March 19, 2024 • 49 mins
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Source Material:
- https://www.lsureveille.com/serial-killer-booked-with-two-more-murders/article_4997d9b5-96ca-50b2-b700-26b5800b2d83.html
- https://law.justia.com/cases/louisiana/first-circuit-court-of-appeal/2008/2007ka1909-1.html
- https://www.wafb.com/story/1831138/gillis-confesses-to-another-murder/
- https://www.crimelibrary.org/news/original/0107/0201_sean_gillis1.html
Venturing into the heart of darkness in Baton Rouge, we explore a city that became notorious for its serial killers during the 1990s. This episode unearths the chilling saga of Sean Vincent Gillis, whose heinous acts unfolded alongside the infamous Derek Todd Lee and the suspected Jeffrey Lee Guillory. Together, we'll strip away the veneer of normalcy that allowed these predators to lurk unnoticed, exposing the gruesome reality of lives tragically cut short. Prepare for a haunting journey that challenges every assumption about the kind of person capable of such unspeakable violence.
The shadows of Gillis's story grow darker as we probe his digital footprint, tracing a path of depravity from cyberspace to the streets of Louisiana. We recount his murderous spree that began in the mid-'90s and reveal the stark duality of a man leading an unassuming domestic life while harboring a monstrous secret. The heart-wrenching accounts of his victims' last moments lay bare the brutality of a killer who exploited society's blind spots to evade detection. Join me, Kellye, as we unravel the connections between a solitary internet existence and a real-world legacy of terror.
As we wrap this installment, the complexities of the criminal justice system come to the fore in the examination of Gillis's unique plea deal. His case, marred by suppressed confessions and confessional letters, offers a rare insight into the strategies that unfold within the courtroom's walls. And with the festive spirit of St. Patrick's Day in the air, we conclude with well wishes for the holidays and a promise to reconvene as we continue to dissect the compelling and horrifying facets of true crime. Stay vigilant, and I'll meet you again on the next episode.
This has been an elfaudio production.
Thanks for listening & Take care out there!
All🎶created by: Uncle Sawyer
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kellye (00:00):
In the 1990s, Baton Rouge was a scary place to be In
an era that eventually led tothe Red Stick City being labeled
the serial killer capital ofthe world.
We have our pick of serialkillers to discuss Today.
We will go into details aboutthe other Baton Rouge serial
killer and the vicious andunspeakable horrors his victim
(00:21):
went through before and afterdeath In today's episode of
CenLAw.
Hello and welcome to thisepisode of CenLAw.
(00:43):
I'm Kellye and Kyler's overthere doing something, so it's
mostly just gonna be me.
You probably have heard of atleast one of the gentlemen I say
gentlemen, that's a very looseterm of the dudes that I'm going
to talk about.
(01:04):
The main one I'm gonna talkabout will get to in a second,
but I'm sure that most, ifyou're from Louisiana or if
you've ever like Googled let'sbe real most of us have the most
deadly or most dangerous serialkillers in America, right well,
if you live in Louisiana, youdo the same thing for your own
(01:24):
state, of course, and one ofthose that will pop up on there
inevitably is Derek Todd Lee,and I even mentioned him, I
believe, in the Eugénais episodebecause they thought that maybe
he was a viable suspect, butDNA rolled him out and he's a
very well known serial killer.
(01:45):
He was from Baton Rouge.
He was active during like 90, Iwant to say 93 to 03 somewhere
in there, and very well known.
He was actually caught and puton trial and all that stuff.
He was very, very well knownright at the beginning of like
(02:05):
the true crime era.
And what's scarier than that isthe fact that you know, a lot
of times when cops are doingtheir investigations in certain
areas and regions they're nottypically going to say, oh, this
must be the work of the sameguy.
And unfortunately for the BatonRouge Sheriff's Office and
(02:30):
investigators that wasn't justone guy, it was upwards of.
At one point there were threeactive serial killers working at
a Baton Rouge and in aroundBaton Rouge Parish.
Would that be East Baton Rouge,west Baton Rouge, all of the
Baton Rouge's.
And, like I said, Derek ToddLee was one.
(02:50):
Another, even lesser known, wasJeffrey Lee Guillory and his
body count was the lowest.
From what I have read Hisactual charges.
That booked him a 50 yearsentence in jail, which means he
(03:11):
won't get out until he's 93.
Because that was withoutbenefits.
The charges were actuallyattempted second degree murder,
although he was accused of whatis it?
Three different murders.
He was accused of committingmurders in 99, 2001 and 2002.
The conviction that he got in2011 actually was for
(03:35):
strangulation, but that wasafter he was convicted of the
attempted second degree.
So he remains suspect inseveral others, as well as Derek
Todd Lee and Vincent, or SeanVincent Gillis, who is our topic
today.
Now I had a listener send meanother suggestion via email the
(03:55):
other day and it had SeanVincent Gillis's name in it
Again.
I've heard and read thingsabout Derek Todd Lee.
I had even heard mention of theother serial killers that were
active during the time, but Ihad never really had the name
thrown out there.
When you see this guy's picture,he does not instantly dredge up
(04:20):
scary serial killer.
That's just not what you get.
When you see his face, morelike where's the convention and
why isn't he there yet?
He's got these big glasses.
Actually, he's got the pedomustache down, but he just looks
literally he looks like a nerd.
He looks like an actual whiteboy fanboy nerd.
(04:44):
That's what he looks like andthat's terrifying in a way,
because it's very unassuming andI don't want to say you'd feel
comfortable around him, but youdefinitely wouldn't feel like
he'd be the kind of person tostrangle you with zip ties and
then stab you and then do thingswith your dead body and then
(05:08):
take parts of you and ingestthem Just doesn't wing perfect,
it doesn't bring those things tomind.
But again, just like Kyler,over my shoulder, said just now,
bundy was not the epitome of aserial killer either.
So I mean, we all know andunderstand at this point that
(05:31):
that's what makes them scary isbecause they can look like
anyone.
They can literally look likeyour best friend next door, or
they can look like freaking JohnWayne, gacy, creepy, creepy
clown killer or you know theother scarier looking serial
killer types.
Whereas you know you've got thehandsome serial killer types,
(05:52):
you've got the unassuming, nerdy, meekish versions.
I mean, they're just, they'reall across the board.
You never really can tell andthat's that's why they can.
You know, the thought of thatcan be very frightening.
(06:14):
So let's go ahead and get intothe topic of our story today and
that's going to be, like I said, Sean Vincent Gillis, and he
was known as the literal, theother Baton Rouge serial killer,
or in some cases they calledhim the zip tie serial killer,
but mostly it was the other.
So it was the other and I'vebeen fondly using the
(06:37):
abbreviation BRSK for BatonRouge serial killer, just
because it's fun, so theBrrrsssk.
Anyway, he was born in June of1962.
I think it was the 24th, soJune 24th 62, in Baton Rouge, to
his parents, Norman and Yvonne.
(06:59):
Now, Norman was not a goodfather.
He was not a good person.
From every information bitsthat I could gather, he was a
severe alcoholic.
He had severe psychotic issues,manic, depressive almost seems
like, and he, in the short timethat he was present, his actions
(07:25):
and interactions with Yvonne,mom and baby Sean, we were not
good.
From one account he actuallyheld a gun to the baby's head
and threatened to kill him likea loaded weapon to a baby, an
infant.
So just not a good sign ofthings to come, especially if
the apple doesn't fall far fromthe tree, which obviously in
(07:51):
this case it didn't.
I think they were the same treein general, but overall Yvonne
did her best.
She raised Little Gillis withher parents, so grandparents
helping her raise, and she didthe best she could.
(08:12):
But he still kind of grew up ataround 10, 11, 12.
He was labeled as a bully and inone of his interviews which, if
you guys want to know moreabout this guy.
There's plenty out there.
There are documentaries afterdocumentaries.
There are YouTube videos of hisconfession.
It was a taped confession andin his confession he actually
(08:32):
quotes says I tried to kill mycousin once just to feel her
breasts up, and that was when hewas like 12 or 13 years old.
So I mean these thoughts andthese tendencies that he later
would exhibit and take out onother women.
They started early and otherthan his dad leaving young.
(08:56):
There's not a whole lot topoint as to why these were a
thing.
It's just not.
There's no actual like oh hey,that's what happened.
No wonder he's messed up.
No, that none of thoseindicators are present and I
didn't see anything about likebedwetting or arson or small
animal mutilation.
There wasn't a whole lot to it.
(09:17):
He was pretty, you know, singleparent helping grandparent
raising, like he wasn't.
There was nothing out of theordinary that would have been an
indication of what was to come.
In 1980, by the time he was 17,he actually started having his
(09:38):
first brushes with the law, withtraffic citations and things
like that.
Nothing crazy, nothing off thewall, nothing bad, and up until
the point that he was arrestedfor murder.
He doesn't actually have arecord at all, none.
He had low income, jump from jobto job, gas station employees
(10:01):
at 7-Eleven.
He would work in retail shops.
He would work at otherconvenience stores, outlets,
chains, and you know, he justkind of what is that word I'm
looking for?
He, he existed, but he wasn'tliving.
There's a word I'm looking for,but he skated by.
