DTL - Part 1: Inception of Evil

0:09 In the sultry heat of Louisiana, where the bayous whisper secrets and the air hangs heavy with the scent of magnolias, a darkness lurked beneath the surface. Dereck Todd Lee was a man whose charm masked a sinister reality. He was a monster. Lee, a seemingly ordinary man with a disarming smile, led a double life that would unravel in a series of murders in the capital city of Baton Rouge and the surrounding areas. As the first reports of disappearances and murders began to surface, South Louisiana was thrust into a nightmare, igniting a frantic search for answers. The true horror was just beginning, and the hunt for a serial killer eventually known by just three letters, would reveal not only the depths of Dereck Todd Lee's depravity, but also the resilience of those most affected by his evil acts, the families and the survivors. This is DTL. There's something about serial killers that really gets people interested. And maybe it's a mix of fear and the fact that the targets of these killers always seem so unaware that they're going to be the ones preyed upon. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it gets our attention. I really dove into my own thoughts on the bat U serial killings of Derek Todd Lee, and I thought that I would give you an LSU female freshman's perspective during that time, because I was that freshman. It was two thousand and

1:39 two and we had really entered the new world of post nine to eleven. Terrorism was something that we now were all so painfully aware of, and people around the US were stunned at the level of violence that had been recently inflicted upon New York, which really AKA was all of us. The terrorists had an agenda, and their hatred for Americans was obvious. Now. I was a senior in high school when those towers were slammed by those planes, and I will never forget that feeling of helplessness. I didn't know what was happening, I didn't understand why it was happening, and I didn't know what to do, and really it was like, was there something even for me to do? I remember running out of b building of the high school. I ran down to my silver Honda Civic and I then remember jumping in and punching every preset radio station on my dash, but no matter what I pressed, I heard President Bush saying we are under attack, and I genuinely did not know if bombs were going to start dropping from the sky. I was so scared.

2:45 And I bring this up because that was my first real taste of terror. What it felt like to be right there in the middle of minding my own business and then to suddenly have violence and death just catapulted upon me was something that my seventeen year old brain was having a really hard time understanding. And even though I was thousands of miles away from the towers that day, I felt the pain and I felt the fear. I promise you I watched people jump to their deaths from those buildings, and it wasn't lost upon me what I was seeing. It was simply unimaginable, and all I could really do was fall back and helplessly just ask why what did these people ever do to deserve this? Well, some months would pass and then I, as well as everyone in the Baton Rouge surrounding area, would be faced with a more up close and personal form of terror.

3:42 Women were now going missing and ultimately they were being found dead women like me. A majority of them were white women. They were good women, hard working and intelligent. Every day you wondered if this attacker would strike again, and if it would POSSI be me that was the target. Well, I graduated high school in May of two thousand and two, and this would really begin my college experience, and it would start on the amazing campus of LSU, which is exactly where this story is going to begin. LSU is the heart of Baton Rouge and it's just known for its Southern charm. Mike the Tiger roams his large enclosure with this personal waterfall and the sounds of students flying by on their bikes and chatting it up as they walk to class. That's the norm. That's what you hear on the daily. But even Mike, the Big Mike the Tiger knows that beauty and safety they don't always go hand in hand. The beauty and the charm of campus may lull people into a sense of security as you walk around the grounds of higher education. But even Mike, he's even had his own brush with rime. If you didn't know this, Mike was once kidnapped from campus by some students. Now that's a whole nother story that I won't get into, but legend has it that he was towed around by these students in a trailer while the students went bar hopping. So to think an apex predator was out on the loose and chilling in a trailer is scary. And then you add drunk college kids as

