True Crime Vault: Highway Hunter

Murder in the Heartland explores real crimes across small town America,

“towns that might look a lot like your own.”

Every week uncover shocking stories of murder and betrayal, from a suspicious hunting accident, to a college student who disappears after her shift at the local bar. Here from investigators, witnesses, and family members as they share the chilling details behind each case.

If you're interested in true crime with a small town twist, you might love this podcast. Listen to Murder in the Heartland, wherever you get your podcasts. Step into the 2020 True Crime Vault where each story is unforgettable. What happened to your daughter Tiffany?

She was murdered. She had just gotten married three months before that. The entire community was in fear. Yes. There's a killer on the loose.

Off-world girls have been doing ordinary things. Laura Smither was jogging down the road.

“If you can remember anything, please contact the police department.”

Kelly Cox was going to school. Tiffany Johnson was washing her car to call the wash. Jessica came, but she was having dinner with some friends. This is just snatching girls up and brawl daylight. And he just had to cross the path of the serial killer.

We could be the next one. There's nothing in this world.

More powerful or compelling.

They didn't want to find your child. This case has been called for so long, and they're finally an answer. One, they got from a stunning tape scene in public for the very first time tonight. As you relax, and let go, you worked out into your nurses.

He was a pretty much one-man crime-free. He started driving until he found someone. 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 to vanish is Laura Smither, just 12 years old. Where 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 my 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. I'm not a well-isened 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 counting down the days for 87 days. She was so excited to become a teenager.

In 1997, Friendswood 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 and climb trees. There wasn't a lot of development in the area. It was a quiet country road. The Laura lives on weird airy 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 coughing little pieces, and she'd put on little plays for us. She started when she was six. She did ballet, tap and jazz. Wow, for six years.

But she just really loved ballet more than anything. Take me back to April 3, 1997. What are you doing that morning here? It was a Thursday, because I'd been out of town. I said, OK, we'll do pancakes with bacon, which was Laura's favorite.

She'd just finished reading a book, and it was all about running and exercise and building

She felt that if she did that, she could hold her arabic, long ago, and it would make

“her 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 with an hour of that happening. But our top story tonight, she's only 12 years old, and with this hour, she's missing.

It made the news that first day.

Police concentrate the search, near the girl's home, her parents wait and hope. They've just been constrained here around the house as far as I know there are some open fields that she might have run by, and they've searched those areas very thoroughly. She is a very good girl, she's something very unusual, has happened, that she would have been home.

Someone had to have taken her. The search continues this morning for a missing 12-year-old friend's woodgirl.

“Did you see anything unusual at this time, is today?”

Nothing, did you see my daughter? I ended up running the ground search and I was drinking from my fire hose. Hundreds of people flooded to come help us search, and then it just exploded. Over night, family, friends, blanketed the neighborhood with flyers, a daylight-a-small army of searchers found out.

This dead went out with the first wave of volunteers, grateful for all the support.

Someone encouraged by the turnout this morning. I've been overwhelmed by the community support, and please, it was a life for you and your family last night. I don't ask me. War was a 12-year-old little girl, and it just touched people.

The community friends were very close, and they felt that lore was one of their own. I'm going home, I'm going to 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 hold. The best came out to be.

We offer it to you and pray that you would watch over Laura 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 aren't going to find you, and we're not going to stop until we do find you.

Please keep her in your prayers. The FBI has been called in on this search, and now police are calling it adabduction. Their parents grow more frantic by the hour. Volunteers trudged through swamps and dodged snakes, but by day's end there was nothing to report.

It was a tough search for anyone involved in being out there, they had 10 went over days. They covered over 75 square miles, they planted it the same thing again until Laura is found. There is a maximum commitment to find you and do every thing the law permits to bring you to justice. Just by every police agency in area was involved in a search, you have a 12-year-old girl

who goes jogging at 9 o'clock in the morning.

If a whatever reason, no one saw anything, she was here one second and gone the next.

We were worried that whoever took her was still out there, and that we could be the next one. And our top story this morning, what could be a nightmare comes true, it's like a day jaw voo. Somebody had to have taken her.

