5 chilling details about Charlotte Murray Pace's murder

One of the most discussed Baton Rouge killings was that of Charlotte Murray Pace, a 22-year-old LSU graduate who was stabbed over 80 times inside her home by now-deceased serial killer Derrick Todd Lee in May 2002. Pace's case led to the ultimate conviction when Lee was given the death penalty. He later died in 2016 while on death row.

Charlotte Murray Pace's killing will be the focus of A&E's upcoming two-night event Butchers of the Bayou, which premieres this Thursday, March 16, at 9.00 pm ET. Its synopsis reads as:

Disclaimer: This article contains graphic details of r*pe and murder, kindly read at your discretion.

Charlotte Murray Pace's murder: Five quick facts to know about the LSU graduate murdered by Baton Rouge serial killer Derrick Todd Lee

1) Pace had recently moved homes at the time of the incident

Charlotte Murray Pace had just moved into a townhouse on Sharlo Avenue she shared with a roommate. On May 31, 2002, she reportedly returned home sometime around noon for lunch when she was murdered inside her home. The LSU graduate's roommate, who also returned home after a few hours, found her body at about 2:15 in the afternoon.

2) Charlotte Murray Pace had been r*ped and and later died of multiple stab wounds

Reports stated that 22-year-old Pace was stabbed over 80 times. An autopsy revealed that the LSU graduate was r*ped before a flathead screwdriver was used to puncture the victim's body. Authorities further revealed that the looks of the crime scene suggested that a struggle took place between Pace and her attacker, which was confirmed by the defensive wounds on her body.

3) DNA evidence was able to link Pace's murder to an incident from the previous year

DNA taken from Charlotte Murray Pace's crime scene was later used to establish a link between her stabbing death and the murder of a registered nurse named Gina Wilson Green who was murdered the year before in September 2001.

In the weeks after the discovery of the DNA match, detectives concentrated on the similarities they discovered between Pace's murder and Green's unsolved slaying and concluded that although the victims didn't know each other, they once lived in the same Stanford Avenue neighborhood before Pace moved homes. Moreover, in both cases, there were no signs of forced entry which suggested that the victims knew the killer.

4) Crucial evidence surfaced in Charlotte Murray Pace's case

By 2003, Derrick Todd Lee was arrested in connection with multiple Baton Rouge killings, including that of Pace, after one of his survivors, namely Dianne Alexander, was able to assist authorities in making an arrest. His DNA was linked to multiple killings that occurred in and around the area between the 90s and the early 2000s .

Prosecutors knew that the evidence found in connection to Pace's case was solid and would lead to a conviction. Among the evidence was security footage showing the 22-year-old visiting a neighboring carwash just before she was killed. Then there were multiple eyewitnesses who placed Lee in the victim's neighborhood hours before the attack. The evidence also included a bloody shoe print found inside Pace's condo that matched Lee's shoe size and design.

5) Derrick Todd Lee was sentenced to death in Charlotte Murray Pace's killing

Although Derrick Todd Lee was already found guilty in a separate killing at the time of Pace's conviction, prosecutors pushed her case, which led to another conviction in October 2004. He was sentenced to death via lethal injection this time. Lee was serving time on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola in January 2016 when he died of natural heart-related causes after being taken to a hospital.

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