This war amongst us has got to end the Hulu original phenomenon all's fair returns You got one shot to make this right. I'm not saying I hate you But I would unplug your life support to charge my phone. I'm gonna get produced a ride Murphy I will not stop and I will win. Let's get these girls a show this is not a good task Though who original series all's fair from years November 4th on Hulu and one distant plus for one subscribers I'm gonna buy step into the 20-20 true crime vault where each story is unforgettable What happened to your daughter Tiffany? She was murdered. She'd just gotten married three months before that
The entire community was in fear. Yes, there's a killer on the loose all four girls I've been doing one dirty things Lord Smith was jogging down a room If you can remember anything please contact the police department. Kelly Cox was going to school Tiffany Johnson was watching her car And a car wash just a came to just having dinner with some friends This is just snatching girls up and raw daylight then you just happen across the path of a sewer killer We could be the next one. There's nothing in this world more powerful or compelling and you can find your child This case has been cold for so long and there's finally an answer One they got from a stunning tape seen in public for the very first time tonight. Did you relax and let go you He was a pretty much one-man crime free You started driving the day thousand Constantly hunting he was a predator on the prowl sounds like a monster Four young women disappear in 1997
It's a mystery that baffles investigators and fuels their family's quest for answers for almost 25 years The first of anish is Laura smither just 12 years old Who was Laura like? She was a joy She was so sweet and so caring and so loyal fiercely loyal to all her girlfriends She was one of the best friends. We spent a lot of time together Everybody loved Laura. She was just one of those people. I always say she was touched by light because everybody loved her She was the friend that would come over to your house and make you look bad because she would help put away the dishes after dinner And Laura wasn't perfect. She was a normal kid, but she was very smart wickedly smart
She could have done anything she would have turned 13. She'd been carrying down the days at 87 days Well, it's so excited to become a teenager In 1997 friends would was just a very quiet small town So we're about halfway between the city of Houston and Galveston in 97 We had been voted one of the top 10 safest cities in America Laura lives near the creek and their house was kind of magical because I would go there and they would always have the computers going and We could go outside and explore in countries There wasn't a lot of development in the area. It was a quiet country road The Laura lived on where to be at the end and so if we were in the kitchen You could see right to the end of the road from inside the house Laura wanted to be a professional ballerina. She had just gotten accepted into the Houston Ballet Academy Ballet was probably the most important part of her life besides her family She loved to dance. She was always choreographing little pieces and she put on little plays for us
She started when she was six. She did ballet tap and jazz. Oh for six years But she just really loved ballet more than anything Take me back to April 3rd 1997. What are you doing that morning here? It was a Thursday because I'd been out of town. I said, okay
We'll do pancakes with bacon, which was Laura's favorite She just finished reading a book and it was all about running and exercise and building your endurance She felt that if she did that she could hold her arabesque longer and it would make it stronger for ballet And her dad was a runner he ran every day. So I wanted her permission to go running well We fixed breakfast and of course she didn't come back We knew immediately that something was wrong immediately and we called the police within an hour of that happening But our top story tonight. She's only 12 years old and at this hour. She's missing It made the news that first day police concentrate the search near the girls home Her parents wait and hope. There's just been constrated here around the house as far as I know there are some open fields that she might have run by And they've you know search those areas very thoroughly. She is a very good girl
She's something something very unusual has happened that she would have been home someone had to have taken her The search continues this morning for missing 12 year old friends with her Nothing did you see my daughter I ended up running the ground search and I was drinking from the fire hose hundreds of people Flatted to come help us search and then it just exploded overnight family friends blanketed the neighborhood with flyers a daylight a small army of searchers fanned out Or his dad went out with the first wave of volunteers grateful for all the support someone encouraged by the turnout this morning I'm overwhelmed by the community support and please It was a like for you. I don't ask me war was a 12 year old little girl, and it just touched people The community friends was very close and they felt that Laura was where they're on I'm going home I'm gonna hug my kids and kind of regroup a little bit and I'll be ready to run in the morning people from all over Houston
Put their lives on home the best came out to be we offer it to you and pray that you would watch over long wherever she is People of different denominations different faiths all showing up together to pray for this child Hoping that maybe that will have some power I just want to let her know that we are gonna find you and we're not gonna stop until we do thank you Please keep her in your prayers. The FBI has been called in on this search And now police are calling an abduction their parents go more frantic by the hour volunteers Trudg through swamps and dodge snakes, but by days and there was nothing to report It was a tough search for anyone involved in being out there. They've been over days They covered over 75 square miles. They plan to do the same thing again until Laura is found There is a maximum commitment to find you and do everything the law permits to bring you to justice You just thought every place I see an area was involved in the search you have a 12-year-old girl Who goes jogging at nine o'clock in the morning?
