Maniac Monday

Tonight’s episode is for mature audiences and has been marked as explicit. Content in this episode contains real information about criminal activity, murder, violence, language, and sexual situations. It is not suitable for all audiences.

Hey, it’s Spooky Boo. Welcome to the Maniac Monday portion of the Creepypasta & True Scary Stories Podcast. Starting today, I will tell true crime stories that either I have developed or that people have sent to me. If you would like to tell us about the stalker or serial killer that you have run into then please use the Submit Your Stories tab on the website. All stories should be in your own experience and true.

Now let’s begin…

Not So Famous Serial Killer Sean Vincent Gillis

We hear a lot of stories about the most popular serial killers such as the Golden State Killer, the BTK Killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, and others because usually, they’ve killed many more people than the average murderer and the people they kill are people we can normally relate to. Serial killers who kill those who live in a different world than most people are generally not put out in the open. I believe this is the reason we have not until now, heard much about Sean Vincent Gillis.

Family Life of Sean Vincent Gillis

In Baton Rouge, LA on 6/24/1962 a son was born to Yvonne and Norman Gillis.

Norman and Yvonne had a pretty normal marriage by standards in 1962. They had met in the late 1950s while both were attending Louisiana State University. Norman was studying acting in college and was invited to the same cast party where they hit it off as friends and later on their friendship bloomed into a relationship and soon married.

Norman had drinking problems. After having Sean, Norman began hanging out at the bars more and drinking at home. To make matters worse, he lost his job at Sherwin Williams and began selling encyclopedias door to door. Since he couldn’t pay the bills, Yvonne took a job writing commercials for WBRZ-TV, channel 2.

Some sources say Norman came home with a gun and held it to Sean’s head. After he committed himself to the East Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson, Louisiana for a month he called Yvonne and told her that he was leaving because he didn’t want to hurt either his wife or son.

Sean didn’t see his father again until he was 17 when his grandfather Norman Sr. passed away. They began writing to each other and eventually, everything seemed to be ok. Sean’s father was remarried and had a new career. He had also sobered up. It wasn’t until he decided to celebrate Sean’s graduation when he had another drink. Unfortunately, that drink led to hallucinations and into intensive care at the hospital.

He asked his son to go pick up his belongings at his hotel in New Orleans. When Sean and his friends arrived at the room in the hotel in the French Quarter, they suddenly realized they were in a gay community area. They went into the bedroom and began packing Norman’s belongings when they found photos of naked homosexual men.

According to Sean’s friend, Sean was a little shocked because no one had said anything to him but then he apparently shook it off and didn’t speak of it.

While Sean was growing up, his mother referred to him as her blue-eyed angel. She would tell people how respectful he was and that he was her little genius. Some people, including his teacher, said he was a quiet, average kid with average grades. He would even get teased at school, probably for his father not living at home.

He spent a lot of time between their home, his paternal grandparent’s house, and his mother’s work where he learned about production and sales. With her job, she was able to buy a house on Burgin Avenue in Baton Rouge.

Although he was 10 when he moved in, he didn’t make friends easily. One neighbor, Carolyn Clay, said he gave the other kids in the neighborhood the willies. She even noticed him one night kicking and yelling at the garbage cans at 3 in the morning. He told another neighbor that he was kicking the cans because he was frustrated at not having a girlfriend.

Yvonne wanted the best for her boy so she sent him to Catholic school where he met his friends John Green and John Rosas. Later on, the trio would get into minor teenage trouble and then eventually became interested in Devil worship and how it scared people. They also began smoking pot together. Sean’s mother was oblivious to this. Unlike the neighbors and some of the other kids, she thought he was an angel.

Sean’s rap sheet started in 1980 at age 17. It included DUI, traffic citations, possession of pot, and contempt of court but nothing violent. He took on many new jobs but couldn’t stay at any one job. He didn’t find any fascination in anything but his new personal computer.

Ten years later, Sean’s mother took on a new job in Atlanta. She asked him to go with her but he declined. She offered to pay the mortgage for him but he told her he would be fine. What could go wrong? He had his own computer and the internet.

Hurricane Andrew came and went and although Sean told his mother he was fine, his neighbors didn’t think so. The house was never properly cleaned after the flood and he would lie down on the lawn howling at the moon and cursing his mother for leaving. He even was caught one day peeping into the window of Carolyn Clay’s home–in her daughter’s bedroom.