5:13 his handlers, and that should have been just an epic recipe for disaster. But luckily it ended well. Mike the tiger was recovered and returned back to his enclosure. But the campus in two thousand and two, y'all, that's well. After that time, the massive, stately oak trees that fill campus are seen everywhere, and the chirps of birds searching for an easy meal that's a constant. While there are now gates that will stop you from freely driving through the heart of campus, in two thousand and two, you could drive anywhere. Saturday Nights and Death Valley were experiences that we all lived for, and we shouted calling Baton Rouge from the tops of our lungs while we watched our fighting tigers. Sure we may have ended that season eight and five, but that's okay. Because we still felt like we were a force to be reckoned with, and we proudly chanted the letters of our universe. But the reality was that behind all of those daily walks to classes on the hot, muggy mornings, and the smiles and the cheering for our tigers on Saturday nights, there was hunting happening all around us. A person yet unknown was watching and listening and fixating on a woman of choice, a woman that he would attack, dominate physically, and then ultimately kill, all for the excitement of it. For now, no the headlines were consumed with Kmart becoming the largest retailer in American history to file for bankruptcy. Elizabeth Smart she had been kidnapped from her family's Salt Lake City home, and whether she was alive or not, that kept us all on the edge of our seats nationwide. But now

6:44 a new sort of headline would take over the news and in total, thirty six women would be murdered. Now, what was even scarier about this It was determined that not one, not two, but three serial killers were loose and batue all at one time. Everyone was a target, but no one knew who would be next. So for the sake of storytelling, I'm going to tell you that two of those serial killers were caught, Sean Vincent Gillis and Jeffrey Gilliery. But this series is going to focus on Derreck Toddley. So let's go back to nineteen sixty eight, seemingly a world away from how we live today. Hey Jude, by the Beatles. It topped up Billboard Hot one hundred for nine consecutive weeks, which tied the record at the time, and the morning of November fifth was a cool, breezy day in Saint francis Ville, Louisiana, when Florence Lee began the labour pains required to bring new life into the world.

7:43 Speaking of the world. As Florence was working through the breaths and the sweats and the pushing required during birth, the US was also in a rebirth of sorts. Richard Nixon was elected the President of the United States, yet the Vietnam War was raging on halfway around the world. For now, though Florence was fighting her own fight with the promise of new life. In the end, Dereck todd Lee would eventually make his entrance into the world and be placed into his mama's arms, the proud son of Samuel Ruth and Florence Lee. What should have been the start of a life of promise and greatness would soon fizzle with less than an epic thud. Shortly after his birth, his father up and left his mom. Now, truth be told, they all weren't that broken up over it. Because Derek's dad, Samuel, he suffered from mental illness and that would eventually end him up in a mental institution. But it's one thing to be mentally ill, but it's a whole another ballgame when you're dangerous to others as well. And this was exactly the case, and this would be proven whenever he was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of his ex wife Florence, though she moved on and through time she would eventually marry him man named Coleman Barrow. Now what's funny here is that I obviously can only tell you information from reports and from articles. What was interesting to me while I was researching this was that there are sharp discrepancies out there, and I just found this

9:15 really interesting. I decided, now I'm gonna tell you both of them, rather than just pick one. I'm gonna tell you both, and I'm gonna let you decide. One account describes him as a responsible man that honorably raised Derek and his sisters as if they were his own children, and that he brought a focus into the home of teaching the Bible and that education was paramount in start. Contrast to that, another account from a university that put together a timeline of Derek's life, they had more of a negative light that shined on Derek's stepfather. See, his mother was described as domineering and that she had to have things her way, and the university account shows that she clearly met her match in terms of negative energy when she married Derek's stepfather. So in terms of being a model for adult behavior, the stepfather really missed the mark compared to the general consensus on what child upbringing should be. So maybe Bible lessons were taught and education was promoted. I wasn't there. But the male figure now in Derek's life, according to the university, was hard nosed in terms of punishment for misbehavior and beating Derek was the typical experience after acting up. No lectures or general parenting were on the option list in the household so my gut tells me that it's probably a mix of both accounts, because people probably are going to always do the best that they can do with the tools that they have when they're raising children, whatever it may be.

10:48 There is a stark contrast if you look at different stories. So from the age of three to roughly thirteen, Derek's life was marked with struggle, even though sometimes it was self induced. So as you can imagine, the nineteen seventies weren't the best times for kids with development challenges in school. I do want to take a second to address this because I want you to understand I'm not saying this as an excuse, but as facts of life at the time and the role that this could have played in long term outcomes for Derek. So in the nineteen seventies, kids with disabilities or mental delays were looked at as non contributors to society as far as education was concerned.

