CenLAw
Kellye, the true crime enthusiast, and Kyler, her willing partner, delve into intriguing cases from Central & Northeastern Louisiana.
From small-town cases to nationally known crimes, they bring you stories that hit close to home, always with that Louisiana connection.
Tune in bi-weekly for your true crime fix and support their show for a shout-out in the next episode.
Stay safe out there!
CenLAw
The ‘Other’ Baton Rouge -Serial Killer- Sean Vincent Gillis
Socials:
Check out our website! cenlawpodcast.com
Support us by joining our Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/CenLAw
Twitter: CenLAwPodcast
YouTube: @CenLAwPodcast
TikTok: @cenlawpodcast
cenlawpodcast@gmail.com
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
In the 1990s, Baton Rouge was a scary place to be In an era that eventually led to the Red Stick City being labeled the serial killer capital of the world. We have our pick of serial killers to discuss Today. We will go into details about the other Baton Rouge serial killer and the vicious and unspeakable horrors his victim went through before and after death In today's episode of CenLAw. Hello and welcome to this episode of CenLAw. I'm Kellye and Kyler's over there doing something, so it's mostly just gonna be me. You probably have heard of at least one of the gentlemen I say gentlemen, that's a very loose term of the dudes that I'm going to talk about. The main one I'm gonna talk about will get to in a second, but I'm sure that most, if you're from Louisiana or if you've ever like Googled let's be real most of us have the most deadly or most dangerous serial killers in America, right well, if you live in Louisiana, you do the same thing for your own state, of course, and one of those that will pop up on there inevitably is Derek Todd Lee, and I even mentioned him, I believe, in the Eugénais episode because they thought that maybe he was a viable suspect, but DNA rolled him out and he's a very well known serial killer. He was from Baton Rouge. He was active during like 90, I want to say 93 to 03 somewhere in there, and very well known. He was actually caught and put on trial and all that stuff. He was very, very well known right at the beginning of like the true crime era. And what's scarier than that is the fact that you know, a lot of times when cops are doing their investigations in certain areas and regions they're not typically going to say, oh, this must be the work of the same guy. And unfortunately for the Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office and investigators that wasn't just one guy, it was upwards of. At one point there were three active serial killers working at a Baton Rouge and in around Baton Rouge Parish. Would that be East Baton Rouge, west Baton Rouge, all of the Baton Rouge's. And, like I said, Derek Todd Lee was one. Another, even lesser known, was Jeffrey Lee Guillory and his body count was the lowest. From what I have read His actual charges.
Kellye:That booked him a 50 year sentence in jail, which means he won't get out until he's 93. Because that was without benefits. The charges were actually attempted second degree murder, although he was accused of what is it? Three different murders. He was accused of committing murders in 99, 2001 and 2002. The conviction that he got in 2011 actually was for strangulation, but that was after he was convicted of the attempted second degree. So he remains suspect in several others, as well as Derek Todd Lee and Vincent, or Sean Vincent Gillis, who is our topic today. Now I had a listener send me another suggestion via email the other day and it had Sean Vincent Gillis's name in it Again. I've heard and read things about Derek Todd Lee. I had even heard mention of the other serial killers that were active during the time, but I had never really had the name thrown out there.
Kellye:When you see this guy's picture, he does not instantly dredge up scary serial killer. That's just not what you get. When you see his face, more like where's the convention and why isn't he there yet? He's got these big glasses. Actually, he's got the pedo mustache down, but he just looks literally he looks like a nerd. He looks like an actual white boy fanboy nerd. That's what he looks like and that's terrifying in a way, because it's very unassuming and I don't want to say you'd feel comfortable around him, but you definitely wouldn't feel like he'd be the kind of person to strangle you with zip ties and then stab you and then do things with your dead body and then take parts of you and ingest them Just doesn't wing perfect, it doesn't bring those things to mind. But again, just like Kyler, over my shoulder, said just now, bundy was not the epitome of a serial killer either. So I mean, we all know and understand at this point that that's what makes them scary is because they can look like anyone. They can literally look like your best friend next door, or they can look like freaking John Wayne, gacy, creepy, creepy clown killer or you know the other scarier looking serial killer types. Whereas you know you've got the handsome serial killer types, you've got the unassuming, nerdy, meekish versions. I mean, they're just, they're all across the board. You never really can tell and that's that's why they can. You know, the thought of that can be very frightening.