When the police arrived he said he was looking for his cat. As he had outstanding warrants they arrested him and he was released later on. Although the police wanted to search the home because of the stench of pot they couldn’t because they didn’t have an arrest warrant.

Sean Vincent Gillis Gets Married to Terri Lemoine

Later on Sean met a bartender by the name of Terri Lemoine. Terri was a strong woman who had been through some rough relationships and dealings with men. Before meeting her second husband she had killed a man while protecting a dancer at the Key Club, the place where she tended bar. After leaving, she then met and married a Palestinian man who would hit her on occasion. The very last time he tried to hit her was the last time he had the chance to. When he raised his fist, she sliced his arm with a meat cleaver. After the event, she filed for divorce.

In 1994, Terri’s friend Sharon introduced her to Sean. That night, he hung out at the Circle-K where she worked and they developed a friendship as the two had a lot in common. They were soon dating and during that time she had decided to test him. She slapped him to see what his reaction might be. He tensed up but yelled that people didn’t hit each other. After that, she figured they could have a relationship. She was a little grossed out by the mess at his house which he had left after all of those years and a bit disturbed at the reaction he gave when she wanted to toss out the books his mother gave to him even though they were destroyed but considering he didn’t hurt her like other men would have, she trusted him.

Despite their friendship and trust, their time in the bedroom wasn’t as it should have been. She thought he might have been a virgin but he wasn’t. She finally took him into the bedroom. He was really nervous and didn’t seem to enjoy it and eventually just gave up. It wasn’t until she moved with him that she realized he was addicted to porn–something she was willing to compromise for his timid behavior and when he was good to her, helping her with her seizures.

Then one day he asked her to look at a website with him. When she did, he excitedly asked her to look at the pictures of posed, naked dead women. She told him it was sick but ignored his new, grotesque obsession. Between their love for Star Trek along with their other compatibilities and hobbies and with his kindness to her and her 3 children she had before they were together, she accepted that he was a bit different. She had no idea of the crime and depravity he was capable of.

Ann Bryan

The killings that we know of began with Ann Bryan. Ann, an elderly woman at 82 years old, lived at an assisted living facility down the street from Sean and Terri. On the night of March 20, 1994, she decided to not play bridge with her friends as normal because she had been in a car accident with her daughter and didn’t feel well so she went home instead.

Ann often left her door unlocked so the nurses could check up on her during the night. Instead of a nurse, she awoke to a man standing over her at 3 in the morning. When he touched her, she screamed. She continued to scream as he climbed on top of her and tried to remove her panties. She continued to scream at him while she hit and kicked at him. To shut her up he slashed at her and stabbed her. When she began to scream again, he sliced her throat, almost to the point of decapitation. He continued to stab her over and over again even after she passed–enjoying what he had done. And before he was completely finished, he sliced at her face, her genitals, and between her breasts then sliced open her belly exposing her bowels. He stabbed her 48 times. According to the police, he posed her body as a display and it seemed he had tried to cut off her breast.

Katherine Hall

Sean drove the streets of North Baton Rouge at night and imagine what he might do to the prostitutes who worked the strip. It wasn’t the sex that excited him, it was the death and mutilation. Driving around and wondering seemed to be ok for a while when he was happy at home but lately, he had grown bored and stressed.

Driving around January 4, 1999, Sean Vicent Gillis had picked his next victim, an African American woman named Katherine Hall. Of course, he didn’t know her name. All he knew is that she was a prostitute and he offered to pay for services.

When she got into his car he took her out to a deserted property and after she serviced him he wrapped a nylon zip tie around her neck and pulled. When she began fighting him, he realized he hadn’t pulled tight enough and she jumped out of the car. While screaming as she ran across the field, he caught up to her and knocked her to the ground. She fought back and he punched and stabbed her 16 times through the eye, breasts, genitals, and stomach. He stabbed her again and again. What killed her was a slash through her throat.

He removed her jacket and took off her clothes then decided to try and carve her up. He sliced open her arm from the shoulder down to her hand then a circle around her right breast. He cut open the left. Because she was at that point already dead, they knew he stabbed her 8 more times in the stomach and genitals. He even cut off one of her eyelids before flipping her over and cutting her buttock down to her calf.

After, left her jacket and hung it on the gate to the field, and drove off with her in the passenger seat. Eventually, he washed the car with her body in plain sight.

