Tip helped lead to Lee, authorities say
Lee appears in court Wednesday in Atlanta where he waived his extradition rights. Story Tools |
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) -- Derrick Todd Lee, accused of five serial killings in Louisiana, arrived in Baton Rouge Wednesday in police custody, after waiving extradition in Atlanta.
A large police motorcade met the FBI jet at Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport to escort Lee, 34, to the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison.
Earlier Wednesday, a subdued Todd Lee waived his extradition rights at a brief hearing in Atlanta, allowing him to return immediately to Louisiana.
Lee, 34, was arrested Tuesday night behind a tire shop in Atlanta, and booked on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated rape, said Pat Englade, the police chief of Baton Rouge.
The charges relate to one of the killings and are contained in a fugitive warrant, allowing authorities to hold him.
Lee was flying back to Louisiana on an FBI plane, and was to be booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on his arrival.
Doug Moreau, East Baton Rouge district attorney, said a grand jury would be convened to consider the charges against Lee. They may add other charges.
"It's been a long, tough road for all of us," Baton Rouge Police Chief Pat Englade told reporters in Baton Rouge after Lee's Atlanta court appearance.
"There are a lot of pieces left in the puzzle."
He appeared with Moreau and other members of the Multi-Agency Homicide Task Force.
The prisoner, dressed in a blue jumpsuit and wearing handcuffs and leg shackles, was asked by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Richard E. Hicks whether he understood his rights and the process -- that could take up to 60 days -- for fighting extradition. Lee nodded that he did.
After Lee waived extradition, Hicks said, "Have a good trip."
The hearing lasted only about two minutes.
Lee was charged Monday with murder and aggravated rape in the death of 26-year-old Carrie Yoder, a Louisiana State University student whose body was found outside Baton Rouge in March, authorities said. Yoder was the fifth suspected victim.
Authorities said DNA evidence indicates that the same person who killed Yoder also killed four other women, starting in September 2001.
The DNA evidence was collected May 5 for Zachary, La., police in connection with a case unrelated to the deaths of the five women. Police said they were investigating two slayings that occurred there in 1992 and 1998.
Authorities said Lee voluntarily submitted to the DNA test, but disappeared soon afterward. Zachary had asked for outside help in its investigation.
Lee is charged with aggravated assault and attempted rape in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Police had developed a composite sketch from that case, which they released Friday. Zachary police said Lee matched the description of the person they were seeking.
Near misses
In Atlanta, the Atlanta Police Department's Fugitive Squad, who acted on a tip, arrested Lee Tuesday night. Lee surrendered peacefully, Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington said.
"I know now that we have taken a very dangerous person that's a serial murder suspect off the streets of Atlanta, and I'm sure the citizens of Louisiana are proud as well that we've taken this very dangerous person off our streets," Pennington said.
Minutes before the arrest, Pennington said, an FBI agent received a call from "an informant" who reported possibly seeing Lee at the tire shop. Three officers went there and found a man fitting Lee's description at the rear.
Believing that Lee was in the Atlanta area, task force investigators drove from Louisiana overnight Monday, arriving in Atlanta Tuesday morning and bringing with them the case file on Lee. The investigation quickly intensified.
Atlanta police narrowly missed apprehending Lee earlier in the day.
"We missed him on two different opportunities. One, he was at a homeless shelter, we were told. We missed him shortly there," Pennington said. "And then another hotel that we arrived [at] about two hours later, and we were told that we just missed him."
FBI Special Agent Joe Parris said Monday that Lee had been staying at the Lakewood Motor Lodge in southwest Atlanta for about a week when he hurriedly left around midday Monday. Witnesses there said he told them he was going to his mother's home in Louisiana. (Arrest shocks motor lodge residents)
The case got its first big break at the beginning of the month, when law enforcement officials -- acting on a tip in the serial killings investigation -- called Lee in for questioning.
Lee voluntarily submitted to the DNA testing before being released, a member of the task force said, but disappeared soon afterward.
The task force said DNA evidence links Lee to the murders of Gina Wilson Green, Charlotte Murray Pace, Pam Kinamore, Trineisha Dene Colomb, and Yoder.
A task force member told CNN the DNA tests showed "highly unusual genetic markers." He said the chance that someone other than Lee could have those markers is "something like 1 in 4 billion."
Atlanta police look at previous unsolved murders
Lee's most recent address was in St. Francisville, Louisiana, 40 miles from Baton Rouge, police said.
The murders began in Baton Rouge in September 2001, when Green, 41, was found strangled near the campus of Louisiana State University.
In May 2002, Pace, 22, was found stabbed to death in her home, also near the LSU campus; and in July, Kinamore, 44, was abducted and her throat was slit. Kinamore's body was found 30 miles outside Baton Rouge, in the direction of Lafayette.
The body of Colomb, 23, was found in a wooded area November 24, about 20 miles from where her abandoned car was discovered.
The body of Yoder, 26, an LSU graduate student, was found in March near the Whiskey Bay Bridge off Interstate 10 outside Baton Rouge, the spot where another victim was found. An autopsy found Yoder was strangled after being beaten and raped.
Pennington said Atlanta police don't know why Lee came to Atlanta but believe he has been in the city before. Englade said authorities believe Lee traveled from Baton Rouge to Chicago to St. Francisville, Louisiana, then to Atlanta.
The police chief said Atlanta police were looking back at unsolved murders from 1993 and 1994, "people killed along Metropolitan Parkway" where Lee had stayed at a motel to "see if we can match DNA samples."
However, John Bankhead, a spokesman for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that so far, authorities have been unable to link Lee to any unsolved killings in Georgia.
-- CNN correspondents Martin Savidge and Art Harris contributed to this report.
