S1: E24 – The South Louisiana Serial Killer, Part 1

Summary

American Homicide: S1E24 – The South Louisiana Serial Killer, Part 1

Release Date: April 3, 2025

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Introduction

In the gripping episode titled "The South Louisiana Serial Killer, Part 1" from the first season of American Homicide, host Sloane Glass delves into a series of chilling murders that shook the Baton Rouge community. Through meticulous storytelling and insightful interviews, the episode unravels the mysterious case of a serial killer who operated with unnerving precision, leaving law enforcement baffled and the public terrified.

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Overview of the South Louisiana Serial Killer Case

The episode centers around a serial killer who targeted women in their homes across South Louisiana, particularly near the sprawling campuses of Southern University, A&M College, and Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge. Over a span of more than a year, at least four women were brutally murdered, each meeting the same horrific fate: strangulation and sexual assault without any signs of forced entry.

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Details of the Victims

1. Gina Greene

Gina Greene, a 40-year-old nurse living alone, was the first victim to spark fear in the community. Discovered in her bed by a concerned colleague, Gina showed no signs of forced entry, making her murder all the more perplexing.

David McDavid (Prosecutor Dana Cummings): "Gina Green... There wasn't, like, a jilted ex-boyfriend that they suspected or anybody that had a reason to kill Gina Green. She was well loved and respected, and there was just no reason to think that somebody had it out for her."
[04:32]

An unusual clue surfaced when investigators found a bloodstain on Gina's shirt that did not match her DNA. However, due to the limited DNA database at the time, no match was found, leaving the case unsolved and the community on edge.

2. Murray Pace

Just a month after Gina's murder, Murray Pace, a 22-year-old graduate student at LSU, was found brutally attacked in her new apartment. Like Gina, Murray showed no signs of forced entry, and the manner of her death mirrored Gina’s—strangulation and sexual assault.

David McDavid: "She had been just beaten to death."
[07:31]

A crucial lead emerged when a mysterious man had knocked on Murray's door a day before her murder, claiming to be looking for someone else. Despite her unease, Murray did not report the incident to the police, leaving investigators with another perplexing clue.

3. Pam Kennemore

Three days after the police announced that DNA linked the first two murders, Pam Kennemore, a 44-year-old woman from just outside Baton Rouge, vanished from her home. Her car was found in the driveway, and her possessions were left behind, including her keys dangling from the door lock.

David McDavid: "There was a rug. And this rug had a blood spot on it. Well, several blood spots on it... I got him, I got him. He's there, he's there."
[13:47]

Pam’s body was later discovered at Whiskey Bay, an area notorious for frequent murders. The evidence suggested she was strangled and sexually assaulted, consistent with the modus operandi of the suspected serial killer.

4. Danae Colomb

Danae Colomb, a 23-year-old army reserve member, became the fourth victim, raising alarm as she was the first known case involving a Black woman, breaking the previous pattern of victimization.

David McDavid: "Pam Kennemore was kidnapped from her home. She was beaten and she was raped. And again, no signs of forced entry."
[15:43]

Danae’s disappearance was linked to her last known activity at her mother's grave, adding another layer of complexity to the case.

5. Carolyn Yoder

The fifth victim, Carolyn Yoder, a 23-year-old graduate student at LSU, was found in the same eerily quiet area near Whiskey Bay. Her murder mirrored the previous cases, renewing public fear and frustration.

Dana Cummings: "She was found in the same Whiskey Bay area where Pam Kennemore's body was found. And similar set of circumstances."
[29:26]

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Investigation Efforts

Initial Clues and DNA Evidence

The police had one significant lead: DNA evidence from the bloodstains found at each crime scene pointed to the same individual. However, the limited DNA databases of the early 2000s meant that matching the DNA to a suspect was challenging.

Melinda Dellott: "With no suspects, the police made no arrests, which rattled LSU students and their parents."
[06:02]

Eyewitness Testimony and Its Limitations

A pivotal moment in the investigation came from an eyewitness account. A truck driver reported seeing a nude woman slumped against a white truck near Whiskey Bay around the time Pam Kennemore disappeared. Initially, the description was vague, leading to the broad suspicion of any white man driving a white truck.