It's like she just disappeared. It has almost picture perfect ties to this smithor 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 Smither, there's no sign of 12-year-old girl. The ground circuit is swelling into its sixth day. The river has Laura, we would like to keep her going home now.

Three weeks after she disappears, there's a town hall meeting.

“Just remember sitting there feeling numb, this was for my child.”

We need to allow the chief and the FBI to provide to analyze some of the information. It was a couple of hours later before the police chief made it here to tell us that it did a body had been found. And it was like a dark blanket, just swallowed a mouse hole.

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 Smither. She had a ring that she would wear, that her initials and she was wearing her socks. It's a hole, it's the void that exists for a long time and even now. This city was our broken.

“People, I think, felt like that could be in their child and so Laura was everybody's child.”

Once Laura was found, I think it 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. The remons later in 300 miles north, those worries proved true when another woman goes missing.

Tweety-year-old Kelly Cox heads out for the day and has never seen a live 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.

“You're my computer. How old was she as she had Alexis? She was 19 just merely 19.”

Did she like motherhood? She said it was the happiest day of her life. Living here, missing, eating the last life now. A day that Alexis was born, and she said that in a 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 with me and 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 final set the community college. Made all of this. 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.”

Bettering her future so that 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 in May of '98. She would have been a phenomenal role model as well.

But sometimes it's not really the things to 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. And 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.

There was no cameras or anything over there at the gas station.

No cameras in the immediate vicinity.

“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 as on the other end of the road. But it was within probably 200 yards of the police station.

It's pretty bold to connect 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 was at four o'clock on that day that Lawrence called the boyfriend called me.

And asked me if I had heard from Kelly.

And then when five, thirty, finally rolled around, I knew without a doubt.

Something bad was wrong because that's when she was supposed to pick Alexis 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. Right from the get-go, I'm thinking some of the head to have taken her. It makes you wonder how many times the person who kidnapped her had done this. You knew the exact right moment to approach a victim.

Young mother of his missing. Kelly Cox disappeared without a trace. I asked her to remain optimistic that we're going to find her. You couldn't see her, couldn't find her, I didn't hide that feeling. Investigators, questions, 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 we want her to come on 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-cut concrete evidence about what happened to her. The case eventually went cold. So the day is turned into weeks, the weeks, and demands, months, and years.

We always tried to keep the story out there.

I wanted people to know it was not a soft case, and Kelly was not home. There's nothing in this world. More powerful or compelling than you want to find your child. A 11-day is 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 into Chi Chi, but she was raised in Antarctica. And Antarctica 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 Mama was, Tiffany was going to be there learning how to do something or helping.

We went to Jeerhein 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 months 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.

So, it's a lot of money. Yeah, I should have gone. Yep. And I'm like your nephew, five-fourth. It was July 26, 1997, the day Tiffany Johnston disappeared from the sunshine car wash.

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'm she went missing.

“It was late at night, was it normal for people to be washing their cars here?”

Yeah, yeah. Those were the summer months, and yes, this was a very popular car wash. What happened? What did you see? About 11, 30 pm, 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 Har-West Bay. I continued onto 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 them floor mats, were hanging up on

the rackedock, someone would wash them. The car was unlocked, the keys were in the ignition, and there were as money in the console. Payroll check was in the console, so it didn't appear to be a robbery.

“It just appeared to be whoever drove the car just wasn't there.”

We did find a phone number to Kathy Dobrik, which was Tiffany's mother. And then after midnight, they got a phone call. It was the Bethany Police Department, wanting to know if I knew who Tiffany Dobrik was. And I said yes, I'm her mother, and they say, well, we found her car is sitting in a band. Police also contact Ryan, who rushes to the car wash.

The 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 what 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 to 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, and just that Tiffany wasn't there. We're not sure exactly what happened, but we had concerns that something bad might have happened.

The very next day, Tiffany's partially clothed body is found in the tall patch of grass. Here, you're the interstate she'd 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 him?

