By Chuck Hustmyre
(Continued)
NO FANCY SCIENCE
It started with a tire track.
On Feb. 27, 2004, sheriff's detectives discovered a tire imprint pressed into the mud near the strangled body of 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston. Donna's mutilated corpse had been dumped into a trash-scattered drainage ditch that cut across Ben Hur Road, three miles from the south gates of Louisiana State University.
Two people out looking for a lost dog had stumbled across the dead woman and called police.
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| Donna Bennett Johnston |
Donna Bennett's death surprised no one, not even her family. She lived what law enforcement officers euphemistically call a "high-risk lifestyle." Her rap sheet included arrests for drugs, prostitution, theft, issuing worthless checks, and forgery. But she was also the mother of five children and kept in close contact with her ex-husband.
"Donna was no angel, but she was a human being," her former husband told The Advocate newspaper. "No one deserves to die like that."
Donna's death was one of a series of similar unsolved female killings that went back several years.
Sheriff's detectives sent the tire impression to the Louisiana State Police Crime Laboratory for identification. There, they caught a lucky break. According to the lab, the tire track had been made by Goodyear Aquatred III. Only 90 had been sold in the Baton Rouge area during the three years the company made the tire.
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| Ben Hur Road where Donna found |
Detectives worked with Goodyear retailers to compile a list of everyone who purchased the tires. Then they started working their way down the list. Near the bottom, was the name Sean Vincent Gillis, who, detectives discovered, lived less than two miles from where Donna Johnston's body had been found.
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| East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's patch |
"It was tedious, but worth it," Maj. Bud Conner of the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office told The Advocate. "This is just old-fashioned police work. No fancy science."
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