Front Porch Mysteries with Carole Townsend
Author and veteran journalist Carole Townsend shares remarkable tales from the South, tales of mystery, terror, and wonder. Townsend has built a career on the premise that truth really is stranger than fiction.
Here in the South, we love our stories. We begin in childhood huddled around campfires, whispering of things best spoken in the dark, confiding in our small trusting circles. Why is that, do you suppose? I have researched and investigated Southern history for more than 20 years and I believe it has to do with this region itself. There's a lot that hangs in the ether here and much that is buried deep in the soil. There's beauty here in the South and shame and courage and, make no mistake, there is evil. There's always been the element of the unexplained, the just out of reach that we can all feel but can never quite describe. And the best place for telling tales about such things is the comfort and safety of an old front porch. So I invite you tonight to come up here with me, settle back into a chair and get comfortable, pour yourself a drink if you like, and I'll share with you some of the tales best told in the company of friends, tales that prove that truth really is stranger than fiction, and I'll turn on the light. You're going to want that. I'm Carole Townsend. Welcome to my front porch.
Front Porch Mysteries with Carole Townsend
Terror in Southern Louisiana
Beneath the mystical façade of Louisiana's voodoo legends and Creole culture lurks a modern horror story few could imagine. For over a decade, from 1993 to 2006, the Baton Rouge area was gripped by fear as women disappeared and turned up murdered with alarming frequency. The community transformed – doors once left unlocked were bolted shut, morning jogs became dangerous endeavors, and the friendly Southern hospitality gave way to justifiable paranoia.
What makes this case extraordinary isn't just the brutality of the crimes, but the revelation that stunned even veteran investigators: two separate serial killers operated simultaneously in the same area without knowledge of each other. This perfect storm of evil defied traditional profiling methods and created patterns so erratic that they baffled law enforcement for years.
Derek Todd Lee and Sean Vincent Gillis stalked the same neighborhoods, sometimes targeting similar victims, yet with distinctly different signatures. While eyewitnesses repeatedly described a white male perpetrator, cutting-edge DNA technology revealed Lee was African American – shattering assumptions and forcing a complete investigative overhaul. When finally captured, Gillis displayed a disturbing admiration for Lee, even taking a hiatus from killing to avoid competing with his unwitting counterpart for public attention.
The tale of these parallel predators offers fascinating insights into criminal psychology, the limitations of traditional profiling, and the power of emerging forensic techniques. Though both killers were eventually brought to justice, accounting for approximately sixteen murders between them, dozens of cases from this period remain unsolved – a chilling reminder that the full extent of this tragedy may never be known.
Join me as I walk you through this baffling case that still sends shivers through the bayous of southern Louisiana and continues to be studied in criminal justice classrooms nationwide. Have the podcast playing as you lock your doors tonight – this story might just make you think twice about who's really knocking.
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Louisiana is a state well known for having an eerie history of voodoo hauntings and chilling legends. The mix of West African, western European, cajun and Creole ancestry blends history, mystery and the supernatural in the very air of this 18th state of the Union. Because of this unique and mysterious culture, louisiana stands apart from every other state in America. From 1993 to 2006, a different type of specter haunted southern Louisiana. During a 10 to 12-year period, more than 60 women were murdered or went missing in Baton Rouge and surrounding areas. In fact, at the time, this area had the highest murder rate in the entire country, surpassing even New York and Los Angeles. Investigators struggled for years trying to pin down a person or even a profile of a perpetrator, until evidence finally revealed why the murders were so difficult to solve. This period in Louisiana, history was terrifying. The Baton Rouge area was under a siege of mistrust and fear. Women's lives were drastically changed and when law enforcement finally solved the riddle, what they discovered was a perfect storm. So unlikely, so rare and hard to believe that the facts sent investigators, citizens and victims' families reeling. This time in Louisiana is still studied today in local, state and federal criminal justice and law classrooms and in behavioral science classrooms, and that is not likely to change, and in behavioral science classrooms, and that is not likely to change.