I just lost it because I'm 19 at 19, these things don't happen. I still believed that the world is 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 to collected. Those 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's 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 T.K. Island parents. There's 17-year-old daughter has been missing for more than 24 hours, and police say this is no runaway. I'm not going to die, I'm not going to die. Think about her 31-year-old Julie.

Why so? Last call for her stayer. Oh no, I don't know where I'm going to go. Because she's a man, because she's a real man, she's only a woman. Is that simple?

Of course, it's almost all automatic. She's the one who's been waiting for? No, just a few times. No, then. Hold here, now go back to her.

With her stayer. It's the 31-year-old Julie. The show is supported by Chime.

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deposits required terms and limits apply. Head to Chime.com/disclosures for details. It's the summer of 1997 and three young women have mysteriously vanished. There was Laura Smither, just 12 years old, out for a jog near her home in Friendswood, Texas. Then there was a college student and young mother, Kelly Cox, taken near a police station

in North Texas.

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 store this morning, would could be a nightmare, comes true for some T-Key Island”

parents. Their 17-year-old daughter has been missing for more than 24 hours, and police say this is no runaway. If you have not daughters, and you're three with her, I pray that you would return her, because her daddy and I still want her.

17-year-old recent high school graduate, Jessica Kain, is the only child of Susie and Z8 Kain.

What did she mean to you, Jessica?

Oh, well, she meant everything in the world, you know, you can lose a limb, an arm, or something and it be easier than doing without your child. She was a parent's dream, she was just as good a child as you could ever want. She did plays an elementary, junior high school. It's how she'd been at the drama house for two or three years, playing different

events. And what were her dreams, what did she want to do? Jessica 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.

She tells me August 1997, and the play she was acting in. She was an musical song for the 50s, and when we sat down in the audience, she grabbed me by the arm, and pulled me out of the chair, and we jittered her down the aisle to her stage.

“And what do you remember about her performance that night?”

How pretty she looked, how excited she was. After the play was over with the cast members, went to have dinner at Vinnie Goods Restaurant. She was driving her dad's white forward pickup truck. Jessica, they saw her going down the interest ramp to the freeway. And that was the last thing I saw of Jessica Kay.

I had stayed up in the recliner, and was waiting 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 her. About two and a half hours after I left the house, I found the truck on the side of the road.

It was empty. There was a most horrible feeling you could imagine. The event in this and hurt, because I know that something tragically had happened. There were reports, probably 50-60 sightings of a white pickup truck being chased by the whole.

But high speed down the freeway, it was so close to the bumper, it was like it was being towed. We beg you, please, if you know anything, if you can help us in anywhere, you have to spend our daughter.

in any way that you possibly can. What if the search for Jessica looked like?

“At one time, I think I was told there were 6,000 responses, and people walk in the fields”

looking for her, and tall, salt, and grass, filled with cotton miles, and rattlesnakes, and big in their way through the brush piles, and the carry is around the coast. It was like deja vu, I mean, thousands of people joined in search for Jessica Kane. 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 very question that we had to go help. You said we had to do that, we didn't have to. Last 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 a nightmare, we lived, it's very painful.”

What did Bob and Gay give you? Gay gave us their hearts and their love and their support. In the knowledge, they'd already been there. Yeah. They've 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 lot down, but we're going to keep searching, we're going to keep, we're going to find her. In Jessica's case, there was nothing, no leads at all. That's not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

“I think after Jessica came up with this, that's when people started believing it was a”

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 Oklahoma, but what authorities investigating those cases at the time did not know was that there was a fifth young woman, Taken, who escaped. Police take the unprecedented step of hypnotizing her. In hopes that she recalls any details before this man strikes again. The desperate search for a 12-year-old girl in Friendswood is on the South to noon.

Kelly Cox has disappeared without a trace. Here in a Lamar Tiki Island area, searches will be searching for 17-year-old Jessica Kane. Families and investigators are puzzled for young women of gone missing in Texas and Oklahoma, including 12-year-old Laura Smither, who dreamed of being a ballerina. She went running one morning and was found dead three weeks later.