(10:24):
He wasn't anything spectacular,he didn't have any high
ambitions to do better, he wasjust doing that, like he was
just being so, as most of youprobably could guess, if you
(10:46):
know anything about late 80s,early 90s, star Trek, star Wars,
all those big deals, especiallyfor the nerds.
And, like I said, he lookedlike a nerd.
He actually is a nerd.
He loved Star Trek, loved it.
And back when the internet wasstill a baby, in the early 90s,
(11:08):
there wasn't a whole lot else onthe internet.
You know, like government stuff, record keeping, type things.
And then you know Star Trek,star Wars.
You know all of the nerds withtheir compilations of things and
their forums of them sharinginformation of their favorite
nerdy things.
And I love those nerds, I loveall nerds.
(11:29):
Just so everybody knows thatI'm not down talking or like,
like making fun in any way,shape, form or fashion.
I am not.
I love me all of the things inthe nerds.
So, um, oh, and there was onemore thing on the internet, but
you guys probably knew that onealready, unless you haven't ever
, you know, dove into that sideof the internet which inevitably
(11:53):
, at some points, evenaccidentally clicking, can get
you to the porn side of thewebsite of the internet.
So that was the other part wasporn, and the majority of
Gillis' time that he spentonline on the computer, which
was the majority of his timewhen he wasn't at work or wasn't
, you know, having to do thingswith his mom or for his mom, he
(12:18):
was on the internet looking atporn or talking about Star Trek
and the the porn side of things.
After a while you get kind ofdesensitized and so it became
more graphic, more gory, and itwas for Sean Gillis.
(12:40):
It became the bloodier thebetter.
He would look for the nastiest,goriest, most vicious, harmful,
heinous type and and tied thatinto sexual gratification.
So in 92, I believe, his momactually decided to.
(13:05):
His mom actually decided tomove to Atlanta for a new job
she had obtained and she toldhim to come with her.
But he didn't.
He didn't want to move.
He was still living at theirhouse in Baton Rouge.
He was 30 years old at thispoint and he just he didn't want
to leave.
He had been there for so longand he was pretty comfortable
(13:26):
and felt you know, this is where, this is where I'm going to
stay.
And so he was as upset as hewas that she was leaving.
He still wasn't upset enough togo with her, so she left out
and in 94, he met Terrie Lemoine, who quickly became his
(13:46):
girlfriend and within the yearthey moved in together.
Now, interestingly, terry, shealmost didn't actually date him,
because she said they got intoa really big argument about the
internet usage and the porn andall of that, and that during the
course of this argument sheactually slapped him across the
face Okay, slapped him hardacross the face, and the
(14:10):
reaction that she got was sobaffling that it kind of caught
her off guard.
Instead of reacting orthreatening to hit her back or
actually hitting her back, hestarted crying.
Yeah, so he gets slapped acrossthe face and then he starts to
cry and of course, she, at thispoint she feels terrible.
She, you know, she feels like,oh man, what did I just do.
(14:33):
This guy is now he's crying andyou know, at that point she
felt sorry for him and so shewanted to make up for it and she
told him she'd never bephysically violent again and
they kind of she kind of gotwrote back into a guilty
conscious type.
Now you have to make up for,you know, hitting me in the face
and they stayed together.
So about that same time thoughunfortunately she had no way of
(15:01):
knowing and there was noindicators, like I said,
whatsoever other than the porn.
But if she wasn't aware of whatkind of porn he was watching,
then she would have had no ideaanyway.
So the very first victim of SeanGillis was an elderly lady who
lived at an assisted livingfacility in Baton Rouge and she
(15:26):
had left her door unlocked andhis intent was to go in and rape
her right so to leap out theseviolent fantasies that he'd been
, you know, obsessing over onthe internet for all these years
.
And so he goes into 81 year oldAnne Bryant's room and attempts
(15:46):
to start an assault on her, asexual assault, but she starts
screaming for help and he getsso worried and concerned that
he's about to get caught that hejust lashes out and slashes her
throat a couple times and thenstabs her almost 50 times.
I think the total count wasaround 47.
(16:07):
47 different separate stabwounds.
And because it didn't go theway he had planned and he didn't
really have an exit strategy atthat point, because things got
out of hand or it went off offschedule or off or not off
schedule, off track of what hehad in his mind imagined it to
(16:30):
be, he kind of just left, heleft the body, he left
everything, he just rolled out,and so her body was found a few
days later and they never reallyhad a good idea or any kind of
lead or suspect in that casewhatsoever.
That was in March, March 21stof 1994.
Okay, so that was the same yearthat he met Terrie and the next
(16:57):
year he moved in with her.
They got a, they got well, they, she moved into the house with
him that they lived in there inBaton Rouge.
The house was actually onBergen Bergen whatever I've been
watching trolls, forgive meBergen Bergen, pick one 545 in
(17:21):
Baton Rouge, and that was thehouse that his mother, he had
grown up in, that she had lefthim.
She still, his mom still paidthe rent, even though he was
over 30 years old, she was stillpaying the rent for that house
and they moved in together.
And keep in mind all the while,for the next few years that
we're gonna talk about, terryhad absolutely no idea Okay, and
(17:44):
everybody believed her the factthat she was completely
freaking clueless and we'll getthere.
So the next victim didn't comefor almost like five years, I
want to say, because that was in94, and then the next one
wasn't until 99 and the victimin January of 1999, just real
(18:10):
quick, other than his first andhis third victims, because we
get a couple more numbers here.
But his first victim, the 81year old Miss Anne, she
obviously was not living adangerous lifestyle, but the
rest of these were mostly eitherprostitutes or they were into
the drug scene in some way andtherefore, you know, we hear
(18:33):
this a lot, especially in thesetype of stories they tend to be
easier targets.
They tend to be thesought-after target for serial
killers because unfortunatelythey are kind of labeled
throwaway people, which is awful, but they've already lost
contact with their family orthey, you know, basically cut
(18:56):
them off, cut themselves offfrom all the people that would
check in on them and care aboutwhere they were on a daily basis
and we'll see more of that aswe get further into the story.
The second victim, miss 29 yearold Catherine Hall.
She was murdered in January, onJanuary 4th 1999, and she was a
(19:20):
prostitute and when he decidedhe was going to kill her, he
actually attempted to strangleher but it wasn't working.
So he ended up stabbing her 16times, starting with the throat
and in through the eye and justthe rest of her chest and upper
body, after he got done stabbingher and was successful in
(19:42):
taking her life.
He actually triggered warninghere.
He mutilated her body after hegot done having sex with it and
then he posed and left her infront of a sign that was at the
end of the street and it was adead-end sign, and he left her
body posed in front of thatdead-end sign and that's how she
(20:05):
was found and the point waswell taken.
They got it and again, this wasone of those times when it you
would think that you know thefirst stretch was five years.
Maybe you get another coupleyears.
No, not in this case.
He only went about four months,maybe five, close to five,
because it was the end of May,it was May 30th of 1999, and
(20:28):
this was the other victim thatwas not into the drug scene or
any kind of prostitution or justany of the dangerous lifestyles
.
This was actually a 52 year oldlady.
She was married, she was fromthe upper middle class, I
believe, and her name was HardeeSchmidt, and he actually
stalked her for about threeweeks prior to abducting, raping
(20:51):
and strangling her.
He watched her watch and likefollowed her back and forth and
watched her route of where shewent, what she did, and
eventually one night he pulledclose enough to where she would
be running and like hit her withhis car to incapacitate her and
(21:11):
then dragged her into the car,raped her, murdered her and then
mutilated her body postmortemas well and then left her.
But this time he didn't.
He didn't stab her.
Well, not what.
She was alive anyway.
He mutilated her after death,but he strangled her and then
left her again to be found.
(21:31):
I don't think he posed her inany specific way or left her in
front of a dead ensign oranything of that nature, but he
did.
He did leave her, just to befound out in the middle of
nowhere.
So Unfortunately, like I saidat this point, in Baton Rouge
they had way too many people,way too many serial killers that
(21:55):
were being active in the areathat they were having a hard
time nailing down for sure whichone was which, which one was
involved with what, becausetheir emos weren't entirely
alike but they had a lot ofsimilarities.
So there were things that werekind of the same but not
(22:19):
entirely, and so they kind ofprayed on the same type of
people, although because hemixed it up a little bit,
because his first one was an 81year old, the second one was a
prostitute on drugs, and thenthe third one was a middle-upper
class and the original orwhatever, the Baton Rouge serial
(22:41):
killer, not the other, DerekTodd Lee.
He actually prayed on womenthat were from those upper class
areas or not, in the dredgesand he also had, like,
participated in the murder,stalking type thing, like he got
off on that part of it.
So it wasn't entirely just thekill and the mutilation.
(23:04):
That was more out of necessityto try to get rid of the bodies
than it was just to, you know,get off on it, I suppose.
And from 1993 when Sean VincentGillis started, and all the way
up until 2004 when they finallyarrested Sean Gillis, there
(23:30):
were at least two others, if notmore active at that time.
So it was one of those thingswhere they didn't, they weren't
able to pinpoint, but even thenthey were still obtaining DNA,
not on all of the victims per se, but there were at least three.
