Speaker 1: During the early two thousands, women in bad and Rouge
Speaker 1: lived in constant fear of the South Louisiana serial killer.
Speaker 2: Police found Gina Wilson Green strangled to death on September
Speaker 2: twenty fourth of two thousand and one, and her home
Speaker 2: in May police found Charlotte Murray Pace stabbed to death.
Speaker 3: He had just completed her MBA at LSU and with
Speaker 3: the proximity of the Pace in Green murder scenes, female
Speaker 3: students were terrified.
Speaker 1: That terror grew when Pam Kinnemore became the third victim.
Speaker 3: Kinnemore disappeared from her Badenburge home in two thousand and two.
Speaker 3: Days later, her body turned up in Whiskey Bay under
Speaker 3: the Iten after investigators determined that the suspect was most
Speaker 3: likely as serials formed a task force their goal to
Speaker 3: find the man who had spread so much fear across
Speaker 3: South Louisiana.
Speaker 1: With at least five victims. The task force had a
Speaker 1: big job to do, but it would be a small
Speaker 1: police department outside Baton Rouge that ultimately would solve this case.
Speaker 1: I'm slung glass and this is the conclusion of the
Speaker 1: South Louisiana serial killer. On American homicide. A note that
Speaker 1: this episode contained some graphic content. Please take care while listening.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and three, the Baton Rouge PD was
Speaker 1: actively hunting a serial killer, someone who was able to
Speaker 1: get in and out of victims' homes without forcing entry.
Speaker 1: DNA connected him to five women, but authorities did not
Speaker 1: know who the killer was, so they asked for help.
Speaker 1: The Baton Rouge PD invited detectives from numerous suburban police
Speaker 1: departments to a meeting share information about other unsolved cases.
Speaker 1: They hoped hearing about those cases could unlock a connection.
Speaker 4: You know, people wanted to saw because, I mean it
Speaker 4: was very bad at the time, very scary.
Speaker 1: Detective David McDavid attended that meeting.
Speaker 4: Women here they were afraid. They afraid to go out walt,
Speaker 4: they were afraid to go shopping, They were afraid to
Speaker 4: go anywhere by themselves. You saw parents questioning if everyone
Speaker 4: to send their daughters to LSU because several of the
Speaker 4: crimes happened close to LSU campus.
Speaker 1: Detective McDavid worked for the Zachary Police Department, a small
Speaker 1: city about fifteen minutes north of Baton Rouge.
Speaker 4: Zachary's on the Outskirts I mean, we've probably in my
Speaker 4: career had ten or lesser.
Speaker 1: Murders, and he felt like one of those murders might
Speaker 1: be the work of the serial killer. The case involved
Speaker 1: a divorced mom named Randy me Brewer. In nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: The police found a trail of blood at her home,
Speaker 1: but no sign of Randy. Based on the evidence, the
Speaker 1: police believed Randy was killed and then removed from her home.
Speaker 4: The body was dragged from the bedroom throughout the house
Speaker 4: and through the dining living room area, and you could
Speaker 4: see where the body was set outside the front door,
Speaker 4: and her child was left there at the house.
Speaker 1: Police believe Randy's three year old son was asleep at
Speaker 1: the time his mother was murdered.
Speaker 4: The child had walked over to the neighbor's house and
Speaker 4: wanted to come over and play, and the neighbor, you know,
Speaker 4: let's go ask your mama, and he said, well, my
Speaker 4: mom was not there. The neighbors walked in and were
Speaker 4: blood in the house everywhere. You know. One thing that
Speaker 4: really bothered us is the killer looked in on the child.
Speaker 4: You could see where he went into the bedroom with
Speaker 4: the blood droplets on the child's door.
Speaker 1: The police never found Randy's body, but they found the
Speaker 1: killer's DNA at the scene.
Speaker 4: I told my partner said, you know who it is.
Speaker 4: There was no doubt in our mind it was Derrick Toddley.
Speaker 1: Derek Toddley. He was the suspect in Randy's murder, and
Speaker 1: he was also someone the Zachary PD had dealt with
Speaker 1: for years.
Speaker 4: He was committing burgeries as a juvenile, breaking in the homes,
Speaker 4: peeping tom but he also had a violence side to him.