But based on our knowledge of the case and evidence recovered in the scene, I am prepared to say that the young lady found his in fact Laura Kane 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 Smither's body is found, a 19-year-old woman is kidnapped in Webster, Texas, mere miles from Friendswood. Sandra Sae Paul was in a neighboring city in Webster, which is immediately adjacent to the city of Friendswood, on the I-45, it's a small city on the I-45 quarter between Houston and Galveston.

It's about 130 in the morning, when 19-year-old Sandra Sae Paul stops at that convenience store behind me. She's using a pay phone outside calling a friend. When she notices a strange man parked nearby, staring at her. She tells her friend to meet her at this waffle house across the street. But as she starts driving there, she notices she's got a flat time.

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. Send the visual pulls up beside her and tells her she's got a flat tire and an ask her she would like for him to change it. He looks like a good Samaritan, trying to help.

Yeah, so like a, at her we're just a normal cowboy, you know.

But what she does is he took up the honey with a large honey knife and put it to her neck

“and tells her to get into the truck or he's going to kill her.”

So he gets in truck, he starts driving north of 155. He's driving on a highway to speed. Well, he was holding her down, told her to take off her pants. So it was clear to her that that he was going to sexually assault her. She then said, "I can't take my pants off because my shoes are all."

Perhaps take my shoes off. So we let's go over a leg and as soon as he did that, she opened the truck before. She felt like that was her only chance that she was going to be killed one way or the other and this was our only chance to possibly get away. So she made the decision to jump out of the moving vehicle.

[music] Weftard on one road, let me to come to Wapa House. Somebody just came in and said, "It's one of those that did and make us all the car and we leave." Call came over the radio as an aggravated kidnapping. He has been about to Wapa House, he may have jumped out of a white duly, unknown L.P. last

being hit at 45 northbound. She needs the ambulance, she can't walk. It's a ride run scene and just started gathering as much information as possible. Sandra Saepaw had been critically injured, but in spite of that trauma, she was able to recall that her kidnapper was driving a white-forward,

duly truck and she provided a very basic physical description of the driver. "Buy man on his belly, blonde hair with the beard." Sandra Saepaw is transported to a local hospital where she remains for several days. He had road rash from head to toe, so it's a very injury to her head.

“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 updutch into 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 ask me.

During her hypnosis, I 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 on the suspect. Incredibly, with the help from the hypnotist, at least narrowed their search to one man. He was a predator on the prowel, possibly honey.

“The predator remains at large, but the hypnosis session proves crucial.”

In a race against time, police flipped the script. The hunter is now the hunted. Predator on the prowel, possibly honey. He started driving until he found someone. 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, the press is at all over. What keeps you going, what allows you to move forward. Catching who did it. There's nothing in this world.

More powerful or compelling than you're going to find your child.

Just relax.

“This case has been called for so long on their spinolean answer.”

He just put his hand over to all four of them. So that was one of those OGs, you know, what a moment.

It was their fault. They did something wrong to annoy him. They're going to get shoulder showering. You have said you could feel the evil in the room. I'm going to repeat that. I'm going to lie out there more so you can't explain. Laura Smither just 12 years old goes missing on April 3, 1997.

She's found murder 17 days later. That July two other young women go missing farther north, Kelly Cox and Denton outside of Dallas,

and Tiffany Johnston in a suburb of Oklahoma City. Then in August, Jessica Kane 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. What the public doesn't know is that investigators working on Laura Smithers murder quickly have someone in their sights. Early early on, it was a suspect that was developed right from the start. Right from the start.

Right from the start. There was William Reece. William Reece is kind of a jack of all trades.

He was a truck driver. He operated heavy equipment. He shoot horses.

William Reece had a history of kidnapping people. William Reece 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.”

William Reece was released October 18, 1996 from Oklahoma Department of Corrections. He was working at 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 jog on. It would take William Reece in direct path with Laura Smith or the morning of April the 3rd.

Well, as soon as they found out that he kidnapped a female in Oklahoma and sexually assaulted her, you know, that kind of opened your eyes up pretty quickly. And they talked to them, did an interview early on early on. He consented to a search of his vehicle. They took photographs of the inside of the vehicle, collected fingerprint evidence. They collected fibers from floor mats and seats. He 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 that. Still, behind the scenes, the friends with authorities had enough the smoother investigation are willing to discuss their suspect.

