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Texas Serial Killer William Reece - Serial Killer Documentary · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:11
Speaker 1: They got me set up like I'm a serial killer.
0:14
Speaker 2: Right now, are you?
0:18
Speaker 3: No, I'm not.
0:19
Speaker 1: I'll pass any polygra if you throw at me, you
0:23
Speaker 1: know I have no reason to lie.
0:27
Speaker 4: If you passed him pushing your grocery cart, you'd never
0:31
Speaker 4: know that inside his head he just thought about how
0:34
Speaker 4: to kill you.
0:38
Speaker 5: My daughter went on a run in the morning, and
0:41
Speaker 5: she's been gone a lot longer than I expected.
0:45
Speaker 6: There's no doubt in my mind he would have continued
0:48
Speaker 6: slaughtering young women and girls.
0:53
Speaker 3: The females jumped out of a white Julie.
0:55
Speaker 7: She needs an ambulance.
0:56
Speaker 3: She can't walk.
0:59
Speaker 6: It's like we have a predator in our neighborhood.
1:03
Speaker 8: You have the capacity to become a serial killer on
1:06
Speaker 8: a scale that is difficult to even imagine.
1:46
Speaker 7: Just southwest of Oklahoma City lies the tiny town of Anadarko,
1:52
Speaker 7: population six thousand.
1:55
Speaker 4: It's just your average rural Oklahoma town.
2:00
Speaker 2: I had a real high crime rate. Everybody's pretty laid back.
2:03
Speaker 4: There's not a lot there to miss or see.
2:07
Speaker 2: Really, when you meet somebody knew, you ask.
2:11
Speaker 4: Them who their people are, because you're going to know
2:15
Speaker 4: somebody in their family.
2:20
Speaker 7: Everyone in Anadarko knows Kathy Dobrie and her daughter Tiffany.
2:25
Speaker 3: My name is Kathy Dobrie and I'm the mother of
2:29
Speaker 3: Tiffany Debrie Johnston. She's always with me before she got married.
2:38
Speaker 3: She was my shadow everyone, That's what everyone called her.
2:43
Speaker 3: Tiffany was very energetic, loving, caring, hyper. She cared about everyone.
2:54
Speaker 3: She liked animals, She liked to play in the dirt.
2:58
Speaker 3: She wanted to study the plan and see what they
3:02
Speaker 3: how they were formed, and want to have you because
3:04
Speaker 3: she could grow just about anything. She said her mind to.
3:09
Speaker 4: Tiffany and I became friends in junior high. I was
3:12
Speaker 4: new to town, new to the area, and uh didn't
3:16
Speaker 4: really know anybody, didn't have any friends, didn't have much
3:19
Speaker 4: going for me, and uh, Tiffany was the type of
3:23
Speaker 4: person that was going to take care of you.
3:25
Speaker 3: Uh.
3:26
Speaker 4: She just decided she was going to be my friend
3:28
Speaker 4: since I didn't have any Her and I were friends
3:30
Speaker 4: from then on.
3:33
Speaker 7: Shortly after graduating high school, Tiffany marries her childhood sweetheart.
3:40
Speaker 3: She said she was back madly in love with Ryan
3:44
Speaker 3: and all girls should marry their first sweetheart. She was
3:48
Speaker 3: determined to get married, and she did.
3:55
Speaker 7: The young couple moved to nearby Bethany Ryan is Floyd
4:00
Speaker 7: did a manufacturing plant. Well, nineteen year old Tiffany works
4:04
Speaker 7: two jobs so she could afford a new car.
4:07
Speaker 3: She traded her car yeah on her new white Knon.
4:12
Speaker 8: She was so proud of that.
4:15
Speaker 3: She's always cleaning it out or worshing it or because
4:20
Speaker 3: she was proud of it. Was something that she worked
4:22
Speaker 3: for that she got.
4:26
Speaker 7: On July twenty sixth, nineteen ninety seven, the newlyweds planned
4:30
Speaker 7: to meet at a club after work.
4:32
Speaker 3: Jiffany had gotten off work and then she went and
4:35
Speaker 3: cleaned out her car or worceshed her car because it
4:38
Speaker 3: was hers and Ryan's three month anniversary.
4:44
Speaker 9: I was actually working patrol at that time, and I
4:48
Speaker 9: drove by the Sunshine car wash. There's about four vehicles
4:54
Speaker 9: that were there, people still washing their car, and I
4:57
Speaker 9: did observe a white vehicle in the furthest West stall
5:02
Speaker 9: that had no one around it. It was about forty
5:05
Speaker 9: five minutes later I was again driving by that car wash,
5:09
Speaker 9: and now there were no vehicles other than that one
5:12
Speaker 9: white car in the far west stall and there was
5:15
Speaker 9: nobody around the car. We did not see anyone around
5:19
Speaker 9: the car wash at all. Detective Mobley looked in the
5:25
Speaker 9: passenger side and he advised me that the keys to
5:28
Speaker 9: the vehicle were still in the ignition. That kind of
5:34
Speaker 9: raised our concern, so we started look into it a
5:39
Speaker 9: little deeper. Myself and Mobley made entry into the vehicle
5:44
Speaker 9: to try to find a phone number or name of
5:47
Speaker 9: someone that we might be able to contact. We did
5:51
Speaker 9: end up locating the number with the word mom on it.