For whatever reason no one saw anything. She was here one second head on the next We were worried that whoever took her was still out there and that we could be the next one and our top store this morning What could be a nightmare comes true like a day job? Who somebody had to have taken her it's like she just disappeared has almost pictured her big ties to this mither case the entire community was in fear Yes, there's a killer on the loose exactly The search goes on for 12-year-old Laura Kate Smith there's no sign of 12-year-old girl the ground search is swelling into its six day Who ever has Laura? We would like you to bring her home now Three weeks after she disappears this is a town hall me just remember sitting there feeling numb This was for my child you need to allow the chief and the FBI to To analyze some of the information it was a couple of hours later before the police chief made it here to tell us then indeed a body had been found and It was like a dark blanket just swallowed her the household we just
Resilent nobody spoke The police lived And we just all stayed in this room all night based on our knowledge of the case and evidence recovered at the scene I am prepared to say that the young lady found is in fact Laura Kate Smith She had a ring that she would wear that her initials and she was wearing her socks It's a It's a whole It's just a boy that exists for a long time and even now The city was heartbroken people I think felt like That could have been their child and so Laura was everybody's job Once Laura was found I think was understood at that point that this was not an accident This was an intentional abduction and homicide of a 12-year-old We were worried that whoever took her was still out there and that we could be the next one Three months later and 300 miles north those worries proved true when another woman goes missing
20-year-old Kelly Cox heads out for the day and has never seen alive again What was Kelly Cox like growing up? Growing up she was always very independent even as a little child I mean one time I told her don't put your fingers on that again so she reached over with her toes Kelly had a really good sense of humor. Kelly Cox is also a mom to her own independent daughter Alexis Kelly was a young mom she had big plans and big dreams How old was she? She was 19 just barely 19. Did she like motherhood?
She said it was the happiest day of her life I was living here yesterday. We need to laugh like that The day that Alexis was born and she said that any number of times Happiest day of my life mom Do you have memories of your mom Kelly? I always knew I was loved It was beautiful the way she giggles in the way I giggle back as a baby She was an excellent student and very focused she delivered Alexis in a week later She took her finals at the community college made all eyes Kelly breezes through community college and then heads to the University of North Texas studying Psychology and criminal justice with plans to be a therapist I'm like wow you're really on track she had a plan and she was sticking to it I mean I think she would have been a phenomenal mother Battering her future so she'd better our future She said mom I need to support Alexis and me and that's one reason she insisted on summer school
classes because she wanted to graduate and may have not yet She would have been a phenomenal role model as well But sometimes it's something that things go Tell us about that morning It's like it just happened yesterday she was leaning back in her bed her hair up on top of her head I said have a good day I love you I'll see you this afternoon On July 15 1997 Kelly was touring the city of Denton jail for her criminal justice class So she comes out of the building and what happens?
She tried to get into her car she couldn't get into it Couldn't open the door? Couldn't open the door she you know the key would not work So she walks to a nearby convenience store to call her boyfriend for help But by the time he arrives here Kelly is nowhere to be found When he got there her car was there in the parking lot but of course she was nowhere to be seen He opened the car sat in there she never showed up So he left a note saying hey it got hot call me Kelly's seen on surveillance video She was seen doing the tour of the jail they didn't have cameras on the outside There was no cameras or anything over there at the gas station no cameras in the media The sanity they confirmed that Kelly did go inside the gas station so they knew that she was there But no one saw where she went she just disappeared The police stations on one end of the road and where Kelly was at is on the other end of the road But it was within probably 200 yards of the police station It's pretty bold to kidnap a young woman next to a police station
It was real scary because you just don't know and it was so unlike her She wouldn't just leave her car in a band and it and it was at four o'clock on that night That Lawrence called the boyfriend called me and asked me if I had heard from Kelly And then when 5.30 finally rolled around I knew without a doubt something was bad was wrong Because that's when she was supposed to pick a lexus up from the babysitter She wouldn't have just left her so that's when her mom knew she's missing something serious has gone wrong It's like she was there one minute and then she was gone back from the get-go I'm thinking somebody had to have taken her It makes you wonder how many times the person who came after had done this He knew the exact right moment to approach it that to him Young mother is missing Kelly caught disappeared without a trace I have to remain optimistic that we're gonna find her We can see your confinerate I had a bad feeling That's the gator's question Lawrence Harris yesterday for four hours Whenever you're dealing with missing persons or any type of homicide investigation More often than not it's someone that you know
There's rarely a situation where it's just a true who-done-it It was natural at that time to look into the boyfriend We all want the same thing when we come home safe He had been seen in that parking lot he was sitting there for an extended period of time They have questioned the boyfriend and he has passed the line detector test He wasn't a good suspect in the case There are no witnesses her boyfriend passes the polygraph and leads are going nowhere They really did everything that they possibly could to generate a lead Even the leads that were coming in they weren't really fruitful But no clear concrete evidence about what happened to her The case eventually went cold So the days turned into weeks into months, months into years Yes, we always tried to keep the story out there One thing people know it was not a soft case and Kelly was not home There's nothing in this world more powerful or compelling And you're gonna find your child Eleven days after Kelly Cox went missing another young woman vanished
Her name was Tiffany Johnston. She was in Oklahoma about three hours north of Denton Where was Tiffany born and raised? She was born in Chick-Shay But she was raised in Antarctica And a dark is a little town in southwestern Oklahoma Everybody knows everybody everybody grows up together goes to school together goes to church together Tiffany was so energetic and daring Tiffany was my shadow everywhere I went Tiffany went with me Oh, that's not an idea honey. That's a fact Wherever my mom was Tiffany was gonna be there learning how to do something or helping We went to junior high and high school together I didn't have friends and I think she saw that and decided that she was going to be my friend She just loved life, loved life and nothing could stop her Ryan and her dated for about a year. She just had this six cents about people So if she had decided at 19 that he was the one like he was the one She wanted a big wedding Big wedding yes, that's a lot of money
Yeah, I should have drawn Yep, and I might have enough to high-fort It was July 26 1997 the day Tiffany Johnson disappeared from the sunshine car wash here in Bethany, Oklahoma That night she had plans to celebrate her three-month wedding anniversary with her husband And she stopped at a car wash along the way. I actually went missing It was late at night. Was it normal for people to be washing their cars here? That way? Those were the summer months and yes, this is a very popular car wash What happened? What did you see?
