Paul DUROUSSEAU, Georgia, Florida USA (1 Viewer)
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A.K.A.: "The Jacksonville Serial Killer"
Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Rape
Number of victims: 7
Date of murders: 1997 - 2003
Date of arrest: February 6, 2003
Date of birth: August 11, 1970
Victims profile: Tracy Habersham, 26 / Tyresa Mack, 24 / Nicole L. Williams, 18 / Nikia Kilpatrick, 19 (six months pregnant) / Shawanda Denise McCalister, 20 (pregnant) / Jovanna Jefferson, 17 / Surita Cohen, 19
Method of murder: Strangulation
Location: Florida/Georgia, USA
Status: Sentenced to death in Florida on December 13, 2007
Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Rape
Number of victims: 7
Date of murders: 1997 - 2003
Date of arrest: February 6, 2003
Date of birth: August 11, 1970
Victims profile: Tracy Habersham, 26 / Tyresa Mack, 24 / Nicole L. Williams, 18 / Nikia Kilpatrick, 19 (six months pregnant) / Shawanda Denise McCalister, 20 (pregnant) / Jovanna Jefferson, 17 / Surita Cohen, 19
Method of murder: Strangulation
Location: Florida/Georgia, USA
Status: Sentenced to death in Florida on December 13, 2007
Paul Durousseau (born August 11, 1970) is an American serial killer who murdered seven young women (including two who were pregnant) in the southeast United States between 1997 and 2003.
German authorities suspect he may have killed several local women when he was stationed there with the Army during the early 1990s. Typically, Durousseau would gain the victim’s trust, enter the victim’s home, tie their hands, rape, then strangle them to death. All of his known victims were young, single African American women.
Personal life
Paul Durousseau was born in Beaumont, Texas. Little is known publicly about Paul Durousseau's childhood. His first offenses with the law as an adult took place on December 18, 1991 and on January 21, 1992 for carrying a concealed firearm in California.
In November 1992, he enlisted in the US Army and was stationed in Germany, where he met Natoca, who would later become his wife. The two married in 1995 in Las Vegas. In 1996, they were transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia. On March 13, 1997, he was arrested for kidnapping and raping a young woman. However, in August of that year he was cleared of those charges. Soon after, he was found in possession of stolen goods. He was court-martialed in January 1999, found guilty and dishonorably discharged from the Army.
The two moved to Natoca Durousseau's hometown of Jacksonville, Florida where they had two daughters. It was during that period that he committed most of the murders. He struggled to keep jobs and make ends meet, and the couple would often have fights over the issue of finances. In 1999, the police advised Durousseau's wife on how to file for a restraining order after he allegedly slapped her in the face and grabbed her by the neck. Later, she testified he got violently angry when she talked about getting a divorce. In September and October 2001, Durousseau spent 48 days in jail for domestic battery.
Durousseau still managed to hold various legitimate jobs. In 2001, he was hired as a school bus driver and an animal control worker despite being a convicted felon. In 2003, he worked as a taxi driver in Jacksonville. The Gator City Taxi Company failed to run a background check on Durousseau and it is now accepted that this is how he first became into contact with some of his victims.
Neighbors and friends described him as a "lewd womanizer". He often asked young women when they planned to "make flicks" with him. Witnesses recall him trying to seduce girls as young as 13 years of age.
Chronology of the murders
Less than one month after the acquittal over the raping charges, the nude body of 26-year-old Tracy Habersham was found on September 7, 1997 in Fort Benning. She had been missing for 48 hours and was last seen leaving a party. She had been raped and strangled to death with a cord. Paul Durousseau was not a suspect in the murder but DNA would later tie him to the crime. He also would confess in Habersham's killing after his arrest.
In 1999, he raped and killed 24-year-old Tyresa Mack in her apartment. Witnesses saw him leave her place with a television. In 2001, he was arrested for raping a young woman in Jacksonville. He spent 30 days in jail and received two years' probation. On December 19, 2002, 18-year-old Nicole L. Williams' body was found wrapped in a blue blanket at the bottom of a ditch in Jacksonville. She had been reported missing two days earlier.
On January 1, 2003, family members of 19-year-old Nikia Kilpatrick went to check on her. They had not had any news from her for several days. They found her body in the bedroom of her apartment. She had been raped then killed by strangulation with a cord two days before. Her two sons, an eleven-month-old and a two-year-old, were alive but malnourished. Kilpatrick was approximately six months pregnant at the time of her death.
