20/20 - True Crime Vault: Highway Hunter

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

When four young women go missing, police hunt for a serial killer roaming the interstate. John Quiñones takes us into the families' quests for answers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This show is sponsored by Murder in the Heartland, a podcast from ID. 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. Hear 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 podcast.

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-war these girls, they were doing ordinary things.

Laura Smith 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 car wash. Jessica came, we're just having dinner with some friends. This is just snatching girls up in broad daylight. And it just happened across the path of a serial killer.

We could be the next one. There's nothing in this world more powerful or compelling than you're going to find your child. This case has been cold for so long, and there's finally an answer. One, they got from a stunning take. seen in public for the very first time tonight. As you relax and let go, you were driven into hypnosis.

He was pretty much one-man crime free. He started driving until he fell in one. Constantly, honey, he was a predator on the prow. 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 answers for almost 25 years.

The first to vanish is Laura Smither, just 12 years old. What was Laura like? Oh, 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. And Laura wasn't perfect. She was a normal care,

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 80s. 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 lived 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, and they'd be there. area. It was a quiet country road. Laura lived on Ware Dairy at the end and so if we were in the kitchen, you could see right to the end of the road from inside the house. Laura wanted to be a professional ballerina. She had just gotten accepted into the Houston Ballet Academy. Ballet was probably the most important part of her life besides her family. She loved to dance.

She was always choreographing little pieces and she'd put on little plays for us. She said, she said, 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 3rd, 1997. What are you doing that morning here? It was a Thursday, and because I'd been out of town,

I said, okay, 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 your endurance. She felt that if she did that she could hold her arabesque longer and it would make her stronger for ballet and her dad was a runner. He ran every day. So I granted her permission to go running while we fixed breakfast and of course she didn't come back. We knew immediately that something was wrong immediately and we called the police within an hour of that happening. But our top story tonight, she's only 12 years old, and at this hour she's missing. It made the news that first day.

Police concentrate the search near the girl's home. Her parents wait and hope. It's just been concentrated here around the house, as far as I know, there are some open fields that she might have run by, and they've, you know, searched those areas very thoroughly. She is a very good girl. She, 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 Friendswood girl. Did you see anything unusual at this time yesterday? 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.

Overnight, family friends blanketed the neighborhood with flyers and daylight a small army of searchers fanned out Lori's dad 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 police what was it like for you and your family last night don't ask me Laura was a 12-year-old little girl and it just touched people the community friendswood is very close and they felt that Laura 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 in some people. 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 are 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. Now police are calling it an abduction. Their parents grow more frantic by the hour. Volunteers trudge through swamps and dodge snakes. But by days in, there was nothing to report.

It was a tough search for anyone involved in being out there. They went on for days. They covered over 75 square miles. They plan to do the same thing again until Laura is found. There is a maximum commitment to find you and do everything the law permits to bring you to justice. Just about every police agency in the area was involved in the search. You have a 12-year-old girl who goes jogging at 9 o'clock in the morning.

And for whatever reason, no one saw anything. She was here one second and gone the next. We were worried that whoever took her. her was still out there and that we could be the next one. And their top story this morning, what could be a nightmare comes true. She's like deja vu. Somebody had to have taken her. It's like she just disappeared.

It has almost picture perfect ties to the Smither 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 search is swelling into its sixth day.

Whoever has Laura, we would like you to bring her home now. Three weeks after she disappears, there's a town hall maybe. Just remember sitting there feeling numb. This was for my child. You need to allow the chief and the FBI some time to analyze some of the information. It was a couple of hours later before the police chief made it here to tell us that indeed a body had been found. And it was like a dark blanket just swallowed the household.

We just were silent. Nobody spoke. The police left. And we just all stayed in this room all night. Based on our knowledge of the case and evidence recovered at the scene, I am prepared to say that the young lady found is in fact, Laura Kay Smether. She had a ring that she would wear,

had her initials, and she was wearing her socks. It's a, it's a hole. It's just a void that exists for a long time. And even now. The city was heartbroken. 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. Three months later and 300 miles north, those worries proved true when another woman goes missing. 20-year-old Kelly Cox heads out for the day and has never seen. seen alive again. What was Kelly Cox like growing up? Growing up, she was always very independent, even as a little child.

I mean, one time I told her, don't put your fingers on that again. So she reached over with her toes. Kelly had a really good sense of humor. Kelly Cox is also a mom to her own independent daughter. Alexis. Hey, hi to the red light. Hello, hi. Kelly was a young mom.

She had big plans and big dreams. You're your mom with some sugar. How old was she, or she had Alexis? She was 19, just barely 19. Did she like motherhood? She said it was the happiest day of her life. Listen here, Miss Day, you need the last, last, last, the day that Alexis was born.