11:28 And I don't mean this meanly, I'm being just direct and how things likely went at school for him on the daily because Derek was labeled as delayed and he was placed in special education classes when he started school. So back then, life skills were thought of as more important than actual academics, like teaching kids with delays how to microwave meals and why hygiene matters. Well. There was a huge civil rights movement that would begin at this time for people with disabilities in terms of educational experience and the Idea Act, which is Education for all handicapped children. The name Did Change of nineteen seventy five started the process of implementing specialized education and plans, but that would take years to implement and to quote unquote standardize across all students. So Derek, in the meantime was in that group of kids segregated from the regular school population. He was placed in a minimally stimulating environment and then basically stigmatized by other students. So now kids get what are called IEPs, individualized education plans, which are meant to give them a uniquely modified experience. That this was not the case back then. No extra time on tests, no varying punishments for varying mental capacities and such. So I'm telling you this because Derek's IQ was estimated to be in the low seventies. For perspective, While this isn't the medical or professional way of explaining this, I'm just gonna, in

12:59 brief explain that an IQ in this sixty to seventy range is approximately the scholastic equivalent to the third grade. So don't, for a second, though, think that I'm telling you he acted like a child in an adult body. No, no, no. He was well aware of the difference between right and wrong, but complex intelligence in terms of educational thinking was lacking. There were aspects of school, though, that he really did enjoy. He really enjoyed participating in the school band. He may have struggled academically, but he loved music. He had a younger sister, and while she may have been younger than him, she was advanced academically, which left him feeling outshined for lack of a better term, and he was reportedly bullied and called quote unquote retarded by classmates while at school.

13:51 So why do I share this, Well, he was miserable at home with his mother and his stepfather, and then he went to school where he was also miserable. I think we can all agree that this is an obvious negative for a kid psychologically during a great period of growth in their life. So his foundation was basically broken. As a former teacher, I was told something one time, and I want to share it with you because it always stuck with me. Kids who are loved at home go to school to learn. Kids who are not loved at home go to school to be loved. And trust me when I say I could write a book on this, And how real that statement is? Well, what if I told you Derek called his teacher mama. Obviously this was strange, but knowing what I know, maybe she gave him a sense of security that he longed for and he felt like he didn't have at home. She was motherly to him.

14:46 She was a mom to him. He also sucked his thumb, which made him an even bigger target for bullying. So what do kids do when they feel like they are in an environment where they are being attacked? We all know what it is. It's act up. When they aren't taught social emotional tools for emotional regulation, kids impulsively react. Well, this was the epitome of Derek Toddley. While his actual school discipline record I don't have. He's no unicorn of misbehavior. Okay, kids act up and then they are disciplined. How he was disciplined, however, would not have been modified in any way, so he got suspended or he got detention. All of that happening for misbehavior would leave negative lasting effects on students.

15:35 And then you may not know this, or maybe you do, but kids that are constantly in trouble are more likely to suffer academically drop out of school and you could probably guess this one, but they're more likely to be involved in the criminal justice system. And that's why this totality of circumstance to me matters, and why I'm sharing it all with you because it makes you wonder does society possibly aid in times at building killers? Because failure to identify key elements that are common amongst them is kind of interesting. Most serial killers have a high school education or less. That said, they aren't unintelligent. They just often display a cunning mentality and use intelligence to evade detection despite not having high levels of formal education. Again, this was Derek. He may have been academically delayed, but he wasn't unintelligent. And this is why the schooling disparity would matter. We have to feed young minds. They aren't less, they're just different. So with a lack of real guidance at home and the need for more stimulation. He wanted something actually exciting. Derek then would go off and start making his own excitement. See he was still in elementary school when he started finding excitement and peeping in windows, spying on people and watching them without their knowledge. He thought it was fun. He could see people in the

