Amid the sounds of students talking, construction workers working and birds chirping, two people remembered their friend and colleague.
In a semi-secluded area behind the Greek Amphitheater, next to the Enchanted Forest, Lee Stanton, Carrie Yoder’s boyfriend, and Bill Platt, her mentor and professor, spoke about their thoughts surrounding Yoder’s disappearance and safety around campus.
Stanton, an oceanography and coastal sciences doctoral student, last spoke to Yoder, a biological sciences graduate student, March 3. Police found her body in Whiskey Bay March 13 and linked her as the fifth serial killer victim March 18.
Stanton and Platt speculate Yoder’s killer watched her from a warehouse parking lot.
Platt said it would have been hard for anyone to systematically stalk Yoder because she spent 90 percent of her time with Stanton and Platt in the three weeks preceding her disappearance.
      Platt said as he stood on Yoder’s doorstep, he felt an eerie connection to Yoder’s abduction and realized that is the best explanation as to how someone could watch her without her knowledge.
The warehouse parking lot is located across West Parker Avenue from Yoder’s home on Dodson Avenue.
Platt said anyone would have a clear view of her front door and windows from that parking lot.
“This is all our speculation,” Stanton said. “It clicks for us. We can’t come up with anything that is any better.”
He also said people should be aware of the areas surrounding them and where potential attackers could hide.
“I would stand at the front door and look for lines of sight,” Platt said. “If I found somewhere they could watch me, I would block it.”
Platt also said when people leave their homes they should take note of who is around and call someone if anything is suspicious.
Stanton said he was unsure how someone made Yoder open the front door.
“She was a girl to always lock her door,” Stanton said. “She would lock me in my house when we were bringing in groceries, and I would have to unlock the door to bring more groceries in.”
Stanton installed a peephole in Yoder’s door a few weeks before her disappearance.
He said he and Yoder discussed the issue because he would look in the window at the top of her door and wave so she would know it was him.
“It made me feel uncomfortable that someone could do the same thing,” Stanton said.
He believes the person who abducted Yoder was someone who was familiar, or else she would not have opened the door.
Stanton said people need to be careful who they open the door for, even if they are expecting a friend.
“Once the door is open, you have very little time to react,” Stanton said. “Don’t open the door for anyone unfamiliar. For under 10 bucks, you can get a peephole and chain set. It would at least give you enough time to call and dial 911.”
Platt and Stanton said it is more important for people to change their behaviors and be cautious than it is to buy Mace.
“You can have a pistol in your pocket, but if someone jumps on you, it is useless,” Stanton said. “It is reactionary.”
Stanton and Platt said they think it is important to help prevent others from being victims.
“We can’t help Carrie now, but we want to help someone else,”Stanton said.
Platt said life has taught people to think they are safer in Baton Rouge than in other places, but he thinks it should be the other way around.
“In Chicago, women are taught to be watchful,” Platt said. “Here, we are taught we are OK.”
Platt said women should make eye contact with people they pass and acknowledge their presence.
“You only will remember someone if you make eye contact with them,” Platt said. “You need to be observant and notice the people around you. If someone familiar is around you who you don’t really know, you should tell someone.”
Stanton said a woman’s intuition and gut feeling are very strong. If someone has a feeling about something suspicious, he should call the police, he said.
In January, Yoder told a friend she heard voices outside her house but did not say anything because she thought it was nothing, Stanton said. He said it is in those times people should call in and let the police decide it is nothing.
“Tell someone, and they will act on it,” Stanton said. “If it is nothing, it puts your fears to rest.”
Around campus, police are starting to see people taking their advice and calling in suspicious activity.
So far this month, LSUPD has received 34 suspicious person reports. A year ago, they received only six reports, and in February, only nine reports were filed.
LSUPD Capt. Ricky Adams said police are encouraged by the number of reports because it shows people are responding to their message.
“In the past, people would have said they would have called sooner, but it was nothing,” Adams said. “Now, people are letting us be the judge. In our opinion, no call is a stupid call.”
Adams said in the age of cell phones, the police department’s number and 911 should be programmed into everyone’s cell phone to make it easier to report suspicious activity.
“Trust your instincts. If it doesn’t look or feel right, pick up the telephone,” Adams said.
Stanton said everyone is vulnerable at some point.
“We thought she was reasonably safe,” Stanton said. “It just takes that one mistake.”