And she said that any number of children. any number of times. Happiest day of my life, Mom. Do you have memories of your mom, Kelly? I always knew I was loved. It was beautiful. The way she giggles with me and the way I giggle back as a baby. She was an excellent student and very focused.

She delivered Alexis. And a week later, she took her finals at the community college, made all-A. Kelly Breeze's. 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. Oh, I mean, I think she would have been a phenomenal mother, bettering her future so she 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 something where things go. Tell us about that morning. It's like it just happened yesterday. She was leaning back in her bed, her hair up on top of her head. I said, have a good day. I love you. I'll see you this afternoon. On July 15, 1997, Kelly was touring the city of Denton jail

for her criminal justice class. So she comes out of the building, and what happens? She tried to get into her car. She couldn't get into it. Couldn't open the door? Couldn't open the door. She, you know, the key would not work. So she walks to a nearby convenience store

to call her boyfriend for help. But by the time he arrives here, Kelly is nowhere to be found. When he got there, her car was there in the parking lot. But of course, she was nowhere to be seen. He opened the car, sat in there. She never showed up. So he left a note saying, hey, it got hot. Call me.

Kelly's seen on surveillance video. She was seen doing the tour of the jail. They didn't have cameras on the outside. There was no cameras or anything over there at the gas station, no cameras in the 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 station's on one end of the road and where Kelly was at is on the other end of the road. But it was within probably 200 yards of the police station. It's pretty bold to kidnap a young woman next to a police station. It was real scary because you just don't know. And it was so unlike her.

She wouldn't just leave her. her car and abandoned it. And it was at 4 o'clock on that day that Lawrence called me, the boyfriend called me, and asked me if I had heard from Kelly. And then when 5.30 finally rolled around, I knew, without a doubt, something 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 she was gone. Right from the get-go, I'm thinking somebody had to have taken her. It makes you wonder how many times the person who kidnapped her had done this. He knew the exact right moment to approach a victim. Young mother is missing.

Kelly Cox disappeared without a trace. I have to remain optimistic that we're going to find her. I couldn't see her, couldn't find her. I had a bad feeling. Investigators questioned 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 home safe. He had been seen in that parking lot. He was sitting there for an extended period of time. They have questioned the boyfriend and he has passed a 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 days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, months into years. Yes. We always tried to keep the same. 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. Eleven days after Kelly Cox went missing, another young woman vanished. Her name was Tiffany

Johnston. She was in Oklahoma about three hours north of Denton. Where was Tiffany born and raised? She was born in Chickasay, but she was raised in Antarctica. Anna Darko 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 junior high and high school together. I didn't have friends, and I think she saw that and decided that she was going to be my friend.

She just loved life, loved life, and nothing could stop her. Ryan and her dated for about a year. She just had this six cents about people. So if she had to be a little, decided at 19 that he was the one, like he was the one. She wanted a big wedding. Big wedding, yes.

Must a lot of money. Yes. I took a job. Yep. And I made enough to pay for it. It was July 26, 1997, the day Tiffany Johnston disappeared from the sunshine car wash here in Bethany, Oklahoma. That night, she had plans to celebrate her three-month wedding anniversary with her husband.

And she stopped at a car wash. along the way actually went missing. It was late at night. Was it normal for people to be washing their cars here? That late? Those were the summer months, and yes, this was a very popular car wash. What happened? What did you see?

So, about 11.30 p.m., I was heading to another call, and I drove by the car wash. There's several occupants still in the car wash washing. I also observed a white Dodge Neon in the far west behest behem. far 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 the floor mats were hanging up on the rack so someone would wash them. The car was unlocked, the keys were in the ignition, there was 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 Dobery, which was Tiffany's mother. And then after midnight, you get a phone call. It was the Bethany Police Department, wanting to know if I knew who Tiffany Dobry was. And I said, yes, I'm her mother. And they said, well, we found her car is sitting abandoned. 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 one I really got really scared, because she didn't go anywhere without it. In this kind of case, you don't have any physical evidence to go with. And typically, you look at the spouse first. They interviewed him.

They checked his alibi. He wasn't working until 11 o'clock that night. Ryan's work punch card rules him out as a suspect. The thing about this particular crime scene, it didn't appear to be a struggle. It's just that Tiffany wasn't there. We are not sure exactly what happened, but we had concerns. that something bad might have happened to Tiffany. The very next day, Tiffany's partially clothed body

is found in a tall patch of grass here near the interstate. She had been raped and strangled to death. It was hard to just digest that someone would want to murder her because everybody that met her liked her. Why would somebody want to murder Tiff? I just lost it because I'm 19. 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 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 murder. and Kelly's still missing. Handled by three different police departments along the interstate, there's no sense that these cases are linked. Then four weeks later,

a nightmare comes true for some Tiki Island parents. Their 17-year-old daughter has been missing for more than 24 hours, and police say this is no runaway. Somebody has her. My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man. This July, we're faced with a threat. That could be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker.

