The woman police say is the only surviving victim of accused serial killer Derrick Todd Lee testified Thursday in a pre-trial hearing.
Diane Alexander, a nurse and Breaux Bridge resident, said during the hearing she is “absolutely sure” Lee is the man who entered her home and attempted to rape and kill her July 9, 2002.
During her testimony, prosecutors asked Alexander if she recognized the man who attacked her.
“He’s sitting right there,” Alexander said from the witness stand as she pointed her finger at Lee, who was seated with his defense attorneys.
Applause and shouts of “yes” erupted from victims’ families but quickly were hushed by courtroom officials.
Alexander said she did not know the man who attacked her. The attacker tried to strangle her with a phone cord after the attempted rape.
Sheriff’s officers from St. Martin Parish, where Breaux Bridge is located, and FBI analysts used Alexander’s description of her attacker for computerized and sketched profiles in July 2002 and for an updated profile in May 2003.
In May 2003, St. Martin Parish Detective Arthur Boyd e-mailed Alexander a six-photo lineup of suspects.
She said she looked at the photos and identified suspect “No. 5” – Lee – as her attacker.
Alexander said prior to that night she had never been shown a photo of Lee and had never heard the name “Derrick Todd Lee.” She had seen Lee only the day he attacked her.
The main piece of evidence prosecutors introduced to try to connect Lee to more than one killing was a phone cord taken from Alexander’s home.
A piece of cord was cut and taken from Alexander’s home, and a piece of cord was found in Whiskey Bay near Pam Kinamore’s body, witnesses said.
Mark Kurowski, a forensic scientist with the Acadiana Criminalistics Laboratory, tested the cord that was found with a sample piece from the cord that remained in Alexander’s home. He said the pieces were from the same “continuous length of cord.”
Thursday’s testimonies were a part of the two-day pre-trial hearing in the first-degree murder case against Lee. He is charged with the May 2002 killing of University graduate Charlotte Murray Pace.
Lee also is accused of killing five other south Louisiana women – Gina Wilson Green, Pam Kinamore, Carrie Lynn Yoder, Trineisha Dene Colomb and Geralyn DeSoto.
He has been officially charged with murder in only the Pace case.
Prosecutors are asking Judge Richard Anderson if evidence from the other murder cases and the Alexander attempted rape and attempted murder case can be used in the Pace murder trial.
In the hearings, attorneys did not use DNA matches as evidence. Defense attorneys did not receive DNA evidence with enough time to prepare for the hearing.
Prosecutors will present DNA evidence at another pre-trial hearing Feb. 12 and 13.
The Pace first-degree murder trial is set to begin in March.
Evidence the defense likely will use to disconnect the killings include the manner in which victims were killed and where bodies were found.
Some victims’ deaths were attributed to strangulation, while others were attributed to stab wounds or beating.
The bodies of Pace and Green were found in their homes. Kinamore and Yoder were found at Whiskey Bay, and Colomb was found in a wooded area near Scott, north of Lafayette, after allegedly being abducted from her car.
Prosecutors presented no evidence from the DeSoto case.