Texas Serial Killer William Reece | Making A Serial Killer | Forensic Files

they got me set up like I'm a serial killer right now all right are you no I'm not I'll
pass any polygraph you throw at me I you know I have no reason to lie if you passed him pushing a grocery
cart you'd never know that inside his head he just thought about how to kill you my daughter went uh on run this
morning and she's been gone a lot longer than I expected here's no doubt in my mind he
would have continued slaughtering young women and girls female Dred out of a white jly she
needs an ambulance she can't walk it's like we have a predator in our neighborhoods he had the capacity to
become a serial killer on a scale that is difficult to even imagine [Music] [Music]
[Music] [Music] just Southwest of Oklahoma City lies the Tiny Town of anad Darko population
6,000 it's just your average rural Oklahoma town not a real high crime rate everybody's pretty
laid-back there's not a lot there to miss or see really when you meet somebody new you
ask them who their people are because you're going to know somebody in their [Music]
family everyone in anad Darko knows Kathy doy and her daughter Tiffany my name is Kathy
doy and I'm the mother of Tiffany doy Johnston she was always with me before she got married she was my shadow
everyone that's what everyone called her Tiffany was very energetic loving caring
hyper she cared about everyone she liked animals she liked to play in the dirt she wanted to study the pl
and see what they how they were formed and what have you cuz she could grow just about anything she set her mind
to Tiffany and I became friends in junior high I was new to town new to the area and uh didn't really know anybody
didn't have any friends didn't have much going for me and uh Tiffany was the type
of person that was going to take care of you uh she just decided she was going to
be my friend since I didn't have any her and I were friends from then on shortly after graduating high school
Tiffany marries her childhood sweetheart she said she was B madly in love with Ryan and all girls should
marry their first sweetheart she was determined to get married and she did the young couple moved to nearby
Bethany Ryan is is employed at a manufacturing plant while 19-year-old Tiffany Works two jobs so she can afford
a new car she traded her car in on her new white neon she was so proud of that she's always cleaning it out or
washing it or cuz she was proud of it was something that she worked for that she
got on July 26th 1997 the newly EDS plan to meet at a club after work TIY had gotten off work and then she went and
cleaned out her car or washed her car because it was hers and Ryan's 3mon anniversary I was actually working
Patrol at that time and I drove by the Sunshine Car Wash there was about four vehicles that
were there people still washing their car and I did observe a white vehicle in the furthest west stall that had no one
around it it was about 45 minutes later I was again driving by that car wash and
now there were no vehicles other than that one white car in the Far West Stall and there was nobody around the car we
did not see anyone around the uh car wash at all detective Mobley looked in the passenger side and he advised me that
the keys to the vehicle were still in the ignition that kind of raised our concern uh so we started to look into it
a little deeper myself and mbly made entry into the vehicle to try to find a phone
number or name of someone that we might be able to contact uh we did end up locating a
number with the word mom on it the Tiffany Police Department called around midnight they wanted to know if Tiffany
had a white car and if I knew where she was I started calling people I knew that
she might go to no one had heard from her no one had seen her and this is like at 2:00 in the
morning so by the time we got up here at the car wash they had everything blocked
off down deep you knew that with all her personal belongings and her P her car that she had been inducted and she was
probably not alive a frequent visitor to the car wash is 38-year-old William Reese who Kathy knows from his time in
anad Darko he was always in trouble he stole Vehicles he stole from grocery stores or what have you he had been in
jail he had already been in prison he had just gotten out uh shortly before this
happening so William Reese was born in 1959 in Oklahoma and so it was a pretty depressed area that he grew up
in he had had a difficult upbringing an unstable childhood he was one of 13 children he was in foster care system
for a while he was forced to quit school in the n9th grade and go to work so this
is somebody I think who got a pretty tough start in life there was probably a combination of
neglect with so many siblings and there being some a lot of financial instability and I think it would have
been a pretty harsh upbringing in a lot of respects there was a lot lot of suspicions he was abused at some point
13 siblings a family background being moved around you have lots of negative risk factors in front of
[Music] Reese that marriage does not last very long and it doesn't it Fizzles out
pretty quickly because of how Willam ree is treating his wife he's drinking and he's physically abusive to her and she
ends them ends the relationship [Music] ship this is somebody who for whatever reason uh doesn't respect women um feels
entitled to behave however he wants to likely blams everything that's wrong in his life on other people and those are
things that do not bode well in terms of his relationship with other women in the
future or his ability to adjust and adapt effectively to to life as an adult his ex-wife said that he was unusually
close to his mom and even she even made the comment at one point that she felt like his mom was