So about 1130 p.m. I was heading to another call And I drove by the car wash. There's several occupants still in the car wash washing Also observed a white Dodge neon in the far west bay I continued on to my call came back about 45 minutes later and that car was still there No one around it and it was the only car still there When they arrived the second time they noticed some floor mats were hanging up on the rack like someone would wash them The car was unlocked the keys were in ignition There was money in the console payable check was in the console So it didn't appear to be a robbery it just appeared to be whoever drove the car just was a player We did find a phone number to Kathy Dobri which was Tiffany's mother And then after midnight do your phone call?
It was the Bethany police department wanting to know if I knew who Tiffany Dobri was And I said yes, I'm her mother and they said well we found her car is sitting in a bandit Police also contact Ryan who rushes to the car wash Her husband didn't have any idea where she was and was very concerned Did you try to call her? Yes, and she didn't answer and that was something really unusual Her pager was in the car everything and that was really one I really got really scared Because she didn't go anywhere without it In this kind of case you don't have any physical evidence to go with and typically you look at the spouse first They interviewed him they checked his alibi he wasn't working till 11 o'clock that night Ryan's work punch card rules him out as a suspect The thing about this particular crime scene it didn't appear to be a struggle It's just that Tiffany wasn't there We are not sure exactly what happened but we had concerns that something bad might have happened to Tiffany
The very next day Tiffany's partially clothed body is found in a tall patch of grass here near the interstate she had been raped and strangled to death It was hard to just digest that someone would want to murder her because everybody that met her liked her Why would somebody want to murder Tiff? I just lost it because I'm 19 at 19 these things don't happen. I still believe that the world's good and people are good This particular case it's really tough that there's no particular witness There were swabs that came from Tiffany Johnson that the medical examiner is elected The swabs were taken for DNA analysis and those results were inconclusive at the time and at that point the case went cold Now there are three cases laura and tiffany found murdered and kelly still missing handled by three different police departments along the interstate There is no sense that these cases are linked then four weeks later a nightmare comes true for some tiki island parents Their 17 year old daughter has been missing for more than 24 hours and police say this is no runaway
Somebody can answer this show is sponsored by who killed angel harris a podcast from id on june 25th 31 year old angel harris was found murdered in Gainesville, florida more than 15 years later her case remains unsolved But on the new podcast who killed angel harris a podcast from id host sarah calen travels to florida to uncover what happened to angel and who may be responsible Retired Gainesville police detective courtney roberts joined sarah to review evidence that includes surveillance footage showing angel with an unidentified man Shortly before her death and then the same man walking away alone soon the search for answers in one murder turns into an investigation of five unsolved homicides Who killed angel harris listen to who killed angel harris wherever you get your podcasts Today I want to tell you about our friends at layless sleep We cover a lot of difficult stories on this show some that might make it hard to sleep at night But layla makes one of the best mattresses on the market and also one of the most affordable It's innovative flippable design offers something for everyone. There's a soft side and a firm side so you can choose your preferred experience
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And finally up in Bethany, Oklahoma 19 year old newlywed tiffany johnston was last seen at a car wash And now august brings more heartache back in texas Their top story this morning what could be a nightmare comes true for some tiki island parents Their 17 year old daughter has been missing for more than 24 hours and police say this is no run away If you have my daughter in your three with her I pray that you would return her Because her daddy and i still want her 17 year old recent high school graduated jessica kane is the only child as suzi and c h kane What did she mean to you jessica?
Oh, was she meant everything in the world, you know, you can lose the allian an arm or something and it'd be easier than doing without your child She was a parrot's green. She was just as good a child as you could ever want She did plays in elementary junior high high school And so she'd been at the drama house for two or three years planned different events And what were her dreams? What did she wanted to dress they wanted to study criminology her immediate plans were to go to college Did she get to attend one college class? No, she was starting the next week tells me august 1997 and the place she was acting She was in a musical Science in the 50s And when we sat down in the audience she grabbed me by the arm that pulled me out of the chair and we jitter dug down the aisle to her stage And what do you remember about her performance that night? How pretty she looked how excited she was
I went up to the delah now proud of what's over and the last thing she said to me was I love you daddy After the play was over with the cast members went to have dinner at vinigas restaurant She was driving her dad's white Ford pickup truck Jessica they saw her going down the entrance ramp to the freeway And that was the last name I saw of jessica kane I had stayed up in the recliner and was waiting up for her and i dosed off to sleep and it was about 230 I guess When I woke up and I realized she wasn't here and that's when I immediately began to panic She woke me up and I just jumped out of bed and hit the road looking for I'm about two and a half hours after I left the house. I found the truck on the side of the road It was empty It was a most horrible feeling you could imagine of emptiness and hurt because I knew that something tragically happened There were reports probably 5060 sightings of a white pickup truck being chased by the vehicle but highest being down the freeway
We were so close to the bumper it was like it was being towed We begged you please if you know anything if you can help us in any way help us find our daughter Anybody that can spare a little time. We would appreciate you coming out and helping in any way that you possibly can Why did the search for Jessica look like? At one time I think I was told there were 6000 responses and people walking in the fields looking for her And all salt and ranch filled with cotton mounds and rattlesnakes and being there way through the brush piles in thick areas around the coast It was like deja vu i mean thousands of people joined in the search for jessica tane Incredibly lara smithers parents still grieving from the loss of their own daughter joined the search She must never give up her hope There was no question that we had to go help you said we had to do that we didn't have to fast We had to we had to give back what people had been so kind to us and there was no question we had to go find jessica It's an nightmare we lived um