A rancher found the jacket and Katherine’s food stamp card inside. He and his wife called the authorities yet the body was never found until a squirrel hunter found the body laying on its stomach with her rear posed up in the air next to a dead-end sign.

Hardee Moseley

52-year old Hardee Moseley Schmidt had no idea the pain she would suffer on May 30, 1999. This happily married woman with 3 children always jogged in the morning and stayed her normal course in their upscale neighborhood believing she would be safe even in the hours before anyone woke up.

Three weeks prior Sean Gillis had seen her running. He came back several times but until now hadn’t seen her again. This time, Terri was at work for two more hours. Figuring he wouldn’t be able to snatch her into the car, he hit her, knocking her into a ditch, and immediately choked her with a zip tie. He then drove to an isolated area where he removed her clothes and had his way with the dead body leaving DNA evidence. This time he didn’t leave the body for someone to find, he put the naked body in the trunk of his car.

The next day while driving his wife home from work, he told her the putrid smell was a dead squirrel he had hit and that he’ll take care of it. After dropping her off at the house he took Hardee’s body to a swamp area near a highway far enough away that it wouldn’t be covered by the Baton Rouge police department. She was found the next day by a bicyclist.

Sean Vincent Gillis’s lust for the macabre was growing darker every single day. It was on November 12, 1999, when he noticed a black woman with pretty legs standing around in a nightgown. He easily got her into his car with the promise of $10 for oral sex and then brought her to her friend’s house so she could get a fix.

He brought her to a sugarcane field where they both got out of the car to relieve themselves. After he finished, she was still doing her business. He wrapped his cable tie around her neck but caught it on her mouth and she began to fight him. He then kicked her feet out from under her and when she stood up, she fit right into the noose he made. He waited for a few minutes until she was dead then he drove her to his house while Terri was at work.

He attempted to cut one leg with a knife and when it took too long he used a hacksaw on the other. For removing her arms he used his wife’s filet knife but he couldn’t twist the joint off the bone. He then decapitated her head and washed the blood off in the sink. After he tried to molest the spinal cord but something sharp, probably a bone, stopped him. He then removed her nipples and ate them.

Realizing that it was close to time to pick up his wife from work he cleaned up the mess by folding the remaining parts of the mutilated woman into a large garbage bag then put the head and leg into separate bags. He put the whole body in a large Zeorx package box and scrubbed the floor. He put the box inside the back of the station wagon but as pieces were sticking out he had to hide them with other boxes and bags.

He was excited to pick up his wife and have her ride in the same car with the mutilated body. She had no idea. He then dumped the body in the river.

Lillian Robinson

Gillis’s was getting hungrier for the kills. This time it was only two months between the last kill and his need for a new victim. He went out to North Baton Rouge to find his next conquest. This time he found Lillian Robinson. She had a soft, pretty face and kind eyes and really didn’t seem to belong on the streets. As usual, Gillis offered her money and she had no problem getting into the car. Most of the women did because just like Terri, they felt they could trust him.

It wasn’t long before he strangled her like the others and drove her back to his house. After stripping her naked he realized there wouldn’t be enough time to cut her body up so he just played with her for a while until it was time to pick up his wife. He then dumped her into a water basin figuring no one would find her body. It wasn’t until March when two fishermen found her remains. Sadly, the body was too decomposed to identify her immediately. Again, he buried her outside the precinct limits and the Baton Rouge police department was not notified.

Marilyn Nevils

It was October in 2000 and Gillis’s kills were getting closer together. He was supposed to go visit his friend’s daughter but on the way he noticed 38-year-old Marilyn Nevils walking down the street. He pulled over and offered her a ride. When she got into the car he asked how much for oral sex and she said ten dollars.

He drove to an empty field off of Sixth Street and when she was finished with the agreement he pulled a zip tie around her neck but it wouldn’t lock. As she fought him she broke his windshield and opened the door. When she got out of the car she ran but Sean quickly caught up and hit her in the head with a piece of metal rebar until she stopped resisting. He then continued strangling her with zip tie.

Somehow this guy never gets caught. He put her on the ground again while washing the blood out of his car and then even goes into a gas station with her blood on his shirt. When the cashier asked if Gillis got the upper hand he replied with “You should see the other guy.”

When he undressed her on the floor at his house he realized that she urinated and it repulsed him. He held her close in the shower for a little while and tried to hug her and do other inappropriate poses but her body wouldn’t cooperate. He knew he didn’t have time to do his handiwork on her body and be done before his wife got off of work so he held her for a few more minutes and then dumped her in the levee where she lay for 11 days until a man walking his dog on Halloween found her decomposing body.