And the next victim after MissExcuse me, miss miss Hardee
(24:00):
Smith was Joyce Williams.
She was 36.
She was strangled, mutilated,post-mortem and Wait.
When they found her, one of herlegs was actually severed
completely and From his ownconfessions later Sean Gillis
(24:20):
told them that he actuallysliced off and ate her nipples.
Yeah, it's pretty gruesome.
The next couple of victims thatthey actually got DNA from but
they Didn't from, let's say itwas, it went miss Lillian
Robinson.
She was 51 years old.
(24:40):
That was January of 2000.
And Then you had Miss MarilynNeville's, which hers nobody had
even reported her missing, andshe was 38.
Nobody even reported hermissing until after he confessed
, and that was in 2004 and hekilled her in 2000.
(25:02):
So just kind of gives you anidea of the kind of people he
was Seeking out and his type,his victim type.
Both Lillian and Marilyn werestrangled and both had been
sexually assaulted or theirbodies had been Used for a sex
after they had died.
Marilyn was 38, Lillian was 51,so you can see that their their
(25:24):
age ranges were pretty gappedtoo, I think, his range from
late 20s to early 50s, exceptfor the 181 year old, so it's a
pretty widespread there.
And from there we go to the nextvictim, which would have been
Miss Johnnie May Williams.
She was 45 years old at thetime of her death.
(25:46):
She was strangled as well, andand he had actually completely
severed her hands post mortemand left her body mutilated and
abused.
And this, this kind of, was thebeginning of the end.
This was in October of 2003,and His next victim, although it
(26:09):
wasn't until 2004 and February,that would be his last.
So if anybody else is keepingcount, don't you don't have to,
but I'm gonna tell you.
The total number that he is saidto have be accounted for is a
total, and his last victim wasMiss Donna Bennett Johnston, and
she fought her butt off andthey found DNA of his under her
(26:34):
fingernails and she just it wasobvious that she had put up a
fight, although he said later inthe letters that were presented
at trial to a friend of hisfrom jail that she was so drunk
it was easy to to kill her, toincapacitate her.
She had been raped, strangledand the most brutally Mutilated
(26:57):
after death.
He actually removed her left orher.
He removed her arm from theelbow Down her left arm.
He cut off and ate her nipples.
He slashed and gouged herbreasts, as well as cutting out
(27:18):
a tattoo that she had on herleft thigh of a butterfly and
had removed it completely.
And and the only fortunate partabout that this instance was he
had gotten a little bit sloppywhen he dumped her.
Now it was, I Believe, like acow farm or it had been
(27:44):
something, something along thoselines, where it had soft dirt,
a lot of that, and he had pulledoff the road to dump her body
and the road that he he took toget in was still damp when he
left out.
He actually left tireimpressions in the soil out
there and the Tire impressionswere noted by one of the
(28:09):
detectives who found the downthe body.
A were there investigating thescene and they noted and took
pictures and casted the tireimpressions.
And they got really lucky onthat front because this specific
type of tire had only been soldto a couple hundred people in
(28:33):
the Baton Rouge area and whenthey ran that list and they, you
know, went ahead and broke itdown.
They realized that, you know,they could split this up between
a couple of the investigatorsand pretty much knock out
everybody on this list.
Right, and you would think thatif you were the killer you
Wouldn't give up any information, you wouldn't give up your DNA.
(28:55):
But that's not really whathappened.
Mr Sean Vincent Gillis wasactually number 26 on this list
and he came in, he gave hisstatement, he said oh, you
probably found my print, mytracks out there, because I
pulled off the side of the roadbecause I had to take a piss and
that's why it was there.
But in the interview it alsomentioned something kind of off
(29:16):
the wall when he said oh well, Iused to know her, she used to
be, she used to clean my housefor me and you know she's been
in my car.
So if you find a hair orsomething in there, that's why
because I knew her.
And you can see all of theseinterviews and everything on on
YouTube and I'll link a coupleof them in the show notes for
you guys.
But it's just, it's wild tolisten to him because he has
(29:37):
zero affect.
It's almost like he's talkingabout a magazine or something.
It's just normal late, justEvery day conversation.
There is nothing crazy talk to.
You know nothing to see here.
Guys just smile and wave, andPretty much.
From that point the detectivesknew that they had their guy.
(29:59):
They just had to kind of linkit all together.
So they asked him if they couldhave his DNA.
He voluntarily gave them hisDNA and they quickly got search
warrants and everything fortheir house, for the house that
he was living in, and but, as ofthat day though, they had to
let him go.
Now, when they let him go backto the house, they let him go
(30:21):
back home, they started lookinginto his background and and they
start trying to get everythingtied up, waiting on the DNA to
come back right.
So they had DNA from three ofthe bodies which would have been
the body of Catherine Hall in99, Johnnie Mae Williams in 03
(30:45):
and then latest and last victim,donna Johnston, and they had
DNA that they knew the DNA ofall three of those were the same
, the same perpetrator, the samesuspect, because those DNA,
even though they had nothing tomatch it to, they did match each
other and so when they did getthe DNA back, it was a solid
match for him and him alone.
(31:06):
They decided to.
You know, we got to move onthis now.
And they go at 1 20 in themorning to his house and To
their surprise they get thereand he's curled up in the bed
with his girlfriend, slashfiance, soon to be wife, Terrie.
(31:27):
And he looks over to her and heapologizes and says you know,
hey, I'm so sorry about this,she had no idea.
And when she finally getsaround to like someone
explaining to her what the hellis going on, she says no, no, no
, there's no way.
This is a serial killer.
You guys have got the wrong guy.
You guys are hilarious, that'sgreat.
He cried like a baby when Islapped him across the face.
(31:49):
There's no fucking way right,well, wrong.
He was DNA tied and it didn'ttake long for him to start
actually confessing and talkingabout all of the murders, all
the way back to 1993 or 94whatever it was, I think it was
93 and he got caught because ofa very rare tire impression and
(32:11):
because he gave his DNA upfreely.
And and they Eventually get thesearch warrant for his house
and they go in and they find aplethora of Cooperating evidence
they actually find you rememberhow I told you he had cut the
arm of Donna Johnston off at thelike elbow down.
(32:37):
He had actually used that.
He had taken it home with himand used that to masturbate with
.
Yeah, you thought it wasalready as bad as it was gonna
get.
No, then they also found atreasure trove of pictures that
he had taken, 45 pictures or soof the body of.
(32:58):
I want to say it was mmm.
Which one was it?
I want to say it was CatherineHall, but I'm not sure.
No, wouldn't.
Catherine Hall was, later thanthat, Lillian Robinson, one of
(33:21):
them.
I just know that he took, like,yeah, the 45 pictures, digital
pictures that he kept on hiscomputer.
Obviously he was, you know, thecomputer nerd, nerd.
And they actually also found afile marked DTL.
That's right.
He had been keeping up withDerek Todd Lee's murders.
He didn't actually realize atthe time.
(33:42):
I guess it was after Derek ToddLee got arrested, which was
right before he did, because hewas trying and he says this in
one of his interviews that hedidn't want to get out done by
Derek Todd Lee like I'm gonna bethe better serial killer, I'm
gonna be the most notoriousserial killer and Baton Rouge.
So he actually, once herealized that Derek Todd Lee had
(34:03):
more bodies than he did, hedecided that he was gonna have
to beat him, which is also whyhe started committing murders,
or that was his excuse tocontinue committing murders, but
in a more more rapid pace thanhe had before.
So once he was arrested andthey did the search weren't
(34:24):
found all the cooperatingevidence, like I said, they
realized that you know, this was, this is a, this is a bad dude.
The craziest part about it,though, was he had zero criminal
record, like.
He had no criminal historywhatsoever other than, like the
couple, random parking ortraffic citations that he'd had
no felonies, no misdemeanors, nopinpoint show of any kind of
(34:53):
dangerous person that could havebeen lurking inside of this
house, and when he's in theinterview, he actually talks
about it in a way that he kindof he tries to make it more
understandable to them, and hesays it have you ever seen the
Secret Life of Walter Mitty?
It was the secret life of SeanGillis, and that's how he
represents it to them.
(35:14):
And what I found interesting aswell, in the interview that he
does with one of theinvestigators, he says the
investigator asked him at whatpoint did you get upset or mad
at these women?
And he said, "what if there was?
No point?
Does the word monster come tomind?
And that makes all the sense.
Like he wasn't mad at them, butthey were a means to an ins for
(35:37):
him, like he needed them to die.
He needed them to be, he neededto use them in order to get
what he wanted out of it and theonly way to do that was the
violence and gruesome deathsthat he bestowed upon them.
So it was, mmm.
(35:57):
It's rough, a lot of it, but,like again, it's one of those
things that it's hard to watchbecause he's just so blasé like
there's nothing.
It's.
It's terrifying just how evenkeel somebody can be when they
speak about the disgusting,horrific things that he did to
(36:21):
these women.
And I didn't even get to talkto you guys.
I forgot to mention the, theexcuses that he said that they
when he was making the weird,random statements initially
about like if they found hair inhis car, or if he if they found
blood well, what if we foundblood in your car?
What if the blood was in thebackseat?
