Coroner's Journal (29 page)

I cannot imagine the anguish of losing a child. I simply cannot. I don't believe anyone can, with the exception a parent who has experienced that loss.

There are no adequate words to soften their sorrow and grief; at least none that I possess. I've seen the devastating consequences of such a loss. Disbelief, pain, and turmoil are often the harsh companions of grief.

When that loss is the result of a vicious unprovoked murder, the grief seems magnified, if that is possible. Professionals in the field of grief and loss tell me that grief may become prolonged due to lack of resolution at certain levels. One such “level” is not having the killer brought to justice. I'm not a grief therapist but I figured that one out on my own.

De and I were standing on the steps of the State Capitol in the heat of that fireball we call the Louisiana sun on March 16, 2003. It was an especially hot day. There is no shade on those steps. There is only pale stone and concrete. Both are unforgivingly reflective. Umbrellas were out and opened to block the merciless heat and glare. We hadn't had the foresight to bring one, of course. Water was being offered to prevent dehydration, and we accepted it gratefully.

There was an element of grim determination among the crowd of several hundred who had congregated there for a memorial service for the victims of unsolved murders in the parish. It was organized by some of the family members of the women murdered by the serial killer still at large in the area. It was more than just a memorial service. It was also a plea for women in the area to be on guard and to not become the next victim. It was fueled by the determination that their daughters' killer would be brought to justice.

The family members' demands and criticisms were not received with open arms by all involved in the case. Many said the task force wasn't on the ball; Pam Kinamore's brother-in-law called local politicians “wimps” and urged clergy and businesses to throw their weight behind the investigation.

Lynne Marino, Pam Kinamore's mother, read a poem that ended with two lines that she could speak only through tears:

 

 

I'm not sure what my expectations were. I had anticipated a range of expressions of grief on the part of the family members. I understand rage and fear. I understand the need for answers, even when none are forthcoming. I understand the need to attach blame in the face of innocents being horrifically murdered. I understand tears, and the courage to go on. I understand my wife wiping the tears from her eyes. I know about this thing, grief, and I am ready for it. It happens. It's supposed to happen in circumstances like these. I understand it and I anticipate it.

I did not anticipate the bell. I was not ready for
that.

Lynne Marino made the announcement: “We are going to ring the bell once for each female murdered in East Baton Rouge Parish. These are women whose murders have not been solved. We will call out their names as we ring the bell.”

I've come to know Pam's family. They demanded justice for Pam and for the other victims. Pam's mother is one of the most courageous women I've ever had the honor to meet. Thank God for people like her. They keep us accountable, on many levels.

I'm a very visual person, and I tend to retain images in my memory. I don't know if that is a blessing or a curse. Today it felt like a curse. When the bell tolled for a victim whose murder occurred on my watch, a vivid visual image of the dead woman flooded my brain. It was a horror show—one after another . . .

By now I was oblivious to the heat and the sweat. I felt like it was Judgment Day and I was being held accountable by these images of the cases I had worked.
Did I do my best? Did I miss anything on my end? How did I fail? What am I doing about it now?
One after another, the names continued, and so did the pictures. It seemed endless. I'm ashamed to admit that I was glad when the service was over. But it will never be over for those families. They exemplify the love and dedication family members share with each other.

At another level, I humbly submit that I don't think it will ever be over for me, either. Am I comparing my own emotions to theirs? Certainly not. I cannot imagine the abyss of pain they must feel. My point is this: dealing with unexplained violent death and trying to be a part of bringing justice to the victims changes a person forever.

I'm thankful I was there that day. I'm thankful for the families and the others who came forward. It was one of those pivotal experiences that made me take stock of myself and my profession. That day I became even more convinced that it would take a community effort to stop this killer. It's a sickening feeling to look around and wonder if one of the women here would be the next victim. By increasing awareness among women, we could decrease the vulnerability of potential victims. I vowed to do just that.

These were times of turmoil, but I knew my charge.
The coroner is responsible for the dead and to the living.
That was the first memorial rally we attended. It would not be the last.

FOURTEEN

On March 21, 2003, the Multi-Agency Homicide Task Force announced in a press conference that the Louisiana serial killer could be of any racial background—this after suggesting for eight months that the person who committed five known murders was a white man driving a white pickup truck. True, the task force had warned from the start that people should not screen tips based on race; but that did nothing to quell widespread speculation that the suspect was Caucasian. Pam's assailant was perceived to be a white man in a white truck. Not only that, he was a white man with a medium to thin build. The perception that the killer was white was reinforced when the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office released its sketch of a “person of interest” who had been seen near the woods where Dené Colomb was found. It was an image of a white guy.

This new “race” announcement caused a great deal of consternation for many people, but none more so than the Sharlo witnesses who, having provided a composite sketch of a black male as their suspect, found their reports to be repeatedly discounted by the police. Not a good thing!

Tony Frudakis, chief officer of DNAPrint Genomics, had changed the focus of the investigation. In February 2003, he actively pursued the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab to use his technology to determine the killer's ethnic background.

The task force sent twenty DNA samples to his lab. Nineteen of the twenty samples came from known donors. The twentieth came from the killer. The results indicated the killer's ancestry to be 85 percent sub-Saharan African and 15 percent American Indian. Frudakis says he relayed this information to the task force in the first week of March. They had been focusing on the wrong guys. The killer was a black male!

 

 

 

On May 26, 2003, in the largest headline I have ever seen in the
Baton Rouge Advocate,
the word “WANTED” was printed above the face of a thirty-five-year-old black male named Derrick Todd Lee, who had just become the target of a national manhunt. Described as six-one, about 210 pounds, with a light to medium complexion, short hair, and a muscular build, he had a history of arrests and convictions, including peeping tom violations, burglary, and attempted first-degree murder. He was a cement-finisher and truck driver from St. Francisville, a quaint West Feliciana Parish town located north of Baton Rouge. The little town is known for its plantation homes, bed-and-breakfasts, and antique shops—not murderers and rapists.

