Derrick Todd Lee

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Baton Rouge Serial Killer
Birth name:	Derrick Todd Lee
Born:	1968 St. Francisville, Louisiana
Penalty:	capital punishment
Killings
Number of victims:	seven confirmed
Span of killings:	1992 through 2003
Country:	USA
State(s):	Louisiana
Date apprehended:	2003

Derrick Todd Lee (born 1968 in St. Francisville, Louisiana, USA) is a convicted murderer nicknamed the Baton Rouge Serial Killer.^[1] He was linked by DNA to the deaths of seven women in the Baton Rouge and Lafayette areas in Louisiana, and in 2004 was convicted of the murders of Geralyn DeSoto and Charlotte Murray Pace. Newspapers have suggested a link with other unsolved murders in the area, but the police lack DNA evidence to prove these connections.

The murder method has varied with nearly each case. Similarities between the crimes include the removal of phones from the victim's belongings and the lack of forced entry. Most murders were committed in the area around Louisiana State University (LSU), with two of the bodies being found in Whiskey Bay.

Lee was tried in August 2004 for the murder of Geralyn DeSoto, who was found dead in her home in Addis, Louisiana. DeSoto had been stabbed numerous times. Desoto's husband was the primary suspect, but DNA evidence creating a possible link to Lee was discovered as the murder investigation progressed. Although eligible for first degree murder charges, the District Attorney elected to try Lee for murder in the second degree, since DeSoto was not sexually assaulted and thus a first-degree murder conviction would be harder to obtain. He was convicted by jury and sentenced to life in prison without the benefit of parole by the Honorable Robin Free.

One of Lee's victims is believed to have been Mari Ann Fowler (born 1937), wife of former Louisiana Elections Commissioner Jerry M. Fowler. Mrs. Fowler was abducted on Christmas Eve 2002 from a sandwich shop in Port Allen in West Baton Rouge Parish. She was never found and was declared legally dead in 2004.

Lee was convicted on October 14, 2004, for the May 31, 2002 rape and murder of LSU graduate student Charlotte Murray Pace. Lee was sentenced to die by lethal injection. On January 16, 2008, a unanimous state Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction and death sentence.^[2]