Speaker 4: He beat up on some people, so he spent a
Speaker 4: little time in jail, but you could see the pattern
Speaker 4: progressedly getting worse as time went on, and he just
Speaker 4: get more violent.
Speaker 1: Derek Toddley went from being charged with peeping into women's
Speaker 1: homes to stalking and beating up multiple women. The Zachary
Speaker 1: Police got a tip that Derek Toddley had something to
Speaker 1: do with Randy mean Brewer's murder, and since they had
Speaker 1: previously arrested him for peeping into homes in this same
Speaker 1: neighborhood where Randy lived, detectives questioned him and searched his home.
Speaker 4: The whole time. You know, he acted like he was
Speaker 4: in you know, he didn't do nothing wrong. The look
Speaker 4: he had. You could tell he was you know, he
Speaker 4: was just evil. Just talking to him, my hair stood
Speaker 4: up on the back of my neck.
Speaker 1: Halfway through their search of his home, Derek Toddley told
Speaker 1: the cops to leave. He lawyered up and stopped cooperating
Speaker 1: with their investigation, and that's where things ended. Detective McDavid
Speaker 1: told the Battermange PD how they never had enough evidence
Speaker 1: to charge Lee, but they kept an eye on him,
Speaker 1: and based on how the serial killer was operating, he
Speaker 1: believed it was Derek Todd Lee and Lee drove a
Speaker 1: white truck.
Speaker 4: Trucker had saw a white truck on the Whiskey Bay
Speaker 4: Bridge with what appeared to be a white male with
Speaker 4: a nicket female in the passioner's side, and you know
Speaker 4: that's what was given to the FBI profilers who come
Speaker 4: up with a profile.
Speaker 1: Detective McDavid shared why he thought Derek Todd Lee was
Speaker 1: the serial killer. If you remember, the serial killer was
Speaker 1: thought to be a white male with a white truck,
Speaker 1: but the bat and Rouge team did not pursue the
Speaker 1: lead because Derek Todd Lee was black and didn't fit
Speaker 1: the profile.
Speaker 4: People look at the serial killer as a white male
Speaker 4: and that's where people got thrown off. In this case,
Speaker 4: here they were looking for a white male. It bothered
Speaker 4: me somewhat, but there was no doubt in our mind
Speaker 4: it was Derek Toddley. We knew that he was doing stuff.
Speaker 4: If we could get his DNA owness and connect him
Speaker 4: to the crime, I knew we can get him arrested,
Speaker 4: get him off the street. So he began to be
Speaker 4: our main focus.
Speaker 1: The Zachary PD continued to do surveillance on Derek todd Lee.
Speaker 1: In the following spring, he was back to his old trecks.
Speaker 4: I got a call from lady here in town and
Speaker 4: she stated she'd been jogging every morning. A white truck
Speaker 4: was following her, So, you know, we did some surveillance there.
Speaker 4: We never did see him, but you know, we showed
Speaker 4: her a picture and she swore him down. That was
Speaker 4: him that was following her in a white truck.
Speaker 1: Investigator searched around her home and found some bootprints right
Speaker 1: outside her window, leading them to believe someone had been peeping.
Speaker 4: Evidently he saw her and kind of got attached onto
Speaker 4: her and was watching her, probably finna make his movie.
Speaker 4: He was very careful and how he got in the
Speaker 4: area and got back out without being seen.
Speaker 1: Law enforcements suspected Derek Toddley, but once again they didn't
Speaker 1: have enough to arrest him, so they tried a different approach.
Speaker 1: They still had that DNA evidence from Randy meet Brewer's
Speaker 1: house and wanted to test it against Dereck todd Lee's
Speaker 1: but they needed a judge to sign off on a
Speaker 1: subpoena to get that swab. So they put together a
Speaker 1: timeline of the unsolved murders and compared it to what
Speaker 1: was going on in Derek todd Lee's life.
Speaker 4: What vehicle he was driving, what job he was working at?
Speaker 4: Was a body found during that time? Was he fired
Speaker 4: from his job? Was he laid off? So with that
Speaker 4: I began seeing a pattern with Dereck todd Lee.