17:05 way that they acted when they thought that they were alone. And if he was peeping, he couldn't be shunned. He wouldn't be excluded if they never knew that he was there to begin with. How could they? He wouldn't always get away with it, though, And because of his treatment as a quote unquote special kid, he learned something very quickly. Rather than addressing his behavior as wrong, he found that he could just talk his way out of most things because people took pity on him and the fact that he was just a kid, right, Well, he was smart enough to recognize that pattern and he would use it to his advantage. Based on this, I guess we would call it skill. Derek was never really forced to take responsibility for any of his misbehavior. No consequences was the usual outcome, and his parents didn't care as long as he was not bothering them. So as he grew and he got older and he turned into a young teen, a new behavior began to arise. It's the age old one that we all know and we all attribute to future serial killers. You guessed it. Torturing animals. See, Derek had dogs when he was young, and those dogs would often have puppies, and he found that he got a sixth sense of joy out of the control that he could place over the animals. Just like people hurt him, he could now do that to those he had power over, and the puppies they would be the one to pay the price. But starting in November of nineteen eighty one,

18:39 Derek would be arrested for the first time. He was only thirteen years old at his first arrest, and he had been booked with burglary and vandalizing a candy store. Now that may seem rather minor on the big scale of things, but his violence would escalate, especially towards women. In August of nineteen eighty five, just a few short years later, because a woman caught Derek peeping in windows, and she did as any concerned woman would do. She wanted to speak to his mother. So she goes to the house and, as this woman explained, the circumstances, without warning, Derek turned and attacked this woman, physically attacked her right in front of his mother. Now what happened as a result of that? What was done to him for physically jumping on a woman. I'm glad you asked me, because it would result in nothing consequentially, but it started a new era in response for Derek. If someone was to accuse him of something, they would pay the price one way or another. Now, something a lot of people don't know is that in August of nineteen eighty five, when Derek was sixteen years old, he was arrested for attempted second degree murder. So what happened in that case. I'm not going to go through the entire story. I'm going to give you the basics. He pulled a knife on a boy during a fight, and he was arrested, but he was then released and nothing really came of it. So,

20:12 not deterred by that scare or potential for lock up, he then decided he needed to make some money, and he decided that he would then go light his own car on fire and collect insurance money. Neither of these crimes are those kids will be kids. Crimes Things like drag racing or underage drinking are nothing compared to the criminal pace that Derek was setting. So by the time he was in high school, he wouldn't remain there long. He would become a high school dropout. But he would have multiple complaints, multiple arrests, but he was never sent to a juvenile detention center, nor did he ever face any real time for his behaviors. So in July of nineteen eighty eight, now nineteen years old, he was again arrested for attempted burglary. Whenever he went to court, those charges were reduced and he got an unauthorized entry. Basically nothing, Nothing happened to him two months later. As incredible as this may seem, Derek was able to lock down a woman for life, but not the murder Kanye calm down in this instance, I mean marriage. So on September seventeenth, nineteen eighty eight, he married Jacqueline Simms in Solitude, Louisiana, A town named Solitude also was some type of poeticness I think, in that he would spend a lot of time in Solitude, both physically and metaphorically. Why because he couldn't keep a damned job. His marriage started out with no work ethic and a lack of income. So rather

21:46 than assess the situation and make changes that would warrant better job opportunities, he instead took to his traditional route of blaming others for his shortcomings. Documentation shows that in February of nineteen eighty nine, he began harassing none other than his own mother. He wanted her to pay. He wanted her to know just how bad of a job she did at raising him, and that she was the root of all of his problems, and specifically, he wanted her to know that his childhood relationship with his stepfather was a lot to blame. Now, this harassment wasn't just like phone calls or drop him by the house. No, this was really, really bad, and this harassment got to the point that law enforcement had to intervene. So charges were pressed upon him, and he faced multiple charges, but they were all classified as misdemeanors, the lowest of crimes.

22:42 He went to court and he pled guilty to trespassing. So what was he sentenced to for this? Well, he was sentenced to therapy. I guess so far everything that was in his record told the judge that maybe he just needed to talk about it. I'm not sure why it was therapy. Maybe the judge thought we could therapize his demons right out of him. Well could that have worked? Maybe he needed to hug a teddy bear. We don't know. And the fact is were never gonna know because he never showed up to therapy. And this is where I wonder, where is the follow up? He blatantly disregarded and ignored a judge's orders, yet no accountability. It was never followed up on you and me, we would be under the jail.