Kellye:So let's go ahead and get into the topic of our story today and that's going to be, like I said, Sean Vincent Gillis, and he was known as the literal, the other Baton Rouge serial killer, or in some cases they called him the zip tie serial killer, but mostly it was the other. So it was the other and I've been fondly using the abbreviation BRSK for Baton Rouge serial killer, just because it's fun, so the Brrrsssk. Anyway, he was born in June of 1962. I think it was the 24th, so June 24th 62, in Baton Rouge, to his parents, Norman and Yvonne. Now, Norman was not a good father. He was not a good person. From every information bits that I could gather, he was a severe alcoholic. He had severe psychotic issues, manic, depressive almost seems like, and he, in the short time that he was present, his actions and interactions with Yvonne, mom and baby Sean, we were not good. From one account he actually held a gun to the baby's head and threatened to kill him like a loaded weapon to a baby, an infant. So just not a good sign of things to come, especially if the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, which obviously in this case it didn't. I think they were the same tree in general, but overall Yvonne did her best. She raised Little Gillis with her parents, so grandparents helping her raise, and she did the best she could. But he still kind of grew up at around 10, 11, 12.
Kellye:He was labeled as a bully and in one of his interviews which, if you guys want to know more about this guy. There's plenty out there. There are documentaries after documentaries. There are YouTube videos of his confession. It was a taped confession and in his confession he actually quotes says I tried to kill my cousin once just to feel her breasts up, and that was when he was like 12 or 13 years old.
Kellye:So I mean these thoughts and these tendencies that he later would exhibit and take out on other women. They started early and other than his dad leaving young. There's not a whole lot to point 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 those indicators are present and I didn't see anything about like bedwetting or arson or small animal mutilation. There wasn't a whole lot to it. He was pretty, you know, single parent helping grandparent raising, like he wasn't. There was nothing out of the ordinary that would have been an indication of what was to come. In 1980, by the time he was 17, he actually started having his first brushes with the law, with traffic citations and things like that. Nothing crazy, nothing off the wall, nothing bad, and up until the point that he was arrested for murder. He doesn't actually have a record at all, none.
Kellye:He had low income, jump from job to job, gas station employees at 7-Eleven. He would work in retail shops. He would work at other convenience stores, outlets, chains, and you know, he just kind of what is that word I'm looking for? He, he existed, but he wasn't living. There's a word I'm looking for, but he skated by. He wasn't anything spectacular, he didn't have any high ambitions to do better, he was just doing that, like he was just being so, as most of you probably could guess, if you know anything about late 80s, early 90s, star Trek, star Wars, all those big deals, especially for the nerds. And, like I said, he looked like a nerd. He actually is a nerd. He loved Star Trek, loved it.
Kellye:And back when the internet was still a baby, in the early 90s, there wasn't a whole lot else on the internet. You know, like government stuff, record keeping, type things. And then you know Star Trek, star Wars. You know all of the nerds with their compilations of things and their forums of them sharing information of their favorite nerdy things. And I love those nerds, I love all nerds. Just so everybody knows that I'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 in the nerds.
Kellye:So, um, oh, and there was one more thing on the internet, but you guys probably knew that one already, unless you haven't ever, you know, dove into that side of the internet which inevitably, at some points, even accidentally clicking, can get you to the porn side of the website of the internet. So that was the other part was porn, and the majority of Gillis' time that he spent online on the computer, which was the majority of his time when he wasn't at work or wasn't, you know, having to do things with his mom or for his mom, he was on the internet looking at porn or talking about Star Trek and the the porn side of things. After a while you get kind of desensitized and so it became more graphic, more gory, and it was for Sean Gillis. It became the bloodier the better. He would look for the nastiest, goriest, most vicious, harmful, heinous type and and tied that into sexual gratification.
Kellye:So in 92, I believe, his mom actually decided to. His mom actually decided to move to Atlanta for a new job she had obtained and she told him to come with her. But he didn't. He didn't want to move. He was still living at their house in Baton Rouge. He was 30 years old at this point and he just he didn't want to leave. He had been there for so long and he was pretty comfortable and felt you know, this is where, this is where I'm going to stay. And so he was as upset as he was that she was leaving. He still wasn't upset enough to go with her, so she left out and in 94, he met Terrie Lemoine, who quickly became his girlfriend and within the year they moved in together.