I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day in theaters July 31st. This show is sponsored by SmileSet.

On this podcast, we share a lot of tough stories that cover emotional topics. But when you're done listening and you're just enjoying your day with your friends and family, one of the things that makes life special is the ability to smile together. And if you've ever thought about improving your smile, smile set is here for you. Smile set can help you access doctor-prescribed, clear dental aligners to give you the confident smile you've always dreamed of. With monthly payments, starting at just $89, you end up paying about 60% less than you would for traditional braces or in-office treatment. Start with an at-home impression kit. Then a doctor will review your case and build your custom treatment plan.

Your aligners will ship right to your door. time goes on, you'll share your progress remotely through the SmileSet app with Dr. Checkins available whenever you want them. SmileSet has treated over 2 million smiles. Best of all, after you start treatment, there's a 30-day money-back guarantee. That's something to smile about. Visit Smileset.com slash 20 to get $500 off your aliner in treatment and finally make someday happen. That's Smileset.com slash T-W-E-N-T-Y for $500 off, Smileset.com slash 20. 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 Newlywood, Tiffany Johnston, was last seen at a car wash. And now August brings more heartache back in Texas. Their top story this morning, what could be a nightmare comes true for some Tiki Island parents. Their 17-year-old daughter has been missing for more than 24 hours, and police say this is no runaway. If you have my daughter and you're through 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 Kane, is the only child of Susie and C.H. Kane.

What did she mean to you, Jessica? Oh, well, she meant everything in the world. You know, you could lose a limb, an arm or something, and it would be easier than doing without your child. Right in the face. She was a parent's dream. She was just as good a child as you could ever want. Say hello, Mr. Rotney, everybody. She did plays in elementary, junior high, high school.

And so 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. Tell us about August 1997 and the play she was acting in.

She was in a musical song for the 50s. And when we sat down in the audits, she grabbed me by the arm and pulled me on the chair and we jitterbug down the aisle to her stage. And what do you remember about her performance that night. How pretty she looked. How excited she was.

I went up to tell her how proud I was over. And the last thing she said to me was, I love you daddy. After the play was over with the cast members went to have dinner at Bennington's restaurant. She was driving her dad's white Ford pickup truck. Jessica, they saw her going down the entrance ramp to the freeway. And that was the last name I saw of Jessica Kay.

I had stayed up in the recliner and was waiting up for her, and I dozed off to sleep, and it was about 2.30, 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. It was the most horrible feeling you could imagine of emptiness and hurt

because I knew that something tragically had happened. There were reports, probably 50-60 sightings, of a white pickup truck being chased by the vehicle, but high speed down the freeway 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 any way, help us by any way, help us by the way. our daughter. Anybody that can spare a little time, we would appreciate your coming out and helping

in any way that you possibly can. What did the search for Jessica look like? At one time, I think I was told there were 6,000 responses and people walk in the fields looking for her and it's all salt grass filled with cotton amounts and rattlesnakes and beating their way through the brush piles in thick areas around the coast. It was just like deja vu. I mean, Thousands of people joined in the search for Jessica Kane. Incredibly, Laura Smithers' parents, still grieving from the loss of their own daughter, joined the search. She must never give up her hope.

There was no question that we had to go help. You said we had to do that. Well, you didn't have to. For us, 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 out. We had to go find Jessica. It's a nightmare relived.

It's very painful. What did Bob and Gay give you? They gave us their hearts and their love and their support. And the knowledge, they'd already been there. Yeah. They'd already been through it. But as the boxes were boxed and the supplies were shipped out, volunteers could only fight back tears because Jessica is still missing.

This is kind of a letdown, 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. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. I think after Jessica came up missing, that's when people started believing there 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. Somebody just came in and said that someone was affected and they jumped out of a car. Police take the unprecedented step of hypnotizing her. Be having sexual. Stay sharp, I know.

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 this afternoon. Kelly Cox disappeared without a trace. Here in the Lamar, Tiki Island area, searches will be searching for 17-year-old Jessica Kane. Families and investigators are puzzled. Four young women have gone missing in Texas and Oklahoma, including 12-year-old Laura Smither, who had drawn. 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 at the scene, I am prepared to say that the young lady found is in fact Laura Kate Smither. At the time, it was terrifying for all of us, for the whole community. While the murder of Little Laura dominated the local news, there was a fifth girl who was taken. But this kidnapping had not received much media attention at the time. On May 17th of 1997, just weeks after Laura Smithers' body is found, a 19-year-old woman is kidnapped in Webster, Texas, mere miles from Frenswood.

