Coroner's Journal

by Louis Cataldie

  Once that was done, I checked her for rigor mortis. Her whole body was stiff. As we placed her onto a homicide sheet and into the body bag, I checked for livor mortis, which was fixed in place. Indeed she had been here for over twelve hours, and maybe even twenty-four. We would process her more at the morgue. Then I could allow myself to reflect a bit on this murder.

  Suffice to say that this crime-scene experience was different. I felt like I was in the midst of pure evil. I know that sounds a little crazy, but that’s how I felt. I’ve only had that feeling a few times in my career. It’s a feeling I get when I think a scene has been staged or altered, and her body seemed to have been intentionally arranged in a sexually exploitative manner. It’s that intuition that something is wrong. That things don’t fit. It’s a tough thing to get a handle on.

  And it causes me to wonder. It’s been several years and I still wonder about it. This scene fit the dehumanizing dynamic that some killers show. They turn their victims into objects rather than seeing them as persons. The life, the personhood of the victim has no meaning for them.

  Theories as to why someone would kill another human being in this manner, in this place, abounded. Maybe it was drug related. Maybe it was a revenge thing, a “get-back.” Maybe it was a message of some sort. Whatever the reason, this murder scene seemed staged to me.

  I’ve read every book on serial killers that I could find, including profilers’ studies, studies on specific killers, and testimony of experts. I have examined the bodies at scenes and attended the autopsies. The result of all this study and research is that the more I know, the more I realize how much I don’t know. And, of course, the books can’t portray the feelings associated with these atrocities.

  I have also come to realize just how little any of us really knows about these monsters. There’s that old saying, “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?” So I ask myself: “If we know so much, why ain’t he caught yet?”

  To date, we still have not identified a killer in Florida’s murder. We were anticipating and dreading the next victim . . . and the next . . . and the next. . . . As previously noted, Sean Gillis doesn’t appear to be responsible for this killing.

  What does that mean? Is there another killer still on the move? Did things get too hot for him so he moved on for a while? Did he get picked up for some other crime? Did someone kill him? We didn’t know all the answers then and I don’t think we know them now. The one big question in everyone’s mind was “Will he be back?” As you will see later, the grim reminder came in 2004 in the form of a another dead woman with a high-risk lifestyle.

  FIRST OF A GHASTLY SERIES

  While the murders of black prostitutes that had started in the late 1990s faded from the media and the consciousness of the community, I still felt the killer’s presence. Maybe he was dead, incarcerated, or had just moved on, but I felt he was still there, still here. Every time I was called to a female death, I wondered if I was going to be presented with the same scene.

  Two years later the killings started again. But these were different. Gina Wilson Green, an attractive white forty-one-year-old registered nurse and manager for Home Infusion Network, was found dead in her home on Stanford Avenue in Baton Rouge on September 23, 2001, an apparent victim of strangulation. She was divorced and lived alone in this area referred to locally as Southdowns. A homicide in this upscale neighborhood, not far from Louisiana State University, was a rarity. A coworker had come to the house and discovered the crime. From the preliminary information I’d received, I knew I’d need every resource I could muster.

  Accompanying me to the scene was our forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Cramer, a wiry, meticulous man in his early fifties, and a behavioral psychologist who is a close personal friend of many years, Stan Granberry. Stan’s also a deputy coroner and provides his services gratis. Gina Green’s crime scene really got to him. My grandma would have said he was “spooked.” Stan had been on calls with me before, but I think this was just too close to home for him. One block over is his house—was, I should say, since he and his family moved to another location not long after. His wife is an attractive blond career woman, much like Gina. He’d helped me sort out other cases, and he is often my sounding board when something is eating away at me. Just getting one’s demons out into the open tends to make them less harmful. And it helps to realize one’s limitations and boundaries related to crimes. He has a vast knowledge base on personality disorders, like those affecting sociopaths and sexual deviants. Well, I needed access to that knowledge base right now.

