By Chuck Hustmyre
(Continued)
A MATCH
Sheriff's detectives knocked on Gillis's door on the morning of April 28, 2004. A sign taped to a nearby window read "Area 51 Warning - Restricted area - Use of deadly force is authorized."
In the driveway sat a white Chevrolet Cavalier with Goodyear Aquatreds.
Gillis, 41, lived with his girlfriend. As the detectives question him, Gillis admitted that he had stopped beside the ditch on Ben Hur Road to urinate less than a week before Donna's body was discovered. He also said he knew one of the other homicide victims whose death the detectives were investigating—Johnnie Mae Williams.
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| Johnnie Mae Williams |
Like Donna Johnston, Johnnie had been a street prostitute. She'd been found dead in October 2003, beaten and strangled. Her naked body had been mutilated after she died.
Gillis told sheriff's detectives he'd had an eight-year relationship with Johnnie. In fact, Gillis said, Johnnie had been in his car a month before her body was discovered.
He also told the detectives that they would likely discover signs of blood in his car because his girlfriend had recently bled while inside it. When the detectives asked Gillis's girlfriend about that, she couldn't recall ever having bled inside his car.
The detectives asked Gillis for a DNA swab. He agreed. Detective Bryan White asked the State Police Crime Lab to rush the results.
Later that same day, DNA analyst Joanie Wilson told the sheriff's detectives that they had their match. The DNA sample taken from Gillis matched DNA evidence found on the bodies of Donna Johnston and another homicide victim, Katherine Hall, whose body had been found in 1999, beaten, strangled, and mutilated.
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| Katherine Hall |
At 1:30 the next morning, a sheriff's SWAT team smashed through Gillis's door and arrested him. Detectives charged him with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts. Louisiana law defines ritualistic acts as: "mutilation, dismemberment, or torture of a human as part of a ceremony, rite, initiation, observance, performance, or practice."
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