Speaker 1: The pattern showed the traumatic events in Dereck Toddley's life,
Speaker 1: like getting fired or filing bankruptcy. Well, they all happened
Speaker 1: right before the serial killer struck. Was it simply a coincidence?
Speaker 1: Detective McDavid didn't think, So.
Speaker 4: I knew Rodney in there was Derek todd Lee.
Speaker 1: His team presented the information to a judge and the
Speaker 1: judge ordered Derek Toddley to be swapped. Almost three weeks later,
Speaker 1: Active McDavid got a phone call from the Task Force.
Speaker 4: Look, we just want to let y'all know the DNA.
Speaker 4: Y'all got his a confirmed match.
Speaker 1: Derek todd Lee's DNA match the DNA found on all
Speaker 1: five victims. I mean, the small group from Zachary Louisiana
Speaker 1: had unmassed the South Louisiana serial killer.
Speaker 4: This has been the most serious case, tough case that
Speaker 4: I've ever worked on. I mean the stuff he did
Speaker 4: where he dumped the bodies at and the bayou's and waterways.
Speaker 4: I mean, he was smart and just the stress and
Speaker 4: what this area went through, in the Baton Rouge area
Speaker 4: and the citizens of the state went through because I mean,
Speaker 4: he was everwhere, com many crimes. He just didn't know
Speaker 4: where he was going to show up next.
Speaker 1: And that was their next problem. Nearly three weeks had
Speaker 1: passed from the time they swamped his DNA to when
Speaker 1: they got the results. So when police went to arrest
Speaker 1: Derek Toddley, home appeared to be abandoned and a foreclosure
Speaker 1: notice was stuck to the front door.
Speaker 4: I think the day we got his DNA, he took off.
Speaker 1: The man believed to have killed five women in South
Speaker 1: Louisiana over the course of eighteen months, had again slipped
Speaker 1: out of reach. That's when the Baton Rouge police chief went.
Speaker 5: On TV an arrest ward has been issued for the
Speaker 5: arrest of Derek todd Lee. He is to be considered
Speaker 5: armed and dangerous and authority should be notified immediately.
Speaker 1: That began a nationwide man hunt.
Speaker 4: I said, look, I'm days. If he knows he's about
Speaker 4: to be called, he's probably from the kill again. Y'all
Speaker 4: need to find him.
Speaker 1: Just one day into a nationwide man hunt for Derek Toddley,
Speaker 1: police arrested him without incident in Atlanta, and when his
Speaker 1: mugshot hit the news, all of South Louisiana couldn't believe it.
Speaker 6: Well, none of this matches anything the police had told
Speaker 6: us for a very long time, and it just didn't
Speaker 6: piece together and it didn't make sense.
Speaker 1: Journalist Melinda de Lott had covered the story for nearly
Speaker 1: a year. Most of that time, she reported that the
Speaker 1: police were looking for a white male in a white truck.
Speaker 6: The police in Baton Rouge led people down a lot
Speaker 6: of rabbit trails that ended up not being credible, so
Speaker 6: they got a lot of blowback about that. The police
Speaker 6: chief and a lot of other people who had been
Speaker 6: very engaged in that case got very defensive of what
Speaker 6: they had done and how they had handled it. There
Speaker 6: was just a lot of mishmash of emotions. It was
Speaker 6: relief for the families because I knew how much they
Speaker 6: needed to see somebody arrested for this, And there was
Speaker 6: just a lot of frustration vented at the batter Uge
Speaker 6: police department because this police officer in Zachary is the
Speaker 6: one who sought the DNA swab of Derek Todd Lee
Speaker 6: and ended up being the person who connected all the murders.
Speaker 1: At the time of his arrest, Derek Todd Lee was
Speaker 1: thirty four years old. He was married, He even had
Speaker 1: children and a girlfriend on the side. Here's Prosecutor Dana Cummings.
Speaker 3: And I found that really bizarre that somebody that was
Speaker 3: actually married in relationships was doing that.
Speaker 1: The profile said that this was someone who would be
Speaker 1: a loner, and this was a man who was surrounded
Speaker 1: by women. You've a married father of two who also
Speaker 1: had a girlfriend on the side, charged with killing a
Speaker 1: handful of women in South Louisiana.