  The moment I was escorted by the detective into Gina Green’s home, I knew intuitively that we were dealing with a different type of homicide. I still have difficulty describing the sensation I felt upon entering the place. It was as if I had been placed into a scene like one of so many props. It was as if the killer expected me to show up and had prepared for my arrival. Stan felt it also and commented upon it and indicated we’d both need to chat about this later. “Chat” has a whole different connotation when it comes from a shrink, even if he is your buddy.

  Regardless, it’s important for me to try to sort these things out. Several things could have contributed to that impression. Gina’s house was similar to those of my friends. Indeed, several of my close friends, and even my oldest son, Christopher, lived in the area. Her home was furnished and decorated tastefully, in what I refer to as traditional Baton Rougean style. The color scheme, fabrics, and furniture are classic Deep South: antique furniture (French provincial), Persian rugs, heavy expensive drapes, wooden floors, subdued pastels on the walls, wooden-framed pictures and paintings. Elegant yet comfortable—not stiff—almost understated. Obligatory chandelier in the dining room, roomy kitchen. So maybe that’s partly why I got a feeling of violation. Indeed, as I would discover later, it made several of us feel vulnerable. It scared us.

  I remember questioning myself as I walked through her house and felt that sensation. Is it just me or is it time for a reality check? Reality is that this woman is dead! Murdered!

  I first examined Gina in her bedroom. She was in her bed and covered up with bedclothes. She looked like she was asleep at first. With me in the room were the crime-scene tech, Stan, Dr. Cramer, the detective, and one of my investigators from the coroner’s office. Yet it was so quiet—solemn. The room looked normal. Nothing thrown about. Gina was in bed and actually looked peaceful. Then the final covers were removed and she was revealed to be totally nude and her legs positioned in a crude manner. The scene went from one of serenity to lust murder with the turn of a sheet. This stark change of perception engendered feelings of outrage and anger. The killer had gotten his shock effect.

  Every piece of bed clothing was carefully marked for evidence and collected. We went by the numbers in a very structured and orderly manner. We used an alternate light source to detect trace evidence from her nude body. This was one of those times when we were grateful to have a state-of-the-art forensic light source. The light source allows us to see organic matter that is essentially invisible to the naked eye. The principle is relatively simple. If we can illuminate the organic material with the right kind of light, it will give off a reflection with a longer wavelength. In other words, it will fluoresce. We adjust the light source for the right wavelength, put on glasses and can locate the evidence. When I had my first exposure to a forensic light source I was both amazed and horrified. A salesman asked me to go into the men’s room with him for a demonstration. I know, it sounded a little weird to me, too, at the time and that’s not what horrified me. We went into the bathroom and he showed me all sorts of “invisible” biologicals that I was happily unaware of prior to that demonstration. That horrified me. To make things worse, I found out that the bathroom had just been cleaned. Now that really horrified, but it also amazed me. The conclusion was obvious. A killer could clean up the crime scene to destroy trace evidence but he’d have to be using this light to make sure he got everything. Most killers don’t carry a forensic light s
ource around. I was sold on it. Imagine turning out the lights and it’s pitch dark. Then a blue hue moves slowly over the body. You see only a blue glow unless you’re are wearing special glasses. Suddenly an irregular orange splotch appears on the inner thigh of the victim. It is a semen stain. Your heart almost stops. There it is—jackpot—we got lucky and he got sloppy. Careful with the evidence, don’t want to lose it. It will be reconstituted with sterile water and placed into evidence. I look at the evidence container and my mind addresses the killer who had set this staging for us. This is it. This will give us your DNA ID and tie any other of your murders together. And when we find you, it will nail you. And we will find you. Gotcha, asshole!

  That scene is still vividly with me. There we were in this woman’s bedroom examining her lifeless body under a technical light source. It was so eerie. We looked like alien scientists with our orange-colored glasses on as we continued to search for any additional stains or fibers that might be present. We went over every inch of her skin. Examination of her neck indicated that she had been strangled to death.

  Did she know this guy? Was he waiting for her inside her home? Did he break in? Did he cajole his way in? The back door was unlocked, and there was an old dog in the yard. It didn’t even bark at me. Maybe she opened the door to let the dog out and he was waiting for her. She had an alarm system and there was an alarm call at 3:47 A.M. on September 23. She had gone through the house with phone in hand and the alarm company on the line. Evidently she felt secure and that was the end of it. How sadly mistaken she was. Had the killer been in there with her and she missed him during her house check? There were signs of a struggle in other areas of the house. Crime scene collected her blue patterned shirt, the one she had been wearing the night before. On it was a nickel-sized drop of blood. It did not belong to the victim. (Later it would prove, through DNA testing, to match the semen.)

  The killer took her cell phone, which was later found across town in the Choctaw/Airline area.

  The whole chain-of-custody process was carefully followed—from her home, through the autopsy, and to the ultimate release of her body to the funeral home. From an objective standpoint, it was seamless. We did it right. I use the collective “we” for all parties concerned at the time. That’s why I am absolutely confident that our evidence will stand up to courtroom scrutiny. If this sounds like pride or arrogance on my part, it is not. On the contrary, it’s about humility. It is the simple acknowledgment that I fulfilled my obligations and responsibilities to Gina and her family. It’s what I’m supposed to do. It’s all I can do at this point. It’s about justice.

  From a subjective standpoint, I’ve walked through Gina’s house and reworked that scene in my mind more times than I care to count. I guess I’m trying to reconstruct events in order to try to understand how someone is capable of such a crime. What was he thinking? How can you so dehumanize someone? Did he stalk her? What caused him to choose her as the victim? How could this have been prevented? Was there something there that heralded a subsequent murder? Even though we know who her killer is now, there were still so many unanswered questions then. I don’t know if those questions will ever be answered. Until then, I’ll continue to replay that tape in my mind—frame by frame.

  Autopsy confirmed that she died from asphyxiation due to strangulation. Evidence showed that she had also been raped. DNA later linked her to Derrick Todd Lee. He’s been confronted with immutable evidence, linked by DNA to seven female murders, and already convicted of two of those murders. Yet ruthless, uncaring, unremorseful sociopath that he is, he refuses to fess up to his other actions and give those surviving family members any relief or closure. Like Stan says, “What do you expect, Lou? He’s a sociopath.”

  GERALYN

  It happened on January 14, 2002, in Addis, Louisiana. That’s in West Baton Rouge Parish, so it was out of my jurisdiction and not my case. I wish it had been. Things might have been different. Geralyn DeSoto, an attractive twenty-one-year-old white female, was beaten and stabbed to death in her home. Her throat was slashed. She was a graduate student who had registered at LSU on the day of her murder. Her cell phone was missing. Her murder was not tied to Gina Green’s. I can’t be sure what was initially done or not done at autopsy. It was not my case. I did, however, talk to a family member later who insisted that Geralyn was the victim of the Baton Rouge Serial Killer and that none of the various law-enforcement officials she spoke to gave her a serious hearing. Some questions arose about the handling of evidence and about whether a rape kit had been used, but nothing came of it. There is also a gaping question about the rape kit. Was one even done? Again, Geralyn’s death did not come under the jurisdiction of my office and subsequently we had no involvement in that autopsy.

  Months later, her fingernails, samples of which were taken during autopsy, would prove her family right. The killer’s DNA was found there. He had not gotten away unscathed, and the details of her final moments of life would be reconstructed and presented in graphic detail during trial.

  MISSING

  The rains in Louisiana can get pretty heavy at times. They can wreck homes, ruin crops in the fields, flood roads, and occasionally help find a body.

  One of the greatest unsolved mysteries in my career brought me to a levee of the Mississippi River on a rainy Father’s Day in 2002. Earlier that Sunday, two retired gentlemen from the area had their hearts set on fishing in a bar pit behind the levee that keeps the Mississippi from flooding East Baton Rouge Parish and all points north and south.

  A bar pit is created by the dirt taken from the river side to build the levee. The pit fills with water and is restocked with fish every time the river rises out of its natural banks. The original term, “borrow pit,” over time became “bar pit.” But today, due to rainy weather that made “gumbo mud,” the two fishermen predicted the bar pit would not yield the best catch.

  As I understand it, they looked around and spied a pond on the far side of the levee. Even better, they saw the remnants of an old dirt road that would allow them to drive up to the pond. This road was essentially two ruts that ran by the side of Ebenezer Baptist Church, and they followed the two ruts until they reached their destination.

  They set up on the litter-strewn banks of the pond, fished for a while, then concluded this was just not a good Sunday to be fishing. A joint decision was made to abandon fishing and seek other endeavors. So they loaded up the buckets and poles and the ice chest and set out to retrace their way back to River Road. The rough road required them to move very slowly, almost at a crawl. One of the luckless fishermen was practically hanging out of the window when he spotted something strange in the road. When he got out and kicked it out of the way, he suddenly realized it was a human skull.

  I was with my wife, DeAnn, at home when I got the call that a skull had been found on River Road. As we drove south along the curvy blacktopped road, DeAnn and I talked about the case. As a psychiatric nurse and a registered medicolegal death investigator, she has the training and experience to investigate deaths and collect evidence for a coroner or medical examiner. Her unique combination of skills has afforded us valuable insight into many homicides, particularly those involving women.

  When we pulled up to the picturesque little wooden church, the rain continued, and any resemblance to a Norman Rockwell scene was abruptly dashed by the detectives from the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office who greeted us. We knew each other from previous homicides and enjoyed a good working relationship—not always the case between agencies. Their crime-scene officer was a seasoned veteran in death investigation. De and I were motioned over to a canvas shelter that had been erected over the skull. The skull was about twenty feet or so from the edge of River Road—the crime-scene officer of course had taken more exact measurements.

  Initially I examined the skull in place. Once I was assured that all the necessary photos had been taken, I picked it up for a closer look. At fifty-four years of age, I’d already taken part in innumerable a
utopsies and handled innumerable specimens, but the eerie sensation of holding the skull of a human evades description.

  It was as though this person was looking back at me through those hollowed eye sockets and trying to tell me what happened. My job is to respectfully examine and analyze every possible facet of information available. It is here that my duties as victim’s advocate, conservator of the peace, and physician all merge. It is here that I must call upon all my expertise and resources to “listen” to what the victim has to tell me. It’s a heavy responsibility, and this ain’t no TV moment. This is for real. I continued my examination.

  There was still some tissue inside the cranium. Several teeth were missing, as was the mandible, or lower jawbone. The bone structure was comparatively delicate and the size of the skull was such that I surmised these were the remains of a female. There were enough teeth in place for dental comparison and we could surely make a DNA match if we had some DNA to compare it to.

  I instructed one of my investigators to move out and search for other bones. DeAnn and I did the same. A light rain was still falling, and the world seemed to have become a hazy gray—a very depressing gray. It is amazing what people do not see when they are not looking for anything in particular. Scattered about the churchyard were the skeletonized remains of a young female. Scattered skeletal remains that showed evidence of extensive animal activity. We soon learned that a stray dog had taken up residence there in the past several weeks.

  Most of the ends of the long bones were chewed off. The dog had been bringing this woman’s bones from her murder site up into the yard and eating them! Members of the church had been parking in the grass yard on top of them. They had done so as recently as this morning. No one ever noticed. It is times like this that make me think the whole world is insane, or blind, or both. The preacher later told detectives that he had actually thrown some bones he found in the yard into a nearby ditch.