Because he said the front seatblood, if they found any up
(36:41):
there, that that would be hiswife slash girlfriend, whatever
that.
She had had her period in thefront seat and it looked like a
massacre up there.
I think is what he said.
And then he tried to say thatthe wind might have blown some
of the blood into the backseat.
Yeah, no, no, you heard thatright.
He said the wind blew maybeblood droplets into the backseat
, that's why they might findblood back there.
(37:04):
So they actually arrested him onApril 29th of 2004, which kind
of blew my mind because I, youknow, I wasn't living in
Louisiana at the time, I wasstill in Texas.
But that's just the too closefor comfort, you know what I
mean.
Like this was too recent andit's kind of terrifying still
(37:25):
still terrifying.
But it took a while for them toactually get him to trial.
So he was arrested April 29thof 2004 and he started his trial
for the three murders that theytied his DNA to of Katherine
Hall, Johnnie Mae Williams andDonna Bennett Johnston.
They put him on trial in Julyof 2008 so it was July 21st and
(37:48):
he was sentenced and couldn'tcharge of all three murders and
they were all three at the sametime went to trial.
So they didn't do separate ones, but they did charge them,
charge him with all three at inthe same trial and he was
eventually sentenced to life in2007.
However, before we get to thereal wrap up end here, I want to
(38:08):
tell you guys, I was lookingand before he did that, I think
he actually pled guilty tokilling one of them and he made
the statement.
He pled guilty.
He took a plea and he pledguilty.
I think he said I choked hertill she stopped moving.
(38:29):
I killed her and that's all hesaid.
But in taking the plea, he alsogot the DA or the court to
acknowledge the fact that hestill had the right to appeal.
Now let me tell you why this isinteresting is because,
generally, when you take a pleadeal, you are waiving all of
(38:49):
your rights that you wouldnormally have.
You waving your right to remainsilent.
You're waving your right toconfront your witnesses at trial
.
You're waving your right toappeal when you take a plea deal
.
That's it.
You're admitting your guilt ifyou are taking whatever sentence
you were given and there is noway that you can come back and
say, hey, I don't think y'alldid this, right.
No, you're admitting, rightthen and there, that everything
(39:09):
is done.
You don't have the right toappeal, but apparently there is
a little snippet of the law thatallows for this, so it's called
a Crosby plea, which is kind ofand I want to say kind of like
an Alford plea.
It's not like an Alford plea,it's.
It's an admission of guilt.
You say you're guilty, but youreserve the right to appeal, and
(39:33):
that's generally pre-trialevidence or something that
happened prior to you takingyour plea of guilt.
Now, in Gillis's case, he wassaying that he should not, his,
his confession should not havebeen allowed, and for the trial,
(39:54):
they actually ruled that itwouldn't be allowed because,
technically, in his interview,he did ask two different times
to have an attorney present, andthey continue to speak with him
, which is a violation of yourrights of Miranda, and they
basically threw it out, whichwas terrifying for the
prosecution, because they, atthis point, were like oh shit,
(40:16):
he's gonna walk, and and they uh.
Eventually, though, they got asurprise gift, I guess you could
say, from a friend of SeanGillis's.
He was corresponding with alifelong friend of his that was
(40:42):
also in the prison system, andshe happened to be incarcerated
at the time, and her name wasTammy Purpera Purpera, and she
wrote letters back and forthwith Sean Gillis and he actually
confessed like full blownconfessions in these letters.
And unfortunately, Miss Tammyshe passed away in 2005 from
(41:05):
complications of her AIDSdisease.
But she, before she passed away, she got a copy of these
letters to the district attorneyand never asked for anything in
return.
But without those letters theywould not have been able to go
to trial in 2008.
So pretty crazy turn of eventsbecause, like I said, they they
ruled the interview inadmissibleand then basically they had to
(41:26):
go off of all of the other DNAand things like that, but they
didn't have the full blownconfession, like they didn't
have it in the bucket, like theythought they did.
So thanks to Tammy, they didactually get get those letters
and get him sentenced and he didget sentenced to all three
counts.
He was bound guilty andsentenced to life without
(41:48):
benefits or or any kind ofprobation options ever.
And the death penalty was onthe table.
But the jurors were never likethey.
In interviews later they saidit was never going to be an
option.
They had at least two peoplevoting in the jury.
That they said from the get golike we're not, we're not going
(42:10):
to vote for the death penalty.
It's just not going to happen.
So he ended up getting lifewithout parole or probation or
suspension of sentence and, asof today, he sits in the Angola
State Penitentiary and he'sstill kicking, although can't
say the same for Derek Todd Lee.
He actually passed away in 2016, I believe, from like heart
(42:33):
disease or something, but we canget more into that if I
eventually go and cover him, buthe's he's been covered a lot
and I mean like so has SeanGillis Don't get me wrong, but
of the people that I know andthe people, the names that I've
heard, his name just it's notnot really one of them, and so I
figured with the email that Igot from our dear listener.
Thank you so so much for thesuggestion, and I needed to do
(42:55):
kind of.
I didn't have to do a lot ofdigging, hard digging and
searching for this one, becausethere there has been a lot of
coverage and there are a lot ofways to learn about him.
There are a slew of podcasts,literally.
If you want to know anythingmore about Sean Vincent Gillis,
just type his name in S, e, a, n, Gillis, g, I, l, l, I, s and
(43:18):
Google search it, YouTube searchit.
You can find damn near anythingyou want to know about this guy.
You can watch the confessions,you can watch all of it and you
can even get the one I believeit was by crime.
What is it?
The?
Which one?
It wasn't law and crime, it wasthe other one.
Anyway, it was pretty much thefirst one that pops up on
YouTube, because it's reallyinteresting too, because they
(43:41):
get an interview with Tammy.
Was it Tammy?
What's her name?
The girlfriend, wifey thing?
No, terry Terrie.
Sorry, her name is Terrie.
Anyway, Terrie Lemoine.
She actually continued to livein the house where she was
living with him after he gotarrested.
She even had the car that hecarried the bodies around in.
(44:04):
She had the car still on theproperty at that house, but
apparently, since I don't know,it had to have been later, after
2007 ish.
They they say that the housewould get randomly or not
randomly, purposely graffitiedand TP'd and basically just
(44:29):
marked as a serial killer'shouse basically every Halloween,
and she just got tired ofdealing with it.
So she ended up moving and Ithink she moved to Maryland.
I don't know, it was in one ofthe YouTube things.
Go watch that and you'll see.
But yeah, I just thought thatwas crazy.
She just stayed in the houseand stayed living there and I
don't know what happened to mom.
I don't know if she's stillalive.
I didn't I didn't go diggingtoo far into that, but it was
just.
(44:49):
The story is just wild.
It will never cease to amaze methat it seems like these serial
killers, at some point,eventually, they just they give
up and they want to get caught,even though they, you know, they
want to pretend like they're somuch smarter and so much better
, and then they, they enjoy thethrill, but I think they get
(45:09):
tired after a while and thenthey just give up.
And I mean, that's the onlyexplanation that you can have
for somebody who willingly givesup their DNA and just hands
everything over, like here,golden platter, here take
everything and they thesouvenirs and things.
I can understand, because itwould make it easier for them to
relive their moments that gavethem such gratification and to
(45:30):
revisit those, those acts, andto relive them.
Um, I just can't with an armand taking it home and oh, okay,
so that is the story of thesci-fi USS Enterprise belt
buckle wearing Sean VincentGillis.
He is currently 61 years old andis in his forever home down
(45:55):
there in comfy Angola, and justgoes to show like no freaking
criminal history.
But he would stab, strangle,mutilate, sometimes eat pieces
of the body and leave themtotally nude after he desecrated
(46:17):
their body by having sex withthem after they were dead and
never, ever committed any othercrime that he was caught for
aside from that and his wifeyslash in house girlfriend Never
(46:39):
suspected, never.
You never could have imaginedit before he was arrested for it
.
Just two completely separatepeople inside the same person,
yeah, and it makes you wonderlike who else who else could
have been one of his victimsthat they haven't actually tied
(46:59):
down to him and honestly I feellike he would have committed, or
he would have admitted to itafter, after a fact, because the
way he was so competitive withthe other and oh, he's the other
Baton Rouge serial killer, butwith Derek Todd Lee, with him
being as competitive as he, whatI'm sure he would have loved to
have confessed to Anothermurderer and been able to say
like I got one more up on him.
(47:19):
So anyway, he's still downthere, he's still alive and he
is one of the grossest peopleI've ever dove into.
Honestly, something aboutnecrophilia that just this is
all the wrong ways for me gross,gross, gross, gross, gross.
So Thank you guys for listening,thanks for coming back every
(47:41):
week and the 25th episode, whichwill be kind of kind of you
know, important that's reallycool for me.
I feel like I know we'vereleased more than 25 episodes
technically, because we've gotthe bonus episodes, but I only
count our actual full episodes.
So the actual 25th episode willbe We'll be releasing in two
(48:02):
weeks from today and that'sactually going to be Something
really cool.
Like I feel like I'm not gonnagive anything away because I'm
really excited about it and IHope that you guys Come back and
stick around for that.
So keep telling your friends,keep talking about us and keep
(48:25):
your doors locked.