On January 9 of the same year, 20-year-old nurse assistant Shawanda Denise McCalister, who was also pregnant at the time of her death, was raped and strangled to death in her Jacksonville apartment. The murder scene was almost identical to that of Nikia Kilpatrick. She was killed on Durousseau's first day of driving a cab for Gator City Taxi. Her body was found the following day.
The next two victims were 17-year-old Jovanna Jefferson, and 19-year-old Surita Cohen. Their bodies were found close to each other in a ditch next to a construction site on New Kings Road in Jacksonville on February 5. Police estimated that Jefferson was murdered around January 20 and Cohen was killed 10 days later. Witnesses recount having seen the two last victims with a taxi driver fitting Paul Durousseau's description on the night they disappeared.
He was arrested and charged with five counts of murder on June 17, 2003. On December 13, 2007 he was sentenced to die by lethal injection for the murder of Tyresa Mack. As of March 1, 2010, he was still a resident on Florida's death row. No execution date has been set.
Wikipedia.org
Accused Serial Killer Sentenced To Death
December 13, 2007
US/FL/Jacksonville - A man accused of killing seven women and convicted of one murder was sent to Florida’s death row on Thursday.
Paul Durousseau was convicted in June of the rape and slaying of 24-year-old Tyresa Mack in 1999. The same jury voted 10-2 to recommend the death penalty.
Durousseau’s attorneys argued that his life should be spared because he suffers from brain damage and other mental illnesses that impaired his behavior. But prosecutors said Durousseau was well aware of what he did when he killed the woman and deserved the death penalty.
On Thursday, Judge Jack Schemer formally sentenced Durousseau to death by lethal injection.
“This was a consciously hideous crime,” Schemer said from the bench. “Durousseau is manipulative, devious and crafty.”
Schemer said the brutality of the slaying was among the reasons why he agreed with the jury’s recommendation that Durousseau should die.
Durousseau was arrested in 2003 and is charged in the deaths of Mack and five other women in Duval County. He is also accused of killing a woman in Columbus, Ga., while he was in the Army and stationed at Fort Benning stationed in 1997.
Mack’s family said it has waited eight years to hear their loved one’s killer would die for his crime.
“Thank God it’s all over with. We have a closure. Me and my family, we have been through a lot, including her kids. Thank God it’s finally over with,” said Mack’s sister Latashia Bell, who continues to raise Mack’s three children.
Last month, the State Attorney’s Office dropped the other five murder charges against Durousseau.
Prosecutors were concerned that an acquittal in one of the remaining Jacksonville cases would jeopardize the conviction in the Mack case. Additionally, prosecutors worried an overturned conviction in the Mack case could present problems for the remaining cases.
Durousseau is expected to stand trial in the Georgia slaying. Tracy Habersham’s nude body was found Sept. 7, 1997, two days after a party at a club on base. Police said they believe she was strangled shortly after the party.
No trials for killer's other cases
By Paul Pinkham - The Times-Union
November 9, 2007
Prosecutors have dropped the remaining five Jacksonville murder charges against accused serial killer Paul Durousseau, citing concerns about how the appeal process could affect the cases.
The decision opens the door for Durousseau to be tried next in Columbus, Ga., for a 1997 murder there. And this action doesn't preclude prosecutors from re-indicting Durousseau on the Jacksonville murder cases down the road.
"We did not think it was in the best interest of the case to try the remaining counts," Assistant State Attorney Jay Taylor said Thursday.
Durousseau, 37, was convicted in June of first-degree murder in the 1999 strangulation of Tyresa Mack in her Eastside apartment. A jury recommended the death penalty, and Circuit Judge Jack Schemer is scheduled to sentence Durousseau on Dec. 13. Jacksonville judges usually follow jury recommendations in death penalty cases.
Durousseau, a former taxi driver for Gator City cab, was charged with murdering five other women in Jacksonville between December 2002 and February 2003. But prosecutors dropped those cases last week after meeting with the remaining victims' families and their lawyers. All but one agreed with the decision, Taylor said.
Prosecutors used evidence from two of those cases in the Mack case. If a jury acquitted Durousseau in one of those cases, it could imperil Durousseau's conviction in the Mack case, Taylor said.
