Derrick Todd Lee

Lee's DNA

On May 5, 2003, Dannie Mixon and the Zachary detectives set up surveillance on Lee's girlfriend's apartment in Jackson, La. and on the house he shared with his wife just south of St. Francisville.

They spotted him at the St. Francisville house.

As the investigators approached him, Lee seemed calm. When Mixon explained why they were there, the suspected killer demanded to see the court order.

The cops gave it to him.

Whether Lee read the order or understood its significance is anyone's guess.

"He held it like he was reading it," Detective Day says.

Lee glared at the Zachary detectives. They had been hounding him for more than a decade. "I don't want nothing to do with Zachary," he said.

A subpoena for physical evidence is not the same as an arrest warrant. It requires a certain amount of finesse to get a saliva swab from the mouth of a murderer.

Day and McDavid didn't care who took the swab, just so long as someone got it. They backed off.

Mixon patted Lee on the shoulder. "Rather than do this in front of God and everybody, let's do it inside."

While the Zachary cops waited outside, Mixon and a couple of Attorney General men walked Lee into the house and got the sample. Mixon sent Lee's saliva to the state police crime lab.

Copyright Chuck Hustmyre