Sandra Saypal was in a neighboring city in Webster, which is immediately adjacent to the city of Frenzwood. On the I-45, it's a small city on the I-45 corridor between Houston and Galveston. It's about 1.30 in the morning when 19-year-old Sandra Seppaw stops at that convenience store behind me. She's using a payphone 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 tire. As she pulled into the back of the Waffle House, the unknown person who was watching her across the street at the stop and go had followed her across the street. This individual pulls up beside her and tells her she's got a flat tire and asked her if she would like for him to change it. He looks like a good Samaritan trying to help. Yeah, it looks like at her were just a normal cowboy, you know. He opens the hood of his truck and asks her to go to his front seat and get a rag. What she does, He comes up behind her with a large honey knife and puts it to her neck and tells him to

get into the truck or he's going to kill her. She gets in the truck. He starts driving north on I-45. He's driving at a high rate of speed. He was holding her down, told her to take off her pants, so it was clear to her that he was going to sexually assault her. He then said, I can't take my pants off because my shoes are all. I have to take my shoes off.

So he lets go over her leg, and as soon as he did that, she opened the truck door. She felt like that was her only chance that she was going to be killed one way or the other, and this was her only chance to possibly get away. So she made the decision to jump out of the moving vehicle. Wester 911. You all need to come to WAPA house. Somebody just came in and said that someone was abducted and they jumped out of the car and they're bleeding. Call came over the radio as in aggravated kidnapping.

Miracen route to Waffle House. Female jumped out of a white dully. Unknown LP last seen headed 45 northbound. She needs an ambulance. She can't walk. As I arrived on scene, I just started gathering as much information as possible. Sandra Seapaw had been critically injured, but in spite of that trauma, she was able to recall that her kidnapper was driving a white Ford Dooley truck,

and she provided a very basic physical description of the driver. White male in his studies, blonde hair with a beard. Sandra Sepew is transported to a local hospital where she remains for several days. I had road rash from head to toe, so severe injury to her head that I remember, her clothes were ripped and torn. Among the evidence collected,

the left front tire from the. young woman's vehicle. The tire had been puncture and police note that the puncture looked like it was made with a knife. There was interviews done but there wasn't anything concrete linking her abduction to any individual. Fearing that there could be a serial rapist on the loose. Investigators bring in a police officer who's trained in hypnosis. It was the very first time this unconventional tool was used by the Webster Police Department. She was so traumatized. There was very little she could recall.

As you relax and let go, in the very process of relaxing, you will gradually drift into hypnosis. For more than two hours, they painstakingly go through every detail of the crime. Did he make the danger? Just ask me. During her hypnosis, I asked her to describe the inside of the vehicle. She had been able to know what color is that? Mm-hmm. You have any picture? I'm a station.

I can hear you. She was able to recall some details through the hypnosis and gave a description of the vehicle and a suspect. Incredibly with the help from the hypnotist, To help from the hypnotist, police narrowed their search to one man. He was a predator on the prow, constantly hunting. 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 hunting. Can't allow the boys get in the truck. Get the truck. He was a predator on the prow. constantly hunting he started driving until you 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 frenzy in this case the press is all over it

what keeps you going what allows you to move forward catching who did it There's nothing in this world more powerful or compelling. And you're going to find your child. But one victim escaped and helped find the killer under hypnosis. Just relax. This case has been cold for so long.

And there's finally an answer. He just put his hand over and all four of them. Wow. So that was one of those, oh, geez, you know. What a moment. It was their fault. They did something wrong to annoy him. Okay, if y'all would get shoulder, shoulder.

You have said you could feel the evil in the room. I want to repeat after me and allow out through your voice. Do not scream. Do not scream. Do not scream. Do not scream. Laura Smith, just 12 years old, goes missing on April 3, 1997. She's found murdered 17 days later.

That July, two other young 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.

Very early on, there was a suspect that was developed. Right from the start. Right from the start. His name was William Reese. William Reese was kind of a jack of all trades. He was a truck driver. He operated heavy equipment. He shooed. horses. William Rees had a history of kidnapping people. William Rees 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 Lewis Rees was released October 18th, 1996 from Oklahoma Department of Corrections. He was working out a construction site next door essentially to where Laura's house was. 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 have taken William Reese in direct path

with Laura Smither the morning of April 3rd. Well, as soon as they found out that he had 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 and 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. The FBI conducted a polygraph test, which was inconclusive. There were other people on the radar earlier that were being looked at closer for a while. But he was the person. he was the primary suspect.

