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Serial Killing Suspect Guilty of 1 Murder

Posted on: Tuesday, 10 August 2004, 06:00 CDT

PORT ALLEN, La. - A jury took less than two hours Tuesday to find a suspected serial killer guilty of second-degree murder in the 2002 beating and stabbing death of a 21-year-old woman.

Derrick Todd Lee, 35, faces a mandatory life sentence in Geralyn DeSoto's death, and still faces two first-degree murder charges carrying possible death sentences in other cases.

DeSoto was found stabbed and beaten to death and her neck slashed in her home in the town of Addis the day she registered for graduate school at Louisiana State University in January 2002.

When the verdict was read, Lee was on his feet, leaning on a table. He did not react. His family stared straight ahead as the jury of six women and six men was polled, while DeSoto's mother and father broke down and cried.

The defense said there would be an immediate appeal.

The jury took an hour and 40 minutes to reach the verdict, with 11 jurors voting for conviction and one choosing not guilty. Ten guilty votes were required for conviction of second-degree murder.

Outside court, DeSoto's family refused to comment. Relatives of other alleged victims said they were pleased with the verdict, although several expressed concern about the lack of a unanimous verdict.

"I was terrified by it, to be perfectly blunt, because in capital cases ... it has to be 12 of 12 jurors for conviction, and 12 of 12 jurors for the death sentence," said Ann Pace, the mother of another of Lee's alleged victims.

DeSoto's death was linked to Lee after he had been arrested in May 2003 in connection with a string of five slayings that terrorized people for more than a year in an area from Baton Rouge to Lafayette.

Police eventually alleged that DNA evidence linked Lee to the murders of seven women between April 1998 and March 2003.

The defense rested Tuesday after just three hours, never refuting the DNA evidence but seeking to shift the focus to another suspect. Lee's lawyer, Tommy Thompson, presented five witnesses who portrayed the slain woman's husband as an abusive spouse.

A DeSoto neighbor, Sandie Gautreaux, said Darren DeSoto once dragged Geralyn out of their mobile home by her hair. "He was beating her head onto the hood of a car because of cigarette ash," Gautreaux said.

Also called were police detectives who had gathered evidence against Darren DeSoto and acknowledged he had been a suspect.

However, the detectives also said DeSoto was cleared in the case.

"I know what would be the popular verdict in this case. Everybody does. I'm asking you to be brave and courageous Americans," Thompson asked the jury.

Prosecution witnesses included Lee's own son, who identified his father's boots and pocketknife - two pieces of evidence used against Lee.

Formal sentencing will be Monday.

Lee's next trial, for the killing of Charlotte Murray Pace, is scheduled to begin Sept. 13.

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