so protective of him that quote you know if he killed somebody she would help him
hide the [Music] body it's one day since Tiffany doy went missing with her car left at a Bethany
car wash around 50 Mi away Oklahoma City Police make a gruesome Discovery while investigating their own missing person's
case as they were investigating that scene they canvased the area and then ended up finding Tiffany's body on that
same road about a 100 yards down [Music] you're asking yourself who did it why would someone want to kill
Tiff you didn't think about your friend just getting murdered for no reason out in the middle
of nowhere like that it just didn't happen the thing that always kind of bothered me the most is that Tiffany and
Ryan they just started their lives together and uh within 3 months it got taken away if they they had their full life
together what would have come of that and so we went down a list of people for the police to check out
because we didn't know what else to [Music] do and it's the first thing that Mama
thought of too so I I can't say that it didn't enter our minds cuz it did you don't know if he was really at
work or not you know he could have took off in any case where you have someone that has
disappeared you know you always you always got to start with people that are close and family members uh so
absolutely he was looked at police soon determined Tiffany was last seen alive shortly after 6 p.m. on July
27th her husband was at work from 3:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. and is cleared of any
[Music] suspicion Bethany police conduct a background check on local sex offenders in including William
Reese they find no evidence linking him to the crime scene Tiffany's mother knows Reese's
mother who offers to prepare Tiffany's clothes for her funeral her name with Pat she wasn't a friend but she was an
acquaintance because she did my ironing and what have you for me and so we took Tiffany's clothes down to her for her to
press for us cuz she called and said she would do [Music] that in 1986 he kidnaps a woman and he rapes her
and at that point I think he has taken a hard turn in his life because now he is
making choices is that the vast majority of people would never make he's become a criminal he's become
a predator he was driving a truck and going to pick up a load and he picked her up in
route her car broke down under a overpass and uh he stopped and asked if she needed help he kept on her and then
she finally agreed and got in the truck with [Music] [Music] him ree is arrested but released after
posting bail he attacks again 1 month later he rapes one woman while he's awaiting
trial for raping another woman I don't know how you get any more of a definition of a predator than
that both of these victims survive their ordeal and have their identities protected ree stands trial on two counts
of rape he is found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison for an individual
who is inside of a correal Institution for years that day is filled with boredom our environment creates our
propensity to be involved in crime well just think of it you're surrounded by other people who have committed
crimes one learns to associate with certain people one has to protect themselves inside of a correctional
institution a lot of time to think Reese's attorneys claim errors were made during his trial and after serving 10
years of his 25e sentence convicted rapist Reese is released early he briefly lives with his mother
and Anna Darko before moving 7 hours away to Houston Texas my daughter went uh on run this morning
and she's been gone a lot longer than I expected and what's your name please Bob
Smither 12-year-old Laura Smither goes for a jog in her Friendswood Texas neighborhood and never returns
home I'd never seen anything quite like this before I mean you had people from everywhere coming out of the wood work
searching for this young girl they were going through Fields they were searching in bodies of water
[Music] everywhere Laura's body is found 17 days later in a retention pond in nearby
Pasadena that's to day I will never forget because you had a father and son that were out there they we're training
a hunting dog hunting dog hits on something in the water father and son go out there to see what's going on and
this is the part that I mean just so chilling because the dad looked at the Sun and says I wonder what kind of
animal that is and the son looks back at the dad and says Dad animals don't wear
[Music] socks William Reese became a suspect early on because he was a convicted sex
offender out of Oklahoma and that's fairly standard when you have a child disappear like this police start looking
at registered sex offenders in the area more than that reys had a construction job near this spot it got rained out the
morning Laura disappeared so he would have been going home and that would have put him along her route about the time
she disappeared there were fibers uh that were found that matched floor mats in his
truck the fibers were unique but they weren't so incredibly unique that it's like okay these fibers could only
possibly have come from William Reese's truck it wasn't unique enough and honestly fibers are not DNA a lot of
that evidence had been destroyed because Laura was left in water this is a 12-year-old
child and what that tells me is one of two things either William Reese did not recognize how young she was when he
grabbed her I don't believe that number two is that this is somebody who is sexually
interested in this age group and is willing to take advantage of an opportunity and rape and murder somebody
who is that innocent and that young while under police suspicion and within their custody ree speaks with a
