Susan D. Mustafa - Dismembered

Table of Contents

Authors Note From Susan D. Mustafa

I moved to Baton Rouge because my sister, Bridget, told me it was a safe place to live. That was the year before Derrick Todd Lee went on his rampage and began killing women in their homes. Like everyone at the time who felt that Baton Rouge was safe, I was unaware that Sean Gillis lived in one of those safe neighborhoods, next door and down the street from families who trusted that they could sleep peacefully at night. But it was Derrick Todd Lee, not Sean, who shattered that illusion for me and so many others.

As Sue Israel and I researched this book, shock and disbelief rose up each time we learned a new sickening detail. We had heard none of this in the media. We had to dig through police reports, watch confession footage, and interview police and those who knew Sean to discover the horror that he inflicted upon his victims. The murders of most of the women Sean killedwith the exception of Hardee Moseley Schmidt and Ann Bryanwere relegated to small stories. Between 1992 and 2002, more than sixty women in the Baton Rouge area were reported missing or found murdered. Until 2003, most of these cases remained unsolved. Police in Baton Rouge knew that a serial killer was targeting prostitutes, but they did not make the connection for the public. None of the killings received much publicity, at least not until Derrick Todd Lee began killing women who were more acceptable to polite society.

When police formed a task force to track the Prostitute Killer, everyone in Baton Rouge went about their daily livesfor the most partoblivious. Some police officers believe the Prostitute Killer has killed as few as six, as many as nineteen, women in the North Baton Rouge area. The posing of their bodies, naked, with legs spread open in an effort to humiliate them, was their greatest indicator that the crimes were related. In early 2010, DNA finally made a connection between three womenFlorida Edwards, Sylvia Cobb, and Renee Newmanand a man, Jeffery Lee Guillory, who had been incarcerated since 2008. Few in Baton Rouge even remembered hearing anything about his victims.

On February 2, 2010, in a Lafayette courtroom, Guillory was found guilty of the attempted robbery and attempted murder of Johnnie Martinez, a woman he attacked while she was standing at a bus stop. According to Johnnie, Guillory grabbed her and dragged her to a line of nearby trees as she fought him. He took her purse and strangled her. Thinking she was dead, he left her there. Martinez is the only known survivor of this serial killer. He was sentenced to fifty years in that case and faces trials in Baton Rouge for three murders.

As in the Sean Gillis case, no onenot even policehad any idea how many women he had killed. Its a scary thought that three serial killers could be operating at the same time in a city the size of Baton Rouge.

But it doesnt stop there. In the past decade, Louisiana has become a popular hunting ground for serial killers.

Across the Mississippi River in the town of Port Allen, in 2006, a pack of killers would brutally attack and rape a transient woman in front of her boyfriend while they took turns holding him down before viciously stabbing him to death. Michael Garcia and his brother, Daniel, and their friend, James Edward Nelson II, were arrested for these crimes. The three men are also suspected of murders in Michigan, where the Garcias once lived, and in Florida, where Nelson lived.

Michael Garcia is one of the meanest killers Ive ever seen, Judge Robin Free told me. It was about control with him. He had an I can kill you because I can mentality. He was a coward who used the ability to take lives as a way to be better than those he killed.

And in the rural town of Houma, Louisiana, on September 24, 2008, Ronald Joseph Dominique pled guilty to the rapes and murders of eight young men. In 2006, he had been formally charged with the killing of eleven men, but police believe he is responsible for twenty-three murders that spanned throughout Louisianafrom New Orleans to St. Charles, Lafouche, Terrebonne, Assumption, and Iberville Parishes.

This serial killer lured his victims much the same way Sean didsex for money. He brought them to his house, tied them up, and raped and strangled them. Sometimes he produced a picture of a pretty girl, said she was his wife, and asked if they would have sex with her. The ones who agreed dieda single bad decision that was life-changing for families who waited sometimes for years for them to come home, not knowing what had happened to them. Many of their bodies were found in sugarcane fields or along the banks of bayous. Most were found partially clothed with their shoes missing, a clue that eventually led to his capture. The task force that had been formed to catch this killer arrested him in a homeless shelter called the Bunkhouse, which was operated by a Houma police officer.

Believe it or not, there is yet another serial killer operating in Louisiana, one who has not yet been caught. In the small town of Jennings, a town that averages one murder per year, eight young women have been killed by the same person since 2005. On May 20, 2005, Loretta Chaisson Lewiss body was found floating in a bayou. Between 2005 and 2008, Ernestine Patterson, Kristen Lopez, Whitnei Dubois, Laconia Brown, Brittney Gary, and Crystal Benoit Zeno were found on roadsides either strangled or with their throats slit. At the time of this writing, Necole Guillory is this killers latest victim. Her body was found off Interstate 10 in Acadia Parish in August 2009.

These women were between the ages of seventeen and thirty and, like Seans victims, lived high-risk lifestyles, according to police. It was not until the discovery of Necole that police in Jennings finally admitted the murders were connected, something residents of the rural community had believed all along.

In a press release, Jefferson Parish sheriff Ricky Edwards Jr. stated, This investigation pertains to the murders of Loretta Chaisson Lewis, Ernestine Daniels Patterson, Kristen Gary Lopez, Whitnei Dubois, Laconia Muggy Brown, Crystal Benoit Zeno, Brittney Gary, and Necole Guillory. I use the term murder because we are treating them all as murders unless we can prove otherwise. As we have stated in previous releases, it is the collective opinion of all agencies involved in this investigation that these murders may have been committed by a common offender. For that reason, the label serial murder is applicable; however, we have not used that label when referring to this investigation because it does not benefit us in our goals to identify and apprehend the offender, nor does it prevent further loss of life. Labels are sometimes confusing and are subject to misinterpretation.

The label serial murder confusing and subject to misinterpretation?

Really?

What is so confusing about the fact that a serial killer is killing innocent women? How can that be subject to misinterpretation? How can women protect themselves if they are not told about the dangers that surround them? None of Seans victims were informed that a serial killer was targeting women. None were informed that another killer was targeting prostitutes as well. Would that knowledge have saved them? We will never know, but it might have given them a sliver of a chance.

The writing of this book was difficult on so many levels, and certainly the reading is not easy, either. We dont like to think such evil exists in our communities. But it does, and if this is happening here in friendly south Louisiana, evil can be anywhere.