5:58
Speaker 3: The police department called around midnight and wanted to know
6:05
Speaker 3: Tiff and he had a white car and if I
6:09
Speaker 3: knew where she was, I started calling people. I knew
6:15
Speaker 3: that she might go to. No one had hard from her,
6:19
Speaker 3: no one had seen her. And this is like at
6:21
Speaker 3: two o'clock in the morning. So by the time we
6:25
Speaker 3: got up here at the car wash, they had everything
6:29
Speaker 3: blocked off down deep. You knew that with all her
6:35
Speaker 3: personal belongings in her pit her car, that she had
6:39
Speaker 3: been adopted and she was probably not alive.
6:47
Speaker 7: A frequent visitor to the car wash is thirty eight
6:49
Speaker 7: year old William Reese, who Kathy knows from his time
6:54
Speaker 7: in Anadarko.
6:56
Speaker 3: He was always in trouble. He he stole vehicles, he
7:02
Speaker 3: sold from grocery stores or what have you he.
7:06
Speaker 2: Had been in jail. He'd already been in prison.
7:08
Speaker 4: He had just gotten out shortly before this happening.
7:17
Speaker 8: So William Reese was born in nineteen fifty nine in Oklahoma,
7:22
Speaker 8: and so it was a pretty depressed area that he
7:25
Speaker 8: grew up in. He had a difficult upbringing, unstable childhood.
7:33
Speaker 8: He was one of thirteen children. He was in foster
7:37
Speaker 8: care system for a while. He was forced to quit
7:39
Speaker 8: school in the ninth grade and go to work. So
7:43
Speaker 8: this is somebody, I think who got a pretty tough
7:46
Speaker 8: start in life. There was probably a combination of neglect
7:51
Speaker 8: with so many siblings and there being a lot of
7:53
Speaker 8: financial instability, and I think it would have been a
7:56
Speaker 8: pretty harsh upbringing in a lot of respects. There was
7:58
Speaker 8: a lot of suspicions that he was in views at
8:00
Speaker 8: some point.
8:02
Speaker 10: Thirteen siblings, a family background, being moved around. You have
8:07
Speaker 10: lots of negative risk factors in front of rees.
8:15
Speaker 8: That marriage does not last very long, and doesn't it
8:18
Speaker 8: fizzles out pretty quickly because of how we and Raese
8:23
Speaker 8: is treating his wife. He's drinking and he's physically abusive
8:27
Speaker 8: to her and she ends the relationship. This is somebody
8:33
Speaker 8: who for whatever reason, doesn't respect women feels entitled to behave. However,
8:39
Speaker 8: he wants to likely blames everything that's wrong in his
8:43
Speaker 8: life on other people, and those are things that do
8:45
Speaker 8: not bode well in terms of his relationship with other
8:49
Speaker 8: women in the future or his ability to adjust and
8:52
Speaker 8: adapt effectively to life as an adult. His ex wife
8:57
Speaker 8: said that he was unusually close to his mom, and
9:00
Speaker 8: even she'd made the combat at one point that she
9:03
Speaker 8: felt like his mom was so protective of him that quote,
9:07
Speaker 8: you know, if he kills somebody, she would help him
9:08
Speaker 8: hide the body.
9:20
Speaker 7: It's one day since Tiffany Dobrie went missing with her
9:24
Speaker 7: car left at a Bethany carwash around fifty miles away.
9:30
Speaker 7: Oklahoma City police make a gruesome discovery while investigating their
9:34
Speaker 7: own missing person's case.
9:37
Speaker 9: As they were investigating that scene, they canvassed the area
9:42
Speaker 9: and then ended up finding Tiffany's body on that same
9:45
Speaker 9: road about one hundred yards down.
10:00
Speaker 3: Ask yourself, who did it? Why would someone want to
10:03
Speaker 3: kill TiO.
10:06
Speaker 4: You didn't think about your friend just getting murdered for
10:10
Speaker 4: no reason out in the middle of nowhere like that.
10:12
Speaker 2: It just didn't happen.
10:14
Speaker 9: The thing that always kind of bothered me the most
10:18
Speaker 9: is that Tiffing and Ryan they just started their lives
10:21
Speaker 9: together and within three months it got taken away. If
10:29
Speaker 9: they had their full life together, what would have come
10:31
Speaker 9: of that?