And that's our faithful connection between Laura Smithers' case and the Sandra Saipaw kidnapping is made in October. When Sue Detrick Nands, the detective who had hypnotized Sandra, stopped by the Friendswood Police Department. I spoke with the chief there and he told me about you know, who they suspected. And I left his office when home and about 3 o'clock in the morning, I woke up and I thought, oh my God, that's who Sandra Saipaw described with William Rees.

The suspect was a thin cowboy who wore cowboy hat. He drove a large white duty pickup truck. There was a nope pad or so what she thought was some type of nope pad or calendar only dashboard. Sue Detrick Nands immediately connects investigators from Friendswood and the neighboring town of Webster, where Sandra was taken. Friendswood Police Department had already processed William Rees' vehicle, so they were able to confirm that his vehicle was

consistent with what Sandra Saipaw had described being the vehicle that had abducted her. They brought Rees in as part of a live lineup. There's a one-way mirror where they come in

shoulder. One after the other after the other, the investigator had each person

“safe phrases that this suspect might have used. Face advice, I want you to repeat after”

me in a loud third voice, you're not spring, you're not spring. Can a loud voice get the truck

in the truck? The loud voice, I'll keep it on TV. Sandra was able to pick Rees out of the lineup. She recognized him, recognized his voice. Webster police arrested Rees at his home on Fauna Street Thursday, detective say that arrest has almost picture perfect ties to the smithor case. Just after his arrest for Sandra's kidnapping, Friendswood authorities publicly name Rees as the prime suspect in Laura Smithers 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 Rees to Laura's body.

There are fibers on her socks that match the floor mats of his truck and the blanket found in

his apartment. Unfortunately, the evidence was not enough to convince the Harris County district attorney's office, to file charges in the death of Laura Smither. Were you hopeful that he would be charged? Very hard. Laura's murder. Yeah, and then he wasn't. I was angry. I was very angry at that time, but because he was prosecuted for Sandra Saepar, I was very glad about that. There's a feeding friends in this case, the pressures, and there's all over it. This was a huge case. The

seriousness of him also being a possible suspect with Laura Smithers is very high profile. Thank you for your time for the retreat, Mr. Reef. Yeah, did. How's that? Not in Paris. People in all out, of course, not even enough. Now you know what? Friendswood knows it. Rees' whole attitude was so cocky. He files number seven for each city to tell you they stay any text that's versus William and he was released. The case mother attended the trial

“involving Sandra Saepar. She wanted to see this man face to face. That was the only thing I could”

do to try to hold him accountable. Rees' lawyer is trying to prove that Rees became a suspect in this kidnapping case. Only after it was revealed he was assessed back 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 Rees' fate. The verdict has just come in. William Rees has been sentenced to 60 years behind bars. Rees said he didn't expect such a long

sentence. It turns 60 years. That's a project. Oh yeah. What did you expect? More lenientity. Oh no. You're really expecting to be depicted. Real him. He's found guilty and he sent us to 60 years in prison. Did it provide some solace to you?

“It did because there were news he couldn't hurt anyone else. Is he charged for Laura's murder?”

No. 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 Oklahoma knew William Rees. Now you had a relationship with his mother? Yes. Hello, do you find it? Fridays. Yeah, full of surprises this season. Project Runway is back. Times start not over. It's biggest season ever. Twenty two designers are common hard. This has never happened in

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and be the next dancing with the stars pro? I'm here to win. And that thing is going to stop you. Our star judges will decide. This is what hunger looks like. It was 100% around the chose. Robert Irwin hosts. The next era of ballroom starts right here on dancing with the stars of the next pro. All new Mondays, eight seven central and ABC, next day on Hulu. What happened to your daughter Tiffany? She was murdered. She had just gotten married.

Tough as 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 Dobry, she would not stop pushing investigators. I told Tiffany, I would get who murdered her. That was my promise, too, her. We were able to actually get the case reopened and get it was beyond looking at it again. So when I got this case, there was three or four boxes full of reports, full of information,

full of notes that are basically just brought my way through them.