Dana Cummings: "Somebody who was driving saw a woman slumped against the door of a white truck."
[19:30]

Hypnosis and Reconstruction of Suspect's Profile

In a controversial move, law enforcement decided to use hypnosis to help the witness recall more details. This method, though debated in its reliability, provided additional information about the truck and the suspect's appearance.

Melinda Dellott: "They hypnotized the witness. It might sound insane, a lot of people felt that way, but it got them somewhere."
[25:56]

The refined profile described the suspect as a white male between 25 and 35 years old, physically strong but awkward around women, and possibly facing financial issues. Despite this detailed profile, it did little to narrow down the vast pool of potential suspects.

DNA Dragnet and Challenges

The police initiated a DNA dragnet, swabbing thousands of men’s DNA samples in an attempt to find a match. This process was time-consuming and often led to false accusations and heightened paranoia in the community.

Dana Cummings: "They did a DNA dragnet at the time, and they swabbed all these men. I think it was nearly 1,000."
[21:22]

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Public Response

Fear and Community Impact

The murders created an atmosphere of fear and suspicion, especially around the LSU campus. The community was on high alert, with parents anxious about their children’s safety and students wary of their surroundings.

Dana Cummings: "Everybody had theories about who it could be. But clearly the thought that somebody might just be wearing a uniform... became one of the theories that stuck for a while."
[15:57]

Misidentification of Suspects

The emphasis on the suspect being a white man in a white truck led to widespread misidentification and stigmatization. Many innocent individuals faced unwarranted suspicion, leading some to alter their appearance to distance themselves from the profiles described.

Dana Cummings: "People were nervous about white men in white trucks. The only way for these guys to prove they didn't do it was to offer up a sample of their DNA."
[21:22]

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Unique Investigation by Zachary Police Department

A breakthrough occurred when detectives from the small town of Zachary, Louisiana, recognized similarities between the Baton Rouge cases and their own unsolved murders. Detective David McDavid and his team presented their findings to the larger task force, suggesting a possible connection that had been overlooked.

Detective David McDavid: "We told them what we had. I said, look, I'm telling you something. If he knows he's about to be caught, he's probably going to kill again. I need to find him."
[32:05]

Despite initial skepticism from the Baton Rouge task force, the detectives from Zachary persisted, ultimately contributing crucial pieces that would lead to solving the case—a story that unfolds in the episode's conclusion.

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Conclusion and Cliffhanger for Part 2

As the investigation progressed with mounting pressure and escalating violence, American Homicide sets the stage for the next installment by revealing that a small-town police department held the key to apprehending the elusive killer. The episode concludes with a promise to uncover how Detective McDavid and his team cracked the case in the following episode, leaving listeners eager for the resolution.

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Notable Quotes

• Gilbert King (Son of Jeremy Lynn Scott):
  "Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil."
  [00:09]

• Annal Pace (Mother of Murray Pace):
  "If she endured it, I need to know what happened to her. I need to know exactly what happened to her."
  [10:04]

• Detective David McDavid:
  "She was, like, uncomfortable. But it didn't disturb her to the level that she was just really calling the police or anything."
  [09:18]

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Closing Thoughts

This episode of American Homicide meticulously charts the fear and frustration surrounding the South Louisiana Serial Killer case, highlighting the complexities of investigating a methodical murderer operating within a tight-knit community. With expert interviews and detailed narrative, Sloane Glass provides an engrossing account that underscores the relentless pursuit of justice in the face of uncertainty.

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For more insights and the conclusion of this riveting case, stay tuned to the next episode of American Homicide.

Transcript

[Sloan Glass]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley season one.

[Gilbert King]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Sloan Glass]

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known.

[Gilbert King]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Sloan Glass]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2, starting April 9th on the iHeartRadio app app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Melinda Dellott]

Imagine this. You're a college student and you're walking to campus. That's when you come across a sign stapled to a tree. And that sign contains a warning.

[Dana Cummings]

The sign said, killer on the loose. Please be careful. Love, Mom.

[Melinda Dellott]

You keep walking and see a second sign with the same message, then a third and a fourth. By the time you reach campus, you've lost count.

[Dana Cummings]

Parents were warning their kids to be careful because there was a serial killer who was focused on women.