10:42
Speaker 3: And so we went down a list of people for
10:45
Speaker 3: the police to check out because we didn't know what
10:50
Speaker 3: else to do, and if the first thing that Mama
10:58
Speaker 3: thought of to so I can't that it didn't enter
11:02
Speaker 3: our minds, because it did. You don't know if he
11:06
Speaker 3: was really at work or not. You know, he could
11:10
Speaker 3: have took off.
11:13
Speaker 9: In any case where you have someone that has disappeared,
11:19
Speaker 9: you know, you always you always got to start with
11:22
Speaker 9: people that are close and family members. So absolutely he
11:27
Speaker 9: was looked at.
11:33
Speaker 7: Police soon determined Tiffany was last seen alive shortly after
11:36
Speaker 7: six pm on July twenty seventh. Her husband was at
11:42
Speaker 7: work from three pm until eleven pm, and is cleared
11:45
Speaker 7: of any suspicion. Bethany police conducted a background check on
11:56
Speaker 7: local sex offenders, including William Or. They find no evidence
12:03
Speaker 7: linking him to the crime scene. Tiffany's mother knows Reese's mother,
12:10
Speaker 7: who offers to prepare Tiffany's clothes for her funeral.
12:13
Speaker 3: Her name with pat She wasn't a friend, but she
12:18
Speaker 3: was an acquaintance because she did my ironing and what
12:22
Speaker 3: have you for me? And so we took Tiffany's clothes
12:25
Speaker 3: down to her for her to press some for us,
12:29
Speaker 3: because she called and said she would do that.
12:46
Speaker 8: In nineteen eighty six, he kidnaps a woman and he
12:50
Speaker 8: rapes her. And at that point, I think he has
12:54
Speaker 8: taken a hard turn in his life, because now he
12:58
Speaker 8: is making choices that the vast majority of people would
13:01
Speaker 8: never make. He's become a criminal. He's become a predator.
13:13
Speaker 9: He was driving a truck and going to pick up
13:15
Speaker 9: a load, and he picked her up and rude. Her
13:22
Speaker 9: car broke down under a overpass, and he stopped and
13:27
Speaker 9: asked if she needed help. He kept on her and
13:31
Speaker 9: then she finally agreed and got in the truck with him.
13:51
Speaker 7: Reese is arrested but released after posting bail. He attacks again.
13:56
Speaker 7: One month later.
14:00
Speaker 6: He rapes one woman while he's awaiting trial for raping
14:04
Speaker 6: another one. I don't know how you get any more
14:07
Speaker 6: of a definition of a predator than that.
14:11
Speaker 7: Both of these victims survive their ordeal and have their
14:14
Speaker 7: identities protected. Re stands trial on two counts of rape.
14:20
Speaker 7: He has found guilty and sentenced to twenty five years
14:23
Speaker 7: in prison.
14:25
Speaker 10: For an individual who is inside of a correctional institution
14:28
Speaker 10: for years, that day is filled with border. Our environment
14:33
Speaker 10: creates our propensity to be involved in crime. Well, just
14:37
Speaker 10: think of it. You're surrounded by other people who have
14:39
Speaker 10: committed crimes. One learns to associate with certain people. One
14:46
Speaker 10: has to protect themselves. Inside of a correctional institution a
14:50
Speaker 10: lot of time to think.
15:09
Speaker 7: Reese's attorneys claim errors were made during his trial, and
15:13
Speaker 7: after serving ten years of his twenty five year sentence,
15:16
Speaker 7: convicted rapist, Reese is released early. He briefly lives with
15:21
Speaker 7: his mother and Anna Darko before moving seven hours away
15:24
Speaker 7: to Houston, Texas.
15:35
Speaker 5: My daughter went on a run this morning, and she's
15:39
Speaker 5: been gone a lot longer than I perfected, Good Bob Feather.
15:44
Speaker 7: Twelve year old Laura Smither goes for a jog in
15:47
Speaker 7: her friends With, Texas neighborhood and never returns home.
15:52
Speaker 6: I'd never seen anything quite like this before. I mean,
15:56
Speaker 6: you had people from everywhere coming out of the woodwork
16:00
Speaker 6: for this young girl. They were going through the fields,
16:04
Speaker 6: they were searching in bodies of water everywhere.
16:18
Speaker 7: Laura's body is found seventeen days later in a retention
16:22
Speaker 7: pond in nearby Pasadena.
16:25
Speaker 6: That today I will never forget because you had a
16:27
Speaker 6: father and son. They were out there, they were training
16:29
Speaker 6: a hunting dog. Hunting dog hits on something in the water.
16:33
Speaker 6: Father and son go out there to see what's going on.
16:35
Speaker 6: And this is the part that I mean, just so chilling,
16:39
Speaker 6: because the dad looked at the sun and says, I
16:41
Speaker 6: wonder what kind of animal that is? And the son
16:43
Speaker 6: looks back at the dad and says, animals don't wear socks.