It turns out there had been a potential suspect, William Reese.

Several months 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 Saepah, the woman who got away,”

he claimed that police were not only trying to frame him for Laura Smithers' 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. Detectors in Texas also say they can place Reese in Oklahoma the night Tiffany.

The 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, 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 a 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.

They were 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 number 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

at the end. 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 swabs 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 OSBI 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 coal case review of Laura Smithers murder. So in 2014, I was tasked with looking into the Laura Smither case. And that's when Josh and I started working together. There was two plans. One, and see if we could

develop enough evidence to file charges on William Reese. Second plan was to help Oklahoma develop a strong enough case with their district attorney with file capital murder charges on William Reese, which would be an incentive for him maybe to give up some information and exchange for a life sentence versus the death penalty. Armed with that timeline of Reese's whereabouts, Friendswood investigators start working together

with law enforcement, investigating coal cases in places where Reese had visited. In all three cases, Kelly, Jessica and Tiffany, they were able to find gastro-seeds, calling cards that put him nearby these locations where the women went missing. Meanwhile, OSBI

partial DNA profile. It was not any of them. So I'm looking at a table full of numbers in

“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 them and entered our co. 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 file 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 and opportunity to do to run their cases. We're all comparing notes and there wasn't anything miss. There was no new evidence. What it was going to come down to was us making our right at William Reese. Thank you for that. We can go to the streets. We'll protect everything. But at this point time we decided to come up with a plan. We lay everything out on a table

to make it offer and make it offer. William Reese is behind bars in Texas serving 60 years for kidnapping Sandra Saipaw. 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 that they usually 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 of that, William Reese hated friends with police department. So we had to come up with something else. Doug Bacon and I discussed who we'd like to use to make a right at William Reese. Reese was a cowboy, right? We felt that he could relate to another cowboy, which is not more of a cowboy in Texas than the Texas Ranger. Jim Holland, the Texas Rangers, February 9, 2016, at the Ellis unit, Huntsville, Texas, time is now 246.

We knew Jim Holland was a very good interviewer. So we recruited him, come on board.

“Bill, you've heard H113. What do you think this is about?”

It's probably best murder cases. Yeah, what which ones? Any clue? I have no idea. Oh, okay, I don't know, okay. And we've got a lot of stuff. Yeah, okay. But it doesn't actually help that. All right. Ranger Holland's explained into him that if he was willing to cooperate, now would be the time. In the day, I would imagine that's my whole reason. It's not going to come to things, but for at least a little bit of time, if you help me,

you can get treated like a rock star. I think they tried to make him feel like he was one of the boys. You know, hey, we want it. You're helping with this. This is a very unique opportunity for you. And there is a painful consideration. And there's things that, you know, you can take guarantees in advance. All right. Holland interviewed him for a five and a half hours. We provided Jim Holland with photographs of all of those girls. Now, some point

time, he had laid the pictures of Jessica Kane, Laura Smither, Kelly Cox, and Tivvy Johnson. Congratulations, sir. Thank you so much. And you want me to go through the DNA impression, did you hear it? Yeah. Come on, give me a gentleman. If you come back, let me out, say it. We're going into this. You can just put his hand over to law for him. So that was one of those old geese, you know. He has given some indication that he was responsible for the murders

All the families, we all took to law enforcement, bringing those two girls with very important

“tests. We're taking the death penalty off the tape. Well, okay, I said it. In fact, he”

takes you to where he buried Kelly, and we can get her remains. That's fine. When Ranger Holland returns to meet Rhys 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, Rhys is initially reluctant, he still agrees to give up

the location of one of the missing women as a first step.

William Rhys was released into friends with police departments custody. We first drove him and we said he buried Kelly Cox. This is the site out in Brzory County, off at 288 in County Road 51. Why did he choose this spot? Two barriers. There was a stolen bulldozer on site. So he had already had a bulldozer staged here that he was hiding out until he could settle them. That's correct.

As investigators begin to dig where Rhys 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?”