Are you kidding?
Fresh air is for dead people!All right, you guys, if you want
to check out any of the otherVideos and things like that, you
, like I said you can Google it,but I'll put a couple of the
links down in this episode notesand you can check out our
website, check out our tick-tock, check out our Twitter, check
out our X, which is the samething as the Twitter, and then
(48:46):
you can go on the YouTube andlook at any of the shorts and
things on there.
They're all kind ofconsolidated as well as the
episodes.
So you know, I don't know howyou're listening to it now, but
that's an option as well.
So, you guys, stay awesome, andIf you have any questions,
comments or concerns, you canalways drop me a line on my
email or you can go on thewebsite and there's a box on
(49:07):
there that you can type in anykind of questions, comments or
concerns or suggestions.
There's something for that too.
So, thank you guys.
Have a wonderful week.
Have a wonderful weekend, andI'm See, will it be Easter?
Oh, Happy St Patrick's Daytoday, because that's the day
I'm recording.
But other than that, you guyshave a wonderful time and I'll
catch you next time.
Stay safe out there.
In the 1990s, Baton Rouge was a scary place to be In
an era that eventually led tothe Red Stick City being labeled
the serial killer capital ofthe world.
We have our pick of serialkillers to discuss Today.
We will go into details aboutthe other Baton Rouge serial
killer and the vicious andunspeakable horrors his victim
(00:21):
went through before and afterdeath In today's episode of
CenLAw.
Hello and welcome to thisepisode of CenLAw.
(00:43):
I'm Kellye and Kyler's overthere doing something, so it's
mostly just gonna be me.
You probably have heard of atleast one of the gentlemen I say
gentlemen, that's a very looseterm of the dudes that I'm going
to talk about.
(01:04):
The main one I'm gonna talkabout will get to in a second,
but I'm sure that most, ifyou're from Louisiana or if
you've ever like Googled let'sbe real most of us have the most
deadly or most dangerous serialkillers in America, right well,
if you live in Louisiana, youdo the same thing for your own
(01:24):
state, of course, and one ofthose that will pop up on there
inevitably is Derek Todd Lee,and I even mentioned him, I
believe, in the Eugénais episodebecause they thought that maybe
he was a viable suspect, butDNA rolled him out and he's a
very well known serial killer.
(01:45):
He was from Baton Rouge.
He was active during like 90, Iwant to say 93 to 03 somewhere
in there, and very well known.
He was actually caught and puton trial and all that stuff.
He was very, very well knownright at the beginning of like
(02:05):
the true crime era.
And what's scarier than that isthe fact that you know, a lot
of times when cops are doingtheir investigations in certain
areas and regions they're nottypically going to say, oh, this
must be the work of the sameguy.
And unfortunately for the BatonRouge Sheriff's Office and
(02:30):
investigators that wasn't justone guy, it was upwards of.
At one point there were threeactive serial killers working at
a Baton Rouge and in aroundBaton Rouge Parish.
Would that be East Baton Rouge,west Baton Rouge, all of the
Baton Rouge's.
And, like I said, Derek ToddLee was one.
(02:50):
Another, even lesser known, wasJeffrey Lee Guillory and his
body count was the lowest.
From what I have read Hisactual charges.
That booked him a 50 yearsentence in jail, which means he
(03:11):
won't get out until he's 93.
Because that was withoutbenefits.
The charges were actuallyattempted second degree murder,
although he was accused of whatis it?
Three different murders.
He was accused of committingmurders in 99, 2001 and 2002.
The conviction that he got in2011 actually was for
(03:35):
strangulation, but that wasafter he was convicted of the
attempted second degree.
So he remains suspect inseveral others, as well as Derek
Todd Lee and Vincent, or SeanVincent Gillis, who is our topic
today.
Now I had a listener send meanother suggestion via email the
(03:55):
other day and it had SeanVincent Gillis's name in it
Again.
I've heard and read thingsabout Derek Todd Lee.
I had even heard mention of theother serial killers that were
active during the time, but Ihad never really had the name
thrown out there.
When you see this guy's picture,he does not instantly dredge up
(04:20):
scary serial killer.
That's just not what you get.
When you see his face, morelike where's the convention and
why isn't he there yet?
He's got these big glasses.
Actually, he's got the pedomustache down, but he just looks
literally he looks like a nerd.
He looks like an actual whiteboy fanboy nerd.
(04:44):
That's what he looks like andthat's terrifying in a way,
because it's very unassuming andI don't want to say you'd feel
comfortable around him, but youdefinitely wouldn't feel like
he'd be the kind of person tostrangle you with zip ties and
then stab you and then do thingswith your dead body and then
(05:08):
take parts of you and ingestthem Just doesn't wing perfect,
it doesn't bring those things tomind.
But again, just like Kyler,over my shoulder, said just now,
bundy was not the epitome of aserial killer either.
So I mean, we all know andunderstand at this point that
(05:31):
that's what makes them scary isbecause they can look like
anyone.
They can literally look likeyour best friend next door, or
they can look like freaking JohnWayne, gacy, creepy, creepy
clown killer or you know theother scarier looking serial
killer types.
Whereas you know you've got thehandsome serial killer types,
(05:52):
you've got the unassuming, nerdy, meekish versions.
I mean, they're just, they'reall across the board.
You never really can tell andthat's that's why they can.
You know, the thought of thatcan be very frightening.
(06:14):
So let's go ahead and get intothe topic of our story today and
that's going to be, like I said, Sean Vincent Gillis, and he
was known as the literal, theother Baton Rouge serial killer,
or in some cases they calledhim the zip tie serial killer,
but mostly it was the other.
So it was the other and I'vebeen fondly using the
(06:37):
abbreviation BRSK for BatonRouge serial killer, just
because it's fun, so theBrrrsssk.
Anyway, he was born in June of1962.
I think it was the 24th, soJune 24th 62, in Baton Rouge, to
his parents, Norman and Yvonne.
(06:59):
Now, Norman was not a goodfather.
He was not a good person.
From every information bitsthat I could gather, he was a
severe alcoholic.
He had severe psychotic issues,manic, depressive almost seems
like, and he, in the short timethat he was present, his actions
(07:25):
and interactions with Yvonne,mom and baby Sean, we were not
good.
From one account he actuallyheld a gun to the baby's head
and threatened to kill him likea loaded weapon to a baby, an
infant.
So just not a good sign ofthings to come, especially if
the apple doesn't fall far fromthe tree, which obviously in
(07:51):
this case it didn't.
I think they were the same treein general, but overall Yvonne
did her best.
She raised Little Gillis withher parents, so grandparents
helping her raise, and she didthe best she could.
(08:12):
But he still kind of grew up ataround 10, 11, 12.
He was labeled as a bully and inone of his interviews which, if
you guys want to know moreabout this guy.
There's plenty out there.
There are documentaries afterdocumentaries.
There are YouTube videos of hisconfession.
It was a taped confession andin his confession he actually
(08:32):
quotes says I tried to kill mycousin once just to feel her
breasts up, and that was when hewas like 12 or 13 years old.
So I mean these thoughts andthese tendencies that he later
would exhibit and take out onother women.
They started early and otherthan his dad leaving young.
(08:56):
There's not a whole lot topoint as to why these were a
thing.
It's just not.
There's no actual like oh hey,that's what happened.
No wonder he's messed up.
No, that none of thoseindicators are present and I
didn't see anything about likebedwetting or arson or small
animal mutilation.
There wasn't a whole lot to it.
(09:17):
He was pretty, you know, singleparent helping grandparent
raising, like he wasn't.
There was nothing out of theordinary that would have been an
indication of what was to come.
In 1980, by the time he was 17,he actually started having his
(09:38):
first brushes with the law, withtraffic citations and things
like that.
Nothing crazy, nothing off thewall, nothing bad, and up until
the point that he was arrestedfor murder.
He doesn't actually have arecord at all, none.
He had low income, jump from jobto job, gas station employees
(10:01):
at 7-Eleven.
He would work in retail shops.
He would work at otherconvenience stores, outlets,
chains, and you know, he justkind of what is that word I'm
looking for?
He, he existed, but he wasn'tliving.
There's a word I'm looking for,but he skated by.
(10:24):
He wasn't anything spectacular,he didn't have any high
ambitions to do better, he wasjust doing that, like he was
just being so, as most of youprobably could guess, if you
(10:46):
know anything about late 80s,early 90s, star Trek, star Wars,
all those big deals, especiallyfor the nerds.
And, like I said, he lookedlike a nerd.
He actually is a nerd.
He loved Star Trek, loved it.
And back when the internet wasstill a baby, in the early 90s,
(11:08):
there wasn't a whole lot else onthe internet.
You know, like government stuff, record keeping, type things.
And then you know Star Trek,star Wars.
You know all of the nerds withtheir compilations of things and
their forums of them sharinginformation of their favorite
nerdy things.
And I love those nerds, I loveall nerds.
(11:29):
Just so everybody knows thatI'm not down talking or like,
like making fun in any way,shape, form or fashion.
I am not.
I love me all of the things inthe nerds.
So, um, oh, and there was onemore thing on the internet, but
you guys probably knew that onealready, unless you haven't ever
, you know, dove into that sideof the internet which inevitably
(11:53):
, at some points, evenaccidentally clicking, can get
you to the porn side of thewebsite of the internet.