Conversely, evidence from Mack's murder could be used against Durousseau in the other murder cases. But if his conviction in Mack's case were overturned on appeal, it could threaten the other cases, according to an internal disposition statement obtained from the State Attorney's Office.
Assistant State Attorney Mack Heavener said the decision expedites the appeals process and Durousseau's sentence and will allow Georgia authorities to try Durousseau while the Florida appeals are pending. Appeals are automatic in Florida death penalty cases.
Because Durousseau waived his speedy trial rights early on in the case, prosecutors could re-indict him for any of the Jacksonville murders at any time, Heavener said.
Cynthia Davis, the mother of slaying victim Surita Cohen, reacted angrily when asked Thursday about the state attorney's decision. But other victims understood the decision, said Taylor and attorney Donald Brown, whose firm represents three of the families in a lawsuit against Gator City.
Public Defender Bill White, whose office represents Durousseau, said prosecutors also may have had financial concerns about prosecuting Durousseau five more times. The cases against him rely heavily on complicated DNA evidence, and the Mack case took three years to get to trial.
"Basically what they said is they don't want to spend the money or time if the death penalty holds up," White said. "Since everybody these days, including the state, has limited ... money, it makes sense not to use up all that money on one case."
White estimated his office spent $200,000 defending Durousseau. Heavener didn't have a comparable estimate, but said the State Attorney's Office spent less than that.
Jury Hands Up Guilty Verdict In Woman’s 1999 Murder
June 8, 2007
US/FL/Jacksonville - After more than 10 hours of deliberations, a jury found Paul Durousseau guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Tyresa Mack.
Mack, 24, was found dead in her Eastside apartment in July of 1999.
Over the course of the past two weeks, the jury has heard from dozens of witnesses and seen several pieces of evidence as the prosecution and defense made their cases.
In addition to Mack’s murder, Durousseau is also charged with killing five other women prior to his arrest in 2003.
Although being tried for the Mack’s death, the deaths of Nikia Kilpatrick and Shawanda McCalister have played prominent roles in Durousseau’s trial.
The day before the trial went to jury, Durousseau took the stand in his own defense and admitted having sex with the three women before their deaths but said he wasn’t the one who killed them.
Durousseau spent about 90 minutes on the stand, answering questions about his relationships with the slain women.
He admitted he met Mack in April 1999 and that, for three months, saw her frequently.
The last time he said he saw Mack was July 26 — the day she was killed. He admitted that when he found out about her death, he did not call police.
He told the court he heard she had been shot, and he didn’t contact police because he didn’t have any information to give them and she was alive when he left.
Durousseau also admitted to lying to detectives when he initially denied knowing any of the slain women.
After the guilty verdict was returned Friday night, Mack’s loved ones said although the process was long, they’re happy it’s over.
German authorities suspect he may have killed several local women when he was stationed there with the Army during the early 1990s. Typically, Durousseau would gain the victim’s trust, enter the victim’s home, tie their hands, rape, then strangle them to death. All of his known victims were young, single African American women.
Personal life
Paul Durousseau was born in Beaumont, Texas. Little is known publicly about Paul Durousseau's childhood. His first offenses with the law as an adult took place on December 18, 1991 and on January 21, 1992 for carrying a concealed firearm in California.
In November 1992, he enlisted in the US Army and was stationed in Germany, where he met Natoca, who would later become his wife. The two married in 1995 in Las Vegas. In 1996, they were transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia. On March 13, 1997, he was arrested for kidnapping and raping a young woman. However, in August of that year he was cleared of those charges. Soon after, he was found in possession of stolen goods. He was court-martialed in January 1999, found guilty and dishonorably discharged from the Army.
The two moved to Natoca Durousseau's hometown of Jacksonville, Florida where they had two daughters. It was during that period that he committed most of the murders. He struggled to keep jobs and make ends meet, and the couple would often have fights over the issue of finances. In 1999, the police advised Durousseau's wife on how to file for a restraining order after he allegedly slapped her in the face and grabbed her by the neck. Later, she testified he got violently angry when she talked about getting a divorce. In September and October 2001, Durousseau spent 48 days in jail for domestic battery.