Carole Townsend:Sit here with me tonight and settle in, because the story I'm about to tell you is still whispered in the swamps and bayous of southern Louisiana. It's discussed in the halls of justice. It's whispered in LSU dormitories and off-campus apartments. It speaks of an evil and of circumstances so profound that even the most hardened law enforcement officers are still shaken decades later.
Carole Townsend:Is there anything better than a well-told story? I don't mean a movie or a social media reel. I mean a story told by a skilled storyteller. I don't think so. An engaging tale, told in the right place, at the right time by the right person, captures us. It captures our imaginations. It takes us away from the here and now and carries us to the what if? When we were kids. Was there anything better than sitting around a campfire, the cold, dark night at our backs, the warmth and light of the fire drawing us closer, comforting us as we listen to a well-spun tale? Here in the South, the welcoming front porch is often where we spin our tales. Now it's familiar and it welcomes others to join us At the end of the day when we put away our cares and responsibilities for just a few hours. We sit and we talk, and maybe we rock in a comfortable chair and we're taken back to a time when the story was the thing, the only thing. So join me tonight, won't you, as we step into another tale that's rooted in truth so difficult to fathom that it defies belief. And to keep the dark in the cold at bay, I'll turn on the light.
Carole Townsend:The following podcast contains material that may be disturbing. Listener. Discretion is advised.
Carole Townsend:In the city of Baton Rouge in southern Louisiana, home of Louisiana State University, people are friendly. There was a time, not so long ago, that they didn't even lock their doors at night and in fact they'd readily open their doors to complete strangers. Baton Rouge had a small town atmosphere with a bustling college community in its midst. People felt safe and at home here in its midst. People felt safe and at home here.
Carole Townsend:In August 1992, connie Lynn Warner was at home in the Oak Shadows subdivision in Zachary, louisiana, sitting in her favorite chair and cross-stitching, Hearing a knock at her front door. She cautiously opened the door just a crack when neither her family nor her co-workers saw or heard from her for two days after that she was reported missing. When police entered her home to check on her, they found smeared and splattered blood on the floors and walls, but Connie was nowhere to be found. The washer and dryer in her home had been moved as though she had held onto them as she was being dragged from her home and out to her car. Both her car and her body were found dumped in a remote area in Baton Rouge a couple of weeks later. Her keys had been removed. Sadly, any evidence that might have been gathered by law enforcement officers was washed away by Hurricane Andrew, the massive storm that barreled into Louisiana on August 16th. Even so, the cause of her death was clearly beating and blunt force trauma to the head. Connie had also been sexually assaulted.
Carole Townsend:The brutal crime remained unsolved for years. In April 1998, nurse Randy Mybrewer went missing from her home in Oak Shadows subdivision. Her three-year-old son was found wandering the neighborhood one morning, covered in blood and asking neighbors if he could play with their children. While Randy's ex-husband was an initial person of interest, he was quickly ruled out. Besides, what father would leave his son to witness such a horrible scene? This case, too, remained unsolved for years.
Carole Townsend:The two murders had to be related, though, didn't they? Because they both took place in the same neighborhood, but they were also six years apart. Maybe it was all just a tragic coincidence? Between the years 2001 and 2003, six more women's lives in the same general vicinity were viciously snuffed out. The victims were 39-year-old nurse Gina Wilson-Green, 21-year-old college student Gerilyn Barr DeSoto, 22-year-old graduate student Charlotte Murray Pace, 44-year-old antique shop owner Pamela Kennemore, 23-year-old Trenisha Danae Colombe, who was in the Army and planned to join the Marines, and Carrie Lynn Yoder, a 26-year-old graduate student. These women were sexually assaulted, ruthlessly beaten and murdered. Brutality, rape and bloody crime scenes tied all of these tragic murders together. So did the southern Louisiana location.