So that was the other part wasporn, and the majority of
Gillis' time that he spentonline on the computer, which
was the majority of his timewhen he wasn't at work or wasn't
, you know, having to do thingswith his mom or for his mom, he
(12:18):
was on the internet looking atporn or talking about Star Trek
and the the porn side of things.
After a while you get kind ofdesensitized and so it became
more graphic, more gory, and itwas for Sean Gillis.
(12:40):
It became the bloodier thebetter.
He would look for the nastiest,goriest, most vicious, harmful,
heinous type and and tied thatinto sexual gratification.
So in 92, I believe, his momactually decided to.
(13:05):
His mom actually decided tomove to Atlanta for a new job
she had obtained and she toldhim to come with her.
But he didn't.
He didn't want to move.
He was still living at theirhouse in Baton Rouge.
He was 30 years old at thispoint and he just he didn't want
to leave.
He had been there for so longand he was pretty comfortable
(13:26):
and felt you know, this is where, this is where I'm going to
stay.
And so he was as upset as hewas that she was leaving.
He still wasn't upset enough togo with her, so she left out
and in 94, he met Terrie Lemoine, who quickly became his
(13:46):
girlfriend and within the yearthey moved in together.
Now, interestingly, terry, shealmost didn't actually date him,
because she said they got intoa really big argument about the
internet usage and the porn andall of that, and that during the
course of this argument sheactually slapped him across the
face Okay, slapped him hardacross the face, and the
(14:10):
reaction that she got was sobaffling that it kind of caught
her off guard.
Instead of reacting orthreatening to hit her back or
actually hitting her back, hestarted crying.
Yeah, so he gets slapped acrossthe face and then he starts to
cry and of course, she, at thispoint she feels terrible.
She, you know, she feels like,oh man, what did I just do.
(14:33):
This guy is now he's crying andyou know, at that point she
felt sorry for him and so shewanted to make up for it and she
told him she'd never bephysically violent again and
they kind of she kind of gotwrote back into a guilty
conscious type.
Now you have to make up for,you know, hitting me in the face
and they stayed together.
So about that same time thoughunfortunately she had no way of
(15:01):
knowing and there was noindicators, like I said,
whatsoever other than the porn.
But if she wasn't aware of whatkind of porn he was watching,
then she would have had no ideaanyway.
So the very first victim of SeanGillis was an elderly lady who
lived at an assisted livingfacility in Baton Rouge and she
(15:26):
had left her door unlocked andhis intent was to go in and rape
her right so to leap out theseviolent fantasies that he'd been
, you know, obsessing over onthe internet for all these years
.
And so he goes into 81 year oldAnne Bryant's room and attempts
(15:46):
to start an assault on her, asexual assault, but she starts
screaming for help and he getsso worried and concerned that
he's about to get caught that hejust lashes out and slashes her
throat a couple times and thenstabs her almost 50 times.
I think the total count wasaround 47.
(16:07):
47 different separate stabwounds.
And because it didn't go theway he had planned and he didn't
really have an exit strategy atthat point, because things got
out of hand or it went off offschedule or off or not off
schedule, off track of what hehad in his mind imagined it to
(16:30):
be, he kind of just left, heleft the body, he left
everything, he just rolled out,and so her body was found a few
days later and they never reallyhad a good idea or any kind of
lead or suspect in that casewhatsoever.
That was in March, March 21stof 1994.
Okay, so that was the same yearthat he met Terrie and the next
(16:57):
year he moved in with her.
They got a, they got well, they, she moved into the house with
him that they lived in there inBaton Rouge.
The house was actually onBergen Bergen whatever I've been
watching trolls, forgive meBergen Bergen, pick one 545 in
(17:21):
Baton Rouge, and that was thehouse that his mother, he had
grown up in, that she had lefthim.
She still, his mom still paidthe rent, even though he was
over 30 years old, she was stillpaying the rent for that house
and they moved in together.
And keep in mind all the while,for the next few years that
we're gonna talk about, terryhad absolutely no idea Okay, and
(17:44):
everybody believed her the factthat she was completely
freaking clueless and we'll getthere.
So the next victim didn't comefor almost like five years, I
want to say, because that was in94, and then the next one
wasn't until 99 and the victimin January of 1999, just real
(18:10):
quick, other than his first andhis third victims, because we
get a couple more numbers here.
But his first victim, the 81year old Miss Anne, she
obviously was not living adangerous lifestyle, but the
rest of these were mostly eitherprostitutes or they were into
the drug scene in some way andtherefore, you know, we hear
(18:33):
this a lot, especially in thesetype of stories they tend to be
easier targets.
They tend to be thesought-after target for serial
killers because unfortunatelythey are kind of labeled
throwaway people, which is awful, but they've already lost
contact with their family orthey, you know, basically cut
(18:56):
them off, cut themselves offfrom all the people that would
check in on them and care aboutwhere they were on a daily basis
and we'll see more of that aswe get further into the story.
The second victim, miss 29 yearold Catherine Hall.
She was murdered in January, onJanuary 4th 1999, and she was a
(19:20):
prostitute and when he decidedhe was going to kill her, he
actually attempted to strangleher but it wasn't working.
So he ended up stabbing her 16times, starting with the throat
and in through the eye and justthe rest of her chest and upper
body, after he got done stabbingher and was successful in
(19:42):
taking her life.
He actually triggered warninghere.
He mutilated her body after hegot done having sex with it and
then he posed and left her infront of a sign that was at the
end of the street and it was adead-end sign, and he left her
body posed in front of thatdead-end sign and that's how she
(20:05):
was found and the point waswell taken.
They got it and again, this wasone of those times when it you
would think that you know thefirst stretch was five years.
Maybe you get another coupleyears.
No, not in this case.
He only went about four months,maybe five, close to five,
because it was the end of May,it was May 30th of 1999, and
(20:28):
this was the other victim thatwas not into the drug scene or
any kind of prostitution or justany of the dangerous lifestyles
.
This was actually a 52 year oldlady.
She was married, she was fromthe upper middle class, I
believe, and her name was HardeeSchmidt, and he actually
stalked her for about threeweeks prior to abducting, raping
(20:51):
and strangling her.
He watched her watch and likefollowed her back and forth and
watched her route of where shewent, what she did, and
eventually one night he pulledclose enough to where she would
be running and like hit her withhis car to incapacitate her and
(21:11):
then dragged her into the car,raped her, murdered her and then
mutilated her body postmortemas well and then left her.
But this time he didn't.
He didn't stab her.
Well, not what.
She was alive anyway.
He mutilated her after death,but he strangled her and then
left her again to be found.
(21:31):
I don't think he posed her inany specific way or left her in
front of a dead ensign oranything of that nature, but he
did.
He did leave her, just to befound out in the middle of
nowhere.
So Unfortunately, like I saidat this point, in Baton Rouge
they had way too many people,way too many serial killers that
(21:55):
were being active in the areathat they were having a hard
time nailing down for sure whichone was which, which one was
involved with what, becausetheir emos weren't entirely
alike but they had a lot ofsimilarities.
So there were things that werekind of the same but not
(22:19):
entirely, and so they kind ofprayed on the same type of
people, although because hemixed it up a little bit,
because his first one was an 81year old, the second one was a
prostitute on drugs, and thenthe third one was a middle-upper
class and the original orwhatever, the Baton Rouge serial
(22:41):
killer, not the other, DerekTodd Lee.
He actually prayed on womenthat were from those upper class
areas or not, in the dredgesand he also had, like,
participated in the murder,stalking type thing, like he got
off on that part of it.
So it wasn't entirely just thekill and the mutilation.
(23:04):
That was more out of necessityto try to get rid of the bodies
than it was just to, you know,get off on it, I suppose.
And from 1993 when Sean VincentGillis started, and all the way
up until 2004 when they finallyarrested Sean Gillis, there
(23:30):
were at least two others, if notmore active at that time.
So it was one of those thingswhere they didn't, they weren't
able to pinpoint, but even thenthey were still obtaining DNA,
not on all of the victims per se, but there were at least three.
And the next victim after MissExcuse me, miss miss Hardee
(24:00):
Smith was Joyce Williams.
She was 36.
She was strangled, mutilated,post-mortem and Wait.
When they found her, one of herlegs was actually severed
completely and From his ownconfessions later Sean Gillis
(24:20):
told them that he actuallysliced off and ate her nipples.
Yeah, it's pretty gruesome.
The next couple of victims thatthey actually got DNA from but
they Didn't from, let's say itwas, it went miss Lillian
Robinson.
She was 51 years old.
(24:40):
That was January of 2000.
And Then you had Miss MarilynNeville's, which hers nobody had
even reported her missing, andshe was 38.
Nobody even reported hermissing until after he confessed
, and that was in 2004 and hekilled her in 2000.
(25:02):
So just kind of gives you anidea of the kind of people he
was Seeking out and his type,his victim type.
Both Lillian and Marilyn werestrangled and both had been
sexually assaulted or theirbodies had been Used for a sex
after they had died.