Durousseau still managed to hold various legitimate jobs. In 2001, he was hired as a school bus driver and an animal control worker despite being a convicted felon. In 2003, he worked as a taxi driver in Jacksonville. The Gator City Taxi Company failed to run a background check on Durousseau and it is now accepted that this is how he first became into contact with some of his victims.
Neighbors and friends described him as a "lewd womanizer". He often asked young women when they planned to "make flicks" with him. Witnesses recall him trying to seduce girls as young as 13 years of age.
Chronology of the murders
Less than one month after the acquittal over the raping charges, the nude body of 26-year-old Tracy Habersham was found on September 7, 1997 in Fort Benning. She had been missing for 48 hours and was last seen leaving a party. She had been raped and strangled to death with a cord. Paul Durousseau was not a suspect in the murder but DNA would later tie him to the crime. He also would confess in Habersham's killing after his arrest.
In 1999, he raped and killed 24-year-old Tyresa Mack in her apartment. Witnesses saw him leave her place with a television. In 2001, he was arrested for raping a young woman in Jacksonville. He spent 30 days in jail and received two years' probation. On December 19, 2002, 18-year-old Nicole L. Williams' body was found wrapped in a blue blanket at the bottom of a ditch in Jacksonville. She had been reported missing two days earlier.
On January 1, 2003, family members of 19-year-old Nikia Kilpatrick went to check on her. They had not had any news from her for several days. They found her body in the bedroom of her apartment. She had been raped then killed by strangulation with a cord two days before. Her two sons, an eleven-month-old and a two-year-old, were alive but malnourished. Kilpatrick was approximately six months pregnant at the time of her death.
On January 9 of the same year, 20-year-old nurse assistant Shawanda Denise McCalister, who was also pregnant at the time of her death, was raped and strangled to death in her Jacksonville apartment. The murder scene was almost identical to that of Nikia Kilpatrick. She was killed on Durousseau's first day of driving a cab for Gator City Taxi. Her body was found the following day.
The next two victims were 17-year-old Jovanna Jefferson, and 19-year-old Surita Cohen. Their bodies were found close to each other in a ditch next to a construction site on New Kings Road in Jacksonville on February 5. Police estimated that Jefferson was murdered around January 20 and Cohen was killed 10 days later. Witnesses recount having seen the two last victims with a taxi driver fitting Paul Durousseau's description on the night they disappeared.
He was arrested and charged with five counts of murder on June 17, 2003. On December 13, 2007 he was sentenced to die by lethal injection for the murder of Tyresa Mack. As of March 1, 2010, he was still a resident on Florida's death row. No execution date has been set.
Wikipedia.org
Accused Serial Killer Sentenced To Death
December 13, 2007
US/FL/Jacksonville - A man accused of killing seven women and convicted of one murder was sent to Florida’s death row on Thursday.
Paul Durousseau was convicted in June of the rape and slaying of 24-year-old Tyresa Mack in 1999. The same jury voted 10-2 to recommend the death penalty.
Durousseau’s attorneys argued that his life should be spared because he suffers from brain damage and other mental illnesses that impaired his behavior. But prosecutors said Durousseau was well aware of what he did when he killed the woman and deserved the death penalty.
On Thursday, Judge Jack Schemer formally sentenced Durousseau to death by lethal injection.
“This was a consciously hideous crime,” Schemer said from the bench. “Durousseau is manipulative, devious and crafty.”
Schemer said the brutality of the slaying was among the reasons why he agreed with the jury’s recommendation that Durousseau should die.
Durousseau was arrested in 2003 and is charged in the deaths of Mack and five other women in Duval County. He is also accused of killing a woman in Columbus, Ga., while he was in the Army and stationed at Fort Benning stationed in 1997.
Mack’s family said it has waited eight years to hear their loved one’s killer would die for his crime.
“Thank God it’s all over with. We have a closure. Me and my family, we have been through a lot, including her kids. Thank God it’s finally over with,” said Mack’s sister Latashia Bell, who continues to raise Mack’s three children.
Last month, the State Attorney’s Office dropped the other five murder charges against Durousseau.
Prosecutors were concerned that an acquittal in one of the remaining Jacksonville cases would jeopardize the conviction in the Mack case. Additionally, prosecutors worried an overturned conviction in the Mack case could present problems for the remaining cases.
Durousseau is expected to stand trial in the Georgia slaying. Tracy Habersham’s nude body was found Sept. 7, 1997, two days after a party at a club on base. Police said they believe she was strangled shortly after the party.