16:56
Speaker 6: William Reese became a suspect early on because he was
16:59
Speaker 6: a convicted second out of Oklahoma, and that's fairly standard.
17:02
Speaker 6: When you have a child disappear like this, police start
17:05
Speaker 6: looking at registered sex offenders in the area. More than that,
17:09
Speaker 6: Reese had a construction job near this spot. It got
17:13
Speaker 6: rained out the morning Laura disappeared, so he would have
17:15
Speaker 6: been going home and that would have put him along
17:18
Speaker 6: her route about the time she disappeared. There were fibers
17:32
Speaker 6: that were found that matched formats in his truck. The
17:37
Speaker 6: fibers were unique, but they weren't so incredibly unique that
17:41
Speaker 6: it's like, Okay, these fibers could only possibly have come
17:45
Speaker 6: from William Reese's truck. It wasn't unique enough, and honestly,
17:51
Speaker 6: fibers are not DNA. A lot of that evidence had
17:54
Speaker 6: been destroyed because Laura was left in water.
17:58
Speaker 8: This is a twelve year old child, and what that
18:03
Speaker 8: tells me is one of two things. Either William Reese
18:07
Speaker 8: did not recognize how young she was when he grabbed her.
18:13
Speaker 8: I don't believe that. Number two is that this is
18:17
Speaker 8: somebody who is sexually interested in this age group and
18:24
Speaker 8: is willing to take advantage of an opportunity and rape
18:29
Speaker 8: and murder somebody who is that innocent and that young.
18:35
Speaker 7: While under police suspicion and within their custody, Reese speaks
18:39
Speaker 7: with the Texas News Channel to profess his innocence.
18:42
Speaker 1: Who they gonna look at first, an ex con, especially
18:47
Speaker 1: if you've done hard time, You're gonna be a number
18:49
Speaker 1: one suspect.
18:50
Speaker 2: No matter what.
18:51
Speaker 1: And if they can't find nobody, you're gonna be their Patsy.
19:13
Speaker 7: Sandra sa Paul, a nineteen year old pregnant mother, comes
19:17
Speaker 7: face to face with William Reese just south of Houston.
19:24
Speaker 6: She goes into a convenience store and she comes out
19:27
Speaker 6: of the convenience store. See she has a flat tire.
19:30
Speaker 6: A supposed good Samaritan comes along. Oh, let me help
19:33
Speaker 6: you out with that tire. Boom grabs her, tosses her
19:37
Speaker 6: into the truck, takes off down the freeway.
19:43
Speaker 8: The fact that William Race acts so quickly after his
19:49
Speaker 8: race in prison suggests to me that this is somebody
19:53
Speaker 8: who has thought about this and fantasized about this for
19:58
Speaker 8: nine years. While behind bars, he tells her to take
20:04
Speaker 8: her clothes off. She bends down to take her shoes
20:07
Speaker 8: off and notices that the car door is unlocked, and she,
20:11
Speaker 8: at that point makes a very important decision.
20:15
Speaker 10: This may be my last opportunity. The more secluded, the
20:19
Speaker 10: more away, the more the person is going to their
20:23
Speaker 10: environment rather than being in my environment, takes the advantage
20:26
Speaker 10: away from you.
20:29
Speaker 8: I would rather die jumping out of this car and
20:32
Speaker 8: leaving my fate in my own hands, than suffer whatever
20:36
Speaker 8: is about to happen if I stay with this man.
20:40
Speaker 3: The females jumped out of a white duly unknown LP
20:43
Speaker 3: left feet headed forty five mark bound. She needs an ambulance.
20:47
Speaker 3: He can't walk.
20:47
Speaker 5: We got an anulty.
20:56
Speaker 7: With Sandra now safe police begin questioning her, hoping that
21:00
Speaker 7: can find her kidnapper before he attacks again. Twenty year
21:10
Speaker 7: old Kelly Anne Cox goes missing in Denton, Texas.
21:18
Speaker 6: Kelly Cox was a beautiful, single mom college student in
21:23
Speaker 6: what is essentially kind of a college town of Denton, Texas.
21:27
Speaker 6: She had just wrapped up a school field trip. She
21:30
Speaker 6: was studying the area of criminal justice, and she stopped
21:34
Speaker 6: at this convenience store and unfortunately that's where she crossed
21:37
Speaker 6: paths with William Race. She has vanished into thin air.
21:44
Speaker 6: And that's what's again so frightening about all of this.
21:49
Speaker 8: It's somewhat mind boggling on the one hand that William
21:52
Speaker 8: Race continues his killing spree after Sandra s Paul manages
21:59
Speaker 8: to get out an escape. William Race is so focused
22:05
Speaker 8: on finding young women that kind of fit his prototype
22:10
Speaker 8: and sexually assaulting them abducting them that he's not even
22:14
Speaker 8: concerned about Sandra se Paul. He is thinking about his
22:18
Speaker 8: next victim and finding her.