Kellye:Now, interestingly, terry, she almost didn't actually date him, because she said they got into a really big argument about the internet usage and the porn and all of that, and that during the course of this argument she actually slapped him across the face Okay, slapped him hard across the face, and the reaction that she got was so baffling that it kind of caught her off guard. Instead of reacting or threatening to hit her back or actually hitting her back, he started crying. Yeah, so he gets slapped across the face and then he starts to cry and of course, she, at this point she feels terrible. She, you know, she feels like, oh man, what did I just do. This guy is now he's crying and you know, at that point she felt sorry for him and so she wanted to make up for it and she told him she'd never be physically violent again and they kind of she kind of got wrote 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 though unfortunately she had no way of knowing and there was no indicators, like I said, whatsoever other than the porn. But if she wasn't aware of what kind of porn he was watching, then she would have had no idea anyway.
Kellye:So the very first victim of Sean Gillis was an elderly lady who lived at an assisted living facility in Baton Rouge and she had left her door unlocked and his intent was to go in and rape her right so to leap out these violent fantasies that he'd been, you know, obsessing over on the internet for all these years. And so he goes into 81 year old Anne Bryant's room and attempts to start an assault on her, a sexual assault, but she starts screaming for help and he gets so worried and concerned that he's about to get caught that he just lashes out and slashes her throat a couple times and then stabs her almost 50 times. I think the total count was around 47. 47 different separate stab wounds. And because it didn't go the way he had planned and he didn't really have an exit strategy at that point, because things got out of hand or it went off off schedule or off or not off schedule, off track of what he had in his mind imagined it to be, he kind of just left, he left the body, he left everything, he just rolled out, and so her body was found a few days later and they never really had a good idea or any kind of lead or suspect in that case whatsoever. That was in March, March 21st of 1994.
Kellye:Okay, so that was the same year that he met Terrie and the next 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 in Baton Rouge. The house was actually on Bergen Bergen whatever I've been watching trolls, forgive me Bergen Bergen, pick one 545 in Baton Rouge, and that was the house that his mother, he had grown up in, that she had left him. She still, his mom still paid the rent, even though he was over 30 years old, she was still paying 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, terry had absolutely no idea Okay, and everybody believed her the fact that she was completely freaking clueless and we'll get there.
Kellye:So the next victim didn't come for almost like five years, I want to say, because that was in 94, and then the next one wasn't until 99 and the victim in January of 1999, just real quick, other than his first and his third victims, because we get a couple more numbers here. But his first victim, the 81 year old Miss Anne, she obviously was not living a dangerous lifestyle, but the rest of these were mostly either prostitutes or they were into the drug scene in some way and therefore, you know, we hear this a lot, especially in these type of stories they tend to be easier targets. They tend to be the sought-after target for serial killers because unfortunately they are kind of labeled throwaway people, which is awful, but they've already lost contact with their family or they, you know, basically cut them off, cut themselves off from all the people that would check in on them and care about where they were on a daily basis and we'll see more of that as we get further into the story. The second victim, miss 29 year old Catherine Hall. She was murdered in January, on January 4th 1999, and she was a prostitute and when he decided he was going to kill her, he actually attempted to strangle her but it wasn't working. So he ended up stabbing her 16 times, starting with the throat and in through the eye and just the rest of her chest and upper body, after he got done stabbing her and was successful in taking her life. He actually triggered warning here. He mutilated her body after he got done having sex with it and then he posed and left her in front of a sign that was at the end of the street and it was a dead-end sign, and he left her body posed in front of that dead-end sign and that's how she was found and the point was well taken. They got it and again, this was one of those times when it you would think that you know the first stretch was five years. Maybe you get another couple years. 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 this was the other victim that was not into the drug scene or any kind of prostitution or just any of the dangerous lifestyles.
Kellye:This was actually a 52 year old lady. She was married, she was from the upper middle class, I believe, and her name was Hardee Schmidt, and he actually stalked her for about three weeks prior to abducting, raping and strangling her. He watched her watch and like followed her back and forth and watched her route of where she went, what she did, and eventually one night he pulled close enough to where she would be running and like hit her with his car to incapacitate her and then dragged her into the car, raped her, murdered her and then mutilated her body postmortem as 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. I don't think he posed her in any specific way or left her in front of a dead ensign or anything of that nature, but he did. He did leave her, just to be found out in the middle of nowhere. So Unfortunately, like I said at this point, in Baton Rouge they had way too many people, way too many serial killers that were being active in the area that they were having a hard time nailing down for sure which one was which, which one was involved with what, because their emos weren't entirely alike but they had a lot of similarities.
