Forensic Files - Season 7, Episode 27 - A Vow of Silence - Full Episode | Forensic Files

she was a maale order bride lured to the United States with the promise of a better life just a few years after she
was married she disappeared the clue to this mystery came from an unlikely Source a second forensic look at the
suspicious death of another woman 16 years earlier [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
emilita de Reeves was 26 years old her husband Jack was a 52-year-old former Army Sergeant now working as a painter
together the couple had a 3-year-old son whom we'll call Theo emalita had an interesting past when emilita was 18 she
had been her family's passport out of poverty 11 of her family members lived in a two- room Hut in SIU city in the
Philippines she was a beauty queen in her community and she was a lovely girl she wanted to go to school but her
family had convinced her that that's how they could have a better life if she married a rich
American at her family's request emilita put her picture in cherry blossoms a subscription service for maale order
brides in 1987 Jack Reeves flew to the Philippines to meet her there were two other American men that were there to
meet her and he pretty well bulldozed his way into the house house offered her father more money than the other men had
offered and her father chose Jack to be Emil's [Music] husband once emilita arrived in Texas
Jack Reeves kept his promise and started sending Emil's family $250 a month a small fortune compared to the $3 a month
Emil's father was earning on October 11th 1994 Emily Dees went to lunch with some
friends at the Lotus restaurant in Arlington Texas during lunch emilita confided to
her friends that she was no longer in love with her husband instead she was in love with someone else another woman and
was anxious to start a new life after lunch emilita went shopping but never returned
home later when her friends couldn't get in in touch with her either on her cell
phone or her pager they called police when questioned Jack Reeves told police he wasn't particularly concerned
about his wife's disappearance he said his wife may have run off with her female
lover Jack was into all this pornography and he was into watching videos of women
together men and women in the ACT sexual acts uh but he drew the line at Emily to
going out with any other men and if he ever found out that she had close male friends that she went out with then he
became very angry and Reeves was convinced his wife would return matter of fact he was very
nonchalant telling the officers that she would return as she always does police located Emil's lover Mona Lisa Pate Mona
Lisa Pate admitted to us that she and uh emilita were in fact engaged in a relationship she also admitted she was
with emilita until 8:00 p.m. on the night of her disappearance but she didn't know where emilita went
afterwards 2 Days Later Emil's abandoned car was found in a supermarket parking lot just a few miles from her home
police interviewed her husband once again initially he said she had just run off but then he decided he was going to
start helping so he bring brings in to Tom Leno's office something that he believes will help track emilita even
with emilita sent search dogs were unsuccessful in another attempt to help the investigation Jack Reeves offered a
$25,000 reward for information leading to his wife's safe return but police got their first break
in the case when a detailed search of amita's abandoned vehicle gave investigators
some important insight into her last [Music] ride police in Texas were starting to
believe that there was Foul Play involved in emilita Reeves disappearance when police inspected
emal's abandoned car they noticed something suspicious when the vehicle was found the seat was consistent with
someone much taller than emilita who was a very short person the steering wheel was not locked as emilita always locked
it and the alarm was not set on the vehicle which emilita always did and suspicions mounted when police learned
that none of emal's clothing was missing from her home they also learned that emilita was not not in love with her
husband emilita also told friends Jack once asked her to have sex with one of his sons from an earlier marriage
emilita refused police asked Jack Reeves to come to Police Headquarters to retrieve amita's
car jack had apparently left town he had taken his young son and left for nearby
Lake Whitney where he frequently camped and police also learned the Jack Reeves had recently offered emilita a
substantial sum of money $30,000 if she agreed not to leave him in speaking with
Emil's friends they reflected several conversations that emilita had had with them where she
expressed um a tremendous fear that Jack would in fact kill her in her words as he had killed his other wives
Jack Reeves had been married three other times and his second and third wives both died under mysterious
circumstances Jack married his first wife amarillis when she was only 15 years old her mother later had the
marriage anal in 1961 Jack married his second wife Sharon together the couple had two
sons while Jack was in South Korea with the US Army Sharon filed for divorce Reeves immediately flew home to try to
save the marriage a few days later Sharon died from a shotgun wound to her chest her death had been ruled a
suicide after Sharon's death Jack returned to Korea where he met wife number three mang hoi
Chong 6 years later while vacationing at Lake Whitney mang was on a raft in the lake while Jack was away Gathering fish
[Applause] bait and when he came back he claims that that's when he found mang had