It's it's very painful. What did baht and gay give you they gave us their hearts and their love and their support And the knowledge they'd already been there. Yeah, they'd already been through it But as the boxes were boxed and the supplies were shipped out volunteers could only fight back tears because jessica is still missing This is kind of a let down but we're gonna keep searching. We're gonna keep we're gonna find her In jessica's case there was nothing No leads at all and lead us not into temptation that deliver us from evil I think after jessica came on missing that's when people started believing it was serial killer involved We were so scared because the thing that we had been afraid of all along that there was this monster jessica kane is now the fourth young woman who had gone missing three in texas one in opohoma But what authorities investigating those cases at the time did not know was that there was a fifth young woman taken who escaped That's good and they got a car police take the young president at step of hypnotizing her
Hopes that she recalls any details before this man strikes again The desperate search for a 12 year old girl and friends would is on this afternoon kalikot disappeared without a trace here in lemar tiki island area searcher For 17 year old jessica came families and investigators are puzzled for young women have gone missing in texas and oglahoma Including 12 year old laura smither who dreamed of being a valorina She went running one morning and was found dead three weeks later But based on our knowledge of the case and evidence recovered at the scene I am prepared to say that the young lady found is in fact laura kate smither At the time It was terrifying for all of us for the whole community while the murder of little laura dominated the local news There was a fifth girl who was taken but this kidnapping had not received much media attention at the time On may 17th of 1997 just weeks after laura smithers body has found a 19 year old woman is kidnapped in webster texas Mere miles from friends with sandra sepal was in a neighboring city in webster
Which is immediately adjacent to the city of friendswood on the high 45 It's a small city on the high 45 quarter of a confused in the opposite It's about 1 30 in the morning when 19 year old sandra sepal stops at that convenience store behind me She's using a payphone outside calling a friend when she notices a strange man park nearby Staring at her she tells her friend to meet her at this waffle house across the street As she starts driving there she notices she's got a flat tire As she pulled into the back of the waffle house The unknown person who was watching her across the street at the stop and go had followed her across the street This individual pulls up beside her and tells her she's got a flat tire and ask her if she would like for him to change it He looks like a good samarin trying to help. Yeah, so like uh, at her we're just a normal cowboy, you know He opens it up his truck and ask her to uh Go to his front seat and get a rag. I wish she does He's gonna go behind him with a large honey knife, but it's a turor neck
And tells her to get into the truck or he's gonna kill her She gets in truck. He starts driving north on high 45. He's driving on a high rate of speed He was holding her down to her to take off her pants So it was clear to her that that he was gonna sexually assault her She then said I can't take my pants off because my shoes are wrong I have to take my shoes off. So let's go over her leg and as soon as he did that she opened the truck door She felt like that was her only chance that she was gonna be killed one way or the other and this was our only chance to Possibly get away. So she made a decision to jump out of the moving vehicle What's your 911? Why do you come to Waffle House?
Uh, somebody just came in and said that someone was a duck in and they come out of the car and they're bleeding Call came over the radio as an aggravated kidnapping You're talking about the Waffle House female dumped out of a white dually unknown LP left being added 45 northbound She needs the ambulance. She can't walk. Yeah, so I don't see any just trying to gather as much information as possible Sanders say paul had been critically injured but in spite of that trauma She was able to recall that her kidnapper was driving a white Ford dually truck and she provided a very basic physical description of the driver A blonde hair with a beard Sanders say paul is transported to a local hospital where she remains for several days Had road rash from head to toes of severe injury to her head that I remember Her clothes were ripped and torn among the evidence collected the left front tire from the young woman's vehicle The tire had been punctured and police note that the puncture looked like it was made with a knife There was interviews done, but there wasn't anything concrete linking her abduction to any individual
Fearing that there could be a serial rapist on the loose investigators bring in a police officer who's trained in hypnosis It was the very first time this unconventional tool was used by the Webster police department She was so traumatized. It was very little she could recall as you relax and let go In a very process of relaxing you were gradually tripped into hypnosis For more than two hours they painstakingly go through every detail of the crime Just asking during her hypnosis. She asked her to describe the inside of the vehicle She was able to recall some details through the hypnosis and gave a description of the vehicle and the suspect
Incredibly with the help from the hypnotist at least narrowed their search to one man He was a predator on the prowl constantly hunting the predator remains enlarged But the hypnosis session proves crucial in a race against time police flipped the script the hunter is now the hunting In a round words get a truck be a truck He was a predator on the prowl constantly hunting He started driving until he found something sounds like a monster We were worried we could be the next one the entire community was in fear. Yes. There's a killer on the loose There's a feeding friendly on this case where the braces let all over it What keeps you going but allows you to move forward catching who did it there's nothing in this world more powerful or compelling And you can find your child but one victim escaped and helped find the killer under hypnosis. Just relax
This case has been cold for so long when there's finally an answer And just put his hand over it all for him So that was one of those oh geez, you know what I'm on What is their fault? They did something wrong to annoy him I got one of your shoulder shoulder. You have said you could feel the evil in the room Don't you repeat me loud third words do not scream. Do not scream. Do not scream. That's great
Laura smithered just 12 years old goes missing on April 3rd 1997. She's found murdered 17 days later That July two other young women go missing farther north kelly cocks in denton outside of dallas and tiffany jonston in a suburb of Oklahoma city then in august jessica cane disappears off i 45 just north of galveston And it's that very same roadway i 45 that connects these disappearances In each case authorities have very little to go on but they are not giving up Laura is no longer just a name in friendswood. It's a battle cry a battle cry to find a killer But the public doesn't know is that investigators working on Laura smithers murder quickly have someone in their sights Very early on it was a suspect it was developed right from the start right from the start as it was we reached We have racist kind of a jack of all trades. He was a truck driver He operated to have equipment he shoot horses William reset a history of kidnapping people