22:22
Speaker 7: Kelly Ane Cox's disappearance in Denton, Texas is around three
22:26
Speaker 7: hours away from Tiffany and Oklahoma. At the time of
22:32
Speaker 7: Tiffany's abduction, Kathy Doughbrie has no idea of these other cases.
22:44
Speaker 7: Seventeen year old high school student Jessica Cain goes missing
22:47
Speaker 7: near Houston, just.
22:54
Speaker 6: Like the others, had her entire life ahead of her
22:58
Speaker 6: high school student with friends after a school event. Jessica
23:05
Speaker 6: was always very well behaved, never violated curfew anything like that.
23:08
Speaker 6: So when she didn't come home one time, her parents
23:10
Speaker 6: were instantly worried and her truck was found parked on
23:14
Speaker 6: the side of Interstate forty five. Like Laura, it was
23:21
Speaker 6: like she just fell into a hole in the universe,
23:23
Speaker 6: just vanished into thin air. But the truck was there,
23:25
Speaker 6: purse was in the front seat, didn't even really appear,
23:28
Speaker 6: there was any.
23:28
Speaker 2: Kind of a struggle. Oh, it's terrifying.
23:32
Speaker 6: It's like we have a predator in our neighborhood. People
23:37
Speaker 6: in the area were like, who is hunting our children?
23:42
Speaker 10: What we have as an apex predator an individual that
23:46
Speaker 10: has opportunity combined with skills and additionally being punished for
23:53
Speaker 10: the criminal act in the past, but not being deterred.
23:58
Speaker 8: I have always thought that the killing part of it
24:01
Speaker 8: for him was more pragmatic that I'm not going to
24:05
Speaker 8: leave a victim to point their finger at me again.
24:09
Speaker 8: My needs are more important than anybody else's, and I'm
24:12
Speaker 8: going to make sure that nobody's left to identify me.
24:27
Speaker 7: Kathy Doughbray still has no idea who killed her daughter.
24:32
Speaker 7: Police have no suspects and don't suspect William Reese is involved.
24:38
Speaker 7: But four hundred and fifty miles away in Texas, kidnapp
24:42
Speaker 7: survivor Sandra say Paul is now facing him in a lineup.
24:48
Speaker 7: He's being asked to repeat the lines Sandra heard her
24:51
Speaker 7: kidnapp or shout you.
24:54
Speaker 9: Cannot explain.
25:10
Speaker 2: Yet.
25:17
Speaker 7: The net is closing around Reese in Texas, but will
25:20
Speaker 7: he be linked to the murder of Tiffany Johnston four
25:23
Speaker 7: hundred and fifty miles away. Three months after the murder
25:35
Speaker 7: of Tiffany Johnston, Sandra Sepaul has identified William Reese as
25:40
Speaker 7: her kidnapper four hundred and fifty miles away in Texas.
25:47
Speaker 7: As authorities gather evidence to prosecute him, the owner of
25:50
Speaker 7: the Sunshine car wash where Tiffany was last seen, recognizes
25:54
Speaker 7: Reese in news reports. He tells Oklahoma police that Reese
25:59
Speaker 7: is a frequent customer, but investigators still have no way
26:03
Speaker 7: of linking Reese to the crime.
26:06
Speaker 9: We checked people that lived in the area that had
26:10
Speaker 9: serious criminal histories, and none of those came to fruition.
26:16
Speaker 9: No forensic evidence at that time, and there weren't cameras
26:20
Speaker 9: in that area that we could rely on for evidence purposes.
26:26
Speaker 9: So it truly came to where we believed whoever committed
26:31
Speaker 9: this came from outside of the community.
26:36
Speaker 7: Bethany Police passed the case to the Oklahoma State Bureau
26:39
Speaker 7: of Investigation, but still no leads. Nine months passed by,
26:49
Speaker 7: and Tiffany's mother, Kathy Dobrie, makes a solemn vow.
26:54
Speaker 3: We had lots of redbirds around that day and were
27:00
Speaker 3: we live is American Indians, and I'm Party Indians, and
27:09
Speaker 3: we believe in the redbirds. When the redbirds come to
27:13
Speaker 3: see you, it's a visit from your loved one from heaven.
27:25
Speaker 3: I told her that I would find who murdered her
27:29
Speaker 3: and get justice for her, because what just wasn't right.
27:35
Speaker 3: They took away my youngest child.
27:42
Speaker 4: If something were to ever happen to anyone in my
27:45
Speaker 4: immediate family, Kathy is the first person I'm calling to
27:49
Speaker 4: start looking into it. She does not know how to
27:54
Speaker 4: give up, She does not quit, and she knew that
27:58
Speaker 4: one day we would get there.