Kellye:So there were things that were kind of the same but not entirely, and so they kind of prayed on the same type of people, although because he mixed it up a little bit, because his first one was an 81 year old, the second one was a prostitute on drugs, and then the third one was a middle-upper class and the original or whatever, the Baton Rouge serial killer, not the other, Derek Todd Lee. He actually prayed on women that were from those upper class areas or not, in the dredges and 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 the kill and the mutilation. That was more out of necessity to 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 Vincent Gillis started, and all the way up until 2004 when they finally arrested Sean Gillis, there were at least two others, if not more active at that time. So it was one of those things where they didn't, they weren't able to pinpoint, but even then they were still obtaining DNA, not on all of the victims per se, but there were at least three. And the next victim after Miss Excuse me, miss miss Hardee Smith was Joyce Williams. She was 36. She was strangled, mutilated, post-mortem and Wait. When they found her, one of her legs was actually severed completely and From his own confessions later Sean Gillis told them that he actually sliced off and ate her nipples. Yeah, it's pretty gruesome.
Kellye:The next couple of victims that they actually got DNA from but they Didn't from, let's say it was, it went miss Lillian Robinson. She was 51 years old. That was January of 2000. And Then you had Miss Marilyn Neville's, which hers nobody had even reported her missing, and she was 38. Nobody even reported her missing until after he confessed, and that was in 2004 and he killed her in 2000. So just kind of gives you an idea of the kind of people he was Seeking out and his type, his victim type. Both Lillian and Marilyn were strangled and both had been sexually assaulted or their bodies had been Used for a sex after they had died. Marilyn was 38, Lillian was 51, so you can see that their their age ranges were pretty gapped too, I think, his range from late 20s to early 50s, except for the 181 year old, so it's a pretty widespread there.
Kellye:And from there we go to the next victim, which would have been Miss Johnnie May Williams. She was 45 years old at the time of her death. She was strangled as well, and and he had actually completely severed her hands post mortem and left her body mutilated and abused. And this, this kind of, was the beginning of the end. This was in October of 2003, and His next victim, although it wasn't until 2004 and February, that would be his last. So if anybody else is keeping count, don't you don't have to, but I'm gonna tell you.
Kellye:The total number that he is said to have be accounted for is a total, and his last victim was Miss Donna Bennett Johnston, and she fought her butt off and they found DNA of his under her fingernails and she just it was obvious that she had put up a fight, although he said later in the letters that were presented at trial to a friend of his from jail that she was so drunk it was easy to to kill her, to incapacitate her. She had been raped, strangled and the most brutally Mutilated after death. He actually removed her left or her. He removed her arm from the elbow Down her left arm. He cut off and ate her nipples. He slashed and gouged her breasts, as well as cutting out a tattoo that she had on her left thigh of a butterfly and had removed it completely. And and the only fortunate part about that this instance was he had gotten a little bit sloppy when he dumped her.
Kellye:Now it was, I Believe, like a cow farm or it had been something, something along those lines, where it had soft dirt, a lot of that, and he had pulled off the road to dump her body and the road that he he took to get in was still damp when he left out. He actually left tire impressions in the soil out there and the Tire impressions were noted by one of the detectives who found the down the body. A were there investigating the scene and they noted and took pictures and casted the tire impressions. And they got really lucky on that front because this specific type of tire had only been sold to a couple hundred people in the Baton Rouge area and when they ran that list and they, you know, went ahead and broke it down. They realized that, you know, they could split this up between a couple of the investigators and pretty much knock out everybody on this list. Right, and you would think that if you were the killer you Wouldn't give up any information, you wouldn't give up your DNA. But that's not really what happened.
Kellye:Mr Sean Vincent Gillis was actually number 26 on this list and he came in, he gave his statement, he said oh, you probably found my print, my tracks out there, because I pulled off the side of the road because I had to take a piss and that's why it was there. But in the interview it also mentioned something kind of off the wall when he said oh well, I used to know her, she used to be, she used to clean my house for me and you know she's been in my car. So if you find a hair or something in there, that's why because I knew her. And you can see all of these interviews and everything on on YouTube and I'll link a couple of them in the show notes for you guys. But it's just, it's wild to listen to him because he has zero affect. It's almost like he's talking about a magazine or something. It's just normal late, just Every day conversation. There is nothing crazy talk to. You know nothing to see here. Guys just smile and wave, and Pretty much.