There was reasons not to announce that. Still, behind the scenes, the Friendswood authorities heading up the Smither investigation are willing to discuss their suspect. And that's how a fateful connection between Laura Smither's case and the Sandra Sapaw kidnapping is made in October

when Sue Dietrich Nance, the detective who had hypnotized Sandra, stops by the Friendswood Police Department. I spoke with the chief there, and he told to me about who they suspected. And I left his office. Went home, and about 3 o'clock in the morning, I woke up, and I thought, oh, my God, that's who Sandra Seapal described, was William Rees. The suspect was a thin cowboy who wore cowboy hat. He drove a large, white-duty pickup truck.

There was a notepad, or what she thought was some type of notepad or calendar. on the dashboard. Sue Dietrich Nance immediately connects investigators from Frenswood and the neighboring town of Webster, where Sandra was taken. Frenswood Police Department had already processed William Reese's vehicle, so they were able to confirm that his vehicle was consistent with what Sandra Sate Paul had described being the vehicle that had abducted her. They brought Risen as part of a live lineup.

There's a one-way mirror where they come in, where Sandra is sitting on the opposite side of the glass, Okay, if y'all would, get shoulder, shoulder. One after the other, after the other. The investigator had each person say phrases that this suspect might have used. Face of glass, I want you repeat after me and allow clear voice. Do not scream.

You not scream. Okay, a loud voice, get in the truck. Be the truck. A loud voice, I'll kill you, bitch. I'll kill you, bitch. Sandra was able to pick Reese out of the lineup. She recognized him, recognized his voice. Webster police arrested Reese at his home on Fauna Street Thursday.

Detectives say that arrest has almost picture-perfect ties to the Smither case. Just after his arrest for Sandra's kidnapping, Friendswood authorities publicly named Reese 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. a successful prosecution and conviction. Ultimately, testing does link Reese to Laura's body. There are fibers on her socks that match the floor mats of his truck

and a blanket found in his apartment. Unfortunately, the evidence was not enough to 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 helpful. 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 Sapa, I was very glad about that. There's a feeding frenzy in this case. The press is all over. This was a huge case. The seriousness of him also being a possible suspect with Laura Smithers was very high profile.

Thank you being on fairly treated, Mr. Reef. Yeah, I did. How so? By the press. You're pulling it all out. Of course, I didn't do nothing. I ain't know what friends with Nelson. Rees's whole out.

attitude was so cocky. He caused number 7, 6, 6, and they stay in Texas versus William and he was raised. Gay Smither attended the trial involving Sandra Soppa. She wanted to see this man face-to-face. That was the only thing I could do to try and hold him accountable.

Reese's lawyer is trying to prove that Reese became a suspect in this kidnapping case, only after it was revealed he was a suspect in an unrelated murder case, the murder of Laura Smither. The spin is that he's being framed. In the end, the jury takes little more than seven hours to decide Reese's 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. He said that surprising him? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I figured. What did you expect? More leniency? Oh, no. He really didn't expect him to be convicted.

Really? He found guilty and he sentenced. And he sentenced to 60 years in prison. Did it provide some solace to you? It did because then we knew 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 Reese. Now, you had a relationship with us. mother. Yes. Three decades ago, a young woman named Angie Dodge is found brutally murdered in her bedroom in Idaho Falls. It was probably the worst case I've ever seen. It is the one that sticks with me. Police zero in on a suspect and put a man behind bars. I don't know what the hell you guys want. Do 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. 23 years I've been trying to put this puzzle together and the center's missing. I've always been told the truth will come out. You can't hide the truth. Listen to the snare, a new series from ABC Audio. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app, and add free on Amazon Music. Your sales order says one thing. Your inventory says another. Spreadsheets says, good luck. O-D-D-Bring your business together on a single platform.

From sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, visit O-D-O-O-O-O-D-O-O-D-com. What happened to your daughter, Tiffany? She was murdered. She had just gotten married three months before that. It was quite a surprise when they told us that she was missing. Toughest night of your life. It's something that a parent never should have to go 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 to her. We were able to actually get the case.

reopened and get OSBI 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 I basically just worked my way through them. It turns out there had been a potential suspect, William Rees. 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 Sapaw, 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 Rees wouldn't even been on our radar screen. That's not a name that the investigators at the time had even heard of. Detectives in Texas also say they can place Reese in Oklahoma. The night Tiffany disappeared. disappeared. The investigators early on developed a timeline with William Rees, using his phone records, his gas receipts,

showing what days he traveled up and down I-45 from Houston to Oklahoma. Their phone call had been made from a pay phone the night of the Tiffany came up missing. And it was from the Yukon area, which is just west of where Tiffany was reported missing, and just east of where her body. he was located.