William reason had been convicted in oklahoma in the 80s of kidnapping and sexual assault He was supposed to serve a 25-year sentence He ended up getting out after nine and a half years of that sentence on an appeal Williamless race was released october 18th 1996 from oklahoma department of corrections He was working on a construction site next door essentially to where laura's house was that morning He was dismissed early from a construction site because the ground was too wet it had been raining And drove down the same road that laura had been out for a job on We're taking William reason direct path with laura smither the morning of April the third Well as soon as they found out that he kidnapped a female in Oklahoma, a sexually assaulted her You know that kind of opened your eyes up pretty quickly and they talked to him get an interview early on Early on he consented to a search of his vehicle They took photographs to the inside of the vehicle collected fingerprint evidence They collected fibers from floor mats and seats the FBI conducted a polygraph test which was inconclusive There were other people on the radar earlier that were being looked at closer for a while
But he was the primary suspect There was reasons not to announce it Still behind the scenes the friends would authorities heading up the smither investigation are willing to discuss their suspect And that's our fateful connection between laura smither's case and asandra seepaw kidnapping is made in october When su detriting nance the detective who had hypnotized sandra stops by the friends wood police department I spoke with the chief there and he told him about you know who they suspected and I left his office went home and about third o'clock in the morning I woke up and I thought oh my god, that's who sandra seepaw described with William race The suspect was a thin cowboy war cowboy hat he drove a large white duty pickup truck There was a notepad or so what she thought was some type of notepad or counter Only dashboard su detriting nance immediately connects investigators from friends wood and the neighboring town of Webster Where sandra was taken friends wood police department had already processed William race's vehicle
So they were able to confirm that his vehicle was consistent with what sandra seepaw had described being the vehicle that had abducted her They brought reason as part of a live lineup There's a one-way mirror where they come in where sandra is sitting on the opposite side of the glass Okay, y'all would get shoulder-shower one after the other after the other the investigator had each person Safe phrases that the suspect might have used face glass won't repeat after being allowed with their voice. You're not spring You're not spring Then allow boys to get the truck be the truck Now I have voice okay, bitch Sandra was able to pick Reese out of the lineup. She recognized and recognized his voice Webster police arrested Reese at his home on faunestree thursday detective say that arrest has almost pictured perfect ties to the smithercase Just after his arrest for sandra's kidnapping at friendswood authorities publicly named Reese as the prime suspect in laura smither's murder We are confident that over the weeks ahead that evidence will link him to our case and lead to what we have all been aiming for
successful prosecution and conviction Ultimately testing does link Reese to laura's body There are fibers on her socks that match the floor mats of his truck and a blanket found in his apartment Unfortunately the evidence was not enough to Commence a heris- Feeding friends beyond his case the prison at all which is was a huge case in the seriousness Study and also being a possible suspect or snither is very high profile. Thank you. I'm fairly true. Miss Marie. Yeah, I did Also by the press you're going all out fortunate enough. I know what friend would help you
Reese's whole attitude was so cocky He was never satisfied since called any they stay texas versus William trees case mother attended the trial involving sander CPA she wanted to see this this man face to face that was the only thing I could do to try and hold him accountable Reese's lawyer was trying to prove that Reese became a suspect in this kidnapping case only after it was revealed He was a suspect in an unrelated murder case the murder of laura smither the span is that he's been framed In the end the jury takes little more than seven hours to decide Reese's fate The verdict has just come in William Reese has been sentenced to 60 years behind bars Reese said he didn't expect such a long sentence Oh, yeah, what did you expect?
More leniency. Oh, no, you're only expecting me victim. Really? He found guilty and he sentenced to 60 years in prison that it provided some solace to you It did because they knew he couldn't hurt anyone else. Is he charged for laura's murder?
Yeah We became resigned to accepting that he was never going to be held accountable for laura And what about the other girls families? Well, it turns out one of them in oblohoma knew William Reese Now you had a relationship with his mother. Yes Original documentary swipe right on the devil now stream on who will want to who won Disney plus The thought of there being witches and Wilbur raska was mind-blowing He had 12 women he needed 13 to complete his pub in and he said he and that girl on the dinner and now she's missing I should say that I've never had a case like this It's really too much for you that any fiction I can make up What's the whole original series swipe right on the devil now streaming on who and who won Disney plus verb on subscribers to apply Trixor Raven wild horse nine is a blood pumping comic thriller Yeah, we are the sea okay john knock a bitch in sam rogwell or a dynamite pair in this wildly different kind of buddy movie You're always eating stop it. Yeah, if you're shooting a guy Number six john knock a bitch sam rogwell see you Lucianne and Parker posy
It's going one of the best films of the year I've built people in countries you can't even smell name one check it is Slovakia Well, it's not if you're number six we are under 17 on the middle about parent What happened to your daughter Tiffany? She was murdered. She'd just gotten married Three months before that It was quite a surprise when they noticed that she was missing Toughest night of your life. It's something that a parent never should have to cook through And for years you didn't know who did it? No What keeps you going what makes you allows you to move forward catching who did it Kathy Dobri she would not stop pushing investigators I told Tiffany I would get who murdered her that was my promise to her We were able to actually get the case reopened and I didn't get it was me. I looking at it again
So when I got this case there were three or four boxes full of reports full of information full of notes That I basically just worked my way through them It turns out there had been a potential suspect William Reese After Tiffany was taken from the sunshine car wash and raped and murdered Investigators in Oklahoma had gotten a tip from Texas authorities When Reese was arrested for kidnapping Sandra Seypal the woman who got away He claimed that police were not only trying to frame him for Laura Smither's death But that they were also trying to pin Tiffany's murder on him Without that phone call William Reese wouldn't even been on our radar screen That's not a name that the investigators at the time had even heard of Detectives in Texas also say they can place Reese in Oklahoma the night Tiffany disappeared Investigators early on developed a timeline with William Reese using his phone records his gas receipts showing what days he traveled up and down I-45 from Houston to Oklahoma
