Lee was convicted by jury and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Although Lee was eligible for first degree murder charges, the District Attorney elected to try Lee for murder in the second degree because DeSoto had not been sexually assaulted, which meant a first-degree murder conviction would be harder to obtain. Desoto had been found dead in her home in Addis, stabbed numerous times.ĭeSoto's husband had initially been the primary suspect in her murder, but as the investigation progressed, DNA evidence linking Lee to the crime had been discovered.
Lee waived extradition and was returned to Baton Rouge, where he was tried in August 2004 for the murder of Geralyn DeSoto. Once Lee was identified as the primary suspect in these crimes, law enforcement located and captured him in Atlanta, Georgia. The case was decided in Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc.'s favor. claimed that she did not use the tipster hotline and, thereby did not comply with the "form, terms, or conditions" required by Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. Furthermore, Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. claimed that the reward offer expired on Augand that, although Alexander had gone to the police, she did not contact Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. informed Alexander that she was not eligible to receive the reward. It was then that Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. On or about AugAlexander contacted Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. public reward offering of $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of Lee. Alexander felt she deserved the Lafayette Crime Stoppers Inc. The DNA lab ran and compared the samples and they were a match to Derrick Todd Lee.Īlexander's survival and description of Lee assisted investigators in his arrest. Additionally, the Zachary Police Department also let the Baton Rouge Police Department know that they had a DNA sample from Lee due to a prior murder investigation from 6–8 months earlier. Police in Zachary called the police in Baton Rouge to let them know the name of the suspected perpetrator. Police in the nearby town of Zachary recognized the man by a recent peeping tom incident they had just investigated.
Alexander had details as to what Lee looked like and on May 22, 2003, Alexander was able to describe Lee to a police sketch artist.īetween the DNA evidence gathered off of the deceased victims, the psychological profile made by Mary Ellen O'Toole, and the police sketch based on Alexander's description, the police went public with the information. Alexander's son chased Lee through the back of the house and was able to get a description of the car. Alexander survived because her son walked in during the commission of the crime, frightening Lee out of the back of the house. Dianne Alexander is the only known survivor of Derrick Todd Lee. Lee beat Alexander severely and attempted to rape her. Martin Parish home of Dianne Alexander on July 9, 2002. More specific analysis of the DNA evidence found under the fingernails of DeSoto linked Lee to the 21-year-old Addis, Louisiana woman's death. Police then knew they were searching for a black man for the January 2002 slaying of Geralyn Barr DeSoto. DNAPrint Genomics generated an ancestry profile indicating that the suspect was 85% African, thus changing the course of the investigation. Having no leads, police then allowed the now defunct company DNAPrint Genomics to access DNA left at the crime scenes. Police therefore administered thousands of DNA tests to Caucasian men in and around the general area of the murders. Two of the victims' bodies were discovered at the Whiskey Bay boat launch, approximately 30 miles west of Baton Rouge, just off Interstate 10.īecause the majority of highly publicized serial killers are white and based on erroneous eyewitness accounts, police originally believed the killer to be white. Similarities between the crimes included the removal of cell phones from the victim's belongings, and a lack of any visible signs of forced entry into the location where the victim was attacked. Lee's methods varied with nearly each murder.