28:00
Speaker 2: We just didn't know when.
28:07
Speaker 7: Each anniversary of Tiffany's murder is met with an eerie coincidence.
28:14
Speaker 3: Every year, on Tiffany's anniversary date, which is July the
28:19
Speaker 3: twenty sixth, there would be little necklaces, bracelets, and we'd
28:29
Speaker 3: gather these up. We didn't touch them. We put on
28:33
Speaker 3: gloves like you're supposed to, and would give them to
28:36
Speaker 3: the OSBI.
28:37
Speaker 9: It was concern of members of the department, and I
28:40
Speaker 9: think it's part of the family that the suspect might
28:43
Speaker 9: have been the one leaving these trinkets.
28:46
Speaker 4: They would just show up every year at the same time,
28:50
Speaker 4: and nobody would ever own up to.
28:52
Speaker 2: Putting them there.
29:02
Speaker 7: Cathy's dogged determination finally gets results in her daughter's cold case.
29:08
Speaker 7: Advanced DNA testing is performed using the evidence collected from
29:12
Speaker 7: Tiffany's body. It reveals a partial profile of her killer.
29:19
Speaker 7: Investigators compare this to DNA swabs from her ex boyfriend's husband, colleagues,
29:26
Speaker 7: and even patron seen at the car wash the day
29:28
Speaker 7: of her murder. All are excluded. Yet to be tested
29:34
Speaker 7: is Anadarko resident. William Lewis Reese, a known sex offender
29:38
Speaker 7: and frequent visitor to the car wash. Police also look
29:43
Speaker 7: for a link between Tiffany's killing and the crimes and
29:45
Speaker 7: Texas and realize a striking connection the inner State forty
29:51
Speaker 7: five corridor.
29:56
Speaker 10: A perfect formula does come together to allow these criminal
30:00
Speaker 10: activities to take place. Access very important.
30:06
Speaker 2: So here you have an area.
30:08
Speaker 10: South of Houston, Texas before the very end in Galveston,
30:12
Speaker 10: and which one can be on the Interstate Highway and
30:15
Speaker 10: quickly be in another state or another part of this
30:21
Speaker 10: huge state of Texas very quickly.
30:28
Speaker 8: In many respects, Texas is a serial killer's dream. You
30:33
Speaker 8: can go for miles and miles without seeing anybody. There's
30:38
Speaker 8: actually a part of Texas that is infamous for being
30:42
Speaker 8: called the Texas Killing Fields because they discovered about thirty
30:46
Speaker 8: bodies of young women there that have been unsolved.
30:53
Speaker 4: Now we have a pattern, we have something to actually
30:56
Speaker 4: look at. So from this solid we have other cases
31:00
Speaker 4: that we can study along with ours to help get
31:05
Speaker 4: closure for all of them.
31:08
Speaker 6: It's a horribly frightening thing, especially as a father of two,
31:11
Speaker 6: to think that there are humans out there that walk
31:14
Speaker 6: around look at another human, go I want that. I'm
31:17
Speaker 6: going to take that, and they do.
31:28
Speaker 7: By January twenty fourteen, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation
31:33
Speaker 7: is closing in on suspected serial killer William Lewis Reese
31:37
Speaker 7: and seeks to obtain his DNA. Reese is easy to locate.
31:42
Speaker 7: He was successfully convicted for the kidnap of Sandra Say
31:45
Speaker 7: Paul and is serving a sixty years sentence in a
31:49
Speaker 7: Texas prison.
31:51
Speaker 6: Sandra Say Paul is the reason the murders stopped. I
31:57
Speaker 6: give her an amazing amount of credit because she was
32:01
Speaker 6: brave enough to escape him, and she was brave enough
32:04
Speaker 6: to never ever waver or never be intimidated, never be
32:07
Speaker 6: too scared to identify him, and stick through that all
32:11
Speaker 6: the way to the end. He was convicted and the
32:13
Speaker 6: only reason no one else was murdered is because he
32:16
Speaker 6: went to prison, and that was because of Sandra Sea Paul.
32:20
Speaker 7: Authority Swabbreeese for his DNA and compare it to the
32:24
Speaker 7: partial profile taken from Tiffany's body. The results indicate Reese
32:30
Speaker 7: could be the killer.
32:45
Speaker 9: We believed that he was probably the person that did it.
32:48
Speaker 9: It was just finding that link to be able to
32:51
Speaker 9: put it all together. You want to do everything you
32:55
Speaker 9: can to find that link, and I mean, look it
32:59
Speaker 9: took a decade for that link to finally come to fruition.
33:07
Speaker 7: Texas authorities discover another critical clue as they investigate the
33:11
Speaker 7: link between Reese and Tiffany's murder long distance phone cards.