Their phone call had been made from a pay phone the night of the Tiffany came up missing and it was from the Yukon area Which is just west of where Tiffany was reported missing and just east of where her body was located William Reese immediately becomes a person of interest But that's the closest investigators could put him to the crime scene The car wash owner recognized him as being a customer there at the car wash But that particular day there wasn't anyone that could put him there To be truthful with you. I had no idea what I was going to do with the case The only hope I had there was one item of evidence that with new DNA technology that might be able to be tested There were some swabs left from the original analysis That particular evidence had been tested previously and no DNA profile was able to be developed then And with our current technologies which are more sensitive There was hope that we could develop a DNA profile A partial male DNA profile was obtained from the swaps from Tiffany's body
The partial profile is a huge step forward but has its limitations You have to match it to specific samples I had to basically go and eliminate everyone who might have known Tiffany While OSCI agents are gathering samples in Oklahoma They reach out to Texas authorities to get a sample from William Reese And that request gets the attention of investigators in friendswood who are starting a cold case review of Laura Smither's murder So in 2014 I was tasked with looking into the Laura Smither case That's when Josh and I started working together I think there was two plans one and see if we could develop enough evidence to file charges William Reese Second plan was to help Oklahoma develop a strong enough case with their district attorney with file capital murder charges William Reese which would be an incentive for him maybe to Give up some information in exchange for a life sentence versus a death penalty Are and with that timeline of Reese's whereabouts friendswood investigators start working together with law enforcement investigating cold cases
In places where Reese had visited in all three cases Kelly, Jessica and Tiffany they were able to find gas receipts calling cards that put him Nearby these locations where the women were missing Meanwhile OSCI has tested and eliminated all the other DNA samples they took in Tiffany's case against their partial DNA profile It was not any of them so I'm looking at a table full of numbers and each location where the evidence has results The partial profile was consistent with Reese and nobody else It's exciting this case has been cold for so long and there's finally an answer In a cruel coincidence Tiffany Johnston's mother Kathy knew William Reese personally His parents lived across street from the Emendarico Now you had a relationship with his mother Yes, his mother did my laundry for me while I was working She pressed the clothes that we were going to bury Tiffany in Do you know if Tiffany knew William Reese?
I don't believe Tiffany ever met William Reese The evidence now suggests that somehow Reese encountered Tiffany at the Sunshine Car Wash That's really when things started moving a lot faster The amount of information in the partial profile was enough for the DA to mount charges We purposely waited because we knew that William Reese was not going to get out of prison The game plan was to allow Texas an opportunity to run their cases We're all comparing notes and if there was anything missed there was no new evidence What it was going to come down to was us making a run at William Reese So at this point we decided to come up with a plan and lay everything out on the table To make an offer and make an offer I didn't want to do but I made a good evening William Reese is behind bars in Texas serving 60 years for kidnapping Sandra Seppaw
Now with the threat of a death penalty case for Tiffany Johnston's murder in Oklahoma looming over him Law enforcement in Texas decide to approach Reese to see if he will cooperate with their cases on Laura Smither, Kelly Cox and Jessica Kane My experience with suspects is if you can make them a good offer or better offer than what they're about to receive them But you can take it There may be consideration if he's willing to give up the locations of the remaining girls Originally I always felt I was going to do the interview right? The issue we had and all that William Reese hated friends with police department So we had to come up with something else Doug Bacon and I discussed who we like to use to make a run at William Reese Reese was a cowboy right? We felt that he could relate to another cowboy Which is no more of a cowboy in Texas than a Texas Ranger Jim Holland, the Texas Rangers in February, 2016 at the Ellis unit Huntsville, Texas times now 246 We knew Jim Holland was a very good interviewer so we recruited him come on board Bill, you're right
What do you think this is about? It's probably about some other cases What would you want? I don't know Oh, okay, I don't know Okay, and we got anyone searched Okay But it doesn't have to be all bad, all right? Ranger Holland's explaining to him that if he was willing to cooperate now would be the time At the end of the day, I don't want him to help That's my whole work and I get punished and things But for at least a little bit of time if you help me, you're gonna treat him like a cross-hour I think they tried to make him feel like he was one of the boys, you know, hey we want your help with this This is a very unique opportunity for you and there's a main goal consideration And there's things that you know you can be guaranteed in the minutes, all right?
Holland interviewed him for five and a half hours I think at the end of the day, it doesn't make a decision based on what's best for him And we've got it But there you can't take it All right We provided Jim Holland with photographs of all of those girls At some point in time, he had laid pictures of Jessica Kane, Laura Smither, Kelly Cox, and Tiffany Johnson What do you want me to say? Tell me and do you want me to go to the DA and approach it and get you guaranteed? Come on, give me a gentleman If you come back, I'll tell you either we're gonna do this or I'll do this Okay, let's talk about all this All four And just put his hand over it All four of them So that was one of those, oh geez You know, he has given some indication that he was responsible for the murders, all four of these girls Soon as they've been praying about it, exactly Just previously All the families we all talk to law enforcement, bringing those two girls with very important tasks, we take him the death penalty off the table We okay that, I said in fact he takes you to where he very kill and we can get her remains, that's fine
When Ranger Holland returns to meet Reese as agreed, Oklahoma isn't making any promises They had not made a decision one way or the other, whether they would, or they wouldn't pursue the death penalty Although Reese is initially reluctant, he still agrees to give up the location of one of the missing women as a first step William Reese was released in the friend with police department custody We first drove him, we said he buried Kelly Cox This is the side out of Missouri County off at 288 County Road 51 Why did he choose this spot? Too very hard There was a stolen bulldozer on site So he had already had a bulldozer staged here that he was hiding out until we could sell him, that's correct As investigators begin to dig where Reese directs them, he settles into his own cell at the friends with jail So you get him to open up to you by appearing to be friendly with him?
