Old clue influences DNA test (in Louisiana serial killings case)

Derrick Todd Lee became the chief suspect in the south Louisiana serial killings through the investigation of a disappearance not previously linked to the killer's five known victims, officials from several law enforcement agencies said.

The body of Randi Mebruer, a Zachary woman police believe was abducted from her home in 1998, has never been found. But police believe she was killed because of the large amount of blood left in her home.

An old tip about her disappearance led officials to recently get a court order to take a sample of Lee's DNA.

East Feliciana sheriff's Detective Joel Odom said he heard from a relative that Lee had discussed Mebruer with one of the relative's employees. Odom said he passed that tip along to Zachary Police, but nothing seemed to come of it.

Odom said that at a casual lunch in early May, he related the tip to an investigator from the state Attorney General's Office, which was helping look into the disappearance of Mebruer and the slaying of another Zachary woman. They questioned the employee the next day.

They left with what Odom called "a strong, strong indication" that Lee might have killed Mebruer.

Zachary Police Chief Joey Watson said the Attorney General's Office investigator, Danny Mixon, then assembled a history of Lee's criminal activities in the Zachary area.

DNA tests had been run on items found in Mebruer's home after her disappearance, Odom said. So the investigators used the criminal history and the new tip to obtain a subpoena, signed by 20th Judicial District Judge George H. Ware, for Lee's DNA.

"Basically, it was for the Mebruer killing," Odom said Monday. "Everything we did was unrelated to the (serial killer) task force. It was just a murder we happened to be working on."

He said the names of the known victims of the serial killer were added to the subpoena because Lee's whereabouts when each of the five women was killed were unknown.

On May 5, sheriff's investigators in East Feliciana Parish, where Lee was staying, tracked him down and swabbed him. Odom said Lee behaved in a "highly, highly suspicious" way on the day he was tested.

Lafayette Advertiser, May 27, 2003

Victims’ families find little comfort in suspect being named in serial killer case

Marsha Sills
msills@theadvertiser.com

May 27, 2003

LAFAYETTE — News that the serial killer task force has a name for the man who might have killed his daughter wasn’t enough for Sterling Colomb Sr.

“I’m not as joyful as I expected,” Colomb said Monday morning, shaking his head slowly. “He’s not caught, and he’s probably more dangerous now. There’s no telling what he will do.”

The Multi-Agency Homicide Task Force named Derrick Todd Lee, a St. Francisville man, as the suspected killer during a press conference Monday morning. DNA evidence links Lee to the homicide and aggravated rape of Carrie Yoder. Yoder’s homicide has been linked to the deaths of Gina Wilson Green, Charlotte Murray Pace, Pam Kinamore and Trineisha Dené Colomb.

Sterling Colomb looked tired and defeated as he sat at his dining room table, wearing a T-shirt printed with a picture of his daughter and the words, “My Angel is Gone Forever.”

Sketches of the man suspected of assaults in St. Martin Parish, who may possibly be linked the killings, were on the table. The pictures were released Friday by the task force.

Dené Colomb was killed in November 2002 and Carrie Yoder was killed in March.

Yoder’s mother, Lynda Yoder, believes the St. Martin sketch released Friday looks like the same man who killed her daughter. The task force released pictures of Lee on Monday.

The task force has said that DNA evidence does not conclusively link the St. Martin Parish assault suspect to the serial homicides. But Lynda Yoder said the sketches are too similar not to be the same man.

The assaults were not reported to the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, a task force official said Sunday. The assaults in St. Martin Parish occurred in June and July 2002. One Breaux Bridge woman was sexually assaulted and beaten on July 9, a day before Baton Rouge Police linked the homicides of Gina Wilson Green and Charlotte Murray Pace to the same man. Pam Kinamore was killed on July 12.

“Why the parish didn’t put it on the violent criminal line, so that there could have been some profiling done, I don’t know if we’ll ever know,” Lynda Yoder said from her home in Dade City, Fla. “Last July they knew what this guy looked like.”

If it is the same man, Yoder said, “Then it’s like, what went wrong? It’s very disturbing.”

Colomb agreed, saying that if the St. Martin Parish investigation would have been handled differently, “probably three lives could have been saved, including my daughter.”

Since his daughter’s homicide was linked to the serial killer in December, Colomb has been waiting for that one phone call telling him that his daughter’s murderer has been captured.

“I didn’t get the phone call yet,” he said. “It’s getting close, but it won’t be over until they have him and then it will be up to the judicial system.”

Yoder said she feels frozen.

“I feel like a deer at night with a light shining on him. You don’t know where to turn or where to go,” she said.

“It’s very nervewracking, not knowing where he is,” she added.

Ann Pace, mother of Murray Pace, told the Associated Press that she was “overwhelmed and nauseated” after hearing that the task force issued a warrant for her daughter’s alleged killer.

“You have to be glad because it seems inevitable, I hope, that they will catch him. That means no one else will die, and that’s all that matters,” Pace said.