33:17
Speaker 6: So he had these cards and he used one of
33:19
Speaker 6: them to make a phone call, and that was still
33:22
Speaker 6: in his truck when friends with police impounded it, and
33:25
Speaker 6: that wound up being some very key evidence that Oklahoma
33:28
Speaker 6: authorities used.
33:36
Speaker 8: Investigators go to William Rees and basically let him know
33:40
Speaker 8: that the gig is up and that you know, they
33:43
Speaker 8: have DNA linking him to Tiffany Johnston. And I think
33:46
Speaker 8: that at this point William Reese is somewhat panicked because
33:50
Speaker 8: he is well aware of the fact that Oklahoma has
33:52
Speaker 8: the death penalty, and so he is in prison in
33:56
Speaker 8: Texas at this point, and so I think he decided
34:00
Speaker 8: that if I'm cooperative with some of these other unsolved murders,
34:06
Speaker 8: perhaps I can avoid the death penalty in Texas and
34:09
Speaker 8: won't be extradited to Oklahoma to potentially face the death
34:13
Speaker 8: penalty there.
34:22
Speaker 7: With this new information linking Reese to Tiffany's murder as
34:25
Speaker 7: a bargaining tool, investigators questioned Reese about the murders of
34:30
Speaker 7: Laura Smither, Kelly Anne Cox, and Jessica Kain. He reveals
34:36
Speaker 7: where police can find the bodies of Jessica Kin and
34:39
Speaker 7: Kelly Ane Cox. His cooperation means Reese won't face the
34:44
Speaker 7: death penalty for these murders.
34:47
Speaker 2: He's a chess player. He knows how to use his ponds.
34:52
Speaker 4: He knows how to use his pieces, which pieces to sacrifice,
34:55
Speaker 4: when to get what he wants. And I feel that
35:00
Speaker 4: he has used his victims as those pieces and played
35:04
Speaker 4: them against law enforcement to gain favors. And I don't
35:09
Speaker 4: think that we will ever know how many of those
35:11
Speaker 4: pieces he has held.
35:13
Speaker 2: Back to play later.
35:15
Speaker 10: There's no reason to believe that there are not more
35:18
Speaker 10: that are out there. This is where further investigation can
35:23
Speaker 10: take place. But then there becomes a question for the individual.
35:26
Speaker 10: How much more information am I going to give you?
35:28
Speaker 10: If I'm already here for the rest of my life,
35:30
Speaker 10: what advantage do I have.
35:34
Speaker 7: Reese doesn't confess to any other murders. He claims he
35:40
Speaker 7: accidentally hit Laura Smither while she was jogging along the
35:43
Speaker 7: side of the road.
35:48
Speaker 2: I pick I even really real backwards.
35:55
Speaker 11: Cut her in a slowboard a trip on the pass
35:57
Speaker 11: your side and the horde.
36:01
Speaker 2: Like getting a lad the door.
36:04
Speaker 1: Took off.
36:05
Speaker 2: I don't remember now. I got out from where I
36:07
Speaker 2: was some danger punk lady in the platter, and I
36:12
Speaker 2: went home.
36:15
Speaker 7: Reese doesn't say anymore about Kelly an Cox, just that
36:19
Speaker 7: he got into an altercation with her at a convenience store.
36:23
Speaker 2: Opened up my door, boom, I run right into her.
36:26
Speaker 11: Coke went all over me and we got into a chair,
36:30
Speaker 11: and she hit me with a coke.
36:32
Speaker 2: When I hit her, she hit her head, and know how.
36:34
Speaker 11: Your door opens up, her head hit terror.
36:38
Speaker 2: She slipped back. She's out.
36:41
Speaker 11: I put her in the back seat. She never woke up.
36:45
Speaker 11: She wouldn't breathe or nothing. She never woke up, and
36:48
Speaker 11: I dug me a little home, put.
36:49
Speaker 2: Her in in.
36:54
Speaker 6: Reese confessed, but they were carefully crafted confessions to where
36:59
Speaker 6: he upheld his end of the bargain that I'll tell
37:01
Speaker 6: you what happened. But he never really fully told police
37:05
Speaker 6: what he did.
37:08
Speaker 8: When you listen to his confessions, or you hear his confessions,
37:11
Speaker 8: it's just it's just amazing how he just storts clearly
37:16
Speaker 8: what happened. They'll talk about murdering somebody, but they won't
37:20
Speaker 8: admit to assault sexual assault for some reason, or they'll
37:24
Speaker 8: do what a lot of murderers do, which is fine
37:27
Speaker 8: ways to what we psychologists called neutralize their actions. So
37:31
Speaker 8: that might mean blaming the victim, which he definitely did.
37:35
Speaker 8: You know, Oh, this person started it. We got into
37:38
Speaker 8: a match. You know this person, we got into some
37:40
Speaker 8: kind of argument about spilling coke on me. I can't
37:44
Speaker 8: think of a better description of somebody who has no compassion, empathy,
37:47
Speaker 8: or caring for his victims. They truly are objects for
37:51
Speaker 8: him to fulfill his sexual fantasies.