Johnnie Mae Williams

For over ten years Gillis had a friend named Johnnie Mae Williams. Williams had been through a couple of divorces and down on her luck by the time she had met Gillis. Her drug addiction had brought her from a marriage to a wealthy man to the streets. Sometimes she would clean up and see her friends and other times friends like Gillis were there to buy marijuana from her.

It was on October 9, 2003 when Gillis noticed Williams walking around in North Baton Rouge looking for a john. While driving he noticed that she was so high on drugs that she almost looked dead and it excited him. Even though she was a friend, the lust for death was still there.

He pulled into the grassy area behind a restaurant called Mason’s Grill and pulled her out of the car. Knowing she couldn’t fight back he began beating–hitting her over and over again in the head and the stomach until he knew she was dead. He then stripped her of her clothes and then mutilated her body with slashes and cuts until he cut off her hands and saved them in a plastic baggie. He enjoyed cutting through her skin seeing how her muscles and tendons worked. Then he packed most everything up except her shirt and shoes and loaded everything, including Williams in his car. He placed her in the front seat.

He drove until he found his destination and pushed her body over the embankment but not before posing her and taking pictures of his macabre work. He kept her hands and used them to touch himself for pleasure. Her body was later found by a boy looking for his dog.

Later on, Gillis showed his wife Terri pictures of his dead friend lying on her stomach with slashes down her legs. Terri, oblivious to the notion that it could be a friend told him that she didn’t want to see it. He kept pictures of his victims everywhere.

Donna Bennett Johnston

On February 25, 2004, Donna Bennett Johnston got into the car of Sean Vicent Gillis around 3 AM. They agreed on a price for her oral services as he drove down the familiar streets. He knew he couldn’t go home as his wife was there so he found a secluded spot near a chemical plant. As he put the zip tie around her neck she woke up and burst out of the car running. He caught up with her and, grabbing the zip tie, he pulled as hard as he could. Before she died she whispered, “I can’t breathe!”

He then put her in the trunk, drove until he found another secluded location, and then took pictures of her dead body in the trunk before placing her on the ground and getting his tools. He removed her clothes then started to work on her arm with the saw. When finished he realized he needed more. He noticed the tattoo on her right thigh and with his knife he cut the inked skin from her body. He then cut off her right nipple and then her left and ate them feeling powerful and in control as he did.

He placed her back into the trunk and took more pictures while violating her body and wounds with his hands. 45 pictures later he tossed her hairpiece and dental plate into the woods and drove off toward Ben Hur Road near his home. He dragged her from the car to the canal and posed her body with her jacket over her right arm and face. he tucked the severed arm beneath her and propped her buttocks up. He then stomped on her back leaving a bloody footprint.

Instead of keeping his trophies, he washed his car out and then tossed the tattoo and arm into the river.

She was found on Ben Hur Road in Baton Rouge Lousiana by James Andernann and his girlfriend Lauren Keller while looking for their dog on February 27, 2004. After calling 911, crime scene technician Van Calhoun arrived at the scene.

Catching Sean Vincent Gillis and Trial

Shortly after they found the body the Unsolved Homicide Task Force was formed. It wasn’t long before the group realized the murders had many similarities and eventually found matching DNA in some pieces of hair and fingernail scrapings. They also took images of the tire tracks left and confirmed the brand, make, and size of the tires and retrieved a list of over a thousand sales of that model. Then they narrowed the list down to and began knocking on doors. Eventually, they got to the home of Sean and Terri.

Gillis agreed to a DNA swab but because of his odd behavior and knowing the victim, he was asked to go to the station. After asking for a lawyer, Gillis decided to talk and that he didn’t want one. He confessed with every sordid and depraved detail.

Gillis was found sane and fit to stand trial. He was convicted to first-degree murder with life without parole.

Sources used in this podcast:

Dismembered (paperback affiliate link)

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/serial-killer-sean-gillis-took-6087816

https://www.wafb.com/story/2421873/prosecutors-plan-to-use-letters-video-against-gillis/

https://allthatsinteresting.com/sean-vincent-gillis

https://the-line-up.com/sean-vincent-gillis

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/serial-killer-sean-gillis-took-6087816

https://www.wafb.com/story/8725440/gillis-trial-day-3-former-live-in-girlfriend-testifies/