A&E’s ‘Butchers of the Bayou’ examines 2 Baton Rouge serial killer cases

Standing at a rally, a woman holds a sign reading “63 unsolved killings of women UNACCEPTABLE.”

It’s a snippet from A&E’s two-part special, “Butchers of the Bayou,” airing at 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday. The mini-series’ subjects? Two names the Baton Rouge area knows all too well, Sean Vincent Gillis and Derrick Todd Lee.

“Over the course of a decade two prolific series killers terrorized the women of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, raping and murdering, dismembering and cannibalizing. Neither of them ever met but each of them knew what the other was doing and, perversely, it appears, they were trying to outdo each other in terms of their depravity and sexual deviance,” the special’s synopsis states.

Among those appearing in the special are former Baton Rouge Police Chief Pat Englade; former East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office Lt. Col. Greg Phares; and Collette Dwyer, who was allegedly stalked by Lee.

“Does God forgive somebody that bad?”, Dwyer asks during her interview for the special.

Twenty years ago, the succession of killings, the hunt for the culprits and their eventual trials and convictions rocked the city.

Today, Gillis is serving multiple life sentences at Angola State Penitentiary. While awaiting his execution, Lee died of heart disease in 2016.