Correct That's an investigator You have to play a role, right? He always knew what he did But your intention was to get information from him That was my intention Within three days and he was telling me about the murders of the four girls Over the course of several taped interviews, Reese shares details on how he murdered each young woman starting with 12-year-old Laura Smither who was out jogging And I heard this loud noise, I hit some of my thoughts in mailboxes So my mirror is slim up against the side of my crew up, me broke So I stopped, this is what I said on the ditch I didn't want to do, I thought maybe they don't believe me According to him, he was an accident I flew up to side in the building Reese as he ran into that young mother, Kelly Cox, at the convenience store near the Denton police station She bumped into him, walking out the store with a coconut hand and caught up a drunk We got into the chair, she hit with that coke It was just a plastic bottle
It was only when I get her, she hit her in With Jessica Kane, she was coming out of Ben against getting her car, she bumped his car door And he yelled at her and she flipped him off He left that parking lot driving down south of Port Galson and Jessica Kane just happened to be driving behind him So he said he pulls off the side of the highway She's pulled right up behind him for no reason She's getting hit, going where she is, she's yelling at him And I lost him, I just got it, going over here neither Right there, I'm going by and everything So I asked Reese, he wouldn't be willing to give me a statement concerning the Tiffany Johnson case And he agreed He said he was at a car wash with his horse trigger I'm spraying him between the truck and the trailer And next time I know this girl is yelling at me, that's a spider It's not like a spider, but she was cussing and everything We started getting into the verbal words back and forth He threw in a horse trailer where after a more physical confrontation You wrapped up a rope around her neck and straighten it to death I remember her being on top of it, I told her to get off
Cause it was too hot in her, couldn't do it And she hit in the back of the hip, that horse shit Gave us back up this little bit But I just lost it He claimed that he grabbed her with a beat donor and suddenly she wants to have sex with him The part that's part of the leave is that usually I start out with a fight And suddenly she's never sex with him I ain't saying she's doing it volunteering We have never even admitted to being in the wrong He always had an excuse for what he did, it wasn't his fault It was their fault And I don't think normal people like you and I can even begin to understand the mindset of somebody like that You know he's not telling the truth, he's lying to you But you don't want to push him to her because you don't want to lose his cooperation After days of digging, investigators are starting to doubt his word Especially his story about where he buried, Kelly Cox We dug for seven days and did not locate anything We let him know that folks are starting to lose confidence in what he's telling us
Like a seat of concern on his face, because his life depended on it I'm telling you she's got to be out there somewhere Eventually Reese will take a lease to a second location where he says he buried the other missing woman I still understand why we can't find her With export development Canada Canadian businesses are competing, leading and winning in more international markets Like how ag-gafood businesses are strengthening global food supply And critical minerals are powering industries of the future Their ambition can't be contained And with EDC behind them neither can their growth Export Development Canada is the financial partner for Canadian businesses going global Visit EDC.ca for more More information, terms of life
three Two massive excavators have been moving all day, digging more than six feet into the ground Investigators are keeping a close eye on the dirt falling from the buckets looking for anything out of the ordinary All of these agencies have kind of descended on this strip of land This has now become an enormous operation Time, money, manpower The activity has not slowed down more than one week into the digging process Some days would be cold, mosquitoes, a lot of snakes, really pretty miserable But everybody that was there knew that they were there to find Jessica I've prayed for this child for years and years And just hoping that upon hope that this is it There were friends who had come up to the Dixite, they had Thai ribbons around the fence
Everyone was really just hoping that after all of this time There would be some answers But this land of course has changed over the years He thought that he had buried her over here But he had his fence lines confused He thought he had buried her along this fence line But he actually had buried her along this fence line Correct After a total of three weeks digging at this remote site, investigators discovered human remains Investigators believed those remains belonged to 17-year-old Jessica Kane Once we saw the bones, we took pictures of that and sent it to an anthropologist to confirm that that was human remains There was a lot of emotions with everyone that had been involved with the weight that was on everyone's shoulders The initial shock at first of her not coming home and anticipating that any moment she is going to walk through the door I think those years were harder as it went on I think we had accepted whatever God had in store for us For that is the kingdom and the power
Because our faith had grown stronger You learned so much through trials And that's why I think the closure when it came was a little harder on everybody else maybe than us Because we already accepted what whatever God's answer was Reason immediately said now that everyone knows that I'm serious we need to go back to Missouri County and find the other one Kelly Cox the mother of a one-year-old went missing in 1997 We were out there for several days The area just passed the trees is ground zero for digging operations What these grounds hold is still a mystery They were raising the bucket up and there was just a little cylindrical piece of something So we just had to stop And it was a small bone fragment And I was down in the trench on my hands and knees So I kind of dig a little bit more and I'll see something metallic It looks like gold and I remember Jan telling me about a chain that Kelly wore and I knew then that this was Kelly
She always wore it. She never took it off. She just left me down. They brought it to you Yes, they brought it to the house. It's very important to me It still kind of gives me boost bumps thinking about it because that was Alexis's mom It felt cathartic to look at the ground and say I'm so sorry, but we found you She did not deserve to be there in the ground where she was found There was a sense of relief knowing that we had found her for the family Almost 20 years. Yep
I had nightmares for years that she was in some sort of Sextrafficking rain or something being harmed every day when we did have answers it was comforting for me to know She wasn't being harmed. Yeah, she uh, she been in God's arms since July 15th 1997 Now that Jessica and Kelly have been found Reese is extradited back to oblihoma to stand trial for the murder of tiffany johnston State of othe homa versus William lewis Reese you have said you could feel the evil in the room Yeah, I would have loved to just get up and just wait right now. It hasn't really reached a verdict It had been nearly 25 years since tiffany johnston went missing at a carwatch in oblihoma Her body found strangled to death the next day You have said you never thought that William Reese would be brought to justice. Why not?