Texas news channel to profess his innocence who are they going to look at first an
excon especially if youve done hard time you're going to be a number one suspect
no matter what and if they can't find nobody you're going to be their py Sandra sea a 19-year-old pregnant mother
comes face to face with William Reese just south of Houston she goes into a convenience
store and she comes out of the convenience store seees she has a flat tire a supposed Good Samaritan comes
along oh let me help you out uh with that tire boom grabs her tosses her into the truck takes off down the
freeway the fact that William Rees acts so quickly after his released from prison suggest to me that this is
somebody who has thought about this and fantasized about this for 9 years while he's Behind
Bars he tells her to take her clothes off she bends down to take her shoes off and notices that the car door is
unlocked and she at that point makes a very important decision this may be my last opportunity
the more secluded the more away the more the person is going to their environment
rather than being in my environment takes the advantage away from you I would rather die jumping out of this
car and leaving my fate in my own hands than suffer whatever is about to happen if I stay with this
man female jumped out of a white dly unknown LP last headed 45b she needs an ambulance she can't
walk okay we got was Sandra now safe police begin questioning her hoping they can find her
kidnapper before he attacks [Music] again 20-year-old kellyanne Cox goes missing in Denton
[Music] Texas Kelly Cox was a beautiful single mom college student in what is essentially kind of a college town of
Denton Texas she had just wrapped up a a school field trip she was studying the area of
Criminal Justice and she stopped at this convenience store and unfortunately that's where she crossed paths with
William ree she just vanished Into Thin Air and that's what's again so frightening about
all of this it's somewhat mindboggling on the one hand that William ree continues his
Killing Spree after s seal manages to get out and Escape William ree is so focused on finding young women that kind
of fit his prototype and sexually assaulting them abducting them that he's not even concerned about Sandra sea he
is thinking about his next victim and finding her kellyanne Cox's Disappearance in
Denton Texas is around 3 hours away from Tiffany and ok Oklahoma at the time of Tiffany's
abduction Kathy doy has no idea of these other cases 17-year-old high school student
Jessica Kaine goes missing near Houston just like the others had her entire life ahead of her High school
student out with friends after a school event Jessica was always very well behaved never violated curfew anything
like that so when she didn't come home on time her parents were instantly worried and her truck was found parked
on the side of Interstate 45 like Laura it was like she just fell into a hole in the universe just
vanished Into Thin Air but the truck was there purse was in the front seat didn't
even really appear there was any kind of a struggle oh it's terrifying it's like we have a predator
in our neighborhood people in the area were like who is hunting our children what we have is an apex
predator an individual that has opportunity combined with skills and additionally being punished for the
criminal act in the past but not being deterred I have always thought that the killing part of it for him was more
pragmatic that I'm not going to leave a victim to point their finger at me again
my needs are more important than anybody else's and I'm going to make sure that nobody's left to identify
[Music] me Cathy do still has no idea who killed her daughter police have no suspects and
don't suspect William Reese is involved but 450 M away in Texas kidnapped Survivor Sandra sea is now
facing him in a lineup he's being asked to repeat the lines Sandra heard her kidnapper
shout not get the [Music] truck [Music] okay the net is closing around Reese in Texas but will he be linked to the
murder of Tiffany Johnston 450 mil away 3 months after the murder of Tiffany Johnston Sandra SAA has identified
William Reese as her kidnapper 450 M away in Texas as authorities gather evidence to
prosecute him the owner of the Sunshine Car Wash where Tiffany was last seen recognizes Reese in news
reports he tells Oklahoma police that Reese is a frequent customer but investigators still have no
way of linking Reese to the crime we checked people that lived in the area that had serious criminal
histories and uh none of those came to fruition no forensic evidence at that time and there weren't cameras in that
area that we could rely on for uh evidence purposes so it truly it came to where
we believed whoever committed this came from outside of the community Bethany police passed the case
to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation but still no leads 9 months pass by and Tiffany's
mother Kathy doy makes a solemn bow we had lots of red birds around that day and where we live
is American Indians and I'm partying in and we believe in the Red Birds when the
red birds come to see you is a visit from your loved ones from [Music] Heaven I told her that I would find who
murdered her and get Justice for her because what just wasn't right they took away my youngest
child if something were to ever happen to anyone in my immediate family Kathy is the first person I'm calling to start
looking into it she does not know how to give up she does not quit and she knew that one day
we'd get there we just didn't know when each anniversary of Tiffany's murder is met with an eerie
[Music] coincidence every year on Tiffany's anniversary date which is July the 26th there would be