Kellye:From that point the detectives knew that they had their guy. They just had to kind of link it all together. So they asked him if they could have his DNA. He voluntarily gave them his DNA and they quickly got search warrants and everything for their house, for the house that he was living in, and but, as of that day though, they had to let him go. Now, when they let him go back to the house, they let him go back home, they started looking into his background and and they start trying to get everything tied up, waiting on the DNA to come back right. So they had DNA from three of the bodies which would have been the body of Catherine Hall in 99, Johnnie Mae Williams in 03 and then latest and last victim, donna Johnston, and they had DNA that they knew the DNA of all three of those were the same, the same perpetrator, the same suspect, because those DNA, even though they had nothing to match it to, they did match each other and so when they did get the DNA back, it was a solid match for him and him alone. They decided to. You know, we got to move on this now.
Kellye:And they go at 1 20 in the morning to his house and To their surprise they get there and he's curled up in the bed with his girlfriend, slash fiance, soon to be wife, Terrie. And he looks over to her and he apologizes and says you know, hey, I'm so sorry about this, she had no idea. And when she finally gets around to like someone explaining to her what the hell is 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's great. He cried like a baby when I slapped him across the face. There's no fucking way right, well, wrong.
Kellye:He was DNA tied and it didn't take long for him to start actually confessing and talking about all of the murders, all the way back to 1993 or 94 whatever it was, I think it was 93 and he got caught because of a very rare tire impression and because he gave his DNA up freely. And and they Eventually get the search warrant for his house and they go in and they find a plethora of Cooperating evidence they actually find you remember how I told you he had cut the arm of Donna Johnston off at the like elbow down. He had actually used that. He had taken it home with him and used that to masturbate with. Yeah, you thought it was already as bad as it was gonna get.
Kellye:No, then they also found a treasure trove of pictures that he had taken, 45 pictures or so of the body of. I want to say it was mmm. Which one was it? I want to say it was Catherine Hall, but I'm not sure. No, wouldn't. Catherine Hall was, later than that, Lillian Robinson, one of them. I just know that he took, like, yeah, the 45 pictures, digital pictures that he kept on his computer. Obviously he was, you know, the computer nerd, nerd. And they actually also found a file marked DTL. That's right. He had been keeping up with Derek Todd Lee's murders. He didn't actually realize at the time.
Kellye:I guess it was after Derek Todd Lee got arrested, which was right before he did, because he was trying and he says this in one of his interviews that he didn't want to get out done by Derek Todd Lee like I'm gonna be the better serial killer, I'm gonna be the most notorious serial killer and Baton Rouge. So he actually, once he realized that Derek Todd Lee had more bodies than he did, he decided that he was gonna have to beat him, which is also why he started committing murders, or that was his excuse to continue committing murders, but in a more more rapid pace than he had before. So once he was arrested and they did the search weren't found all the cooperating evidence, 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 history whatsoever other than, like the couple, random parking or traffic citations that he'd had no felonies, no misdemeanors, no pinpoint show of any kind of dangerous person that could have been lurking inside of this house, and when he's in the interview, he actually talks about it in a way that he kind of he tries to make it more understandable to them, and he says it have you ever seen the Secret Life of Walter Mitty? It was the secret life of Sean Gillis, and that's how he represents it to them.
Kellye:And what I found interesting as well, in the interview that he does with one of the investigators, he says the investigator asked him at what point did you get upset or mad at these women? And he said, "what if there was? No point? Does the word monster come to mind? And that makes all the sense. Like he wasn't mad at them, but they were a means to an ins for him, like he needed them to die. He needed them to be, he needed to use them in order to get what he wanted out of it and the only way to do that was the violence and gruesome deaths that he bestowed upon them. So it was, mmm. It's rough, a lot of it, but, like again, it's one of those things that it's hard to watch because he's just so blasé like there's nothing. It's. It's terrifying just how even keel somebody can be when they speak about the disgusting, horrific things that he did to these women. And I didn't even get to talk to you guys.
