The East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office booked the man they have called Baton Rouge’s second serial killer for the murders of two more women Friday.
Authorities held a press conference Friday where they announced they have charged Sean Vincent Gillis with the murders of Baton Rouge residents Ann Bryan and Hardee Schmidt.
“He has confessed to both crimes,” Lt. Col. Greg Phares of the sheriff’s department said at the press conference.
This brings the total number of women Gillis has been accused of killing to five.
Gillis reportedly admitted to his lawyer, Bert Garraway, and to his girlfriend, Terri Kay Lemoine, Saturday that he killed three more women, but authorities have not confirmed this.
Garraway has said he will ask District Judge Todd Hernandez to appoint a panel to determine Gillis’ sanity.
According to an affidavit obtained Friday, Gillis — 41, of 545 Burgin Ave. — admitted during interviews with detectives Thursday that he killed Schmidt and Bryan.
He already had been arrested Thursday for the murders of Katherine Hall, Johnnie Mae Williams and Donna Bennett Johnston.
Police charged Gillis for first degree murder in the Bryan. In the Schmidt case he is charged with first degree murder, stalking and aggravated kidnapping.
The EBR Sheriff’s Office issued an affidavit and warrant for Gillis’ arrest for the murders of Hall, 29, Williams, 45, and Johnston, 43, Wednesday.
Phares said The Homicide Task Force — comprised of members of the Sheriff’s Office, the Baton Rouge Police Department, the State Police, the Attorney General’s Office and the FBI — linked the first three cases by DNA weeks ago but did not make a public announcement.
It was a “tough judgment call,” Phares said, and the announcement would not have “enhanced public safety.”
Instead it would have harmed the authorities’ “ability to catch” the killer, he said.
Bryan, 81, was killed while in bed in her apartment in the St. James Place retirement community, and her body was found March 21, 1994. St. James Place is on Lee Drive — blocks from Gillis’ Burgin Avenue home.
In the affidavit Gillis said he originally intended to rape Bryan, but he cut her throat and stabbed her to stop her screaming.
The affidavit does not specify that there were signs of forced entry into the retirement home.
Bryan died as a result of wounds to the throat.
Gillis told police he stalked Schmidt, 52, for three weeks while she jogged in the South Baton Rouge area in May 1999. On May 30, 1999, Gillis hit Schmidt with his vehicle and strangled her with “heavy duty wire plastic wrap.”
After putting Schmidt in his vehicle, Gillis drove to a Highland Road area park and sexually assaulted her. He then put her body in the trunk of his car and left it there overnight, the affidavit said.
On May 31, 1999 Gillis allegedly dumped Schmidt’s body into a St. James Parish bayou off of U.S. Hwy 61.
The body was found June 1, 1999, and sent to the State Police crime lab where an autopsy was performed and a rape kit collected.
Authorities collected semen from the body though they did not confirm Friday if the semen was Gillis’.
The second affidavit states Gillis was not “under the influence of mind-altering compounds” when he confessed to the Bryan and Schmidt murders.
Some people — including victims’ relatives — have questioned the legitimacy of Gillis’ confessions as opposed to physical evidence.
But, at the press conference Phares said “a confession is actual evidence.”
“There are many people in the penitentiary — and rightfully so — because of confessions,” he said.
Gillis’ Thursday morning arrest came after being charged with in the killings of Hall, Williams and Johnston. He is charged with three counts of first degree murder and ritualistic behavior for post-death ceremonial mutilation of the women’s bodies.
Investigators linked him to the three deaths through DNA evidence.
Hall’s body was found in January 1999 in southeastern East Baton Rouge Parish. Williams was found in October 2003 near Pride in northern East Baton Rouge Parish.
Johnston was found in February off Ben Hur Road — a mile south of campus.
A seeming connection among the Hall, Williams and Johnston cases was their “high-risk lifestyle” — a categorization from authorities based on arrest records indicating drug use and prostitution.
But, authorities did not categorize Bryan and Schmidt with those lifestyles.
The initial evidence that connected Gillis to the murders was tire tracks left at the Johnston crime scene.
Phares said at the Friday press conference that he chose not to specify what type of tire tracks were left at the scene, though police had a 1990 gray Mazda MPV van towed from Gillis’ Burgin Street home Thursday.
After linking Gillis to the case through the tire tracks, authorities obtained a voluntary DNA sample from him Wednesday. His sample matched DNA collected from the Hall, Williams and Johnston murders.
Authorities have not said if Gillis has been linked to the Bryan or Schmidt cases through DNA.
When asked if Gillis might be connected to other murder cases, Phares said he and other members of The Homicide Task Force were “not prepared” to discuss other cases at this time.