little necklaces bracelets and we'd gather these up we didn't touch them we put on gloves like you're
supposed to and we'd give them to the OSBI it was concerned of members of the department and I and I think part of the
family that the suspect might have been the one leaving these trinkets they would just show up every year at the
same time and nobody would ever own up to putting them there Cathy's dogged determination finally
gets results in her daughter's Cold Case Advanced DNA testing is performed using the evidence collected from
Tiffany's body it reveals a partial profile of her killer investigators compare this to DNA
swabs from her ex-boyfriends husband colleagues and even patrons seen at the car wash the day of her murder all are
excluded yet to be tested is anad Darko resident William lwis Reese a known sex offender and frequent visitor to the car
wash police also look for a link between Tiffany's killing and the crimes in Texas and realize a striking
connection the Interstate 45 Corridor a perfect formula does come together to allow these criminal
activities to take place access very important so here you have an area south of Houston Texas
before the very end in galvaston in which one can be on the interstate highway and quickly be in
another state or another part of this huge state of Texas very quickly in many respects Texas is a Serial
Killer's dream you can go for miles and miles without seeing anybody there's actually a part of Texas
that is Infamous for being called the Texas Killing Fields because they discovered about 30 bodies of young
women there that have been [Music] unsolved now we have a pattern we have something to actually look at something
that's solid uh we have other cases that we can study along with ours to help get closure for all of
them it's a horribly frightening thing especially as a father of two to think that there are humans out there that
walk around look at another human go I want that I'm going to take that and they do
[Music] by January 2014 the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation is closing in on
suspected serial killer William Lewis Reese and seeks to obtain his DNA Reese is easy to locate he was
successfully convicted for the kidnap of Sandra sea and is serving a 60-year sentence in a Texas prison Sandra seaw
is the reason the murders stopped I give her up an amazing amount of credit because she was brave enough
to escape him and she was brave enough to never ever waver never be intimidated never be too scared to identify him and
stick through that all the way to the end he was convicted and the only reason no one else was murdered is because he
went to prison and that was because of Sandra sea authorities swab Reese for his
DNA and compare it to the partial profile taken from Tiffany's body the results indicate reys could be the
[Music] killer we believe that he was probably the person that did it it was just
finding that link to be able to put it all together you want to do everything you
can to find that link and and I mean look it took a decade for that link to finally come to
fruition Texas authorities discover another critical clue as they investigate the link between Reese and
Tiffany's murder longdistance phone cards so he had these cards and he used one of them to make a phone call and
that was still in his truck when Friendswood Police impounded it and that wound up being some very key evidence
that Oklahoma authorities used investigators go to William Ree and basically let him know that the gig is
up and that uh you know they have DNA linking him to Tiffany Johnston and I think that at this point William ree is
somewhat panicked because he is well aware of the fact that Oklahoma has the death
penalty and so he is in prison in Texas at this point point and so I think he decides that if I'm
Cooperative with some of these other unsolved murders perhaps I can avoid the death penalty in Texas and won't be
extradited to Oklahoma to potentially face the death penalty there with this new information linking
Reese to Tiffany's murder as a bargaining tool invest investigators question Reese about the murders of
Laura Smither Kelly anx and Jessica Kane he reveals where police can find the bodies of Jessica Kaine and kellyan
Cox his cooperation means ree won't face the death penalty for these murders he's a chess
player he knows how to use his pawns he knows how to use his pieces which pieces
to sacrifice when to get what he wants and I feel that he has used his victims as those pieces and played them against
law enforcement to gain favors and I don't think that we will ever know how many of those pieces he
has held back to play later there's no reason to believe that there are not more that are out
there this is where further investigation can take place but then there becomes a question for the
individual how much more information am I going to give you if I'm already here for the rest of my life what advantage
do I have reys doesn't confess to any other [Music] murders he claims he accidentally hit
Laura Smither while she was jogging along the side of the road so I picked her up her head rolled
around backwards and I put her in a flowboard my truck pass side and I shut the door I
had this little blanket and I laid it on her took off I don't remember how I got
out where I was some Dent p i light in the water and I went home reys doesn't say anymore about
kellyan Cox just that he got into an altercation with her at a convenience store opened up my door and boom I run
right into and Coke went all over for me and we got into it there and she hit me
with that coke when I hit her she hit her head you know how your door opens up M her head hit there and she slid back
she was out I put her in the back seat she never woke up she wasn't breathing or nothing she never woke up