Kellye:I forgot to mention the, the excuses that he said that they when he was making the weird, random statements initially about like if they found hair in his car, or if he if they found blood well, what if we found blood in your car? What if the blood was in the backseat? Because he said the front seat blood, if they found any up there, that that would be his wife slash girlfriend, whatever that. She had had her period in the front seat and it looked like a massacre up there. I think is what he said. And then he tried to say that the wind might have blown some of the blood into the backseat. Yeah, no, no, you heard that right. He said the wind blew maybe blood droplets into the backseat, that's why they might find blood back there.
Kellye:So they actually arrested him on April 29th of 2004, which kind of blew my mind because I, you know, I wasn't living in Louisiana at the time, I was still in Texas. But that's just the too close for comfort, you know what I mean. Like this was too recent and it's kind of terrifying still still terrifying. But it took a while for them to actually get him to trial. So he was arrested April 29th of 2004 and he started his trial for the three murders that they tied his DNA to of Katherine Hall, Johnnie Mae Williams and Donna Bennett Johnston. They put him on trial in July of 2008 so it was July 21st and he was sentenced and couldn't charge of all three murders and they were all three at the same time went to trial. So they didn't do separate ones, but they did charge them, charge him with all three at in the same trial and he was eventually sentenced to life in 2007.
Kellye:However, before we get to the real wrap up end here, I want to tell you guys, I was looking and before he did that, I think he actually pled guilty to killing one of them and he made the statement. He pled guilty. He took a plea and he pled guilty. I think he said I choked her till she stopped moving. I killed her and that's all he said. But in taking the plea, he also got the DA or the court to acknowledge the fact that he still had the right to appeal.
Kellye:Now let me tell you why this is interesting is because, generally, when you take a plea deal, you are waiving all of your rights that you would normally have. You waving your right to remain silent. You're waving your right to confront your witnesses at trial. You're waving your right to appeal when you take a plea deal. That's it. You're admitting your guilt if you are taking whatever sentence you were given and there is no way that you can come back and say, hey, I don't think y'all did this, right. No, you're admitting, right then and there, that everything is done. You don't have the right to appeal, but apparently there is a little snippet of the law that allows for this, so it's called a Crosby plea, which is kind of and 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 you reserve the right to appeal, and that's generally pre-trial evidence or something that happened prior to you taking your plea of guilt.
Kellye:Now, in Gillis's case, he was saying that he should not, his, his confession should not have been allowed, and for the trial, they actually ruled that it wouldn't be allowed because, technically, in his interview, he did ask two different times to have an attorney present, and they continue to speak with him, which is a violation of your rights of Miranda, and they basically threw it out, which was terrifying for the prosecution, because they, at this point, were like oh shit, he's gonna walk, and and they uh. Eventually, though, they got a surprise gift, I guess you could say, from a friend of Sean Gillis's. He was corresponding with a lifelong friend of his that was also in the prison system, and she happened to be incarcerated at the time, and her name was Tammy Purpera Purpera, and she wrote letters back and forth with Sean Gillis and he actually confessed like full blown confessions in these letters. And unfortunately, Miss Tammy she passed away in 2005 from complications of her AIDS disease. But she, before she passed away, she got a copy of these letters to the district attorney and never asked for anything in return. But without those letters they would not have been able to go to trial in 2008.
Kellye:So pretty crazy turn of events because, like I said, they they ruled the interview inadmissible and then basically they had to go off of all of the other DNA and things like that, but they didn't have the full blown confession, like they didn't have it in the bucket, like they thought they did. So thanks to Tammy, they did actually get get those letters and get him sentenced and he did get sentenced to all three counts. He was bound guilty and sentenced to life without benefits or or any kind of probation options ever. And the death penalty was on the table. But the jurors were never like they. In interviews later they said it was never going to be an option. They had at least two people voting in the jury. That they said from the get go like we're not, we're not going to vote for the death penalty. It's just not going to happen.
Kellye:So he ended up getting life without parole or probation or suspension of sentence and, as of today, he sits in the Angola State Penitentiary and he's still kicking, although can't say the same for Derek Todd Lee. He actually passed away in 2016, I believe, from like heart disease or something, but we can get more into that if I eventually go and cover him, but he's he's been covered a lot and I mean like so has Sean Gillis Don't get me wrong, but of the people that I know and the people, the names that I've heard, his name just it's not not really one of them, and so I figured with the email that I got from our dear listener. Thank you so so much for the suggestion, and I needed to do kind of. I didn't have to do a lot of digging, hard digging and searching for this one, because there there has been a lot of coverage and there are a lot of ways to learn about him. There are a slew of podcasts, literally. If you want to know anything more about Sean Vincent Gillis, just type his name in S, e, a, n, Gillis, g, I, l, l, I, s and Google search it, YouTube search it.