Marilyn was 38, Lillian was 51,so you can see that their their
(25:24):
age ranges were pretty gappedtoo, I think, his range from
late 20s to early 50s, exceptfor the 181 year old, so it's a
pretty widespread there.
And from there we go to the nextvictim, which would have been
Miss Johnnie May Williams.
She was 45 years old at thetime of her death.
(25:46):
She was strangled as well, andand he had actually completely
severed her hands post mortemand left her body mutilated and
abused.
And this, this kind of, was thebeginning of the end.
This was in October of 2003,and His next victim, although it
(26:09):
wasn't until 2004 and February,that would be his last.
So if anybody else is keepingcount, don't you don't have to,
but I'm gonna tell you.
The total number that he is saidto have be accounted for is a
total, and his last victim wasMiss Donna Bennett Johnston, and
she fought her butt off andthey found DNA of his under her
(26:34):
fingernails and she just it wasobvious that she had put up a
fight, although he said later inthe letters that were presented
at trial to a friend of hisfrom jail that she was so drunk
it was easy to to kill her, toincapacitate her.
She had been raped, strangledand the most brutally Mutilated
(26:57):
after death.
He actually removed her left orher.
He removed her arm from theelbow Down her left arm.
He cut off and ate her nipples.
He slashed and gouged herbreasts, as well as cutting out
(27:18):
a tattoo that she had on herleft thigh of a butterfly and
had removed it completely.
And and the only fortunate partabout that this instance was he
had gotten a little bit sloppywhen he dumped her.
Now it was, I Believe, like acow farm or it had been
(27:44):
something, something along thoselines, where it had soft dirt,
a lot of that, and he had pulledoff the road to dump her body
and the road that he he took toget in was still damp when he
left out.
He actually left tireimpressions in the soil out
there and the Tire impressionswere noted by one of the
(28:09):
detectives who found the downthe body.
A were there investigating thescene and they noted and took
pictures and casted the tireimpressions.
And they got really lucky onthat front because this specific
type of tire had only been soldto a couple hundred people in
(28:33):
the Baton Rouge area and whenthey ran that list and they, you
know, went ahead and broke itdown.
They realized that, you know,they could split this up between
a couple of the investigatorsand pretty much knock out
everybody on this list.
Right, and you would think thatif you were the killer you
Wouldn't give up any information, you wouldn't give up your DNA.
(28:55):
But that's not really whathappened.
Mr Sean Vincent Gillis wasactually number 26 on this list
and he came in, he gave hisstatement, he said oh, you
probably found my print, mytracks out there, because I
pulled off the side of the roadbecause I had to take a piss and
that's why it was there.
But in the interview it alsomentioned something kind of off
(29:16):
the wall when he said oh well, Iused to know her, she used to
be, she used to clean my housefor me and you know she's been
in my car.
So if you find a hair orsomething in there, that's why
because I knew her.
And you can see all of theseinterviews and everything on on
YouTube and I'll link a coupleof them in the show notes for
you guys.
But it's just, it's wild tolisten to him because he has
(29:37):
zero affect.
It's almost like he's talkingabout a magazine or something.
It's just normal late, justEvery day conversation.
There is nothing crazy talk to.
You know nothing to see here.
Guys just smile and wave, andPretty much.
From that point the detectivesknew that they had their guy.
(29:59):
They just had to kind of linkit all together.
So they asked him if they couldhave his DNA.
He voluntarily gave them hisDNA and they quickly got search
warrants and everything fortheir house, for the house that
he was living in, and but, as ofthat day though, they had to
let him go.
Now, when they let him go backto the house, they let him go
(30:21):
back home, they started lookinginto his background and and they
start trying to get everythingtied up, waiting on the DNA to
come back right.
So they had DNA from three ofthe bodies which would have been
the body of Catherine Hall in99, Johnnie Mae Williams in 03
(30:45):
and then latest and last victim,donna Johnston, and they had
DNA that they knew the DNA ofall three of those were the same
, the same perpetrator, the samesuspect, because those DNA,
even though they had nothing tomatch it to, they did match each
other and so when they did getthe DNA back, it was a solid
match for him and him alone.
(31:06):
They decided to.
You know, we got to move onthis now.
And they go at 1 20 in themorning to his house and To
their surprise they get thereand he's curled up in the bed
with his girlfriend, slashfiance, soon to be wife, Terrie.
(31:27):
And he looks over to her and heapologizes and says you know,
hey, I'm so sorry about this,she had no idea.
And when she finally getsaround to like someone
explaining to her what the hellis going on, she says no, no, no
, there's no way.
This is a serial killer.
You guys have got the wrong guy.
You guys are hilarious, that'sgreat.
He cried like a baby when Islapped him across the face.
(31:49):
There's no fucking way right,well, wrong.
He was DNA tied and it didn'ttake long for him to start
actually confessing and talkingabout all of the murders, all
the way back to 1993 or 94whatever it was, I think it was
93 and he got caught because ofa very rare tire impression and
(32:11):
because he gave his DNA upfreely.
And and they Eventually get thesearch warrant for his house
and they go in and they find aplethora of Cooperating evidence
they actually find you rememberhow I told you he had cut the
arm of Donna Johnston off at thelike elbow down.
(32:37):
He had actually used that.
He had taken it home with himand used that to masturbate with
.
Yeah, you thought it wasalready as bad as it was gonna
get.
No, then they also found atreasure trove of pictures that
he had taken, 45 pictures or soof the body of.
(32:58):
I want to say it was mmm.
Which one was it?
I want to say it was CatherineHall, but I'm not sure.
No, wouldn't.
Catherine Hall was, later thanthat, Lillian Robinson, one of
(33:21):
them.
I just know that he took, like,yeah, the 45 pictures, digital
pictures that he kept on hiscomputer.
Obviously he was, you know, thecomputer nerd, nerd.
And they actually also found afile marked DTL.
That's right.
He had been keeping up withDerek Todd Lee's murders.
He didn't actually realize atthe time.
(33:42):
I guess it was after Derek ToddLee got arrested, which was
right before he did, because hewas trying and he says this in
one of his interviews that hedidn't want to get out done by
Derek Todd Lee like I'm gonna bethe better serial killer, I'm
gonna be the most notoriousserial killer and Baton Rouge.
So he actually, once herealized that Derek Todd Lee had
(34:03):
more bodies than he did, hedecided that he was gonna have
to beat him, which is also whyhe started committing murders,
or that was his excuse tocontinue committing murders, but
in a more more rapid pace thanhe had before.
So once he was arrested andthey did the search weren't
(34:24):
found all the cooperatingevidence, like I said, they
realized that you know, this was, this is a, this is a bad dude.
The craziest part about it,though, was he had zero criminal
record, like.
He had no criminal historywhatsoever other than, like the
couple, random parking ortraffic citations that he'd had
no felonies, no misdemeanors, nopinpoint show of any kind of
(34:53):
dangerous person that could havebeen lurking inside of this
house, and when he's in theinterview, he actually talks
about it in a way that he kindof he tries to make it more
understandable to them, and hesays it have you ever seen the
Secret Life of Walter Mitty?
It was the secret life of SeanGillis, and that's how he
represents it to them.
(35:14):
And what I found interesting aswell, in the interview that he
does with one of theinvestigators, he says the
investigator asked him at whatpoint did you get upset or mad
at these women?
And he said, "what if there was?
No point?
Does the word monster come tomind?
And that makes all the sense.
Like he wasn't mad at them, butthey were a means to an ins for
(35:37):
him, like he needed them to die.
He needed them to be, he neededto use them in order to get
what he wanted out of it and theonly way to do that was the
violence and gruesome deathsthat he bestowed upon them.
So it was, mmm.
(35:57):
It's rough, a lot of it, but,like again, it's one of those
things that it's hard to watchbecause he's just so blasé like
there's nothing.
It's.
It's terrifying just how evenkeel somebody can be when they
speak about the disgusting,horrific things that he did to
(36:21):
these women.
And I didn't even get to talkto you guys.
I forgot to mention the, theexcuses that he said that they
when he was making the weird,random statements initially
about like if they found hair inhis car, or if he if they found
blood well, what if we foundblood in your car?
What if the blood was in thebackseat?
Because he said the front seatblood, if they found any up
(36:41):
there, that that would be hiswife slash girlfriend, whatever
that.
She had had her period in thefront seat and it looked like a
massacre up there.
I think is what he said.
And then he tried to say thatthe wind might have blown some
of the blood into the backseat.
Yeah, no, no, you heard thatright.
He said the wind blew maybeblood droplets into the backseat
, that's why they might findblood back there.
(37:04):
So they actually arrested him onApril 29th of 2004, which kind
of blew my mind because I, youknow, I wasn't living in
Louisiana at the time, I wasstill in Texas.
But that's just the too closefor comfort, you know what I
mean.
Like this was too recent andit's kind of terrifying still
(37:25):
still terrifying.
But it took a while for them toactually get him to trial.
So he was arrested April 29thof 2004 and he started his trial
for the three murders that theytied his DNA to of Katherine
Hall, Johnnie Mae Williams andDonna Bennett Johnston.
They put him on trial in Julyof 2008 so it was July 21st and
(37:48):
he was sentenced and couldn'tcharge of all three murders and
they were all three at the sametime went to trial.