fallen off of the raft and had drowned her sister um attended the funeral and found bruises on her arms
and scrapes she contended from the very beginning when she learned of mang's death that Jack could killed her I
talked to the sister and I said what is this about meang you know we're all kind
of wondering about it and she said well I wondered not only because of the nails
but because of the scratches on Jack's hands and I thought well like he was scratched up by brush when he pulled her
out of the water and she said no no no long parallel scratches on his hands and it made me think you know were those
from her fingernails after the funeral Jack had mang's body cremated despite her family's concerns
there was no investigation after learning of Jack's past detective Lenor was convinced
emilita Reeves had been the victim of Foul Play and set a trap to test his hypothesis he spoke once again to Jack
Reeves and this time bragged about the latest advances in DNA testing I went into this dis ation which
was completely fictitious and made up on the spot about when an individual dies cells on the body immediately die
DNA falls from the body and in fact would fall and embed itself into his carpet to where you can shampoo it
vacuum it do whatever you want you're not going to get rid of it the only thing you have to do is get rid of the
carpet the next day as under cover police watched from across the street Jack Reeves did just
that he replaced the carpet in his home he had taken the bait there was absolutely no reason for
him to take that particular activity at that particular time but police still had no forensic
evidence against Jack Reeves and they still could not find emilita [Music] Arlington police detective Tom Lenor
believed his best chance of solving The Disappearance of Emily de Reeves was to investigate the sudden and unusual
circumstances surrounding the deaths of Jack's other wives Jack's third wife mang Reeves had
drowned in 10 ft of water in Lake Whitney after falling off a raft at the time of the accident the local
game warden reported that mang's raft was undamaged and had a full Air Supply he thought it was unlikely that an adult
could fall off and not be able to retrieve it and the drowning occurred in 10 ft of
water if mang indeed slipped off a raft investigators couldn't understand why she was unable to swim just a short
distance to where she could have stood in the lake unfortunately there had been no criminal
investigation and no autopsy was performed young Reeves had been cremated Jack's second wife Sharon
Reeves was found dead in her bedroom from what was believed to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to her
chest since it was presumed to be suicide there had been no autopsy performed and only one photograph of the
accident scene remained Arlington Police sent the photograph to the internationally known
blood spatter expert Tom Beville at the time of the accident Jack told police that he believed Sharon was
sitting on the bed and pushed the trigger with her toe but an analysis of the blood spatter
evidence revealed that Sharon had been standing at the time the gun went off [Music]
blood on Sharon's thigh was in an L-shaped pattern indicating that Sharon was standing when blood first ripped
down her thigh from the wound then after she fell backwards the blood changed Direction had the Sharon Reeves been
sitting the blood spatter as well as the blood flows would have looked entirely different in fact it would have been a
reverse and with Sharon in a standing position she would have been physically unable to discharge the gun I would say
that is it's not absolutely impossible uh but highly improbable that uh that would be the case detective
Lenor now had probable cause to exume the body of Sharon Reeves 16 years after her
death the autopsy was conducted by Dallas County Medical Examiner Dr Jeffrey B ared she had a shotgun wound
of the chest and the entrance wound was in the front of the chest and had a very
sharp uh right to left trajectory so the the shotgun uh entrance was really in the front but very sharply went to the
left lateral chest and the angle of the shot was slightly downward with that very acute trajectory
with her being in an upright position how she would have to uh hold the weapon would pre vent her from the ability to
reach the trigger and to discharge it herself which makes it not possible for her to have done with a trajectory that
was a very sharp trajectory ending up with her shot dead on the bed and then the shotgun standing perfectly vertical
between her legs just uh made that a very unlikely scenario I had uh no doubt whatsoever
that this was not the case of a self-inflicted gunshot one Sharon ree's death was officially
ruled undetermined suggestive of a homicide Jack Reeves was in the house when the shooting occurred there was
nobody else in the house at the time so that made it by process of elimination if Sharon didn't pull the trigger Jack
had to according to Patricia Springer's book male order murder after amita's disappearance Jack Reeves was desperate
for female companionship so desperate he called Emil's 21-year-old sister asking her to come live with him when
that failed Jack renewed his subscription to cherry blossoms magazine and through the personal ads found wife
number five emalia who was also in the Philippines but before the two could meet Jack Reeves was
arrested we picked him up put him in the car handcuffed and all Jack looks at Ranger Cummings and said you know what's
the deal what's going on here and Fred said you're under arrest for murdering your wife and Jack said which
