#Louisiana serial killer gillis trial

In letters exchanged between Gillis and a decade-long friend of Johnston's, Tammie Purpera, Gillis explains her murder and even shows remorse: Her body was found on February 27, 2004, in a drainage canal near Ben Hur Road, south of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. After death, Gillis mutilated her body, slashing her breasts, cutting off her left nipple, gouging out a tattoo on her right thigh, and severing her left arm at the elbow. In February 2004, she was raped and strangled with a nylon tie wrap. Though Lee began his killing in 1992, between 1994 (Gillis began his murders) and 2003, there were two serial killers silently and secretly targeting the women in, around, and just outside the Baton Rouge area.ĭonna Bennett Johnston, 43 years old, was Gillis's eighth and final victim. When certain cases could not be linked to Lee, investigators began to wonder if another serial killer had been in operation at the same time. More attention was paid to cold cases of murdered women when Derrick Todd Lee was apprehended on May 27, 2003.

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Gillis would go on to kill for five more years, the murders unconnected and his presence unknown to law enforcement. After killing her, he put her nude corpse into the trunk of his car, a white Chevy Cavalier, and left it there until dumping it two days later. He drove to a park off of Highland Road and raped her. He got out and placed heavy-duty wire plastic wrap tightly around her neck and forced her into the car. Gillis later confessed that he hit Schmidt with his car, knocking her into a ditch. Two days later her body was found in a bayou off of Highway 61 in St. on May 30, 1999, a Sunday, he saw 52–year–old Hardee Schmidt jogging on Quail Run Drive. He spent three weeks driving around the area looking for her. In May 1999, Gillis began stalking a woman he had seen jogging in the south Baton Rouge area. James Place (an exclusive retirement home in Baton Rouge). He left her body there at her residence, St. To stop her screaming, Gillis slit her throat and then stabbed her 50 times.

He intended to rape her, but became frightened when she screamed as he touched her. His first murder, which he confessed to after his arrest, was of 82-year-old Ann Bryan in March 1994. Gillis once claimed he began killing because of 'stress'. Gillis also said that he sometimes committed murder without knowing why he was doing so. In the letter, Gillis expressed remorse for the murders, particularly regretting his mutilating the bodies, and described himself as 'pure evil'. She turned the letters over to the prosecution and some of Gillis' words made it into the news. Years later after he had been arrested and convicted for some of his murders, a friend of one of his victims wrote to him. He committed his first known murder in 1994. Throughout the years he was arrested for traffic citations, DUI, possession of marijuana, and contempt of court. His rap sheet began in 1980 when he was 17 years old, with minor infractions.

This is the person I loved most in this world.' In the penalty phase of the trial, while testifying for the defense, his mother is quoted as saying, 'I used to call him my little blue-eyed angel.

#Louisiana serial killer gillis trial

and saw Gillis in his front yard, beating ruthlessly on some garbage cans.' ĭuring his 2004 first-degree murder trial for the slaying of Donna Bennett Johnston, his mother, Yvonne, testified that her son was a well-behaved, well-adjusted child with good grades and a healthy social life. A neighbor once reported that 'she heard a loud banging noise at 3 a.m. Ī more violent side of Gillis' personality began to surface during adolescence, behaving with anger and rage. Gillis was raised by his mother and his grandparents. His father abandoned the family soon after his birth. He was the son of Yvonne and Norman Gillis. Gillis was born June 24, 1962, in Baton Rouge and was raised in southern Louisiana.