Facts of the Crime:

Sentenced to death on October 16, 1995 for the February 9, 1993 beating and strangling death of Debra Reese, 26, in the Sunnyside addition, where he had attacked several other women. He was also convicted of raping two Jacksonville women and was tried for the murder of Christine Lewis, daughter of the late Alderman Robert Lewis. Lee was also suspected of killing a Jacksonville prostitute and dumping her body in a shed near the railroad tracks.

Lewis, 22, was abducted from her Sunnyside home in November 1989 as her three-year-old child watched. She was raped and strangled and her body dumped in the closet of an abandoned home. The jury could not agree on a verdict in that trial, but prosecutors decided not to retry him when he received the death sentence in the Reese case and was convicted for raping two women. DNA evidence tied Lee to the murders and rapes. Reese was struck 36 times with a tire tool her husband gave her for protection while he was out of town on a truck driving job. Lee, who had just been paroled after serving time for burglary, was arrested an hour after the murder when witnesses reported seeing him walking the street.