The roommate of Charlotte Murray Pace described the bloody carnage to jurors as they viewed more than 100 photographs of the crime scene in the opening day in the murder trial of suspected serial killer Derrick Todd Lee in Baton Rouge.

"I screamed and jumped back," Rebecca Yeager said as she told jurors how she found the nude body of 22-year-old Pace on Yeager's bedroom floor in May 2002. "She had so many small holes in her chest, on her stomach," Yeager said. "I never went back to the house again after that day."

Prosecutors said Pace had 81 stab and puncture wounds, her throat was cut and her head was beaten with an iron.

Yeager's testimony followed opening arguments in which Assistant District Attorney Dana Cummings said DNA irrefutably links Derrick Todd Lee to Pace's murder and four other murdered women that prosecutors are using as evidence in the case.

In his opening statement, Lee's public defender, Mike Mitchell, said the genetic material "raises more questions than it answers."

Mitchell said Lee was investigated during the Baton Rouge serial killings and cleared by police, but he was under constant police surveillance throughout the times Lee is accused of murdering the women.

See also:
Victim's Roommate Describes Murder Scene
Lee Is Innocent, Lawyers Declare

Background: The Trial of Derrick Todd Lee
See Also: More Headline Cases