PORT ALLEN — The West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office called a press conference Wednesday to discuss the status of the investigation into the disappearance of Mary Ann Fowler. The investigation is trying to determine whether accused serial killer Derrick Todd Lee was involved.
Fowler disappeared from the parking lot outside a shopping center off La. 415 in Port Allen on Dec. 24, 2002.
Fowler was on her way to visit her husband, Jerry, who is in a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas. Jerry Fowler is a former state elections commissioner serving five years for convictions of abusing the powers of his office and misusing state funds.
Mike Cazes, chief deputy and sheriff-elect for West Baton Rouge Parish, presented evidence at the conference.
Investigators found a book believed to belong to Fowler on Jennifer Jean Drive, less than a mile from campus.
Cazes gave no other specific details about the book but said it is being analyzed.
The West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office also obtained Lee’s cell phone records, including those from Christmas Eve 2002.
According to those records, Lee’s cell phone made a call at 5:20 p.m. that day. The call connected through the Gross Tete cellular tower, 13 miles from the shopping center where Fowler disappeared.
Another call made from the same phone at 11:20 p.m. that night connected through a tower south of Baton Rouge.
Cazes did not know whom the calls were made to, or how far from the towers the calls were made from.
He could not confirm that Lee was the person making the calls, only that it was Lee’s phone. Cazes would not categorize Lee as a definite suspect in the Fowler case.
“I will not link him to the case until we have sufficient evidence,” he said.
The sheriff’s office set up the press conference after Fowler’s son, John Prichett, told WAFB Channel 9 on Tuesday that he had been told by their office that Lee was within 500 yards from his mother the night she disappeared.
Cazes said he could not confirm how close Lee was to Fowler the night she disappeared.
Prichett also said on WAFB that the surveillance video from the night his mother disappeared showed a dark-colored truck, similar to the maroon Ford Ranger Lee drove.
The video also showed “signs of struggle,” Cazes said. He agreed with the description of the truck.
Lee is accused of killing six south Louisiana women — Charlotte Murray Pace, Gina Wilson Green, Pam Kinamore, Carrie Lynn Yoder, Trineisha Dene Colomb and Geralyn DeSoto — between September 2001 and March 2003.