[Melinda Dellott]

What a way to communicate in a time before you could send a text. Parents were so desperate to reach their kids, anything to warn them of the South Louisiana serial killer. These women were all attacked in their homes. And the most baffling part, there was.

[Dana Cummings]

No forced entry into any of the houses.

[Ann Pace]

You got a serial killer talking his.

[Melinda Dellott]

Way into women's houses.

[Ann Pace]

How's he doing this?

[Melinda Dellott]

That's when the terror began. Today we're in Baton Rouge for part one of the Serial Killer of South Louisiana. I'm Sloan Glass, and this is American Homicide. A note that this episode contains some graphic content. Please take care while listening. On the shores of the mighty Mississippi, in downtown Baton Rouge sits the campuses of Southern University, A and M College and Louisiana State University. During the school year, 40,000 students pour into this area, with the majority of those on the LSU campus.

[Dana Cummings]

It's a fairly large campus, so it can take you a good half an hour to 40 minutes to get from one end of campus to the other.

[Melinda Dellott]

Journalist Melinda Dellott is an LSU grad who worked for the Associ Press.

[Dana Cummings]

It's a very green campus, buildings from different eras, but it's a very lush campus, like the big towering oak trees, Spanish moss hanging off of them.

[Melinda Dellott]

Over 1200 oak trees line the LSU campus, giving some much needed relief from the heat and humidity Baton Rouge is known for.

[Dana Cummings]

And then around the outside of the campus, there are a whole set of different lakes. There's a very large lake called University Lake, and then there are smaller lakes that are sort of attached to.

[Melinda Dellott]

And during weekends in the fall, the LSU campus transforms into something completely different.

[Dana Cummings]

I think what people think of is, you know, the tailgating scene on campus for SEC football games. That's obviously huge here. So it's a fun campus to be at.

[Melinda Dellott]

Baton Rouge is the home to the LSU Tigers. Tailgating on Saturdays is a rite of passage for students.

[Dana Cummings]

You know, campus is filled with thousands upon thousands of people cooking, drinking, dancing, playing games, whatever they want to do before LSU plays.

[Melinda Dellott]

The action then moves inside Tiger Stadium, which resembles the Roman Coliseum.

[Dana Cummings]

It's bigger than the Superdome for New Orleans Saints games. So our professional team in the state has a smaller place to play than the college football team.

[Melinda Dellott]

Back in 2001, the LSU Tigers won their first two games. It was looking like it was going to be a good year. But then came the September 11 attacks. The campus, like the rest of the nation, was shaken. And then a few days later, Gina.

[Dana Cummings]

Greene was found murdered in her home. And she lived on a street that went right next to LSU's campus.

[Melinda Dellott]

Gina Greene was 40 years old and lived alone.

[Dana Cummings]

She was raped. She was strangled. And I don't think people expected to hear that there would be a murder right off campus in an area that people walk and bike and jog around every day.

[Melinda Dellott]

Here's prosecutor Dana Cummings.

[David McDavid]

Gina Green, she was a nurse, a supervising nurse, and she just didn't show up for work one day, and one of her colleagues went out to check, and he found her deceased in her bed. There wasn't, like, a jilted ex boyfriend that they suspected or anybody that had a reason to kill Gina Green. She was well loved and respected, and there was just no reason to think that somebody had it out for her.

[Melinda Dellott]

We always look at the significant other. First, Gina was divorced, but had a good relationship with her ex husband. And then there was the strange part. There were no signs of forced entry at Gina's home. Making it even stranger, her ex husband did tell a local TV station that a week before Gina was murdered, she had this weird feeling that she was being watched.

[David McDavid]

So that was a little. That was a little scary.

[Melinda Dellott]

Although the killer managed to get in and out of Gina's home unnoticed, he left behind one important clue.

[David McDavid]

There was a shirt that she had been wearing when she was attacked and found a blood spot.

[Melinda Dellott]

The bloodstain was not Gina's. So whose blood was it? The police ran it through their DNA database.

[David McDavid]

Back then, there weren't so many people in a database that you could just run it and get a good match. And so they ran it. They tried to find who it belonged to, but they didn't have that.