38:00
Speaker 7: Reese also claims an argument ensued with Tiffany Johnston at
38:04
Speaker 7: the car wash.
38:05
Speaker 11: Next thing I know, this girl is yelling at me
38:07
Speaker 11: that sprager. I don't think it's sprader, but she's cussing
38:12
Speaker 11: and everything. That's when I grabbed you around throat, he choking.
38:17
Speaker 11: She wouldn't move no more, and I shut the door
38:20
Speaker 11: and I backed out.
38:23
Speaker 2: They tried out such funny victims. I don't think so Okay,
38:28
Speaker 2: I guess I don't think some kind of opens up.
38:30
Speaker 3: I mean, where spoil I mean.
38:31
Speaker 8: For I know now.
38:46
Speaker 3: My bow was to find who murdered her and get
38:48
Speaker 3: justice for her.
38:51
Speaker 7: William Reese is convicted of the kidnapping and first degree
38:54
Speaker 7: murder of Tiffany Johnston. He is sentenced to death.
39:05
Speaker 3: The day that we got our conviction on Reese, the
39:11
Speaker 3: redbirds were lined up outside our house on the light pole,
39:18
Speaker 3: off the way, across the line, and they were everywhere.
39:24
Speaker 3: Tiffany knew then that mama got justice. I'm persistent and
39:32
Speaker 3: like I said, she was my baby, and I made
39:34
Speaker 3: her a promise and I carry it out.
39:53
Speaker 2: He was ice cold, arrogant.
39:56
Speaker 4: When they showed the pictures of his victims' bodies of
40:01
Speaker 4: what he had done, he would smile and lick his lips.
40:06
Speaker 3: Kidney gave her live to help the parents in Texas
40:12
Speaker 3: brings some closure to them because if it hadn't have
40:16
Speaker 3: been for Tiffany's case, Texas would have had anything.
40:22
Speaker 7: Rees accepts a plea deal, and in addition to his
40:25
Speaker 7: current sentence for Sandra Sapau's kidnapping, he is sentenced to
40:29
Speaker 7: a further three life terms in a Texas prison for
40:33
Speaker 7: the murders of Jessica Cain, Kelly an Cox, and Laura Smither.
40:39
Speaker 7: William Reese is currently serving his prison sentences in Texas, so.
40:45
Speaker 6: He still Owes the state of Texas time for Sandra
40:49
Speaker 6: Sapau's kidnapping, and now for the murders of Laura, Jessica
40:53
Speaker 6: and Kelly Ann. There's an appeal process in Oklahoma. My
40:58
Speaker 6: sneaking suspicion is when he runs out of appeals in
41:01
Speaker 6: Oklahoma and they actually set a date for his execution,
41:05
Speaker 6: he will be extra guided back.
41:07
Speaker 3: We got justice for Tiffany in the court system that
41:12
Speaker 3: he's getting to do what he wants to. He can
41:17
Speaker 3: go to the library, he can work on it, horthoes, leather,
41:23
Speaker 3: or whatever he wants to do. And that's not justice
41:26
Speaker 3: for Tiffany. How could someone that I run across knew
41:34
Speaker 3: his mom? How could he have done that?
41:42
Speaker 7: Kathy suspects it was Reese's mother, Patsy, leaving trinkets on
41:46
Speaker 7: Tiffany's grave.
41:48
Speaker 3: There's not a doubt in my mind that it was her,
41:52
Speaker 3: because I think she felt guilty because she knew that
41:57
Speaker 3: what her son had murdered Tiffany, and so that was
42:02
Speaker 3: her way of being at peace with the idea that
42:04
Speaker 3: she wouldn't talk to the police or wouldn't tell them.
42:09
Speaker 3: Every year, you could guarantee there would be something out
42:12
Speaker 3: there and even to this day, woulden't Tiffany's anniversary date
42:19
Speaker 3: comes around. We always check on the twenty six to
42:24
Speaker 3: see if anything has been placed on Tiffany's grave that
42:28
Speaker 3: we don't know, and nothing has showed up.
42:33
Speaker 8: Since Pat Diyed.
42:39
Speaker 4: I just want to know why we haven't been able
42:41
Speaker 4: to bring him back. I want to know why the
42:44
Speaker 4: DA will not sign off to have him brought back
42:46
Speaker 4: and put on death row.
42:49
Speaker 2: He took my friend, he took one of the best
42:52
Speaker 2: people I've.
42:53
Speaker 4: Ever known in my life, and he robbed the world
42:56
Speaker 4: of something great. I don't know what her plans were
42:59
Speaker 4: after college, but whatever they were, she was going to
43:02
Speaker 4: be great at it.