144. Smells Like Somebody Should Have Listened - The Key Collector Part Three - With Special Guest Chief David McDavid
When you're a veteran cop in a small town, with a deep knowledge of your community and the bad guys in it - and you're smart and everyone knows it...well...you'd think that when a serial killer is loose in your backyard and your years of experience with, and detailed documentation about, one bad guy in particular points as clearly to that bad guy as being said serial killer - you'd think the eggheads and profilers and federal law enforcement hoo-hahs in charge of the case would pay attention to your evidence and perhaps look into that bad guy to maybe, you know, prevent new murders from happening. Think again. David McDavid is one of those folks in law enforcement you want to be around when trouble starts. A veteran plainclothesman, detective and now Chief of Police in the small Baton Rouge suburb of Zachary Louisiana, Chief McDavid noticed a pattern of behavior in the murders committed by the notorious Baton Rouge Serial Killer, who terrorized South Louisiana from as early as 1992 to 2003, and a miscreant peeping Tom he'd come across for many years - one Derrick Todd Lee. McDavid long considered Lee a prime suspect in the killings, but because Lee was African-American and profilers (on the slimmest of evidence) had decided that the killer was white, no one listened. Until a solid sketch provided by a survivor of one of the attacks finally set the investigation in motion to arrest Lee. In this episode, Melissa interviews Chief McDavid about his experience with Derrick Todd Lee and the Baton Rouge Serial Killer investigation - and it's a fascinating and even educational look into the precise and steady workings of a humble, dedicated police professional who never cared who got the credit - but who simply wanted a very dangerous, very evil man off the street.