It's 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, Rhys shares details on how he murdered each young woman, starting with 12-year-old Laura Smither, who was out jogging. And, uh, I heard this way. I'll do it as I hit some of my thoughts and mailboxes, that were weird. So I'm definitely against the side of my throat and you've grown.

So I stopped. This one's seen in the ditch. I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to do anything. What do you make? According to him, he was an accident. 12-year-old, Rhys says 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 the coconut hay,

and he called all the drunk. We got into a dare. She hit with that coke. It was just a plastic bottle. It was on when I hit her, she hit her head. With the Jessica Kane, she was come out of Beninkins, getting her car, and she bumped his corridor, and he yelled at her, she flipped them off. He left that parking lot driving down south toward Galsen, and Jessica Kane just happened to be driving behind him. So he said he pulls off the side of the highway.

She just pulls right up by the highway for no reason. She should get going where she did, she said he was yelling at him. And I lost it. I just got it. I didn't want to go there and need it. So I asked Rhys to 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 trailer. I was spraying between the truck and the trailer. They said, "I know this girl is yelling at me."

They said, "I don't think it's a Spider, but she's cussing in there with someone." We started getting into the normal words back and forth. You're doing a horse trailer where after a more physical confrontation, you wrapped up a rope around her neck and straggled her to death. I remember her being on top of it.

I told her to get off because it's too high in the air. I couldn't do it. She hit me back and hit me with that horse shape. Give us back up just a little bit because you just lost her neck. He claimed that he grabbed her with a beat donor, and suddenly she wants to have sex with him.

“The hardest part of the leash is that you should start out with a fight.”

Right. And suddenly, he didn't have sex with her. I didn't think she was doing a volunteer.

We have reached never, never admitted to being in a wrong.

He always had 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 truth. You know he's lying to you. But you don't want to push him too hard because he doesn't want to lose his cooperation.

After days of digging, investigators are starting to doubt his word, especially his story about

We let him know that folks are starting to lose confidence in what he's telling us.

“I like to see the concern in his face because his life depended on it.”

I'm telling you, she's gotta be out here somewhere.

Eventually, Reese will take police to a second location where he says he buried the other missing woman.

I still understand why we can't find her. Three decades ago, a young woman named Angie Dodge is found brutally murdered in her bedroom in Idaho Falls. It was the probably the worst case I've ever seen. It is the one that sticks with me. Please, zero in on a suspect and put a man behind bars. I don't know what the hell you guys want. You think we'd be wasting our time and wasting your time

if we didn't think you're involved? But as the years pass, doubts emerge about whether the real killer was ever caught. That's when Angie's own mother embarks on a decades-long mission to uncover the truth. Twenty-three years I've been trying to put this puzzle together and

the centers missing. I've always been told the truth will come out. You can't hide the truth.

Listen to the snare, the new series from ABC Audio. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app and add free on Amazon Music.

“Female serial killer she'll fall for power and troll. I believe there's a deeper motivation here.”

You have no idea who you're telling us, and you are going to end up dead. I've been waiting for you. Watch the Hulu original series, Furious, on July 27. Streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for Bono's subscribers, in terms of play.

With a third of the death penalty hanging over his head

then seven days of digging without finding Kelly Cox, William Reece is sure as investigators he can bring them to where he buried Jessica Kane. Reece said, "I'll take you directly to Jessica Kane's location because I know where I buried her because it's run by a pop on." Reece had drawn by hands a map for these investigators of where he buried the body.

“We've started digging with shovels and that quickly turned into some excavation equipment”

that we start getting when we realize that we're not going to find the remains immediately. Thirty-night away this news was first on scene and captured this exclusive video of William Reece. He's still in police custody but has been brought out to the site to help find Jessica Kane. He had handcuffs just calmly walking around. He would speak with investigators. He would point at the ground.

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 following from the buckets, looking for anything out of the ordinary. All of these agencies had kind of descended on this strip of land. And this now become an enormous operation, time, money, manpower.