Speaker 3: You know you can understand people that do things in
Speaker 3: like heat of passion. Somebody walks in and finds their
Speaker 3: spouse cheating, you can understand that you don't like it,
Speaker 3: but you can understand that they may lose it, and
Speaker 3: they may get emotional, and they may do something that
Speaker 3: they regret later. But I don't remember anything that I
Speaker 3: learned of him to say, oh, well, no wonder, no
Speaker 3: wonder he did that.
Speaker 1: Derek Toddlee was born in South Louisiana. His troubles began
Speaker 1: at the age of eleven, when he first started peeping
Speaker 1: into the windows of girls. Growing up, he attended special
Speaker 1: education classes. He later dropped out of school and married
Speaker 1: his high school sweetheart. A year later, she accused him
Speaker 1: of abusing her. Journalist Melinda Delotte interviewed people who knew
Speaker 1: Derek Toddley.
Speaker 6: People said nice things about him.
Speaker 1: His neighbors, for example, called him polite, friendly, and well dressed.
Speaker 6: So despite how he came across to people, he clearly
Speaker 6: had a background of some disturbing behavior regarding women, because
Speaker 6: he had been arrested before for trespassing and peeking in
Speaker 6: the houses and stalking as part of the peeping Tom
Speaker 6: kind of allegations and then he was accused of beating
Speaker 6: up a woman, like some sort of fight in a bar.
Speaker 6: He was convicted and he was sentenced to jail for
Speaker 6: that one. You know, hindsight's always twenty twenty. But like obviously,
Speaker 6: there was a trail of some arrest records that probably
Speaker 6: could have drawn some attention if they knew they were
Speaker 6: looking for a black man.
Speaker 1: By two thousand and four, Derek Todd Lee's DNA connected
Speaker 1: him with the murders of two more people, another LSU
Speaker 1: grad student and a twenty eight year old woman from Zachary.
Speaker 1: There was now seven women that Lee was accused of killing,
Speaker 1: but prosecutors decided to only try the cases they believed
Speaker 1: had the best shot at winning.
Speaker 7: I'm John Stinkfield. I'm prosecutor and los Ana. Since nineteen
Speaker 7: seventy one, I specialized in trying capital murder cases in
Speaker 7: East Batton, Rugs Parish, and I had three people actually
Speaker 7: executed that I prosecuted.
Speaker 1: In the fall of two thousand and four, Derreck Todd
Speaker 1: Lee stood trial for the murder of Murray Peace. She
Speaker 1: was the twenty two year old LSU grad who was
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted and stabbed eighty one times. John Sinkfield was
Speaker 1: the Lee prosecutor.
Speaker 7: I give the knowledge. It's like a gold miner. A
Speaker 7: gold miner's got to work where there's goal. A murder
Speaker 7: prosecutor's got to work where their murders. In Baton Rouge
Speaker 7: was a good place for my career.
Speaker 1: In this case, the prosecutor was seeking capital punishment.
Speaker 7: And I had no problem asking these jurors to return
Speaker 7: a death penalty against derreck todd Lee based on the
Speaker 7: evidence that I thought proved beyond a reasonable doubt until
Speaker 7: Moorrow certainty that he had committed all these crimes.
Speaker 1: Throughout his trial, Derek Todd Lee sat quietly and appeared motionless.
Speaker 1: He was represented by a team of public defenders.
Speaker 7: You may have heard bad things about public defenders, but
Speaker 7: not in this case. He had a top notch team.
Speaker 1: In fact, neither the lead defense attorney nor the prosecutor
Speaker 1: had ever lost a capital case.
Speaker 7: They set it up as a mano a mano contest,
Speaker 7: almost like a sporting event, and headlines were two very
Speaker 7: experienced lawyers will face each other off tomorrow in the
Speaker 7: Batteryge court room. Neither one of them has ever lost
Speaker 7: a capital case. In this case, one of them is
Speaker 7: going to lose.
Speaker 1: After weeks of jury selection and a short delay from
Speaker 1: a hurricane, the case involving the murder of Murray Pace
Speaker 1: began in October two thousand and four.
Speaker 7: In that trial, I had some hard decisions to.
Speaker 1: Think, specifically whether to calls my witnesses who reported seeing
Speaker 1: someone outside of Murray Pace's home.
