On this date, May 31, 2002, Charlotte Murray Pace was found dead in her townhouse on Sharlo Avenue in Baton Rouge.
The remains were of a 22-year-old LSU graduate student named Charlotte Murray
Pace. A roommate discovered her body at about 2:00 p.m. on May 31, 2002. She
had been stabbed to death. Evidence showed the victim put up a fierce struggle
before succumbing to her wounds. It was likely that her killer was also wounded
during the attack. Like in Green's case, an autopsy showed evidence of sexual
molestation.
Pace had recently moved before
her death and lived for only two days at the house where her body was
discovered. Her previous address was only three doors away from Gina Green.
Investigators found no evidence that they ever knew each other.
Several items were missing from
Charlotte's possession. According to police reports, a brown and tan Louis
Vuitton wallet with keys to Pace's BMW were stolen. The wallet contained her
driver's license, as well as other personal effects. A V-Tech cellular phone
and a silver ring were also taken. The killer did leave behind one thing police
hoped would lead them to the identity of the killer, a footprint.
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Charlotte Murray Pace
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She
was murdered by The Baton Rouge Serial Killer, Derrick Todd Lee. He was
convicted on October 14, 2004, for the May 31, 2002 rape and murder of LSU
graduate student Charlotte Murray Pace. He was sentenced to die by lethal
injection.
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Ann Pace of Jackson
holds a sign with photos of her daughter, Charlotte Murray Pace, who was
murdered at her home in Baton Rouge in 2002, in an area designated for
protesters outside Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. (Rick Guy/The
Clarion-Ledger)
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COMMENTS
AND CONDOLENCES:
We,
the Victims’ Families For the Death Penalty, have a message for the mother of
the victim, Ann Pace. We empathize and sympathize with you for the loss of your
daughter, we comfort you and hope you can continue to fight for justice.
Similar to you, Ann Pace, we show support to all victims and their families who
want justice done. We do respect and love some of your news letters on the
internet.
Here are some of Ann Pace’s
quotes:
QUOTE 1: Ann Pace of Jackson stood alone with a sign
bearing pictures of her daughter who was killed by a man named Derrick Todd Lee
in 2002. Charlotte Murray Pace was 22. Her mother described her four years, so
far, of waiting for Lee’s execution as “hideous.” While she said Lee’s death
may not bring closure, she thinks it may bring peace. “I
have this constant awareness of him breathing air, visiting with his family,
doing all those things that he denied so many people, that he denied my
daughter,” Pace said. “(Once he is dead), he
will not be at my table. He will not be in my head. Then, it will be all about
Murray and not about him.”
QUOTE 2: Feel-good idealism without
reference to reality is dangerous. In a perfect world, capital punishment would
be unnecessary. This is not a perfect world, but a real world with very real
threats. - Death penalty letter 'idealism' 5:20 AM,
Apr. 16, 2011
QUOTE 3: WHEREAS the majority of
those convicted and given the death sentence lacked adequate education and
adequate financial resources. This seems to imply that murder(s) is somehow
mitigated because the murderer may be poor and uneducated? Is an innocent
victim less dead because the offender is uneducated and poor? Such a position
is also insulting to the many who honorably strive with those limitations
without murdering a single other soul. - Death penalty letter
'idealism' 5:20 AM, Apr. 16, 2011
QUOTE 4: WHEREAS we the Mississippi
Religious Leadership Conference, an organization of interfaith leadership (on
whose authority?), call for an immediate moratorium on sentencing human beings
to death in the name of the state and in the name of justice. I, as a human
being with all the authority invested in my human beingness, call for a moratorium
on the murder of innocents and for an expedited application of the death
penalty as the only commensurate and appropriate sentence for one who
purposefully and wantonly destroys innocent life. - Death penalty
letter 'idealism' 5:20 AM, Apr. 16, 2011
QUOTE 5: I believe the death
penalty to be a useful tool for law enforcement. Think how many admissions of
guilt are obtained by taking this possibility off the table. -
Death penalty offers 'safety' 2:30 PM, Mar. 26, 2012
QUOTE 6: I also believe it is the
only appropriate punishment for some crimes and that some people are dangerous
in any venue. Even in jail, they are a threat to their fellow inmates, to those
who must guard them, and potentially even to visitors to the prison.
A
female guard was killed in Monroe in January 2011 and another in Washington
State in the same month. What about those states where the death penalty
doesn't apply? Reoffending within the prison or after escaping carries no
real-life penalty.
If
you have multiple life sentences without parole, what's another? -
Death penalty offers 'safety' 2:30 PM,
Mar. 26, 2012
QUOTE 7: I believe the death
penalty should be used sparingly for heinous, forensically supported crimes. In
these cases, I truly believe that our foremost responsibility is to ensure our
own safety and that of our children and our communities. - Death
penalty offers 'safety' 2:30 PM, Mar. 26, 2012