[Melinda Dellott]

With no suspects, the police made no arrests, which rattled LSU students and their parents.

[David McDavid]

You know, it was very close to campus, you know, and every mother and father that sends their child to LSU thinks that they will be safe. And people in Baton Rouge were terrified.

[Melinda Dellott]

One of those mothers was Ann Pace. Her daughter Murray was a graduate student at lsu, and Murray was a trailblazer. She skipped half of high school and jumped right into college.

[Ann Pace]

My daughter lived three houses down from Gina Green, and when she died, Murray, she was very concerned. She was frightened because they lived so close to each other. She left high school when she was 16 and went to college. And by the time she was 22, she had a BS and an MBA. She was very smart, very focused, and very determined. But all her life, I always thought her superpower was the ability she had to make friends, and they loved her back.

[Melinda Dellott]

In the spring of 2002, Murray graduated and planned to stay on campus through the summer. So she moved into a new apartment a few miles away from her old place. Then, two days after she moved in.

[David McDavid]

Murray Pace was found by her roommate, just horribly attacked, stabbed 81 times. Her throat was slit. She was nude.

[Melinda Dellott]

That's prosecutor Dana Cummings.

[David McDavid]

She had been just beaten to death.

[Melinda Dellott]

This is really hard to hear, so if you're squeamish, I would fast forward for the next 15 seconds. Someone used a knife and screwdriver to stab Murray 81 times in her chest, stomach, ears, even her eyes. The trauma she took was so bad, you could see her spinal cord.

[David McDavid]

Now. She fought hard. She fought really, really hard.

[Melinda Dellott]

Murray had defensive wounds on her arms, hands, and wrists. They also found DNA evidence that Murray had been sexually assaulted. And this didn't happen under the COVID of night. The sun was still out. It was early afternoon.

[David McDavid]

And it's just kind of an eerie thing because there was a plate of grapes and a sandwich that was half eaten that was just sitting on the arm of her chair.

[Melinda Dellott]

Murray had been waiting for her roommate to come home that afternoon so they could drive to a friend's wedding. And that's when she was attacked.

[David McDavid]

Apparently, he got in and out without being seen. So she was attacked in her apartment when he knew she was alone.

[Melinda Dellott]

And once again, just like with Gina Green's murder, the police found no signs of forced entry at Murray's apartment. So how did the killer get inside? The police didn't know, but they had a clue. One of Murray's friends told the police that the previous day, she was talking with Murray on the phone. That's when a mysterious man knocked on Murray's door. He said he was looking for someone who lived at her address. Murray said she didn't know that person and quickly shut the door. But Murray told her friend, she got a real creepy feeling from this guy.

[David McDavid]

She was, like, uncomfortable. But it didn't disturb her to the level that she was just really calling the police or anything.

[Melinda Dellott]

So was that man scoping out Murray and her apartment, and did he return the next day? The police didn't know for sure, but now there were two reports of women being sexually assaulted and murdered in their homes with no signs of forced entry.

[David McDavid]

Baton Rouge was scared. I mean, the people in Baton Rouge were scared.

[Melinda Dellott]

Baton Rouge was scared. But I can't stop thinking about Murray's mother, Ann.

[Murray Pace]

Imagine finishing high school so young and college. And she'd had a job with a big six accounting firm in Atlanta. And then it was all gone.

[Melinda Dellott]

Without knowing why, Murray's mother went in search of how.

[Ann Pace]

I went and saw all the crime scene and autopsy pictures because I thought.

[Murray Pace]

If she endured it, I need to know what happened to her. I need to know exactly what happened to her. And then you wonder, when did she know during that fight, when did she know she wouldn't. She was dying? When did she know that nobody was going to come and save her? And you feel like that's your job as her mother only couldn't do it. They couldn't protect her from that either.

[Sloan Glass]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley season one.

[Jeremy Scott]

I just knew him as a kid.

[Sloan Glass]

Long, silent voices from his past came.

[Dana Cummings]

Forward, and he was just staring at me.

[Sloan Glass]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Gilbert King]

Gilbert King. I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Sloan Glass]

I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.

[Gilbert King]

Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Sloan Glass]

I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.

[Gilbert King]

If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Sloan Glass]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Gilbert King]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Sloan Glass]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy.

