Baton Rouge serial murder crime scene breached
AskWalt
serial murder crime scene:
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http://theadvocate.com/stories/081502/new_arrest001.shtml
Police arrest intruder suspect
City police have arrested the man who admitted going into Charlotte
Murray Pace's apartment several days after she was killed.
Jeremiah Pastor, 24, of 4494 Alvin Dark Ave., was arrested about noon
Wednesday on a count of unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling,
police spokeswoman Cpl. Mary Ann Godawa said at Wednesday's briefing
on the search for the serial killer who killed Pace and two other
Baton Rouge women in the last year.
Those daily media briefings will be televised beginning today,
according to city-parish Public Information Officer Dennis McCain.
They will be aired live at 2 p.m. on Metro 21, which is cable channel
21.
Pastor remained in Parish Prison late Wednesday with bond set at
$10,000, a prison spokesman said.
Ann Pace, Murray Pace's mother, was pleased to hear of Pastor's
arrest.
At a news conference Tuesday, she had called Pastor "an idiot" and
"ghoulish" after he publicly admitted going into her daughter's
apartment several days after her slaying.
Pace, who lives in Jackson, Miss., said she had talked with Police
Chief Pat Englade and some detectives when she was in Baton Rouge on
Tuesday but was not informed of the upcoming arrest.
"I'm so glad," she said Wednesday evening after hearing of the arrest.
"I can't understand why he wasn't arrested in June."
Pastor, an LSU student, admitted in a story in The Advocate that he
had gone into Pace's Sharlo Avenue town house several days after the
22-year-old was stabbed to death May 31.
Pace was the second of the victims identified as having been killed by
the same man. The first identified victim of the serial killer was
Gina Wilson Green, a 41-year-old nurse found strangled in her Stanford
Avenue home on Sept. 24. The most recent victim was 44-year-old Pam
Kinamore, who was kidnapped from her Briarwood Place home on July 12.
The killer cut her throat and dumped her body at the Whiskey Bay exit
on Interstate 10.
Pastor said he found a kitchen window at Pace's apartment partially
open on June 4. He said he opened it further and went inside. He said
he did not touch or move anything in the approximately 20 minutes he
was inside.
Godawa said investigators cite the date of Pastor's entry into the
apartment as June 6. She said that after Pastor "bragged" about what
he did, detectives got word of it and investigated.
A warrant for Pastor's arrest said detectives went to the apartment on
June 10. Crime scene tape sealing the front door was still in place,
the warrant said, but "a blind over the kitchen window had fallen to
the floor. This led detectives to believe that someone had entered the
crime scene."
Pastor said detectives questioned him in mid-June and took a DNA
sample from him.
Godawa said "lab tests" had cleared Pastor as a suspect in the
killing. She said that when detectives first heard about Pastor's
claims that he had gone into the apartment, they were not sure the
claims were true.
"All we had is that he said he had been in Pace's residence," she
said.
After detectives determined that he, in fact, had been in the
apartment, arresting him was not as high a priority as pursuing leads
on the serial killer.
"There was never any doubt that he would be charged from the
beginning," Godawa said.
She added that detectives had been in touch with the District
Attorney's Office about the matter since learning about it.
In a story in The Advocate on Aug. 9, Godawa would not even confirm
that investigators were looking into Pastor's claims.
Godawa said at Wednesday's briefing that the Pace apartment was still
considered a crime scene at the time Pastor went inside.
She later said that she learned that it was less of an active crime
scene than a place to which detectives simply wanted to restrict
access in case they needed to go back and examine it further.
Godawa would not say whether detectives got evidence out of the
apartment after Pastor was there.
"That is an issue that I just can't discuss," she said.
However, Godawa said that investigators don't believe that Pastor's
going into the house will create a problem in convicting the killer
once he is arrested.
"We don't feel like the crime scene was compromised," she said.
She would not say whether investigators believe that Pastor did get
into town house through a partially-open window and would not discuss
whether a window might have been left open by mistake.
AskWalt
exposed as a liar.
Intruder suspect not a SEAL, as claimed
Jeremiah Pastor, the 24-year-old LSU student who admitted climbing
into Charlotte Murray Pace's apartment several days after she was
killed, never was a Navy SEAL, according to the Naval Special Warfare
Command.
Pastor claimed he had been a SEAL, but Lt. Cmdr. Darryn James, a
spokesman for the Naval Special Warfare Command, said he was not.
"He's not a SEAL. He was never a SEAL," James said.
SEAL stands for Sea, Air and Land.
James said SEALs are the Navy's special operation teams and do
reconnaissance, "direct-action missions" and have been active recently
in combating terrorism.
"Even though we do a lot of work on the sea, we have done a lot of
work in Afghanistan," he said.
SEAL training is said to be among the toughest in the military.
James said Pastor, who was a Navy sailor, began SEAL training, but did
not finish it, James said.
James said he could not elaborate on why Pastor did not finish
training and could not say whether he was honorably discharged from
the Navy.
Pastor gave The Advocate a certificate attesting that he graduated
from Basic Underwater Demolition training in 1997.
James said that training is the first step in becoming a SEAL.
"Most people who finish BUDs do eventually become SEALS," he said, but
Pastor did not.
Police arrested Pastor on Wednesday on a count of unauthorized entry
into an inhabited dwelling.
Pastor was released on $10,000 bond about 11 p.m. Wednesday, according
to Parish Prison records.
Pastor claimed he went into Pace's Sharlo Avenue apartment several
days after the 22-year-old recent LSU graduate was stabbed to death
May 31.
He said he got in through a partially open kitchen window, bypassing
doors that were still sealed with crime scene tape.
Pace was the second woman from the area south of LSU who was killed in
May.
Christine Moore disappeared May 23 and her skeletal remains were found
June 16. She died from a blow to the head. The killings have not been
solved.
Pastor's sister, Leah Guilbeau, who answered the phone at their home
Thursday, said Pastor would have no comment and referred calls to
attorney Frank Holthaus.
Holthaus said Pastor nearly finished SEAL training, but was arrested
for driving while intoxicated.
As a sanction, he would have had to complete extra training that would
have required another three-year commitment to the Navy. He chose not
to finish, Holthaus said.
Holthaus said Pastor should not be the issue.
"I think we've lost focus. We must care about these ladies, not this
man," he said.
Police have linked Pace's killing to a serial killer, who also is
believed to have killed Gina Wilson Green in her Stanford Avenue home
in September and abducted Pam Kinamore from her Briarwood Estates
Subdivision home in July and killed her.
Holthaus said Pastor's going into Pace's apartment was "youthful,
stupid and inappropriate."
"His daddy's already kicking his butt," Holthaus said.