Photos allowed in trial

• By JOE GYAN JR.
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jul 19, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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A state judge refused Friday to block a prosecutor from showing jurors post-mortem photographs of a Baton Rouge woman allegedly strangled and mutilated by accused serial killer Sean Vincent Gillis.

Gillis’ first-degree murder trial in the February 2004 slaying of 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston begins Monday. The prosecutor is seeking the death penalty.

Johnston’s naked body was found face-down in a drainage canal near Ben Hur Road south of LSU. Her left arm was severed at the elbow, her left nipple was cut off and a tattoo from her right thigh was cut away.

Gillis’ lead attorney, Kerry Cuccia, argued Friday during the final pretrial hearing in the case that the post-death photos are “extremely prejudicial’’ and will serve only to inflame the jury if used during the guilt phase of the trial.

“What happens after the body is killed is irrelevant,’’ Cuccia, director of the Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana, told state District Judge Bonnie Jackson.

Prosecutor Prem Burns countered that Gillis’ attorneys are trying to “sanitize’’ the crime and “clean it up.’’

“Mr. Gillis is the only person that left Donna Bennett Johnston in the condition that she was in,’’ she argued.

Burns, who noted that fingernail scrapings from Johnston’s right hand matched Gillis’ DNA, as did evidence obtained from her right wrist, said the photos are relevant. Without them, she argued, the jury might be left to wonder if there was any evidence found on Johnston’s left hand and arm.

Burns also alleged that Gillis was armed with a cutting tool the night he killed Johnston, which she said shows his intentions.

“He knew specifically what he was going to do to that victim,’’ she said.

Cuccia charged that the aggravated crimes alleged by the state in the case are “weak,’’ and he said the shocking photos are an attempt to bolster the case.

In the end, Jackson denied Cuccia’s motion to exclude the photographic evidence, saying it “does indicate some degree of preparation.

“I’m sorry that he did this to this lady, but he did,’’ she said.