No trials for killer's other cases
By Paul Pinkham - The Times-Union
November 9, 2007
Prosecutors have dropped the remaining five Jacksonville murder charges against accused serial killer Paul Durousseau, citing concerns about how the appeal process could affect the cases.
The decision opens the door for Durousseau to be tried next in Columbus, Ga., for a 1997 murder there. And this action doesn't preclude prosecutors from re-indicting Durousseau on the Jacksonville murder cases down the road.
"We did not think it was in the best interest of the case to try the remaining counts," Assistant State Attorney Jay Taylor said Thursday.
Durousseau, 37, was convicted in June of first-degree murder in the 1999 strangulation of Tyresa Mack in her Eastside apartment. A jury recommended the death penalty, and Circuit Judge Jack Schemer is scheduled to sentence Durousseau on Dec. 13. Jacksonville judges usually follow jury recommendations in death penalty cases.
Durousseau, a former taxi driver for Gator City cab, was charged with murdering five other women in Jacksonville between December 2002 and February 2003. But prosecutors dropped those cases last week after meeting with the remaining victims' families and their lawyers. All but one agreed with the decision, Taylor said.
Prosecutors used evidence from two of those cases in the Mack case. If a jury acquitted Durousseau in one of those cases, it could imperil Durousseau's conviction in the Mack case, Taylor said.
Conversely, evidence from Mack's murder could be used against Durousseau in the other murder cases. But if his conviction in Mack's case were overturned on appeal, it could threaten the other cases, according to an internal disposition statement obtained from the State Attorney's Office.
Assistant State Attorney Mack Heavener said the decision expedites the appeals process and Durousseau's sentence and will allow Georgia authorities to try Durousseau while the Florida appeals are pending. Appeals are automatic in Florida death penalty cases.
Because Durousseau waived his speedy trial rights early on in the case, prosecutors could re-indict him for any of the Jacksonville murders at any time, Heavener said.
Cynthia Davis, the mother of slaying victim Surita Cohen, reacted angrily when asked Thursday about the state attorney's decision. But other victims understood the decision, said Taylor and attorney Donald Brown, whose firm represents three of the families in a lawsuit against Gator City.
Public Defender Bill White, whose office represents Durousseau, said prosecutors also may have had financial concerns about prosecuting Durousseau five more times. The cases against him rely heavily on complicated DNA evidence, and the Mack case took three years to get to trial.
"Basically what they said is they don't want to spend the money or time if the death penalty holds up," White said. "Since everybody these days, including the state, has limited ... money, it makes sense not to use up all that money on one case."
White estimated his office spent $200,000 defending Durousseau. Heavener didn't have a comparable estimate, but said the State Attorney's Office spent less than that.
Jury Hands Up Guilty Verdict In Woman’s 1999 Murder
June 8, 2007
US/FL/Jacksonville - After more than 10 hours of deliberations, a jury found Paul Durousseau guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Tyresa Mack.
Mack, 24, was found dead in her Eastside apartment in July of 1999.
Over the course of the past two weeks, the jury has heard from dozens of witnesses and seen several pieces of evidence as the prosecution and defense made their cases.
In addition to Mack’s murder, Durousseau is also charged with killing five other women prior to his arrest in 2003.
Although being tried for the Mack’s death, the deaths of Nikia Kilpatrick and Shawanda McCalister have played prominent roles in Durousseau’s trial.
The day before the trial went to jury, Durousseau took the stand in his own defense and admitted having sex with the three women before their deaths but said he wasn’t the one who killed them.
Durousseau spent about 90 minutes on the stand, answering questions about his relationships with the slain women.
He admitted he met Mack in April 1999 and that, for three months, saw her frequently.
The last time he said he saw Mack was July 26 — the day she was killed. He admitted that when he found out about her death, he did not call police.
He told the court he heard she had been shot, and he didn’t contact police because he didn’t have any information to give them and she was alive when he left.
Durousseau also admitted to lying to detectives when he initially denied knowing any of the slain women.
After the guilty verdict was returned Friday night, Mack’s loved ones said although the process was long, they’re happy it’s over.
I share my birthday with this fucking freak. :/
Even the year? Another FAB post by the way ESAD! I love the one's I get to read about, let's you in on there twisted state's of mind!!