Speaker 7: There's three or four witnesses that claimed have seen Derrick
Speaker 7: Todd Lee in that area around her condo in the
Speaker 7: day's previous to the assault and murder, but they had
Speaker 7: given some descriptions that didn't exactly match, so they had
Speaker 7: some vulnerability, I thought, and then I made a decision
Speaker 7: one night during that trial not to use the eyewitnesses,
Speaker 7: to go just with the DNA.
Speaker 1: For the first few days of the trial. That's what
Speaker 1: the prosecution did. They called witness after witness to speak
Speaker 1: about the DNA evidence.
Speaker 7: We put on the DNA evidence, only have them put
Speaker 7: on a defense saying that our criminalists who were examined
Speaker 7: the DNA evidence were young and inexperienced, that there were
Speaker 7: some sloppy procedures in the lab, that a swab was
Speaker 7: found in one of the boxes, which was related to
Speaker 7: the cases that our computer systems that analyze this evidence
Speaker 7: was old and out of date, and there was some attempt,
Speaker 7: you know, like possibly to frame him or something like that.
Speaker 1: As the defense attacked his DNA evidence, it left the
Speaker 1: prosecutor second guessing his strategy.
Speaker 7: I've eliminated three or four five witnesses, and I put
Speaker 7: on this powerful case of the DNA only to sit
Speaker 7: there and pray that my career wasn't going to go
Speaker 7: straight out the window because I had never seen a
Speaker 7: DNA defense like that, and you're praying that the jury
Speaker 7: don't buy.
Speaker 1: The prosecution saved their star witness until the very end.
Speaker 1: That's when they called the forty six year old nurse
Speaker 1: named Diane Alexander.
Speaker 7: Diane Alexander explained what it was like, in her words,
Speaker 7: to be attacked by Dereck Todd Lee and survived.
Speaker 1: Diane reported being attacked by Derrick Todd Lee during the
Speaker 1: summer to and two. It happened inside her home about
Speaker 1: an hour outside that en rouge, and her testimony was
Speaker 1: huge for prosecutors. Although we don't have that audio. Diane
Speaker 1: described the attack on a series called La Gospel Beats.
Speaker 8: There was a knock at the door, so when I
Speaker 8: opened the door. There was this fair, complexed young man
Speaker 8: standing outside my door.
Speaker 1: Diane said she didn't recognize.
Speaker 8: The man, and he said, Hi, my name is Anthony.
Speaker 8: I'm looking for the Montgomerys and I'm supposed to do
Speaker 8: construction for them.
Speaker 1: Diane told him he must be at the wrong house.
Speaker 1: She didn't know the Montgomerys, and.
Speaker 8: He said, do you think your husband might know? And
Speaker 8: I knew my husband was at work, but I just
Speaker 8: told him my husband doesn't know who these people are.
Speaker 1: And then he asked Diane one more time, are you
Speaker 1: sure your husband doesn't know who those people are?
Speaker 8: I said, look, my husband's not home.
Speaker 7: The blue all hell broke loose. He was strong, he
Speaker 7: was bigger. He pushed his way in her door and
Speaker 7: attacked her. Within just a few seconds or minutes, he
Speaker 7: had her down, trying to strangler with a phone cord.
Speaker 8: His intentions was to rape and kill me. That was
Speaker 8: his intentions.
Speaker 1: Over the next few minutes, he struck Diane on her
Speaker 1: head and stomped on her chest, all the while he
Speaker 1: threatened to stab her in the eye with his knife.
Speaker 8: And in my left ear, he whispered. He said, I've
Speaker 8: been watching you.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, the sound of a
Speaker 1: car pulling into the gravel driveway made him.
Speaker 8: Freeze, and not long after my son showed up.
Speaker 1: Diane's son was a college student who came home early
Speaker 1: that morning. He chased the man but lost him. He
Speaker 1: reported seeing his mother's attacker drive off in a gold
Speaker 1: colored sedan with a big telephone court hanging out the window.
Speaker 1: In a dramatic moment, the prosecutor asked Diane for her attacker,
Speaker 1: who claimed his name was Anthony, was in the courtroom
Speaker 1: that day.