Carole Townsend:Baffled cops went back to the drawing board reconstructing crimes as far back as 1992, comparing known facts and trying desperately to see patterns and connections. This retracing of crimes on record revealed to detectives that in April 1993, two teens were parking in a cemetery near the Oak Shadows subdivision in southern Louisiana. From out of nowhere, a man began attacking the pair, hacking at them with a blade and a saw and leaving both of them severely injured. A police officer happened to be driving by and saw the dome light of the car. On Deciding to investigate, he came upon a bloody and chaotic scene. The attacker saw the officer, grabbed the car keys out of the ignition and ran off into the thick woods behind the cemetery. The teens survived the attack, but they were both horribly traumatized by it, both horribly traumatized by it, oak Shadows Subdivision. The killer must live near or even in that neighborhood or he must have some connection to it. That seemed to be a logical conclusion that couldn't be ignored.
Carole Townsend:The meticulous retracing of crimes also revealed to investigators that on March 21, 1994, 81-year-old Ann Bryan was murdered inside her apartment. In an upscale retirement home in southern Louisiana. A man had broken into her apartment and attempted to rape her, and attempted to rape her. When she resisted and began screaming, the man strangled her, cut her throat and then stabbed her repeatedly. He also disemboweled the elderly woman after she was dead. But whether because of fear of discovery or simple inability, he did not rape her. On January 4th 1999, almost five years after Ann Ryan's murder, sex worker Catherine Hall approached a car with the promise of giving the driver oral sex for a price. The man tried to kill her by strangling her with a zip tie, but when she tried to escape, he instead stabbed her to death before undressing her, dumping her body in a swampy area and then mutilating it. She had not been raped.
Carole Townsend:Four months later, Hardy Schmidt, whom the killer spotted jogging in the southern area of Baton Rouge, was being followed, though she had no idea. Hardy was from a prominent, well-respected family. Her father was a judge and her husband an attorney. Three weeks later, the murderer again saw her jogging and intentionally hit her with his car, knocking her into a ditch, tying a zip tie tightly around her neck. The man took her to an isolated area where he attempted to rape her but did not, then killed her before placing her body in a truck. Two days later he dumped her in a bayou in St James Parish, where her body was soon discovered. St James Parish, where her body was soon discovered. On November 12th, a man presumed to be the same killer lured, then murdered Joyce Williams, promising her money for sex. He then took her corpse to his home where he showered with it, danced with it, mutilated it and then engaged in cannibalism. He then dumped her body where it wouldn't be discovered until January of the following year. He managed to do all this without his wife discovering his vulgar misdeeds.
Carole Townsend:The patterns of these crimes didn't make sense. Clearly a madman, a serial killer, was prowling southern louisiana, but serial killers have patterns, routines and practices from which they do not deviate. They're cunning and calculating, but still their process matters a great deal to them. So why, then, were some of the victims raped and some not? And post-mortem mutilation that is not an afterthought or an experiment for a killer. Why did some of these women suffer that fate and some did not? Why were some of these women attacked in their homes and others lured to their fate? None of what was happening made sense, and that made this killer very difficult to catch.
Carole Townsend:2002 LSU graduate Charlotte Marie Pace was a beautiful, vivacious, trusting young woman at that magical fleeting age when the entire world was at her feet and anything was possible. A bright young woman with career and life plans that perhaps only a recent college graduate can conjure. Charlotte, or Murray as her friends called her, was planning to move to Atlanta. At the end of the summer, she and her roommate lived in a townhome adjacent to the LSU campus in Baton Rouge a very safe area, people believed. Rouge a very safe area, people believed.
Carole Townsend:On the afternoon of May 31st 2002, someone knocked at Murray's door and, like most other young women in the area at the time, she opened it without a second thought. Later that day, her roommate came home to find her body lying in a pool of blood. The walls, floors, mattress and linens were soaked with her blood. Charlotte Marie Pace had been stabbed more than 80 times. She had been raped.