and I dug me a little hole and put her in there reys confessed but they were carefully crafted confessions to where
he upheld his end of the bargain that I'll tell you what happened but he never really fully told police what he
did when you listen to his confessions or you hear his confessions it's just it's just amazing how he distorts
clearly what happened they'll talk about murdering somebody but they won't admit to assault
sexual assault for for some reason or they'll do what a lot of murderers do which is f ways to what we psychologists
call neutralize their actions so that might mean blaming the victim which he definitely did you know oh this person
started it we got into a match you know oh this person we got into some kind of argument about spilling Coke on
me I can't think of a better description of somebody who has no compassion empathy or caring for his victims they
truly are objects for him to fulfill his sexual fantasies reys also claims an argument ensued with
Tiffany Johnston at the car wash next thing I know this girl was yelling at me that I sprayed her I don't think I
sprayed her but she was cussing me and everything so when I grabbed her around the throat start choking she wasn't
moving no more and I shut the door and I backed out did you try to have sex with any
victims I don't think so okay um I guess I don't think so it kind of opens well I
mean far as I know [Music] no My Vow was to find who murdered her and get Justice for
her William Reese is convicted of the kidnapping and first-degree murder of Tiffany Johnston
[Music] he is sentenced to death the day that we got our conviction on Rees the red birds were lined up outside
our house on the light pole all the way across the line and they were everywhere Tiffany knew then that Mom
got Justice I'm persistent and like I said she was my baby and I made her a promise and I carried it
[Music] out he was ice cold arrogant when they sh showed the pictures of his victim's bodies of what
he had done he would smile and lick his lips Tiffany gave her life to help the parents in Texas bring
some closure to them because if it hadn't been for Tiffany's case Texas wouldn't have had
anything reys accepts a plea deal and in addition to his current sentence for Sandra SA cause kidnapping he is
sentenced to a further three life terms in a Texas prison for the murders of Jessica Cain kellyanne Cox and Laura
Smither William Reese is currently serving his prison sentences in Texas so he still owes the state of
Texas time for Sandra Sea's kidnapping and now for the murders of Laura Jessica and Kelly Anne there's an appeal process
in Oklahoma my sneaking suspicion is when he runs out of appeals in Oklahoma and they
actually set a date for his execution he will be extra guided back we got Justice
for Tiffany in the court system that he's getting to do what he wants to he can go to the
library he can work on horses shoes leather or whatever he wants to do and that's not Justice for Tiffany
how could someone that I ran across knew his mom how could he have done [Music] that Kathy suspects it was Reese's
mother py leaving trinkets on Tiffany's grave there's not a doubt in my mind that it was her because I think she felt
guilty because she knew that that W her son had murdered Tiffany and so that was her way of being
at peace with the idea that she wouldn't talk to the Poli or wouldn't tell them every year you could guarantee
there would be something out there and even to this day when Tiffany's anniversary date comes
around we always check on the 26th to see if anything has been placed on Tiffany's
grave that we don't know and nothing has showed up since Pat died I just want to know why we haven't
been able to bring him back I want to know why the da will not sign off to have him brought back and put on death
row he took my friend he took one of the best people I've ever known in my life and he robbed the world of something
great I don't know what her plans were after college but whatever they were she was
going to be great at it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

In 1986, William Reece was convicted of the kidnapping and sexual assault of two female victims – and sentence to 25 years imprisonment. Just 11 years later, an appeal saw him released early… and now free to commit a series of rapes and murders.

In this episode, the mother and a friend of one of his victims relives the agonizing wait for justice to be served for her murdered daughter. We also see interrogation footage of Reece using carefully worded confessions in a supposed bid to minimize his punishment when the net started to close in.

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Brief Summary

The episode details Tiffany Doy's abduction and murder, leading to the capture of suspected serial killer William Reese.

Key points

Tiffany Doy's Disappearance. Tiffany Doy goes missing after a trip to the car wash, raising alarms in her community.
Discovery of Tiffany's Body. Police discover Tiffany's body while investigating her disappearance, intensifying the search for her killer.
The Chilling Discovery. A father and son find Laura's body, leading to a deeper investigation into missing girls.
Sandra's Escape. Sandra manages to escape from her kidnapper, raising hopes of finding Tiffany's abductor.
Kathy Doy's Determination. Kathy vows to find justice for her daughter, showing relentless determination in the face of tragedy.
Texas Killing Fields. An area infamous for the discovery of 30 bodies of young women.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It’s like we have a predator in our neighborhoods.

0:58WatchAug 4, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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