Speaker 7: She looked right at Dereck todd Lee and she said,
Speaker 7: that's him.
Speaker 1: It was powerful testimony, but things wouldn't go as smoothly.
Speaker 1: During cross examination, jurors heard several DNA experts describe how
Speaker 1: Derek todd Lee's DNA was found on the victim murray pace.
Speaker 1: As you can imagine, that testimony was complex, but when
Speaker 1: Diane Alexander took the stand, she provided something no other
Speaker 1: witness could do. She described how Derek tod Lee was
Speaker 1: able to get inside her home. Here's prosecutor Dana Cummings.
Speaker 3: So he goes to the door and he's asking her
Speaker 3: questions and asking her I'm looking for somebody, and she
Speaker 3: said he was very very polite at first, well spoken,
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the way he came across. And then
Speaker 3: when he said, well, ask your husband, and I think
Speaker 3: she said he's not home or something to that effect,
Speaker 3: and that's when he just changed his personality, forced his
Speaker 3: way into the trailer and started attacking her, just viciously,
Speaker 3: tried to rape her, but her son drove up. She
Speaker 3: had like a gravel driveway, and he drove up the
Speaker 3: driveway and Derrek Tuddley got up and ran. And her
Speaker 3: testimony was very compelling because the science is great, but
Speaker 3: to hear somebody actually describe how he operated and it
Speaker 3: just made sense in all the other cases.
Speaker 1: And Diane's testimony came with another key piece of evidence.
Speaker 3: He used a cord, a phone cord to try to
Speaker 3: strangle her, and that phone cord when he left, he
Speaker 3: grabbed it and.
Speaker 9: Took it with him.
Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, the son who came home
Speaker 3: described a cord hanging out of the vehicle. And that's
Speaker 3: important because three days later he attacked Pam Kinnemore.
Speaker 1: Diane Alexander was attacked on July ninth. Pam Kinnimore was
Speaker 1: attacked and killed July twelfth. Pam's body was later found
Speaker 1: in Whiskey Bay.
Speaker 3: They're looking out there at Whiskey Bay and on a
Speaker 3: like a roadway there is a cord, and sure enough
Speaker 3: they were later able to match it to the cord
Speaker 3: that was back at a Diane Alexander's house. So that
Speaker 3: was a nice little piece of evidence, because, you know,
Speaker 3: it was fine to have the DNA, and DNA is
Speaker 3: such incredible evidence, but it was also nice to have
Speaker 3: a little bit different piece of evidence that will corroborate that.
Speaker 1: During her time on the stand, Diane was calm and
Speaker 1: spoke matter factly. Here's lee Prosecutor John Sinkfield.
Speaker 7: After she testified, if I'd had any doubt about the
Speaker 7: DNA part of the parts of the elements to myself,
Speaker 7: I said, this case.
Speaker 1: Is over, but it wasn't. During cross examination, Diane slipped up.
Speaker 1: She gave conflicting information about what Derek Tidley wore the
Speaker 1: morning he attacked her. The defense also questioned why Diane
Speaker 1: told medical personnel she couldn't remember any details about the attack.
Speaker 1: Diane explained that she was hospitalized for five days and
Speaker 1: was in and out of it. Things got so tense
Speaker 1: during cross examination that Diane asked the defense lawyer, why
Speaker 1: are you trying to confuse me?
Speaker 7: I was stepping up in my office. Then well, you know,
Speaker 7: wonder what the opportunities like in Minnesota, or you know,
Speaker 7: for a guy with my accent are, because if I
Speaker 7: lose this case, I may be out of here.
Speaker 1: During closing arguments, prosecutor John Sinfield reminded the jury of
Speaker 1: what he called the silent witness.
Speaker 7: Dereck Todd Lee's DNA. When Derck Todd Lee pushed his
Speaker 7: way in her door and attacked her, he picked the
Speaker 7: wrong woman that day, over and over again. She was stout,
Speaker 7: She fought back, and she scratched him. And when she
Speaker 7: scratched him, she got skin cells with DNA off of him.
Speaker 7: If you take the population of the Earth and multiplied
Speaker 7: by five hundred and fourteen thousand times, you wouldn't find
Speaker 7: another DNA match to Dereck Todd Lee. He was one
Speaker 7: person out of three point six quadrigon.