The task force had repeatedly spoken of its reliance on the community to provide information that would solve the case and had also repeatedly talked of getting a lucky break. The “break,” if you want to call it that, came in the form of a citizen's tip from Zachary, Louisiana. And it centered on a murder that the task force had not previously included in its purview.

Five years earlier, on April 19, 1998, a neighbor found the three-year-old son of Randi C. Mebruer playing alone in front of his house in Oak Shadows subdivision. When asked, the boy simply told the neighbor that his mommy was “lost.” The neighbor ventured inside the home in search of the child's mother but found only signs of a violent struggle and a great deal of blood throughout the house. She called the cops. Randi, a twenty-eight-year-old white female and home health nurse, had been abducted from her home.

She lived about one block from Connie Warner, a forty-one-year-old white female who had been abducted in August of 1992. Connie's body was found in a ditch two weeks after the abduction. There were no signs of forced entry in either crime, and both were undeniably similar to the abduction and murder of Pam Kinamore and Carrie Lynn Yoder.

Police officers in the area were quite aware of Derrick Todd Lee's peeping tom history and he was immediately placed on the short list as a suspect. The day after Randi was noted missing, police interviewed Lee at his home on Highway 61 in St. Francisville. He consented to a brief search of his premises before asking them to leave. They did—with him in tow. He was interrogated at the East Feliciana Parish Jail, but of course denied any wrongdoing.

His story was straightforward and confirmed by his girlfriend. On the night that Randi was abducted, Lee was partying with his girlfriend at the Highland Bar there in St. Francisville. Lee's flirtatious advances toward another woman in the bar were not appreciated by his girlfriend and a spat ensued between her and Lee. She bailed out on him at about 10:30 P.M. He subsequently ended up at the Hideaway Bar in Alsen, Louisiana. He drank there a while, then headed over to his girlfriend's house in Jackson, Louisiana. His route would have taken him right by the entrance to Oak Shadows—Randi's subdivision.

The other prime suspect was, of course, Randi's ex-husband, Michael Mebruer. He complains that he was followed and investigated by the authorities for years and still harbors ill feelings toward his pursuers, particularly one Dannie Mixon of the attorney general's office.

It was generally thought that the Baton Rouge Serial Killer, who had since become known as the South Louisiana Serial Killer, never spoke to anyone about his grisly conquests. But he did talk about Randi Mebruer. In fact, the arrogant slime-ball bragged about it late one night to an acquaintance. His words were “They will never convict me, because they will never find the body.” That boast would be his undoing, albeit five years and numerous homicides later. The acquaintance worked on the property of James Odom and subsequently relayed the conversation to Odom, who relayed it to the police. Again, all this occurred five years before Lee was charged with any murder.

Odom left matters with the police, but he never forgot those haunting words. And they came back to him as the murders in Baton Rouge continued. But the serial killer was supposed to be white, and Lee was black, so Odom was thrown off some. He did, however, discuss the matter with his son, Joel, who is a detective with the East Feliciana Sheriff's Office. Joel in turn discussed the case with the Zachary police, who, in his view, didn't take it any further. But he didn't let go, and at the beginning of May, Joel Odom met with Dannie Mixon, to whom he relayed the information from his father. Mixon followed up quickly with an interview of the workhand.

Mixon, a sixty-five-year-old investigator of the “old school,” had worked in the attorney general's office for twenty-two years. A local boy, he was a graduate of Baton Rouge High School and LSU. He had worked in law enforcement all his life, having joined the Louisiana State Police when he was a seventeen-year-old college freshman.

Mixon had assisted Zachary police with the investigation into the disappearance of Randi Mebruer. His focus had indeed been on Michael Mebruer, but what he heard now from Detective Joel Odom, and from James Odom's hired hand, made him change his mind.

From his investigation of Lee's criminal past, Mixon knew that Lee was not in prison at the time of the killings, and that he was a known burglar and peeping tom. Both of these crimes tend to go hand in hand with sex offenses. Lee also had a significant history of violent behavior. In January 2000, Lee was booked on aggravated battery, attempted first-degree murder, and aggravated flight from an officer. He was accused of beating his girlfriend in the Liz Lounge, in Solitude, Louisiana. It was a recurrent theme: he flirted with another woman, she didn't like it, so he tried to stomp her to death while wearing cowboy boots. Then he tried to run over a sheriff's deputy when he fled.

In April, all but one charge was plea-bargained away and he was convicted of flight from an officer in West Feliciana Parish and sentenced to prison for two years. A judge also revoked his probation on a previous stalking charge, and ordered him to serve nine months. Here the legal system had failed us. I mean, let me get this straight: He breaks probation for stalking, he stomps a woman and tries to kill a police officer, and he only gets two years for it? Two years for two attempted murders, one of a police officer! It seems unbelievable, but that is exactly what happened. In January 2001, he was officially discharged from the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, having served only one year.
No wonder this creep thought he was invincible and above the law!

Mixon determined that Lee was the most likely candidate out there, and District Judge George Ware agreed, signing a subpoena to obtain Lee's DNA. It stated: “Lee has remained a viable suspect in the disappearance and alleged death of Mebruer and murder of Warner and a possible suspect in the deaths of five females in the Baton Rouge and Lafayette, Louisiana, areas that have been linked by DNA profiling to the ‘serial killer' operating in the Baton Rouge and Lafayette areas.” The door was closing on the killer.