Just months after the arrest of a suspect in a series of alleged serial killings, a man is sneaking into the apartments of young women near Louisiana State University.
So far, no one has been physically harmed, police said. But police said Steve E. Danos has snuggled with some women while they sleep, folded their clothes and cooked in their kitchens. Danos is wanted on one count of simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling, two counts unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling and two counts of misdemeanor theft, police said.
One 18-year-old student said she woke up next to the man on Sunday morning as he traced circles on her back.
“But I never felt threatened by him,” LSU freshman Kaylin Spence said. “He was a skinny little guy.”
Even so, Spence, a kinesiology major from Alexandria, now carries a stun gun.
Police say the man who is about 20, has entered at least nine apartments, eight of them at University House, a 252-unit complex on packed with LSU students.
All nine are inhabited by young women and most, if not all those women, are undergraduates at LSU, said Cpl. Don Kelly, a police spokesman. He said the man sneaked into the eight apartments between 7 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, through unlocked doors and windows.
The man has been extremely polite and hasn’t hurt any of his victims, Kelly said. He has usually explained his presence by saying he meant to be in another apartment, Kelly said.
Spence’s roommate, Kayla Gossett, 18, said the man has taken advantage of students leaving their doors unlocked so friends, and sometimes friends of friends, can come and go at will.
University House sits less than a mile from the town house where Charlotte Murray Pace, a victim of the south Louisiana serial killer, was stabbed to death last year. The murders sent much of LSU into a frenzy.
Derrick Todd Lee has been arrested in connection with Pace’s death, as well as five others.
“Did we not learn a lesson from the serial killer investigation to lock the damn doors?” Police Chief Pat Englade said before a group of community activists Thursday night.
“It looks like every time LSU starts back up, we have to re-educate people,” Englade said. “With Derrick Todd Lee in jail, we think everything is wonderful. It’s not.”