Speaker 1: The defense never called any witnesses. They simply picked apart
Speaker 1: the prosecution's case, suggesting that there were errors collecting and
Speaker 1: processing that DNA.
Speaker 7: We put on seventy witnesses, one hundred pieces of evidence
Speaker 7: and two hundred photographs of that trial. And then, of
Speaker 7: course we had Diane Alexander, which explained what it was like,
Speaker 7: in her words, to be attacked by Derrick Todd Lee
Speaker 7: and survived. She was the only person alive that had survived.
Speaker 1: In their closing arguments, the defense questioned how a special
Speaker 1: education drop out like Derreck Todd Lee could murder all
Speaker 1: these women without leaving behind a fingerprint, a tire track,
Speaker 1: or any trace of evidence. They also reminded the jury
Speaker 1: that for years the Zachary Police Department placed Derreck Todd
Speaker 1: Lee under heavy surveillance, So with all those eyes on him,
Speaker 1: how could he have killed Murray Pace or any of
Speaker 1: the other victims. But Prosecutor Sinkfield got in the final word.
Speaker 7: I told him, let me tell you something. What I'm
Speaker 7: about to say is not politically correct, but I'm gonna
Speaker 7: say it anyway. You see Obama like Charlotte Murray Pace.
Speaker 7: She's beautiful, smart, she's accomplished, she's well dressed. Men will
Speaker 7: kill each other over a woman like her, and some
Speaker 7: men will kill her just for a few minutes of
Speaker 7: sexual gratification with her. And that's what the evidence has
Speaker 7: shown that Derrick Todley did. There's no doubt that she
Speaker 7: lost her life in a fight. Fight's not over yet.
Speaker 7: When she clawed evidence from his skin, she said, the
Speaker 7: fight to you. Who wins it? Your decision.
Speaker 1: After less than eighty minutes of deliberation, the jury returned
Speaker 1: on the count of first degree murder. They convicted Derek Tudley.
Speaker 7: When the verdict came out, the real issue I think
Speaker 7: is this he going to receive the death belt.
Speaker 1: Throughout the trial, the defense claimed Dereck Toddley was mentally
Speaker 1: challenged and that would take the death penalty off the
Speaker 1: table and trigger an automatic life sentence. Here's prosecutor Data Cummings.
Speaker 3: They tried to say he's mentally challenged and should not
Speaker 3: be executed.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and two, the US Supreme Court ruled
Speaker 1: that executing anyone with an intellectual disability was unconstitutional.
Speaker 3: And so we had a long hearing about whether or
Speaker 3: not he was actually mentally and capable. There were various
Speaker 3: reports about his IQ, but it was just so clear
Speaker 3: that he could pull off these crimes without being seen.
Speaker 3: I mean, that did take planning, and that did take
Speaker 3: a certain amount of intelligence.
Speaker 1: An hour and a half later, the jury returned. They
Speaker 1: all agreed that Derek Toddley should die by lethal injection.
Speaker 1: As he was let out of the courtroom, the usually
Speaker 1: stoic Derek Toddley erupted. Journalist Melinda Delott was there that day.
Speaker 6: He held up a vee for victory kind of and
Speaker 6: he shouted to his family something about God, don't sleep,
Speaker 6: and they don't want to tell you about the DNA
Speaker 6: that they took. I don't know that we ever really
Speaker 6: got a good explanation, but clearly he was trying to
Speaker 6: get at that suggestion that somehow law enforcement planned at
Speaker 6: the DNA evidence that convicted him.
Speaker 1: Outside the courtroom, Lee's lawyer addressed the media.
Speaker 6: His lawyer said he wasn't surprised by the verdict, but
Speaker 6: that Derek Childley cried after he left the courtroom. We
Speaker 6: did not see that.
Speaker 1: Prosecutor John Sinfield also spoke to the media.
Speaker 7: The question they asked me was were you worried to
Speaker 7: just make you nervous? Rather than saying yes, I was
Speaker 7: about to jump off the seventh floor of the courthouse,
Speaker 7: my answer was goodnight. The South lose in a serial
Speaker 7: killer got South Louise Ina justice. He got the depth hilt.