We just we didn't have any really any help But the long wait is finally over in may 2021 William rees goes on trial for the murder of tiffany johnston And then finally you see him court. What was that like? Well, they made me promise to behave but I was angry I would have loved to just get up and just wait like him And I would have felt a lot better that i'd get kicked out of the courtroom and I didn't want to get kicked out because I waited too long to get there Reese's on trial for tiffany johnston's murder but family and friends of all the victims come to court to witness what they hope will finally Be long awaited justice to walk with laura through tiffany That was important to me It's it's all I had left You have said you could feel the evil yeah in the room. Absolutely. And that's exactly how it was it was like a presence of its own It was eerie almost What was his demeanor like?
Distow it Didn't show any emotion Among the witnesses Reese's previous victims including sandra seepa the 19-year-old woman He kidnapped at a waffle house who escaped by jumping out of his moving truck A whole bunch of victims were paraded before the jury telling their story of what he did to them They were extremely courageous young women getting up in test time. What impact did they have their testimony? You jimped The prosecution brings up that partial dna link to tiffany and also plays for the jury hours of taped interviews with reeks Allowing them to hear in his own words what he said happened not only to tiffany johnston But also to laura smither killy cox and jessica came It's all with all this deal The defense argued that those statements weren't confessions because he was telling detectives what they wanted to hear in an effort to take the death penalty off the table The prosecution counters that Reese was well aware that there was no deal with oklahoma
Playing an audio interview recorded during a search for kelly cox which they said proved Reese knew that there was no deal The face they didn't want to deal with me. They don't give me the meat. So look man. I don't got no pain in my life So he really don't bother me now After eight days of testimony it took the jury less than one hour to arrive at a verdict We the jury do upon our oaths find his father. The defendant is guilty What happened there was extraordinary in In many ways because I think that trial was also a trial for all of the girls That conviction in that trial was really for all the girls Five days after the guilty verdict William Reese is back in court for sentencing We are on the record state of Oklahoma versus William Lewis Reese A death sentence is not something to be celebrated. It's not something to be taken lightly and it's not something to be utilized by open
You have been solidly behind giving William Reese the death penalty. Why does he deserve the death penalty? According to the bible, it's I for an I Not believe that I wanted to see him get sentenced and I wanted to make sure that the judge didn't You know, you have all these nightmares. Can they change the sentence and pull it away and not do it and I wanted to hear those words There's no saying in the law Justice the latest justice denied Justice will not be delayed any longer in this case. I sent you to death he's a monster and he's a sex offender and he's a liar And he's a murderer Now a convicted murderer sentenced to death But what about his other victims would those families ever get their day in court and justice for their own losses?
State about the whole members is William Lewis Reese Mr. Reese I sent you to death William Reese is currently in a Texas prison He was sentenced to 60 years for San Jose Pazkin having and the death penalty in Oklahoma for killing Tiffany Johnston Reese please guilty to three separate counts of murder life for each case in the murders of Laura Smither Jessica Kane and Kelly Cox Here in Reese plead guilty. I knew what it meant to the families He indicated in a courtroom in front of the judge and the families that he was responsible for their death I told him in my victim impact statement that I forgave him I was in a prison that I placed myself in Because I was so angry at him and I had to find my way out of that prison of anger by forgiving him As much as we'd like to rely on our justice system, you can't rely on the justice system for peace I had a picture of Kelly and Alexis. We held up the entire time for him to look at
I wanted him to see that he had not ruined or destroyed our family that I still had a great childhood And I still grew up happy and I was still raised really well, you know This is the statute. This is it. Kelly holding Alexis And we did a big balloon release at her life celebration, so we put balloons with it If I could say anything to you personally, it would be stay aware stay safe and God bless Kelly I miss you. I think I've got you every day Every day Because of the peace for coming out. It's my peaceful place. It's no confusion or anything
It's just me here with Tiff by myself If you could talk to her, what would you tell her that I'd love her and I miss her And she should be here with us It's been almost 27 years. How often do you think of her? Every day When you love that love doesn't just die after you've buried your child. That love stays with you. It'll be with you It is our life sentence. We will carry that with us always
Jessica Kane's parents hold on to memories of happier times On a death night out I took her in the breakdown to a movie and on the way home They played a song that I love and it was by the platters only you And so I just pulled off on the side of the highway and there's day 10 and it was Like no traffic in she put her feet on my toes and we just danced around What a beautiful memory. Yes, what's the moral of the story teach your children well and dance when you can dance and dance when you can dance The families we spoke with telling us David They're sharing their pain and their memories as a warning to try to protect others from experiencing the same heartbreak That is our program for tonight. Thanks for watching. I'm David. You are and I'm Jennifer Roberts from all of us here at 2020 and ABC news. Good night
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