Derrick Todd Lee

“Evil around the Campus” Serial crimes are thought of as some of the worse that exist. Fear is inevitable in the area that the crimes are occurring and people seek ways to make themselves feel safer, sometimes taking extreme measures. This was the case when Derrick Todd Lee was playing his game around the Louisiana State University campus in Baton Rouge. Derrick Todd Lee grew up in small-town St. Francisville, Louisiana with his mother, father, and siblings. Shortly after his birth, Lee’s father, Samuel Ruth, left the family. His mother thought this to be a good thing due to the fact that Ruth suffered from mental illness and was eventually hospitalized after the attempted murder of his ex-wife. Lee’s mother remarried and Coleman Barrow raised Lee and his siblings as if they were his own. Barrow raised the kids with an iron hand and it is reported that Lee was harshly punished as a child. Children that went to school with Lee found him to be odd. He was often picked on by his classmates. He sucked his thumb well up into his older years and called his teacher “momma.” Before he made it in to junior high, he was put into special education classes, which gave more room for his classmates to pick on him. (Layman, Gumm, and Henriques & Hodges) Lee started his criminal escapades at a young age. He had a low IQ and found that school was difficult. Lee found interest in other things. He was caught peeping into the windows of his neighbors. It was reported that he tortured neighborhood animals, was fascinated with fire, and wet his bed; these are all characteristics of a serial killer (Layman, Gumm, and Henriques & Hodges). At thirteen, Lee was arrested for simple burglary, but it was not until he was sixteen that he really found trouble. Lee pulled a knife during a fight and was charged with attempted second-degree murder. At seventeen he was arrested for his voyeurism, which was something that would extend well into his adult life. Somehow he managed to