Carole Townsend:It was clear to investigators that she had fought hard for her life. Had this been a domestic issue, police had no idea. As far as they knew at the time, there had been no other similar crimes in the area in recent memory, so the thought of a serial killer never occurred to law enforcement in Pace's case. Keep in mind, however, that several sex workers had been murdered in recent years, their bodies grotesquely mutilated, but, as is sadly typical, these murders did not receive the police and media attention that others might have. It seems that to the media and sometimes to law enforcement, prostitutes who lose their lives as the result of living high-risk lifestyles aren't considered as newsworthy as are more mainstream women. There were similarities in all these murders, but there were also some crucial differences, ones that were clearly seen during the broader investigation, as murders as far back as 10 years were being reexamined.
Carole Townsend:In that same month, lsu student and jogger Christine Moore was approached by a man as she ran along the top of a levee, as many runners did. Christine was in great shape physically, but still this man managed to abduct her, beat her, presumably rape her, kill her and leave her body in a bayou. A month later her skeletal remains were found by congregants at Ebenezer Baptist Church located right next to that bayou. The murder rate of women rose sharply in 2002. Women were warned not to walk anywhere alone. They were warned against outdoor exercise, particularly against running on levees, which was a favorite choice of joggers because of the beautiful lakes and scenery. They were told not to use headphones or earplugs when out and about. They were told to lock their windows and doors and not to engage in conversation with strangers, no matter how innocent the interaction may seem. They began to arm themselves with firearms and with pepper spray and they signed up for self-defense classes in record numbers.
Carole Townsend:A bloodthirsty, brutal murderer was loose in sleepy southern Louisiana. Law enforcement was at a complete loss. They needed the help of the FBI and eventually they asked for that help. Puzzling indeed and very frustrating. The killer, whom many eyewitnesses identified as being a white man who drove a white pickup truck, was defying all the established criteria for serial killers he raped. Sometimes he seemed to enjoy the stalking, the hunt, the bloodlust and the brutal murder of an attractive professional woman or a student. Then too he seemed to have a penchant for sex workers, who are such easy prey for murder. They seldom have family who notices their absence, and it's sadly difficult to get the general public even mildly interested in crimes committed against them.
Carole Townsend:In some cases the blood and violence were staggering, and in others the murder was a clean, simple strangulation, always with a zip tie. In those cases, post-mortem mutilations seemed to be the goal, not the acts of murder and rape. Sometimes the killer would lure his victim to go with him, and at other times he'd con or charm his way into their very homes and places of business and commit his crimes right there without fear of discovery. At times he'd take trophies from his victims, such as cell phones or jewelry or keys. At other times his trophies were limbs, body parts and pieces of skin. Serial killers rarely deviate from their process. Their taste in victims rarely changes.
Carole Townsend:What was happening here On February 6, 2004,? The elusive killer murdered another victim, 43-year-old Donna Johnston. After taking 45 pictures of her body while it was in his trunk, he took it to an isolated location and dumped it in a ditch. He also took the time to pose the body first, and in the course of taking the macabre photos, he also snapped partial photos of his license plate. Remember that detail all police were sure of was that they were looking for a white male. Eyewitnesses pointed to that and, frankly, statistics bear out the fact that most serial killers in the united states are white males. It wasn't much to go on, but it was all that law enforcement had.