[Gilbert King]

Jeremy, I want to tell you something.

[Sloan Glass]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2, starting April 9 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the entire New season ad free with exclusive content starting April 9th. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Melinda Dellott]

Gina Green was beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death inside her home. Then Gina's former neighbor Murray Pace was killed in a similar manner. And both incidents happened near the LSU campus. Little was known about who was behind these murders. However, law enforcement did have one major lead. They revealed that DNA found at both murder scenes belonged to the same person.

[Jeremy Scott]

I think everybody needs to be aware that we've got a situation now that involves two women linked to an individual.

[Melinda Dellott]

That was the Baton Rouge police chief. And just three days after he said that, a woman vanished from her home. Here's prosecutor Dana Cummings.

[David McDavid]

Pam Kennemore disappeared. Her family came home and she was just gone.

[Melinda Dellott]

Pam and her family lived right outside Baton Rouge. And one Friday night, the 44 year old returned home from work. But her husband only found Pam's car in the driveway and Pam's purse and wallet inside the house. And most eerie, her keys were found dangling from the lock of her back door.

[David McDavid]

Based on the evidence at her house, you could see she was all set up to take that relaxing bath that everybody wants to take. And then she just disappeared.

[Melinda Dellott]

The water was probably still warm when the murderer came into her home. And investigators noticed something else.

[David McDavid]

There was this rug. And this rug had a blood spot on it. Well, several blood spots on it. We had a DNA analyst that was like eight and a half months pregnant. She was working this case. So she crawled around on that rug and checked every spot that she could. Most of them were Pam Kennemore's blood, but she found one that wasn't. And she lifted that spot. And she actually called me and said, I got him, I got him. He's there, he's there.

[Melinda Dellott]

Meaning the DNA on that bath rug matched the DNA found on the other victims. In other words, the same person was linked to all three murders.

[David McDavid]

It was like, oh, my gosh, here's another one.

[Melinda Dellott]

A few days later, they found PAM Kennemore Some 30 miles outside Baton Rouge. Journalist Melinda Delot covered the story.

[Dana Cummings]

Her body was dumped off the interstate in a place called Whiskey Bay. Whiskey Bay is an exit that when you take it, it kind of feels like you're just driving into the swamp. You're like, where am I going? Because there's nothing else you would find. There's no rest stop or something there, just dirt and gravel road.

[Melinda Dellott]

Whiskey Bay is a popular spot for fishing, but once the sun sets, the area turns pitch black. Over the years, it's a place where numerous bodies have turned up. Pam Kinamore's body was found with long cut marks on. On her neck. She'd been strangled and sexually assaulted. There was also a piece of a landline telephone cord sitting a few hundred feet from Pam's body. Was she strangled with that cord? The police didn't know. This was the third woman in the area that was killed. Fears of a serial killer began to spread. And he was not predictable. His behavior, behavior was escalating.

[Dana Cummings]

Pam Kennamore was kidnapped from her home. She was beaten and she was raped. And again, no signs of forced entry.

[Melinda Dellott]

And that was the one common thread that made all of Baton Rouge uneasy.

[Dana Cummings]

If nobody has a sign of forced entry, was this just somebody who could talk his way in and seemed non threatening? So who seems non threatening? Maybe it was somebody who's in a uniform. Like, Is it the FedEx driver? Is it a delivery guy who's got a florist delivery outfit on? And so that also then translated to, could it be a police officer?

[Melinda Dellott]

Think about it. Someone was getting in and out of the homes of these women without being caught. Was that person a cop?

[Dana Cummings]

Everybody had theories about who it could be. But clearly the thought that somebody might just be wearing a uniform, whether it's a police uniform or some other kind of uniform, became one of the theories that stuck for a while because it seemed to make some sense to people who were trying to make sense out of a situation that was nonsensical in a lot of ways.

[Melinda Dellott]

It didn't help that the police didn't say much about their investigation or even worse, the man they dubbed the South Louisiana serial killer.

[Dana Cummings]

If you're living in a place that's very terrified because three women have been murdered and all linked through DNA, hearing the police say, we have an ongoing investigation, so we can't answer that question isn't necessarily going to comfort people who live there.