The activity has not slowed down more than one week into the digging process. Some days it 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 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 dig site. They had tied 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 King. Once we saw the bones, we took pictures of that and sent it to an anthropologist to confirm that that was human remains.

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 thine 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'd already accepted whatever God's answer was. Recently 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. It were raised in 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 it on.

They brought it to you. Yes, they brought it to the house. It's very important to me. It still kind of gives me goosebumps 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. Yeah. I had nightmares for years that she was in some sort of sex trafficking ring or something. Being harmed every day when we did have hand service. It was comforting for me to know. She wasn't being harmed. She, yeah, she been in God's arms since July 15, 1997. Now that Jessica and Kelly have been found, Reese's extradited back to Oklahoma to stand trial for the murder of Tiffany Johnston. State of Oklahoma versus William Lewis

Reese. You have said you could feel the evil in the room. I would love to just get up and just wipe right off. Has the jury reached a verdict. It had been nearly 25 years since Tiffany Johnston when missing at a car wash in Oklahoma. Her body found strangled to death the next day.

“You have said you never thought William Reese would be brought to justice. Why not?”

We just, we didn't have any really any hope.

But the long wait is finally over. In May 2021, William Reese goes on trial for the murder

of Tiffany Johnston. And then finally, you see him in 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 them. And I would have felt a lot better that I'd get kicked out of the court room. And I didn't want to get kicked out because I'd 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, I was important to be. It's, it's all I had left. You have said you could feel the evil in the room. Absolutely. And that's exactly how it was.

What was his demeanor like? Historic.

Then show in the emotion. Among the witnesses, Reese's previous victims, including Sandra Saepal, the 19-year-old woman he kidnapped at a waffle house who escaped by jumping out of his movie truck. A whole bunch of victims were paraded before the jury telling the story of what he did

“to them. They were extremely courageous young women getting up in disguise. What impact did they have?”

They're a testimony. Huge impact. The prosecution brings up that partial DNA link to Tiffany, and also plays for the jury hours of taped interviews with Reese,

allowing them to hear in his own words what he said happened not only to Tiffany,

Johnston, but also to Laura Smither, Kelly Cox, and Jessica K. 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 said they don't want to deal with it.

They don't give me the needle. I don't know family, I have so it 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 own finest fondness. The defendant is guilty.

“What happened there was extraordinary 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's back in court for saddening. We are on the record, state about the home members is William Lewis Reese. It doesn't since it's not something to be celebrated. It is not something to be taken lightly and it is not something to be utilized on it with. 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 nine. I don't 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?”

I wanted to hear those words. There's an old saying in the law. Justice Delight is 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 murder. Now a convicted murderer sentence to death. What about his other victims with those families

ever get there day in court and justice for their own losses? State of Oklahoma versus William Lewis Reese, Mr. Reese, I sent him to you to death. William Reese is currently in a Texas prison. He was sentenced to 60 years for San Francisco's kidnapping and the death penalty in Oklahoma for killing Tiffany Johnston. Reese pleads guilty to three separate counts of murder, life for each case and the murders

of Laura Smither, Jessica Kane and Kelly Cox. Here in Reese's plea guilty, I knew what it meant to the families. He indicated in a courtroom front of the judge and the families that he would be responsible for their death. I told him, I think, to make back 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

rely on the justice system for peace. I had a picture of Kelly in Alexis. We held up the

entire time for him to look at. I don't intend 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 statue. This is it. Kelly holding Alexis and we did a big blown 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 of that to every day.”

Care for a day. It gives me peace for coming out. It's my peaceful place. It's no confusion or anything. It's just me here with him 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 will be with you. It is our life sentence. We will carry that with us always.

Jessica Caine's parents hold on to memories of happy her times. I'm a dead son out of to her head to wait down to Mergie and on the way home they played a song that I love and it was by the platters along the year only and so I just pull off on the side of the highway and stayed 10 and it was the art no traffic in. She put her feet on my toes and we just danced around everything.

“What a beautiful memory. This is yours. 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 New York.

And I'm Deborah Roberts from all of us here at 2020 and ABC News. Good night. You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at nine on ABC. You can also find all new broadcast episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening.