under the U.S. Supreme
Court definition

that he could be retarded.

And as a practical fact, from
looking at what he had did

and ability to
commit these crimes

and get away with
them for years,

that takes a degree of
intelligence right there.

During the trial, I felt a
great weight of responsibility.

You understand DNA in 2004 is
not as developed as it is now.

And there were new
defenses against DNA

trying to be developed.

And these attorneys
on the other side,

they had allegedly went to
some kind of training school

on defending DNA cases.

I sat there horrified when I
heard the cross examination

by Mike Mitchell,

who was very experienced
lead council for the defense

in which he did a

very systematic attack

on the qualifications
of our criminalist.

He argued that we didn't
use enough markers,

that we were 13 whereas the
new standard was 15 or 25.

He mounted a very
aggressive attack

through cross examination
against the DNA.

And as I told the story,

I was sitting there
wondering if my little career

might be just going right out
the courtroom window here.

- [Woman] Prosecutors say they
have plenty of DNA evidence

but what they've really
been searching for

is some solid physical evidence.

Diane Alexander may
provide exactly that.

Especially since prosecutors
say the phone cord

allegedly used to
try and strangle her

was later found with Pam
Kenmore's body at Whiskey Bay.

Now it remains to be
seen if a judge or jury

believes that evidence,

but family members say
Diane and that phone cord

are their ACE in the hole.

- Diane Alexander's a hero.

And without her, I don't
know how successful

we would've been in
this prosecution.

She was an elegant lady

and she had no fear
of Derrick Todd Lee.

She looked right at him, she
testified in a strong voice.

She identified him, that's the
person that did this to me.

And I don't know how many
courtrooms y'all had been in,

but her testimony
was very dramatic

and she made a phenomenal
witness in that case.

I promise you, she was
a hero in that trial.

- She is unflappable.

She is absolutely clear,
she is an awesome witness,

absolutely awesome witness

and she identified him
absolutely positively

with no reservations

and that's the deal.

She is the nail in his coffin.

- Mary Pace's mom, Ann pace,
became a friend of mine.

And I remember watching her
be so stoic through the case

and she heard some very brutal
details about what happened

to her daughter.

But she knew that these
were important details

that needed to get out.

And I remember that
was the first time

that a lot of the public

really got a lot of
the gruesome details

or even knew just
how violent this was.

- Two of the mothers did
not have nice things to say

about Derrick Todd Lee at all.

A couple times, they actually
shouted out at him in court,

they weren't afraid of him.

They wanted him to
get the death penalty

and they wanted
him to be executed.

And they became very
active, angry mothers.

And they were on TV
a lot and I loved it.

- It was a physical sensation.

You felt like you
couldn't breathe

and that your
stomach was in a knot

and your chest was constricted.

It was very hard to look at him.

It was very hard and it was
hard to sit next to his family.

- The other families
we actually became,

we actually became a family.

We actually leaned
on each other.

You know, we, Ms. Marino
who is passed now,

she was our backbone.

She spoke up for us
most of the time,

but we all had
something in common

and we grew this bond 'cause
we was all going through

the same thing at the same time.

So we became family.

We became their family,
they became our family,

we spoke for each other.

- The verdict in the end was
guilty of first degree murder

of Charlotte Murray
Pace in the guilt phase

and then a recommendation
of the death sentence,

which is mandatory
in the penalty phase.

But the jury stayed out several
hours in the penalty phase.

- We were right
outside the courthouse

where they were taking him out

and he was wearing
different clothes.

And I asked one of the
jail wardens, I was like,

"why did y'all change him?"

And they said, he had
an accident on himself

once he learned of
the death penalty.

And so, you know, here was this
man who was just so violent

and so strong and just so
domineering over these women

but in the end, when it
came down to his life,

it was enough to where he
was almost like a child

and couldn't take it.

- For Lynn Marino and Ann Pace,

there was a certain level of,

I don't know if relief
is the right word

because nothing's gonna bring
their daughters back, right?

Nothing's going to
make anything better.

It's just gonna prevent
the next person,

it's gonna prevent
the next Carry Yoder,

it's gonna prevent the
next Geralyn DeSoto,

it's not gonna do
anything more than that.

So I don't know if a
relief is the right word,

but just at least they felt
that someone was responsible.

- The question I was asked

was, "Were you worried when
the jury stayed out so long

in the penalty phase?"

The answer I gave was, "Tonight,

the South Louisiana
serial killer,

Derrick Todd Lee got
South Louisiana justice."

[lively music]

- With Derrick Todd Lee,

it was like the police were
fumbling their way through.

They had no idea how to go
about catching a serial killer,

but they had learned
their lessons.

DNA helped with linking
the victims together

and they reverted to old
fashioned police work,

following every lead,

looking for actual
forensic evidence.

- While a crime lab
was processing the hair

and finger nail scrapings
and obtaining the profiles,

the task force had
focused on a tire casting

that was obtained from Donna
Bennett Johnson's crime scene.

[eerie music]

- We knew that this
was a good lead

just because it was a wet area

where the tire casting came from

there beside the canal where

Donna Bennett Johnston
remains had been left.

And so we need to either include
or exclude the individual

who left this tire track
there at the crime scene.

- The crime scene investigator
took that tire impression

to various dealerships
around town

and attempted to identify
what type of tire

made that impression.

We were able to
determine that it was

a Goodyear Aquatred tire.

- So then we said, we
need to try to identify

who has purchased these tires
in the Baton Rouge area.

- We were very fortunate
in that particular tire

was not a common tire.

It was one that not that
many sets of that tire

had been sold in the
Baton Rouge area.

So that helped out.

- We went to the
manufacturer and asked them

where in the Baton Rouge
area those tires were sold.

And that was an
investigative assumption

that the offender in
this case was familiar

with the Baton Rouge area.

- Our list shrunk substantially

to just a little over 100
individuals who had purchased

that size tire in
the Baton Rouge area.

The list of individuals who
had purchased the 14 inch tire

were divided up amongst
the task force members

and each task force
member had about 10 leads

to follow up on.

[calm music]

- My name is Terri Lemoine

And for most of my life,
I've lived in Baton Rouge.

I'm from a little bitty town
in Louisiana called Bunky.

It was pretty nice.

I had a nice family.

I was one of those people
who liked to run off a lot

'cause I wanted to see

what the rest of the
world looked like.

One year I ran off and
went to California.

I think I was 11 years old.

I wanted to meet the Beatles

and then I had to meet
the Rolling Stones

and then I was gonna
meet all the other ones

that were playing at the time.

- My name's Louis Gaar and I'm
from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

When I first met
Terri in the 1980s,

she was working at
an exotic dance club

called The Entertainers.

She was basically a
stripper and a waitress.

This was some club.

There was one incident
where Terri worked

that bikers used to frequent.

A biker became too rowdy

and the girls of the
club all attacked him

and beat him to death.

I would frequent the
club on the weekends

and after speaking
to her off and on,

we developed a relationship

which turned into
basically a love affair

and eventually we
moved in together.

- We lived together
for about a year

and then had a daughter

and we stayed together
for about three more years

and then we went in
different directions.

- I received a phone
call from Terri

and I hadn't heard
from her in many years

and she notified me that she
was living in Baton Rouge

and I was living in Jackson
at the time in Mississippi.

She said, why don't you
come visit your daughter?

Well, I hopped on the first bus

and when the taxi let
me off at the house,

the house was
surrounded by police.

There was police tape everywhere

and I thought maybe I
was at the wrong house.

But then that's
when she informed me

that her former boyfriend
was a serial killer

and had just been arrested.

I felt like I had
walked into a nightmare.

[dramatic music]