Serial Killer Derrick Todd Lee Dies at Hospital

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- State corrections officials say serial killer Derrick Todd Lee, who was convicted of murdering two women and was sentenced to death for one of them, has died at a hospital where he was taken for emergency treatment.

Department of Public Safety and Corrections spokeswoman Pam Laborde says 47-year-old Lee was taken to the hospital early Saturday and died Thursday.

Lee was sentenced to life for one murder and to death for killing Charlotte Murray Pace, who was stabbed 81 times and bludgeoned with an iron in May 2002.

The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld that conviction and sentence in September, rejecting claims that his lawyer should have brought up evidence of mental illness.

DNA evidence linked him to five additional killings from 1998 to 2003; another woman survived to testify against him.