William Reese immediately becomes a person of interest, but that's the closest investigators could put him to the crime scene. The car wash owner recognized him as being a customer there at the car wash, but that particular day there wasn't anyone that could put him there. To be truthful with you, I had no idea what I was going to do with the case. The only hope I had, there was one item of everything. that with new DNA technology that might be able to be tested. There were some swabs left from the original analysis.

That particular evidence had been tested previously and no DNA profile was able to be developed then. And with our current technologies, which are more sensitive, there was hope that we could develop a DNA profile. A partial male DNA profile was obtained from the swabs from Tiffany's body. The partial 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 cold case review. of Laura Smither's murder. So in 2014, I was tasked with looking into the Laura Smither case. That's when Josh and I started working together.

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 would file capital murder charges on William Reese, which would be an instance. for him maybe to give up some information in 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 cold cases in places where Reese had visited. In all three cases, Kelly, Jessica, and Tiffany, they were able to find gastrocedes, calling cards that put him nearby. these locations where the women went missing. Meanwhile, OSBI has tested and eliminated all the other DNA samples they took in Tiffany's case against their partial DNA profile. It was not any of them. So I'm looking at a table full of numbers

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 Rees personally. His parents lived across street from them and Anandar Darko.

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.

But we purposely waited because we knew that William Reese was not going to get out of prison. The game plan was to allow Texas an opportunity to run their cases. We're all comparing notes and there wasn't anything missed. There was no new evidence. What it was going to come down to was us making a run at William Rees. That's your full name. William Lewis Rees. So at this point in time, we decided to come up with a plant and lay everything out on a table.

And make an offer. I make an offer. I didn't know what to do. I thought, maybe they ain't going to believe me. William Rees is behind bars in Texas, serving 60 years for kidnapping, Sandra Sapaw. 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, they usually take it.

There may be consideration if he's willing to give up the location. of the remaining girls. Originally, I always felt I was going to do the interview, right? The issue we had in all of that, William Rees hated Friends with Police Department. That's right. So we had to come up with something else. Doug Bacon and I discussed who we'd like to use to make a run at William Rees. Reese was a cowboy, right?

We felt that he could relate to another cowboy, which is no more of a cowboy in Texas than a Texas Ranger. Jim Holland, the Texas Rangers, February 9th, 2016 at the L.S. unit, Huntsville, Texas, time is now 246. We knew Jim Holland was a very good interviewer, so we recruited him to come on board. Bill? Yes, sir. What do you think this is about? It's probably about some murder cases. Yeah.

Which one? Is any clear? I have no idea. I have got a case, and we've got a new one service. Okay. But it doesn't have to be all bad, all right? Ranger Hollins explained to him that if he was willing to cooperate, now would be the time. Because at the end of the day, I would like, your help, that's my whole.

I'm not going to promise you 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 your help with this. This is a very unique opportunity for you, and there is a thing called consideration. And there's things that, you know, you can create guarantees in advance, all right? Holland interviewed him for five and a half hours. I think at the end of the day that Bill's going to make a decision based on what's best for Bill. Okay, what are you doing? But there's a clock ticket, all right?

We provided Jim Holland with photographs of all of those girls. At some point in time, he had laid the pictures of Jessica Kane, Laura Smither, Kelly Cox, and Tiffany Johnson. What are you on my side? Tell me, do you want me to go to the DA and broach it to get you a guarantee? Okay, well, give me and tell them money. If you come back money, I'll tell you, either we're going to do this or I ain't going to do it. Okay. What does he talk about all this?

All four. He just put his hand over and said, all four of them. Wow. So that was one of those, oh, geez, you know. He has given some indication that he was responsible for the murders of all four of these. girls. As soon as they've been praying that exact thing just previously. All the families, we all took to law enforcement.

Bringing those two girls home was very important to us. We're taking the death penalty off the table. We okayed that. I said if 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 Reese as agreed, Oklahoma isn't making any promises. They had not made a decision one way or the other, whether they would, where they wouldn't pursue the death penalty. Although Reese is initially reluctant,

he still agrees to give up the location of one of the missing women as a first step. At the end of the day, you don't have one chip. You've got two chips. Right, okay. So you won't know? Yeah. Okay, you want.

William Reese was released into friends with police department's custody. We first drove him. We said he buried Kelly Cox. This is the site out in Brazori County off at 288 and County Road 51. Why did he choose this spot to bury her? There was a stolen bulldozer on site. So he had already had a bulldozer staged here that he was hiding out until he could sell it.