Carole Townsend:And then in 2003, a Dr, tony Fridakis, in Sarasota, Florida, claimed to have perfected a new DNA technology called SNPs, or single nucleotide polymorphism, that breaks the ethnicity of a murder suspect down by percentage. In more than 3,000 blind tests of the then cutting-edge technology, frudakis' lab had not confirmed one single error. Having been made aware of the unsolved murders in Baton Rouge, frudakis offered the technology to the Serial Murder Task Force. From Rouge, frudakis offered the technology to the Serial Murder Task Force. Skeptical law enforcement officers and task force members first submitted their own DNA for testing, just to see whether Frudakis was offering junk science or a viable tool. Without exception, the SNP's DNA test identified every single sample with precision, even surprising some officers with the knowledge that somewhere in their family bloodline there was black, white, hispanic, native American or Asian blood in the mix. Convinced the technology was accurate, police submitted the killer's DNA to for doc as's lab for testing. Sure, the killer was white and following the FBI profile, that strongly suggested a white perpetrator. At least test results supporting that assumption would keep the investigation moving forward. Imagine the surprise, even the shock, when, after studying DNA found at some of the crime scenes, frudakis concluded that the Baton Rouge serial killer had about 80% African affiliation and 15% Native American affiliation. In other words, the killer was not white.
Carole Townsend:After all Years of investigation wasted, based on the new test results, detectives shifted their focus. The DNA samples sent to Dr Fridakis match samples taken from several of the rape and murder victims. Now we must remember that when a sex worker is tested for DNA residue, many sources of DNA may be at play. That's not a judgment, it's simply the nature of that high-risk life. But when the selected DNA profile was run through the nationwide system that compares DNA samples to those of known criminals, technicians found a match. It belonged to an African-American southern Louisiana man named Derek Todd Lee.
Carole Townsend:An arrest warrant was issued for Lee and simultaneous visits by police officers to several known addresses for Lee were conducted at the same time, but he was nowhere to be found. Cell phone tracking technology, also relatively new at the time, indicated that Lee was in the wind and in fact had fled to Atlanta, georgia. Warned by Louisiana law enforcement, the Atlanta police department's fugitive squad arrested derek todd lee on may 27 2003. The louisiana task force spokesman informed marshals in atlanta that lee would likely kill at least one more time, knowing that he was very close to being apprehended. Time was of the essence then. Atlanta police chief richard Pennington later said that, once located, lee did not resist arrest, quoting Pennington. Now I know now that we have taken a very dangerous person, that's a serial murder suspect, off the streets of Atlanta, and I'm sure the citizens of Louisiana are proud as well that we've taken this very dangerous person off our streets. Later that week Lee was extradited back to Louisiana.
Carole Townsend:The women of Baton Rouge and surrounding areas could breathe easy again, and they did. Police officers could rest easy, knowing that they finally had their man. The days of working around the clock with little or no sleep and mounting pressure were over. As the investigation and trial unfolded, the public learned that Lee was a smooth talker, a skilled con man, and he could charm almost anyone into opening the door of their home or into going home from a bar with him. He had a wife, he had a girlfriend and he had children. He had an IQ of 65. Yet he managed to elude police for years. How Derek Todd Lee is credited with eight brutal rapes and murders, though he was only tried for two. He received a life sentence for one murder and the death penalty for the other, charlotte Murray Pace. Upon receiving news of this last, he soiled himself in the courtroom when Lee was arrested. The nightmare was finally over.
Carole Townsend:And then the unthinkable on February 6 2004, as I mentioned earlier, 43 year old Donna Johnston was found murdered. It was Donna's body that had been taken to an isolated location and dumped in a ditch, like so much discarded trash. It was Donna's body that had been posed and photographed. All of this happened on a rainy night, as luck would have it, and on rainy nights in Louisiana, where the mud and silt are already thick, tires leave clear, unmistakable tracks. Stunned as they were, members of the task force that found Derek Todd Lee went right back to work. The tire tracks at the dump site were important, as those tires were not a terribly popular brand in southern Louisiana. Only 90 purchases of that tire had been made in Baton Rouge. Using true old-school gumshoe police work, officers were able to narrow down a list of people in southern Louisiana who had purchased the Aqua Treads and they began going door-to-door talking to people who had purchased those tires.