Judge Lou Daniel had Lee in his courtroom in 1998. Here is the sentence report:

From The Advocate (October 21, 1998)

Derrick Lee, attempted sexual battery. Pleaded guilty. Court
sentenced Lee to three years in prison with credit for time served.

Court suspended sentence and placed Lee on supervised probation for three years with conditions: pay $ 25-per-month supervisory fee; seek, obtain and maintain full-time employment; work toward obtaining GED; obtain substance abuse evaluation/treatment; perform random periodic urinalysis; perform 80 hours community service; attend sex offender
treatment program; obtain approval from the probation officer and the court to change addresses; pay $ 350 to Judicial Expense Fund to be paid within the first year of probation; not engage in any business or volunteer work activity which provides goods, services, instruction or care to and requires Lee to engage in direct contact with minor children; refrain from criminal conduct.

Not was he in custody numrous times for various violent crimes, but he is suspected in other murders. Earlier last week a police sketch bearing an uncanny resemblence to Lee links him to several rapes in St. Martin Parish over the last year, whose brilliant police department didn't submit their evidence to the serial killer task force. St. Martin Parish is located directly between Lafayette and Baton Rouge.

Two months ago a taxi driver was killed in Lafayette. My roomate was working for the same cab company and was asked to look at mug shots by the police. Lee's photo was one of those. They knew he was capable of murder, yet with all of the supposed resources devoted to this case, they couldn't keep tabs on the guy or alert his probation officer? His wife quit her job and he pulled his 2 young children out of school within the last 2 weeks. All of the red flags were out there on this guy, but nobody picked up on them.

How can violent criminals like these keep slipping through the cracks to prey on us? So many women had to die needlessly before they pieced together something that could have been easily figured out by a more attentive parole officer, judge, detective, or FBI agent. A total failure of our justice system.

Police narrowly miss suspected serial killer in Atlanta

The Associated Press - ATLANTA

The man suspected of killing six women in Louisiana fled to a dingy Atlanta motel, befriending residents, grilling ribs and chicken at a party and setting up a Bible study.

Neighbors described Derrick Todd Lee as a charming, handsome man who dated several women and promised them cognac if they would come to his room.

This guy, he was handsome, said Bubukutty Idicalla, manager of the Lakewood Motor Lodge, where Lee paid $135 cash for a week in a one-room efficiency apartment. He would go to the ladies and say, You married? You married?

Lee abruptly left his room in southwest Atlanta on Monday, the day the FBI filed a fugitive warrant for him. Lee told residents his mother was sick and he had to go home to Louisiana. But police say they think hes still nearby.

Mr. Lee is very dangerous, we believe hes here in Atlanta and we need to get him arrested, said Vernon Keenan, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Over the last few weeks, Lee traveled by bus from Louisiana to Chicago and then to Atlanta, said U.S. Marshall Richard Mecum. Lee has been in Atlanta at least a week, and he may be working construction or concrete contracting jobs that pay cash, authorities said. Hes traveling with two duffel bags and wearing a tan Members Only jacket.

Lee, 34, was charged Monday with murder and aggravated rape in the killing of Carrie Yoder, 26, a Louisiana State University student who became the serial killers fifth suspected victim in March. The first killing was 11 years ago, and police say Lee may be connected to other unsolved killings as well.

The FBI released Lees photo Monday, asking the public to help locate him. The naming of a suspect came nearly a year after police linked the murders of three Baton Rouge women to a single DNA profile. The warrant accuses Lee only of Yoders murder, though it says DNA evidence removed from Yoders body matched that taken from the other four victims.

Police in Zachary, La., a suburb of Baton Rouge, obtained a DNA sample from Lee _ which linked him to the five slayings _ earlier this month because they were investigating him for an unconnected disappearance in their town.

Motel residents say Lee cleared out Monday, shortly after borrowing the managers cell phone to call two numbers in the Baton Rouge area. According to Idicalla, police traced the number, called Idicallas cell phone and asked if he knew Lee.

When Idicalla told police Lee there, authorities headed to the run-down motel. But by the time Marshals got there, Lee was gone, taken to a train station by a resident who thought he was headed home to see his sick mother.

We have not actually laid eyes on him. Right now were in his wake _ were right behind him, Mecum said.

Lee made friends with many of the 50 or so residents of the motel and was known as a ladys man. Resident Brenda Jones, 48, said he was very nice.

He wasnt violent-acting. He didnt talk about violence. He talked about the Bible a lot. Let me tell you, he knew the Bible.

Motel residents said Lee didnt have a car and got rides to a pawn shop, where he sold gold jewelry. His behavior didnt stand out around the motel.

I prayed with this man. I gave him rides, said Valerie Thwaites, a maid and receptionist at the motel. He was very gorgeous and very kind to me.

Lee entertained several women in his room, neighbors said. He would often compliment their hair and offer them drinks.

He was nice, and he had a pretty woman stay the night, Idicalla said. I could not believe it when the police came and said he was wanted for killing women. None of us could believe it.

Anyone who believes they may have seen Lee is asked to call the GBI at 1-800-597-TIPS.

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