DTL: The Baton Rouge Serial Killer · Envision Podcast Studios

Episode 4: Without a Trace

·26 min·2 clips

Bloody drag marks led from the bedroom, through the house, and outside to a carport where a large puddle of blood was found.

1994 was quiet in Zachary. The host sets that quiet next to Derek Todd Lee’s time behind bars for burglary, then lands on July 6th of 1995, when he got out after serving only half of his four-year sentence. The quiet did not hold. The episode follows Lee’s release and family move to Lake Charles, then widens into disappearances, murders, and fear across South Louisiana. Then a poster disappeared. Police printed another one, watched that disappear too, and kept replacing it until five separate posters were gone. Why would someone do that? The host lets the question sit, because the person with the clearest reason to erase a crime notice would be the killer. No answer ever came. Eugenie Bois Fontaine’s murder is still unsolved, but the host keeps her in the series because the injuries and disposal feel horribly familiar. The episode asks listeners to weigh that fit. From there, it moves through Lee’s work trouble, his bad driving, and a demotion after he nearly crushed a co-worker’s vehicle. Michelle Chapman remembered his face. When police gave her a lineup in March, she pointed to Derek Todd Lee without hesitation and named him as her attacker. Investigators felt the case was leaning the right way. David McDavid and others believed they had been right to suspect him, but belief still was not proof. Then 9-1-1 calls started pouring in. Women in the Oak Shadow subdivision reported a man peeping into their homes, and the host makes clear how hard those cases were before home cameras and phones were everywhere. Footprints showed up in the mud. The episode closes inside Colette’s home, where a man pushes past her, says his name is Derek, then keeps circling and knocking from outside. Later, a young boy named Justin chases a man away from the home to protect his mother.

As heard by us

A slow Louisiana manhunt built from peeping reports, survivor IDs, and police suspicion.

Episode 4 follows Derek Todd Lee after his release on July 6, 1995 and move to Lake Charles, where peeping complaints, survivor identification, and police suspicion start to build into a case that is hard to look away from.

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Why you'd press play

You want a Baton Rouge serial-killer story that stays in Louisiana heat, local streets, and the fear it leaves behind.

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