On May 31, 2002, Charlotte Murray Pace, a 22-year-old Caucasian woman, was brutally murdered in her Baton Rouge, Louisiana, home. A recent and distinguished graduate, she had just received her Master of Business Administration degree from Louisiana State University, becoming one of the youngest students at the institution to do so. Having moved into her Sharlo Avenue townhouse only two days prior, Pace was alone when an intruder attacked her.
She fought fiercely for her life, but was ultimately overcome. Her roommate discovered her body later that afternoon. An autopsy revealed that she had been sexually assaulted and stabbed more than 80 times with what was determined to be a screwdriver.
The initial investigation into Pace's death soon connected her case to other unsolved homicides in the area. DNA evidence collected from the scene linked her murder to the killing of Gina Wilson Green a year earlier, leading authorities to realize they were hunting a serial killer. For months, a climate of fear gripped the Baton Rouge community as the killer remained at large. The investigation was initially hampered by an erroneous FBI profile which suggested the killer was a white man, causing police to overlook the actual perpetrator.
The breakthrough in the case came when DNA evidence conclusively identified Derrick Todd Lee, a 34-year-old African American man with a history of stalking women, as the primary suspect. After his DNA sample was matched to evidence from the crime scenes of Pace and several other victims, a warrant was issued for his arrest. Lee fled the state but was apprehended in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 27, 2003, and extradited back to Louisiana.
In September 2004, Derrick Todd Lee went on trial for the first-degree murder of Charlotte Pace. The prosecution presented overwhelming DNA evidence linking him to the crime. On October 14, 2004, after a short deliberation, the jury found Lee guilty. He was subsequently sentenced to death for her murder. Lee was already serving a life sentence for the separate murder of Geralyn DeSoto. DNA evidence ultimately linked Lee to the deaths of at least seven women. While on death row at Louisiana State Penitentiary, Derrick Todd Lee died of heart disease on January 21, 2016. It was later discovered that another serial killer, Sean Vincent Gillis, had also been active in the Baton Rouge area during the same period.
