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The Baton Rouge killings, which occurred between 1992 and 2004, claimed the lives of over three dozen women from different age groups. These women were killed by three notorious serial killers - Derrick Todd Lee, Sean Vincent Gillis, and Jeffery Lee Guillory - who were all connected to multiple murders using DNA samples, but were only convicted for a limited few.
According to sources, the killings and the killers had no connection to each other except for the fact that all the women were murdered in a similar manner. Lee was given the death penalty after being convicted of two murders and suspected in the killing of five others, while Gillis and Guillory were given life sentences after being found guilty of multiple felonies.
The city of Baton Rouge in Louisiana is known for its grim past and notorious serial killers. Oxygen is finally ready to visit the decade-long killing spree by the three serial killers who terrorized the women of the area, stalked, r*ped, and killed them.
Serial Killer Capital: Baton Rouge thoroughly dives into the killings, offering detailed insights from the brutal crimes from decades ago.
The Baton Rouge killings: Five things to know about the serial killings that terrorized the river-side city
1) Despite having no connection to one another, the three serial killers operated simultaneously
The riverside city of Baton Rouge was terrorized for more than 10 years as 36 women were killed in strange and unexpected ways in and around the region. While serial killers roamed free, the horrific atrocities caused confusion and inconsistencies without any pattern or comparable victimology.
Authorities, however, ultimately identified a pattern after running into multiple stops and conducting a terrifying interview with a serial killer. It was subsequently determined that more than one killer was on the loose, stalking the bayou, and a number of unrelated and ongoing murders were caused by multiple killers.
Derrick Todd Lee, Sean Vincent Gillis, and Jeffery Lee Guillory were eventually named as the murderers.
2) Women from all age groups, professions, and ethnicities were being victimized by the killers
According to sources, the victims ranged in age from 29 to 82, and there were atleast 36 of them. While authorities were able to locate many of them, which eventually helped them in convicting the killers, the bodies of other victims were never found.
A serial killer named Sean Vincent Gillis claimed that he plotted the killings and that the age, race, and affluence of his victims varied.
3) Authorities believe Derrick Todd Lee killed at least seven women and had a history of violent behavior
Derrick Todd Lee is believed to have killed at least seven women between 1992 and 2003 in the Baton Rouge area. A high school dropout, Lee was raised mostly by his mother, and he had a history of violent behavior. He was reportedly arrested for voyeurism, stalking, and burglary, and even served two years in prison for assaulting his girlfriend.
Despite his criminal background, authorities originally failed to consider Lee as a possible suspect because they believed that the murderer was white, which eventually turned out to be untrue. DNA testing connected him to the killings of seven women. In 2004, he was found guilty in separate trials of killing Geralyn DeSoto and Charlotte Murray Pace and was given the death penalty.
Derrick Lee died of natural causes while he was on death row.
4) Sean Vincent Gillis reportedly confessed to killing eight women, but was only booked for three
Sean Vincent Gillis is another serial killer from Louisiana's Baton Rouge. He is accused of stalking and killing eight Louisiana women between 1994 and 2004 in the Baton Rouge and its neighboring regions. Gillis is also accused of being a necrophile and r*pist. On April 29, 2004, he was discreetly taken into custody at his Burgin Avenue home.
Gillis was first charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts in connection with the deaths of Donna Bennett Johnston, Johnnie Mae Williams, and Katherine Hall. He confessed to the killings after some pressure from the authorities and subsequently told detectives about five other women that he had killed. However, not all of the instances were acceptable in court.
He was convicted of murdering two women and was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
5) Jeffery Lee Guillory was already serving 50 years for attempted murder when he was given a life sentence for the Baton Rouge killings
In investigating the case, authorities also came to the conclusion that Jeffery Lee Guillory, the third Baton Rouge serial killer, was responsible for at least three killings. The 40-year-old was arrested in 2006 for a traffic offense. At the time, when his fingerprints were obtained and compared to a print on a beer can found at the July 2001 crime scene of a murder, there wasn't sufficient evidence to charge him.
Years later, Guillory was arrested for bank fraud and assault on a woman. He was arrested in December 2009 after DNA evidence connected him to the Baton Rouge killings of three other women who were also beaten and strangled. He was found guilty in 2011 of second-degree murder in Renee Newman's death in 2002 and was sentenced to 50 years. Guillory was later sentenced to life in prison.