Speaker 1: Here's audio from Murray Pece's mother, An from that press conference.
Speaker 2: I think we thought when it came back so quickly, I.
Speaker 9: Just can't believe it's finally happened.
Speaker 2: I'm overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: Throughout the trial and even during the press conference, Anne
Speaker 1: was surrounded by the families of the other victims. In
Speaker 1: a separate trial, Derrek tud Lee was convicted of murdering
Speaker 1: LSU student Jarrelyn Desto. He was sentenced to life in prison,
Speaker 1: and just like during her daughter's trial, Anne was there
Speaker 1: to support Jarrelyn's family.
Speaker 9: We formed like a sort of fraternity that you don't
Speaker 9: want to be in, where everybody felt very close to
Speaker 9: everybody else, because who in the world understands that but us.
Speaker 9: We called it the Casablanca question of all the gin
Speaker 9: joints in all the world. Did he pick my daughter?
Speaker 7: And why?
Speaker 9: That's one of the questions you never have an answer to.
Speaker 1: And planned to be there the day Derek Tuddley was executed,
Speaker 1: but that day never came.
Speaker 3: For interrupting your program with what will be a sigh
Speaker 3: of relief for many families here in South Louisiana.
Speaker 10: Sirra Kuler Derek Toddley died at a hospital in Zachary
Speaker 10: this morning.
Speaker 4: He had been there since Saturday.
Speaker 1: Derek Toddley was forty seven years old. He'd been on
Speaker 1: death row since that conviction. A decade ago. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: Derek Toudley died in prison. His cause of death was
Speaker 1: heart disease. And for and Pace, that news was bittersweet.
Speaker 11: All of it was truly like stepping off the edge
Speaker 11: of a cliff into an alternate universe in which you
Speaker 11: had no control whatsoever.
Speaker 1: She told a local newspaper. The end of the fight
Speaker 1: feels like a loss, feels like I'm armored for battle,
Speaker 1: only to find you have no opponent. The years of
Speaker 1: legal wrangling over Derek todd Lee's execution came to an
Speaker 1: abrupt ending.
Speaker 10: We had spent eleven years in court, which means every
Speaker 10: time your life gets a little bit normal, you're snatched
Speaker 10: back into the nightmare.
Speaker 1: With the nightmare over and finally began the healing process.
Speaker 2: It was like literally falling off the edge of the world,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden you came to live in
Speaker 2: a new world that was darker and hotter and had
Speaker 2: sharper edges, and that stays with you. You don't get
Speaker 2: to leave that world when it's over.
Speaker 1: Anne had Murray's remains cremated. The reason she's just heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: She said it was the only way she could get
Speaker 1: rid of every molecule Derek Toddley left on her daughter.
Speaker 1: She sprinkled her daughter's ashes in life London, Paris, and Egypt,
Speaker 1: places Murray always wanted to visit, but never got the chance.
Speaker 2: I can truly say I've never had a day that
Speaker 2: I don't think of her more than once, sometimes several times.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know when somebody you love like
Speaker 2: that dies, that some of you goes with them.
Speaker 7: I don't think they go along.
Speaker 2: I think you keep the memories and send the rest
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 1: Next time on American Homicide, after a teenager's death was
Speaker 1: ruled a suicide, her mother goes on a decade's long
Speaker 1: crusade to find the truth. Will had to Ancher, j
Speaker 1: Alaska for the case of who killed Bonnie Craig, I'm
Speaker 1: slung glass. That's next time on American Homicide. You can
Speaker 1: contact the American Homicide Team by emailing us at American
Speaker 1: Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. That's American Homicide Pod.
Speaker 1: At gmail dot com. American Homicide is hosted and written
Speaker 1: by me Sloane Glass and is a production of Glass Podcasts,
Speaker 1: a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gans.
Speaker 1: The series is also written and produced by Todd Gans,
Speaker 1: with additional writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our
Speaker 1: associate producer is Kristin Melcurrie. Our iHeart team is Ali
Speaker 1: Perry and Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing, mixing and mastering by
Speaker 1: Nico Ruka. American Homicide theme song was composed by Oliver
Speaker 1: Bains of Neiser Music Library, provided by My Music. Follow
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