That's correct. As investigators begin to dig where Reese directs them, he settles into his own cell at the Friendswood jail. So you get him to open up to you by appearing to be friendly with him? Correct. As an investigator, you have to play a role, right? But you 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, Rees shares details on how he murdered each young woman, starting with 12-year-old Laura Smither, who was out jogging. I heard this loud noise. I hit some of my thoughts some mailboxes. So my mirror slung up against the side of my truck, near the road. So I stopped.

This one's seen her in a ditch. They didn't know what to do. I thought, man, they ain't gonna believe me. According to him, it was an accident. I pulled up side of the building. Reese says he ran into that young mother, Kelly Cox, at the convenience store near the Denton Police Station. She bumped into him, walking up

the store with the coke in her head and called up a drunk. We got into it there and she hit with that coke. It was just a plastic bottle and it was on. When I hit her, she hit her head. And with Jessica Kane, she was coming out of Benikins, getting her car, and she bumped his car door. And he yelled at her and she flipped him off. He left that park lot driving down south toward Galson.

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 behind him. For no reason, she just kept going, but she didn't. She did, she was yelling at me, and I lost it. I just got it. I won't go there and hit her. Right there on the interstate, cars were going by

and everything. So I asked Reese, be willing to give me a statement concerning the Tiffany Johnson case, and he agreed. He said he was at a car wash with his horse trigger. I sprang in between the truck and the trailer. Next thing I know this girl is yelling at me, that I sprayed her. I don't think I sprayed her, but she was cussing and everything.

We started getting into verbal words back and forth. You threw her in a horse trailer where after a more physical confrontation, she wrapped a rope around her neck and strangled her to death. I remember her being on top of him, and I told her to get off because it was too hot in the air, I couldn't do it. She hit me in the back of the head without horse ship. Yeah, let's back up just a little bit. little bit because you just lost me.

You claimed that he grabbed her with a beat on her and suddenly she wants to have sex with him. The part is hard to believe is that you guys start out with a fight and suddenly she wants to have sex with you. I ain't saying she was doing it volunteer. William Marines never, never admitted to being in the wrong. He always had an excuse for what he did. It wasn't his fault.

It was their fault. And I don't think normal people like you and I can even begin to understand the mindset of somebody like that. You know he's not telling the truth. You know he's lying to you. But you don't want to push him too hard because you don't want to lose his cooperation. After days of digging, investigators

are starting to doubt his word, especially his story about where he buried, Kelly Cox. We dug for seven days and did not. locate anything. We let him know that folks are starting to lose confidence in what he's telling us. I can see the concern with his face. Because his life depended on it. Right. I'm telling you, she's got to 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. Best answers from across the globe are about to join me for the audition of a light time. ABC Mondays, do they have what it takes to

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You have no idea who you're dealing with, 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 bundle subscribers. Terms apply. With the threat of the death penalty hanging over his head and seven days of digging without finding Kelly Cox,

William Rees assures investigators he can bring them to where he buried Jessica Kane. You tell us the truth about burying around her, sir? What I'm seeing? Rees said, I'll take you directly to Jessica Kane's location because I know where I buried her because it's right by a pipeline. Reese had drawn by hand a map for these investigators of where he buried the body. We would start digging with Shep. We'd start 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. Thurtonight Witness News was first on scene and captured this exclusive video of William Reese.

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. moving all day, digging more than six feet into the ground. Investigators are keeping a close eye on the dirt falling from the buckets, looking for anything out of the ordinary. All of these agencies had kind of descended on this strip of land.

This has now become an enormous operation, time, money, manpower. The activity has not slowed down more than one week into the digging process. Some days would be cold, mosquitoes, a lot of snakes, really just. He was pretty miserable. But everybody that was there knew that they were there to find Jessica. I've prayed for this child for years and years. And just hoping that upon hope that this is it. There were friends who had come up to the 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 believe those remains belonged to 17-year-old Jessica. Once we saw the bones, we took pictures of that and sent it to an anthropologist to confirm that that was human remains. It was a lot of emotions with everyone that had been involved, the weight that was on everyone's shoulders.

The initial shock at first of her not coming home and anticipating that any moment she is going to walk through the door. I think those years were harder. As it went on, I think we had seen. 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. Reese immediately said, now that everyone knows that I'm serious, We need to go back to Brasori 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 past the trees is ground zero for digging operations.

What these grounds hold is still a mystery. They were raising the bucket up, and there was just a little cylindrical piece of something. So we just had to stop, and it was a small bone for. 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, and she just left it on. They brought it to you. Yes, they brought it to the house. It's very important. 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. Yep. 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 answers, it was comforting for me to know that she wasn't being harmed. She had been in God's arms since July 15, 1997. Now that Jessica and Kelly have been found, Reese is 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 wait later. 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 Rees would be brought to justice.

