He told the police that he had known Johnnie for many years and eventually confessed in great detail how he killed more than just the three women the police had connected his DNA to at the time.

This analysis led them to list all the owners who had such a tire, one of them being Sean Gillis. They analyzed the tire treads at Donna’s crime scene and discerned that a rare tire made them. The police had another interesting lead, though. However, the profile didn’t match anyone in the system at the time. Foreign DNA found in these two cases belonged to the same person whose DNA was found under Donna’s nails. In another case from October 2003, 45-year-old Johnnie Mae Williams was strangled and mutilated as well. She was also strangled and stabbed to death and had stab wounds on her body. In a startling development, that profile was linked to two other gruesome murders in the area.Įarlier, the mutilated body of 30-year-old Katherine Hall was found in January 1999. There was DNA evidence underneath her fingernails that that authorities believed was of the killer’s. Her killer had cut off a tattoo from Donna’s right leg, and both her breasts were slashed as well. She had died of strangulation, and her left arm had been dismembered from her body. What the police didn’t know at the time was that Donna was Sean’s eighth and final victim. On February 27, 2004, 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston’s body was found in a canal in Baton Rouge.

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