one and we all just kind of looked at each other and said well that's probably a fair
[Music] question 5 months after The Disappearance of emilita Reeves her husband Jack was arrested for murder
when he was arrested he repeatedly told me that he had not killed emilita and that he should not be
arrested and that's when I explained to him that he was being arrested for the murder of Sharon
Reeves and the look on his face and the shock and the complete and total devastation that it took on him was was
very remarkable Sharon was Jack's second wife who died of a gunshot wound 16 years
earlier this re any comment I'm not guilty police had tried to build a case against Rees for the murder of his
fourth wife emilita but they lacked evidence in the trial of Sharon Reed's death the case hinged on blood spatter
evidence and a shooting reenactment the Reconstruction of the shotgun blast challenged Jack story that
Sharon was sitting on the bed and pushed the trigger with her toe the female police officer assisting
in the recreation could not maneuver her toe into the trigger guard of the gun the jury was really entranced by
that they were into it and they had to be because this was a case where first of all we had to show she couldn't have
pulled the trigger second of all we had to show that there was nobody else available to pull the trigger except for
Jack and that by process of elimination he had to have been the one that committed the
Murder Jack Reeves was found guilty of Sharon's murder and was sentenced to 35 years in
prison on October 1st 1995 nearly one year to the date of her disappearance deer hunters at Lake
Whitney stumbled upon a shallow grave The Remains were sent to the medical examiner's office in Fort Worth Texas
deputy chief medical examiner Mark Krauss was able to identify The Remains by comparing Emil's dental records to
the recovered jaw it was a match emilita was found without clothing jewelry or personal items which was not
consistent with someone ran away Dr Krauss hoped that the bones would tell how emalita was
killed but there was no bone trauma no bullet holes no knife wounds and unfortunately the hyid bone was
missing if it's fractured and if it's fractured in a certain way we can assume that a strangulation has occurred that
the person has been strangled to the point that that bone was damaged and it was likely to be fatal
but Dr Krauss made an important Discovery in the soil around emal's lungs were tiny single celled organisms
called datom this was an important finding why diatoms live in water by finding a relatively high density of
these little microscopic creatures skeletons in the in the area where the lungs had once resided when the body was
placed in the grave and by finding very low concentrations or low numbers of diom Elsewhere the inference could be
made that she was drowned that she had inhaled water containing diom and when her body decomposed this material was
deposited in the grave the manner of death was ruled a homicide she was murdered and her body
was buried not well apparently somewhat hastily and I'm more than more certain than not
that she was drowned in a homicidal manner that she was killed by Drowning later police visited Lake
Whitney with the Reeves young son Theo who told police to watch out for the big hole as he pointed in the direction of
his mother's grave he also said his mother was hurt in the bathtub by his father there there was a likelihood
quite frankly a probability that Jack actually had his son with him at the time emalita was buried the child made a
remarkable comment that Illustrated he was familiar with that particular geography he was
able to actually pinpoint specific areas where emilita was buried that supported
our suspicion that he actually watched and saw his mother get buried Jack Reeves stood trial again
this time for Emil's murder you didn't kill emita no I did [Music] not he was convicted of her murder as
well when he heard the dword meaning divorce from any of his wives he considered it to be death and he killed
them Jack Reeves was sentenced to 99 years in prison he will not be eligible for parole until the age of
106 Jack Reeves is probably one of the most manipulative man I've ever met uh he's a sociopath he has absolutely no
remorse for what he's done he wants to manipulate you into trying to believe that he's innocent and then help him
prove it Jack Reeves probably has absolutely no redeeming quality about him I've interviewed several killers in
my life and Jack is probably the most cold blooded I've ever met Jack Reeves is definitely where he deserves to be
and that's in prison for the remainder of his life the forensics made the case without them nothing would have happened
in either case there would have been no identification there would have been no means of death there would have been no
[Music] conviction w [Music] [Music] [Music]

Brief Summary

Emilita De Reeves disappeared, leading to Jack Reeves' arrest for her murder and the suspicious deaths of his previous wives.

Key points

The Disappearance of Emilita Reeves. Emilita, a mail order bride, vanished after expressing love for another woman.
Jack Reeves' Troubling Past. Jack Reeves had three previous wives, two of whom died under suspicious circumstances.
Forensic Breakthroughs. Forensic evidence played a crucial role in solving the case of Emilita's murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She was a mail order bride lured to the United States.

0:07WatchSep 16, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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