[Melinda Dellott]

The families got vocal and held rallies and press conferences of their own. With the help of the media, they tried to find any connection between the victims.

[Dana Cummings]

These overlaps that we found, they're thin. They're very thin. The only thing that seemed to be a common thread that was nerve wracking to everybody is there was no forced entry into any of the houses until. So what did that mean exactly?

[Melinda Dellott]

By that time, another school year was beginning. And that's when those homemade signs started popping up around the LSU campus.

[Dana Cummings]

The sign said, killer on the loose. Please be careful. Love, Mom.

[Melinda Dellott]

Computer printed in all caps. The laminated signs took root throughout the LSU campus.

[Dana Cummings]

They were tacked to the trees along one of the lakes that most students use for exercise. And it got a lot of media attention because there was a serial killer.

[Melinda Dellott]

In the summer of 2002, as the students filled up the many dorms and apartments near the LSU campus, the general feeling was fear.

[Dana Cummings]

It was clearly a tense time, and I think the police were genuinely frustrated that they couldn't catch the person.

[Melinda Dellott]

DNA linked the killer to three, three known victims. But at the time, Baton Rouge had a backlog of more than 30 unsolved murders of women. And some of these cases dated back a decade. So the fear that this killer could strike again was coupled with the belief that there may have been a lot more victims than they knew about. During the summer of 2002, law enforcement joined forces with several other agencies to create a task force.

[Dana Cummings]

I think it was more than three dozen different people involved, but it was a lot of different law enforcement agencies. And they got the FBI involved to do some sort of analysis of who could commit these kinds of murders.

[Melinda Dellott]

This task force held daily press conferences and revealed their first huge lead. On the night that Pam Kennemore disappeared, a truck driver was driving on the interstate near the Whiskey Bay exit. And that's where he saw something almost unbelievable.

[Dana Cummings]

Somebody who was driving saw a woman slumped against the door of a white truck.

[Melinda Dellott]

The eyewitness said the woman appeared to be nude and dead.

[Dana Cummings]

And then that truck took the exit at Whiskey Bay. And it happened to be the same time period when Pam disappeared.

[Melinda Dellott]

Here's audio from the sheriff's office in East Baton Rouge Parish.

[Jeremy Scott]

The fact that it was a female who was nude, the timing. Several hours after the abduction of Pam Kennamore exiting at the place where we found her body, we feel it's a very great likelihood that that was, in fact the truck containing Ms. Kinnimal.

[Melinda Dellott]

So the eyewitness saw a white guy driving a white truck that night.

[Dana Cummings]

And quite frankly, you know, that profile is the most generic profile you could have. So I think anybody who was white and drove a white pickup truck got scrutiny.

[Melinda Dellott]

There were 27,000 white trucks in Baton Rouge, and all of the drivers got side eyed. Some of them even took spray paint and wrote on the side of their trucks, I'm not the serial killer.

[Dana Cummings]

They were stereotyped. We had stories of people who sold their trucks because they didn't want to be connected to this. People were nervous about white men in white trucks.

[Melinda Dellott]

And the only way for these guys to prove they didn't do it was to offer up a sample of Their DNA.

[Dana Cummings]

They did a DNA dragnet at the time, and they swabbed all these men. I think it was nearly 1000. At the end of the day, it may have even been more than that. Some of them voluntarily getting swabbed, others, you know, sort of encouraged to do so just to prove that they weren't a serial killer.

[Melinda Dellott]

All of this took time and a lot of patience. Here's prosecutor Dana Cummings.

[David McDavid]

I mean, I remember going out to eat and, you know, sitting by the window when a white truck drives up, and you're immediately thinking, who's that guy in that white truck? Which is ridiculous because we got a billion of them in Baton Rouge. But, you know, that's all you've got to go on. Then that's what you go on.

[Melinda Dellott]

That little bit of information only amped up the uneasiness.

[David McDavid]

There were so many suspects, and it went on for so long. It's just like this. This monster that you can't understand. And he seemed to prey on people that he obviously had to stalk to some degree because they. They were alone. I guess from a criminal's perspective, it's high risk. You know, you're going into a house to take someone. And he seemed to be getting more comfortable as well.

[Melinda Dellott]

The public was desperate for answers. So were the police. And that may have fueled their decision to do something unusual and controversial.

[Sloan Glass]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley season one.

[Jeremy Scott]

I just knew him as a kid.

[Sloan Glass]

Long, silent voices from his past came.

[Dana Cummings]

Forward, and he was just staring at me.

[Sloan Glass]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Gilbert King]

Gilbert King. I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Sloan Glass]

I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.

[Gilbert King]

Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Sloan Glass]

I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.

[Gilbert King]

If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Sloan Glass]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Gilbert King]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Sloan Glass]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy.

[Jeremy Scott]

Jeremy, I want to tell you something.

[Sloan Glass]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 starting April 9 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the entire new season ad free with exclusive content starting April 9th. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Melinda Dellott]

In the summer of 2002, the Baton Rouge Police department created a task force to hunt the South Louisiana serial killer. Some 40 investigators from local, state, and federal agencies made up this task force. And even with all that manpower, it wasn't easy. While they had the killer's DNA, they didn't know who the DNA belonged to. And their only eyewitness was a truck driver who saw a white guy driving a white truck with what was believed to be the dead body of Pankinomore in the passenger seat. The witness said he was reluctant to even come forward. It was the middle of the night, and he wasn't even sure if what he saw was real. By the time he did a double take, the truck had pulled off at the Whiskey Bay exit. Here's journalist Melinda Dalot.

[Dana Cummings]

The person who provided this information initially just remembered a white guy who drove a white pickup truck. Truck.

[Melinda Dellott]

That's when the police did something a bit unconventional. They hypnotized the witness with the hope that he'd remember more from that night. And guess what? It worked. The witness remembered that the truck had a Louisiana license plate. The back window was tinted. And there was more.

[Dana Cummings]

It was revealed that the paint on.

[Melinda Dellott]

The truck was aging, and the driver was a white man with a thin to medium build.

[Dana Cummings]

A lot of this other information about what the witness alleged to have seen came out in some sort of hypnosis.

[Melinda Dellott]

Yes, they hypnotized the witness. It might sound insane. A lot of people felt that way, but it got them somewhere. And while hypnosis is not always admissible in court, they already had DNA. They just needed a connection.

[Dana Cummings]

I believe this is the only case I have ever been involved in covering where I recall hypnosis being used as a tool.

[Melinda Dellott]

But for a police department desperate for answers, it was a Hail Mary. And it paid off because the eyewitness remembered more details about the person who drove the white truck. And that helped law enforcement put together not only a sketch, but a profile of the suspected serial killer. They said the killer was a white male between the ages of 25 and 35, someone who was physically strong but awkward around women and had money troubles. So now we have this profile, which, frankly, doesn't differentiate this person too much from other profiled killers. Still have DNA evidence and no arrests. And by the end of 2002, the killer would strike a fourth time.

[Dana Cummings]

Her name is Denae Colomb. She was 23. She was beaten. She was raped. Same as the other victims in this case.

[Melinda Dellott]

Danae was on leave from the army and listened to her Last known whereabouts. It's absolutely heartbreaking.

[Dana Cummings]

They found her car, her purse, and her keys near the cemetery where her mom was buried. And her mom had died in the last year. A family member said she was known to go to that cemetery a lot.

[Melinda Dellott]

Danae Colombe had been visiting her mother's grave when she disappeared. Two days later, Danae's body turned up in a wooded area outside Baton Rouge. For investigators, this was noteworthy because Dene was the first known victim who lived well outside Baton Rouge. And there was something else.

[Dana Cummings]

Danae Colomb was black. The other women were white. So there was clearly no racial specificity to the victims.

[Melinda Dellott]

And then came an announcement from law enforcement.

[Dana Cummings]

All of a sudden, the police in Baton Rouge started telling people that they should broaden the way they thought about who might be the murderer and that the profile that the police gave out may not be correct. It went from, oh, you're looking for a white guy in a white truck to, well, maybe that's not who you're looking for after all. And it blew up sort of everybody's perspective about this case.

[Melinda Dellott]

People didn't know what to think, and they started questioning what the police and this task force were putting out there.

[Dana Cummings]

You're already talking about a city that's on edge and people who are nervous and families of victims who are very frustrated. And this was not information that people were ecstatic to hear.

[Melinda Dellott]

In the spring of 2003, that frustration turned to anger because the killer struck again.

[Dana Cummings]

A college student by the name of Carolyn Yoder. She was the fifth murderer that was linked via DNA.

[Melinda Dellott]

The killer had returned to a familiar area, an apartment just off the LSU campus. That's where Carrie Yoder lived while attending grad school. That afternoon, she had returned from the grocery store and then vanished. Like the other victims before her. There was no sign of forced entry at her apartment. Her body turned up a week later.

[Dana Cummings]

She was found in the same Whiskey Bay area where Pam Canimore's body was found. And similar set of circumstances. Beaten, raped, strangled to death. And so I think it just restarts the whole process of people getting newly terrified. The person who did this just seems so angry. There's no rhyme or reason to where the murders are happening. You can be in your 20s or be in your 40s and be at risk.

[Melinda Dellott]

That's when things went from bad to worse. When the task force once again changed their profile of the suspected killer, they.

[Dana Cummings]

Said, you know, it could be a white guy who's more dark, complected, or maybe a man of mixed racial heritage or. Or perhaps a black man. This just made everybody think, well, hell, were they looking for the wrong person the whole time? And have they even been investigating what they needed to be investigating? Have they limited themselves in such a way that they were dismissing information that could have been relevant?

[Melinda Dellott]

So you have a serial killer who was able to easily get in and out of victims homes without being caught. And all the police could say was that the suspect was a man aged 25 to 35 who drove a white Chevy truck. And that profile came from an eyewitness who had to be hypnotized. For over a year and a half, this suspect terrorized south Louisiana and frustrated the local, state and federal agencies. Meanwhile, a small police department 15 miles north of Baton Rouge believed they knew who the killer was.

[Detective from Zachary PD]

I told my partner, I said, you know who it is?

[Melinda Dellott]

That's David McDavid. He was a detective with the Zachary police department. At the time, the Zachary PD had been investigating two unsolved murders in town, along with an attack on a couple. These cases had an eerie similarity to what was happening in Baton Rouge.

[Detective from Zachary PD]

The evidence that we were being shown and told about is the same thing that was happening here at our crime scenes.

[Melinda Dellott]

So the police from Zachary put a presentation together and met with the team investigating the South Louisiana serial killer.

[Detective from Zachary PD]

We told them what we had. I said, look, I'm telling you something. If he knows he's about to be caught, he's probably going to kill again. I need to find him.

[Melinda Dellott]

But the Baton Rouge PD told law enforcement from Zachary they didn't think they were looking for the same guy.

[Detective from Zachary PD]

It bothered me somewhat, but I think a lot of it was, was we didn't work a lot of murders. You don't have maybe one or two murders here every four, maybe five, 10 years.

[Melinda Dellott]

But that didn't stop them. Somehow, someway, it was the small town PD from Zachary, Louisiana who would do what the task force couldn't.

[Detective from Zachary PD]

At the end of the day, you know, we were able to have the piece of the pie that solved the case.

[Melinda Dellott]

In the conclusion of the south Louisiana serial killer, we'll learn who the killer is.

[Dana Cummings]

Everybody was talking about a white man and a white pickup truck. And neither of those two things panned out to be anything.

[Melinda Dellott]

And we'll find out how this small town police department figured it all out. That's next time on American Homicide. You can contact the American homicide team by emailing [e-mail] that's AmericanHomicidePodmail.com American Homicide is hosted and written by me, Sloan Glass and is a production of Glass Podcast, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Ganz. The series is also written and produced by Todd Ganz with additional writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our Associate producer is Kristin Melchuri. Our I Heart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Krynchak. Audio editing, mixing and mastering by Nico Aruca. American Homicide's theme song was composed by Oliver Baines of Noiser Music Library, provided by My Music. Follow American Homicide on Apple Podcasts and please rate and review American Homicide. Your five star review goes a long way towards helping others find this show. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Sloan Glass]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season one.

[Gilbert King]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Sloan Glass]

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and and the son he'd never known.

[Gilbert King]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Sloan Glass]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 starting April 9 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.