Why not? We just, we didn't have really any hope. But the long wait is finally over. In May 2021, William Rees goes on trial for the murder of Tiffany Johnston. And then finally you see him 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 a lot better. And I would have felt a lot better,

but I'd get kicked out of the courtroom and I didn't want to get cooked out because I'd waited too long to get there. Reese is on trial for Tiffany Johnston's murder, but family and friends of all the victims come to court to witness what they hope will finally be long-awaited justice. To walk with Laura through Tiffany,

That was important to me. It's all I had left. You have said you could feel the evil in the room. Absolutely. And that's exactly how it was. It was like a presence of its own. It was eerie almost. What was his demeanor like?

Histoic. Didn't show any emotion. Among the witnesses, Ries's previous victims, including Sandra Seypaugh, The 19-year-old woman he kidnapped at a Waffle House who escaped by jumping out of his moving truck. A whole bunch of victims were paraded before the jury telling their story of what he did to them. They were extremely courageous young women getting up and testifying. What impact did they have, their 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 Kane. I'm not going to lie to you. It's over with. I want this to be overwhelmed. 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. That's it. That's all right. Hang in one second, I'm going to be right back. Okay. 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. If they say they don't want a deal, f-it, let them give me the needle. So look, man, I don't got no family laugh, so he really don't bother me now. After eight days of testimony, it took the jury less than one of a jury. just than one hour to arrive at a verdict. We the jury do upon our oaths find as follows. 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 William Rees is back in court for sentencing. We are on the record, state of Oklahoma versus William Lewis Rees. A death sentence is not something to be celebrated. It is not something to be taken lightly and it is not something to be utilized on a win.

You have been solidly behind giving William Rees the death penalty. Why does he deserve the death penalty? According to the Bible, it's I-49. And I believe that. I wanted to see him get sentenced, and I wanted to make sure that the judge didn't. You know, you have all these nightmares. Can they change the sentence and pull it away and not do it? And I wanted to hear those words.

There's an old saying in the law, justice delayed is justice denied. Justice will not be delayed any longer in this case. I sentence you to death. He's a monster. and he's a sex offender and he's a liar and he's a murderer and he's a murder. Now a convicted murderer sentenced to death. But what about his other victims?

Would those families ever get their day in court and justice for their own losses? State of Oklahoma versus William Lewis Reese. Mr. Reese, I sentence you to death. William Reese is currently in a Texas prison. He was sentenced to 60 years for Sandra Seaboss kidnapping and the death penalty in Oklahoma for killing Tiffany Johnston. How do you plead guilty or not guilty? Reese pleads guilty to three separate counts of murder,

life for each case in the murders of large. and the murders of Laura Smither, Jessica Kane, and Kelly Cox. Hearing Reese plead guilty. I knew what it meant to the families. He indicated in a courtroom in front of the judge and the families that he was responsible for their death. I told him in my victim impact statement that I forgave him. I was in a prison that I placed myself in because I was so angry at him.

And I had to find my way out. of that prison of anger by forgiving him. As much as we'd like to rely on our justice system, you can't rely on the justice system for peace. I had a picture of Kelly and Alexis that we held up the entire time for him to look at. I wanted him to see that he had not ruined or destroyed our family, that I still had a great childhood,

and I still grew up happy, and I was still raised really well, you know. This is the statue. This is it. Kelly holding Alexis, and we did a big balloon release at her life celebration, so we put balloons with it. If I could say anything to you personally, it would be stay aware, stay safe, and God bless Kelly.

I miss you. I think about you every day. Every day. It gives me peace for coming out. It's my peaceful place. It's no confusion or anything. It's just being here with TIF by myself. If you could talk to her, what would you tell her?

That I love her and I miss her. And she should be here with us. It's been almost 27 years. How often do you think of her? Every day. When you love, that love doesn't just die after you've buried your child. That love stays with you. It'll be with you. It is our life sentence. We will carry that with us always.

Jessica Kane's parents hold on to memories of happier times. On a dead snout, I took her in the baytown to a movie. And on the way home, they played a song that I love. And it was by the platters, only you. And so I just pulled off on the side of the highway, Interstate 10, and it was dark, no traffic, and she put her feet on my toes, and we just danced around over there. What a beautiful memory. Yes, it is.

What's the moral of the story? Teach your children well. And dance when you can dance with. And dance when you can dance. The families we spoke with telling us, David, they're sharing their pain. 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 Muir. And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 2020 and ABC News, good night.

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