So they didn't do separate ones, but they did charge them,
charge him with all three at inthe same trial and he was
eventually sentenced to life in2007.
However, before we get to thereal wrap up end here, I want to
(38:08):
tell you guys, I was lookingand before he did that, I think
he actually pled guilty tokilling one of them and he made
the statement.
He pled guilty.
He took a plea and he pledguilty.
I think he said I choked hertill she stopped moving.
(38:29):
I killed her and that's all hesaid.
But in taking the plea, he alsogot the DA or the court to
acknowledge the fact that hestill had the right to appeal.
Now let me tell you why this isinteresting is because,
generally, when you take a pleadeal, you are waiving all of
(38:49):
your rights that you wouldnormally have.
You waving your right to remainsilent.
You're waving your right toconfront your witnesses at trial
.
You're waving your right toappeal when you take a plea deal
.
That's it.
You're admitting your guilt ifyou are taking whatever sentence
you were given and there is noway that you can come back and
say, hey, I don't think y'alldid this, right.
No, you're admitting, rightthen and there, that everything
(39:09):
is done.
You don't have the right toappeal, but apparently there is
a little snippet of the law thatallows for this, so it's called
a Crosby plea, which is kind ofand I want to say kind of like
an Alford plea.
It's not like an Alford plea,it's.
It's an admission of guilt.
You say you're guilty, but youreserve the right to appeal, and
(39:33):
that's generally pre-trialevidence or something that
happened prior to you takingyour plea of guilt.
Now, in Gillis's case, he wassaying that he should not, his,
his confession should not havebeen allowed, and for the trial,
(39:54):
they actually ruled that itwouldn't be allowed because,
technically, in his interview,he did ask two different times
to have an attorney present, andthey continue to speak with him
, which is a violation of yourrights of Miranda, and they
basically threw it out, whichwas terrifying for the
prosecution, because they, atthis point, were like oh shit,
(40:16):
he's gonna walk, and and they uh.
Eventually, though, they got asurprise gift, I guess you could
say, from a friend of SeanGillis's.
He was corresponding with alifelong friend of his that was
(40:42):
also in the prison system, andshe happened to be incarcerated
at the time, and her name wasTammy Purpera Purpera, and she
wrote letters back and forthwith Sean Gillis and he actually
confessed like full blownconfessions in these letters.
And unfortunately, Miss Tammyshe passed away in 2005 from
(41:05):
complications of her AIDSdisease.
But she, before she passed away, she got a copy of these
letters to the district attorneyand never asked for anything in
return.
But without those letters theywould not have been able to go
to trial in 2008.
So pretty crazy turn of eventsbecause, like I said, they they
ruled the interview inadmissibleand then basically they had to
(41:26):
go off of all of the other DNAand things like that, but they
didn't have the full blownconfession, like they didn't
have it in the bucket, like theythought they did.
So thanks to Tammy, they didactually get get those letters
and get him sentenced and he didget sentenced to all three
counts.
He was bound guilty andsentenced to life without
(41:48):
benefits or or any kind ofprobation options ever.
And the death penalty was onthe table.
But the jurors were never likethey.
In interviews later they saidit was never going to be an
option.
They had at least two peoplevoting in the jury.
That they said from the get golike we're not, we're not going
(42:10):
to vote for the death penalty.
It's just not going to happen.
So he ended up getting lifewithout parole or probation or
suspension of sentence and, asof today, he sits in the Angola
State Penitentiary and he'sstill kicking, although can't
say the same for Derek Todd Lee.
He actually passed away in 2016, I believe, from like heart
(42:33):
disease or something, but we canget more into that if I
eventually go and cover him, buthe's he's been covered a lot
and I mean like so has SeanGillis Don't get me wrong, but
of the people that I know andthe people, the names that I've
heard, his name just it's notnot really one of them, and so I
figured with the email that Igot from our dear listener.
Thank you so so much for thesuggestion, and I needed to do
(42:55):
kind of.
I didn't have to do a lot ofdigging, hard digging and
searching for this one, becausethere there has been a lot of
coverage and there are a lot ofways to learn about him.
There are a slew of podcasts,literally.
If you want to know anythingmore about Sean Vincent Gillis,
just type his name in S, e, a, n, Gillis, g, I, l, l, I, s and
(43:18):
Google search it, YouTube searchit.
You can find damn near anythingyou want to know about this guy.
You can watch the confessions,you can watch all of it and you
can even get the one I believeit was by crime.
What is it?
The?
Which one?
It wasn't law and crime, it wasthe other one.
Anyway, it was pretty much thefirst one that pops up on
YouTube, because it's reallyinteresting too, because they
(43:41):
get an interview with Tammy.
Was it Tammy?
What's her name?
The girlfriend, wifey thing?
No, terry Terrie.
Sorry, her name is Terrie.
Anyway, Terrie Lemoine.
She actually continued to livein the house where she was
living with him after he gotarrested.
She even had the car that hecarried the bodies around in.
(44:04):
She had the car still on theproperty at that house, but
apparently, since I don't know,it had to have been later, after
2007 ish.
They they say that the housewould get randomly or not
randomly, purposely graffitiedand TP'd and basically just
(44:29):
marked as a serial killer'shouse basically every Halloween,
and she just got tired ofdealing with it.
So she ended up moving and Ithink she moved to Maryland.
I don't know, it was in one ofthe YouTube things.
Go watch that and you'll see.
But yeah, I just thought thatwas crazy.
She just stayed in the houseand stayed living there and I
don't know what happened to mom.
I don't know if she's stillalive.
I didn't I didn't go diggingtoo far into that, but it was
just.
(44:49):
The story is just wild.
It will never cease to amaze methat it seems like these serial
killers, at some point,eventually, they just they give
up and they want to get caught,even though they, you know, they
want to pretend like they're somuch smarter and so much better
, and then they, they enjoy thethrill, but I think they get
(45:09):
tired after a while and thenthey just give up.
And I mean, that's the onlyexplanation that you can have
for somebody who willingly givesup their DNA and just hands
everything over, like here,golden platter, here take
everything and they thesouvenirs and things.
I can understand, because itwould make it easier for them to
relive their moments that gavethem such gratification and to
(45:30):
revisit those, those acts, andto relive them.
Um, I just can't with an armand taking it home and oh, okay,
so that is the story of thesci-fi USS Enterprise belt
buckle wearing Sean VincentGillis.
He is currently 61 years old andis in his forever home down
(45:55):
there in comfy Angola, and justgoes to show like no freaking
criminal history.
But he would stab, strangle,mutilate, sometimes eat pieces
of the body and leave themtotally nude after he desecrated
(46:17):
their body by having sex withthem after they were dead and
never, ever committed any othercrime that he was caught for
aside from that and his wifeyslash in house girlfriend Never
(46:39):
suspected, never.
You never could have imaginedit before he was arrested for it
.
Just two completely separatepeople inside the same person,
yeah, and it makes you wonderlike who else who else could
have been one of his victimsthat they haven't actually tied
(46:59):
down to him and honestly I feellike he would have committed, or
he would have admitted to itafter, after a fact, because the
way he was so competitive withthe other and oh, he's the other
Baton Rouge serial killer, butwith Derek Todd Lee, with him
being as competitive as he, whatI'm sure he would have loved to
have confessed to Anothermurderer and been able to say
like I got one more up on him.
(47:19):
So anyway, he's still downthere, he's still alive and he
is one of the grossest peopleI've ever dove into.
Honestly, something aboutnecrophilia that just this is
all the wrong ways for me gross,gross, gross, gross, gross.
So Thank you guys for listening,thanks for coming back every
(47:41):
week and the 25th episode, whichwill be kind of kind of you
know, important that's reallycool for me.
I feel like I know we'vereleased more than 25 episodes
technically, because we've gotthe bonus episodes, but I only
count our actual full episodes.
So the actual 25th episode willbe We'll be releasing in two
(48:02):
weeks from today and that'sactually going to be Something
really cool.
Like I feel like I'm not gonnagive anything away because I'm
really excited about it and IHope that you guys Come back and
stick around for that.
So keep telling your friends,keep talking about us and keep
(48:25):
your doors locked.
Are you kidding?
Fresh air is for dead people!All right, you guys, if you want
to check out any of the otherVideos and things like that, you
, like I said you can Google it,but I'll put a couple of the
links down in this episode notesand you can check out our
website, check out our tick-tock, check out our Twitter, check
out our X, which is the samething as the Twitter, and then
(48:46):
you can go on the YouTube andlook at any of the shorts and
things on there.
They're all kind ofconsolidated as well as the
episodes.
So you know, I don't know howyou're listening to it now, but
that's an option as well.
So, you guys, stay awesome, andIf you have any questions,
comments or concerns, you canalways drop me a line on my
email or you can go on thewebsite and there's a box on
(49:07):
there that you can type in anykind of questions, comments or
concerns or suggestions.
There's something for that too.
So, thank you guys.
Have a wonderful week.
Have a wonderful weekend, andI'm See, will it be Easter?
Oh, Happy St Patrick's Daytoday, because that's the day
I'm recording.
But other than that, you guyshave a wonderful time and I'll
catch you next time.
Stay safe out there.
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