Carole Townsend:In April 2004, officers knocked on the door of Sean Vincent Gillis. By that time they already had a DNA sample of the killer taken from Donna Johnston's body. It matched DNA taken from other murder victims whose cases had remained unsolved for years. Officers asked Gillis to accompany them to headquarters, under the guise of hoping he could shed light on suspicious things he may have seen in the area of his home near the LSU campus. Hours of interrogation revealed that, yes, gillis had the AquaTread tires on his car and, yes, he had actually driven his car to the very same isolated area where Johnston's body was found. He explained that he had pulled off the highway at that spot to relieve himself. In the very same isolated area where Johnston's body was found, he explained that he had pulled off the highway at that spot to relieve himself, the very same spot where Johnston's body had been discovered. A search warrant for Gillis' home had been executed.
Carole Townsend:While detectives interrogated him, officers found disturbing pornography on Gillis's computer, as well as 45 photos of Donna Johnston's posed nude, bruised body in the trunk of his car. In some of those photos, gillis had also captured partial images of his own license plate. Interestingly, police also found an extensive collection of news clips and photos of Derek Todd Lee and his crimes. It seems Sean Vincent Gillis looked to Lee as a hero of sorts and he actually took a three-year hiatus from murdering women as he did not wish to share the spotlight with another serial killer or to detract from Lee's accomplishments. As it turned out, both killers were operating in the same exact area, sometimes even in the same neighborhood, without each other's knowledge.
Carole Townsend:During Gillis' interview with detectives, and once he had admitted to his crimes, he joked with one of the men, quoting here Don't ever try eating human skin. I don't recommend it. I mean, I have bad teeth, very sharp, and I chewed and chewed and finally had to spit it out. I couldn't swallow it and it tasted terrible, end quote. I couldn't swallow it and it tasted terrible, end quote. Detectives were stunned and sickened by this man's cavalier attitude toward his horrible crimes, as he went on to describe how he had showered with Joyce Williams' body, then danced and played with it before disposing of it. When Gillis' wife, terry, told police that she had to hear her husband admit to the gruesome crimes himself before she'd believe it, they allowed her to talk with him in the interview room. Terry asked Gillis point blank did you do all the things they say you did? Gillis shrugged, smiled, as his wife said, said a cute smile and answered yes, honey, bunny, I'm sorry.
Carole Townsend:Eight murders were credited to Gillis as well and surprisingly, sean Vincent Gillis was sentenced to life in prison, not death, for his heinous crimes. Jurors, it seems, could not agree on handing down the death penalty as some sort of mental illness, they believed, caused him to do the monstrous things that he did. Victims families were shocked and frustrated by that sentence, but it still stands. Gillis is serving his life sentence at angola, the same prison that housed Lee, as he awaited his execution. Lee, incidentally, died in a Louisiana hospital having complained of feeling ill while in his prison cell. His cause of death is listed as heart disease. He was 47 years old. Eight murders, each Eight to Lee and eight to Gillis, According to the Baton Rouge chief of police. Even if he had been able to pin 10 murders each on these two men, that still leaves 40 missing and murdered women for whom families needed answers. Those women deserve to be laid to rest in peace. To this day, there are still no answers and, believe it or not, from 1993 on, at the same time that these two separate serial killers had southern Louisiana paralyzed with fear, another storm was brewing in the same area in Jefferson Davis Parish, and southern Louisiana would once again be rocked to its core.
Carole Townsend:Join me next time as we take a close look at this case rife with murder, corruption and true Louisiana noir. With murder, corruption and true Louisiana noir. I'm Carole Townsend, veteran newspaper journalist and six-time award-winning author. You can find me at https//www. caroletownsend. com, anywhere on social media and be sure to check out the Front Porch Mysteries Facebook page. I'd love to hear from you, as always. Thanks for listening and if you're enjoying these tales of Southern history and lore, I hope you'll tell your friends. My team and I researched this baffling case using the following resources using the Bayou.