Kellye:You can find damn near anything you 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 believe it was by crime. What is it? The? Which one? It wasn't law and crime, it was the other one. Anyway, it was pretty much the first one that pops up on YouTube, because it's really interesting too, because they 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.
Kellye:She actually continued to live in the house where she was living with him after he got arrested. She even had the car that he carried the bodies around in. She had the car still on the property at that house, but apparently, since I don't know, it had to have been later, after 2007 ish. They they say that the house would get randomly or not randomly, purposely graffitied and TP'd and basically just marked as a serial killer's house basically every Halloween, and she just got tired of dealing with it. So she ended up moving and I think she moved to Maryland. I don't know, it was in one of the YouTube things. Go watch that and you'll see. But yeah, I just thought that was crazy. She just stayed in the house and stayed living there and I don't know what happened to mom. I don't know if she's still alive. I didn't I didn't go digging too far into that, but it was just.
Kellye:The story is just wild. It will never cease to amaze me that 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 so much smarter and so much better, and then they, they enjoy the thrill, but I think they get tired after a while and then they just give up. And I mean, that's the only explanation that you can have for somebody who willingly gives up their DNA and just hands everything over, like here, golden platter, here take everything and they the souvenirs and things. I can understand, because it would make it easier for them to relive their moments that gave them such gratification and to revisit those, those acts, and to relive them. Um, I just can't with an arm and taking it home and oh, okay, so that is the story of the sci-fi USS Enterprise belt buckle wearing Sean Vincent Gillis.
Kellye:He is currently 61 years old and is in his forever home down there in comfy Angola, and just goes to show like no freaking criminal history. But he would stab, strangle, mutilate, sometimes eat pieces of the body and leave them totally nude after he desecrated their body by having sex with them after they were dead and never, ever committed any other crime that he was caught for aside from that and his wifey slash in house girlfriend Never suspected, never. You never could have imagined it before he was arrested for it. Just two completely separate people inside the same person, yeah, and it makes you wonder like who else who else could have been one of his victims that they haven't actually tied down to him and honestly I feel like he would have committed, or he would have admitted to it after, after a fact, because the way he was so competitive with the other and oh, he's the other Baton Rouge serial killer, but with Derek Todd Lee, with him being as competitive as he, what I'm sure he would have loved to have confessed to Another murderer and been able to say like I got one more up on him. So anyway, he's still down there, he's still alive and he is one of the grossest people I've ever dove into. Honestly, something about necrophilia that just this is all the wrong ways for me gross, gross, gross, gross, gross.
Kellye:So Thank you guys for listening, thanks for coming back every week and the 25th episode, which will be kind of kind of you know, important that's really cool for me. I feel like I know we've released more than 25 episodes technically, because we've got the bonus episodes, but I only count our actual full episodes. So the actual 25th episode will be We'll be releasing in two weeks from today and that's actually going to be Something really cool. Like I feel like I'm not gonna give anything away because I'm really excited about it and I Hope that you guys Come back and stick around for that. So keep telling your friends, keep talking about us and keep your doors locked. Are you kidding? Fresh air is for dead people!
Kellye:All right, you guys, if you want to check out any of the other Videos 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 notes and you can check out our website, check out our tick-tock, check out our Twitter, check out our X, which is the same thing as the Twitter, and then you can go on the YouTube and look at any of the shorts and things on there. They're all kind of consolidated as well as the episodes. So you know, I don't know how you're listening to it now, but that's an option as well. So, you guys, stay awesome, and If you have any questions, comments or concerns, you can always drop me a line on my email or you can go on the website and there's a box on there that you can type in any kind of questions, comments or concerns or suggestions. There's something for that too. So, thank you guys.
Kellye:Have a wonderful week. Have a wonderful weekend, and I'm See, will it be Easter? Oh, Happy St Patrick's Day today, because that's the day I'm recording. But other than that, you guys have a wonderful time and I'll catch you next time. Stay safe out there.