23:33 But Derek, Nope, he just kept being free doing what he did. The only encounter he would have with law enforcement would be a month and a half later when his wife called nine one one pleading for help. So what was the emergency? I mean, they were newlyweds. They were newlyweds and already nine one one is already having to intervene. Well, yes, they had to show up after Derek had slapped her around and really her up during an argument. See, women, they're no match for the solid, twenty year old muscle of Derreck Lee and he knew it. Basic biology gave him the upper hand automatically. But now insert his father in law, and things shifted during this event because once his father in law came into the scuffle to defend his daughter. Now it became a man on man situation, and Derek showed that he would dominate no matter what. He wasn't going to do hand to hand combat with another man. No, he pulled out a gun and he threatened his father in law within an inch of his life. So when the police got there again, he was arrested and he was charged. What was he charged with? Disturbing the peace? So how much jail time did that give him? None? Y'all. If you pull a gun on somebody that is not just disturbing the piece, I hope we can all agree on that. Well, five

25:05 months later, still free and out doing what he wanted, Derek went to a place he loved, and this was the local bar Saint Francisville, Louisiana. Y'all. It has so much charm and character, but like any other place, it also has its pain in the ass. Locals the ones that cops know by name and they have watched grow up, and Derek was one of them, those frequent flyers that law enforcement deal with all the time. It's the same twenty percent of the population committing one hundred percent of the crimes. After all, well, Price's Bar was a local watering hole that Derek frequented, and that's where he ended up in a fistfight with another patron. Bad tempers and alcohol.

25:49 We all know how that's gonna go. So it got bad enough that police were called and he was again arrested for disturbing the peace. The reality of Derek's life at this point was that he was an adult who did basically whatever he wanted. He had a wife and two children by now, but husband and father, those were only really half of his gig. He was also filling a lot of his time searching for women to rendezvous with and to spark up new love interests with. While his wife and his kids were back at home, he would get all dolled up. He would go hit the bars, drinking and flirting. He was known to have numerous affairs. While Jacqueline remained devoted to him as a wife, she also knew that he had a propensity for being arrested, and she just dealt with that every time that had happened.

26:39 But things took a turn when in nineteen ninety six, Jacqueline's dad was killed in a plant explosion. As a result, she and Derek were awarded a quarter of a million dollars in damages. Never being accustomed to having such finances at his fingertips, Derek really lost control and went on spending sprees. He bought cars, he bought nice clothes, and he also spent a lot of his wife's award money on his side chick. Her name was Cassandra Green. While this is unacceptable where I come from, Jacqueline pretty much just stomached his disgusting behavior. As you can imagine, he blew through all the money and they were back broke in no time. But now there was an added pressure because Derek had a third mouth defeed, not with his wife, though with his side chick. Yes, Cassandra got pregnant and gave birth to a son, who they named Dedrick Lee in nineteen ninety nine. So there you have it. From birth to nineteen ninety nine. Derek Lee is now a full grown man, and he has his eyes set on bigger goals like murder, feeling like he's capable of making his own sick mark on the world and knowing that consequences thus far are a total joke, Derek decides South Louisiana, They're gonna remember his name, because why remain a petty criminal who abuses just your woman when you could potentially instill fear in an entire community. Coming up on the

28:11 next episode of DTL, the TV hummed on as Connie focused on her cross stitch when she heard something. Was that a knock at the door or was that a car door shutting? She decided to investigate. They went through the open doorway and the sight of the mattress was unsettling. It was pushed off the bed frame as if someone had bumped into it, but hard, and her clothing was dumped on the floor. Brown hair was what was found on the hood of Connie's car, and the hair was consistent with hers, and it looked to a forcibly pulled out by the route. The trucker had parked and was getting out when something in the distance caught his eye.

29:11 He couldn't make it out, but something was weird about it, so he decided to go and check it out. He exited his truck and as he got closer, he slowed up a bit. He stepped up cautiously, and he leaned in, and he realized the horror that he had just stumbled upon. She had suffered an absolutely tragic and brutal beating. There was extensive head trauma, and it was insanely violent. This wasn't a fistfight or a struggle. This was a murder in every sense of the word.