Cold Case Files - One Tough Mother

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

When 19-year-old newlywed Tiffany Johnston is found dead in a small town in Oklahoma, her mother vows to exact justice for her killer. Over a decade later the investigation becomes much bigger than anyone imagined as more victims associated to the same killer are discovered. Check out our great sponsors! Shopify: Sign up for a FREE trial at shopify.com/coldcase  SimpliSafe: Get 40% off any new system at simplisafe.com/coldcase  Download June’s Journey today! Available on Android and iOS mobile devices, as well as on PC through Facebook Games!

An A&E original podcast. This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. Everyone called Tiffany my shadow. Wherever Mama went, Tiffany was with me. It was very hard to deal with her getting murdered. The police had no idea who to look for. Tiffany's was just another cold case. Whenever I got so disheartened, I go, maybe I should give up. But then my Indian blood comes

out and I go out and I talk to nature and I talk to Tiffany and the redbirds come into the yard, which is a good symbol that means your loved one is close by. And I said, I will not give up. I will find who did this to you. There are 120,000 unsolved murders in America. Each one is a cold case. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's almost midnight on July 26, 1997, in Bethany, Oklahoma, and Sergeant Reed is on his way to a call in the Oklahoma City suburb.

As he's driving, he spots something odd at the Sunshine Car Wash. A white Dodge Neon was parked in the Far West stall, but no one was around it. I didn't pay much more attention. After finishing the call, I drove by the Sunshine Car Wash again, and that same white Dodge Neon was still in the Far West stall. The Dodge Neon is the only car left at the car wash at this late hour, and Sergeant Reed sends the license plate number to headquarters to find out who owns the vehicle. It's registered to 19-year-old Tiffany Johnston. Sergeant Reed opens the car and finds Tiffany's keys and purse are still inside. In the glove box, he discovers the phone number for Tiffany's mother, Kathy, who lives 60 miles away in Anadarko, Oklahoma.

I received a call from the Bethany Police Department wanting to know if Tiffany was with me. I told them, no, she was supposed to meet her new husband, Ryan. They were going to go to their little club-type disco place that they always go to at 11 o'clock at night because that was when Ryan got off work. You woke up in the middle of the night,

wanted to know if your daughter's there, but you know something's not right. Back then, we had pagers. We didn't have cell phones, so I was burning up her pager, trying to get her to answer, but her pager was in her car. So we knew something was wrong because Tiffany always took her pager with her, but we didn't want to believe the worst. Tiffany was a confident young woman. She was especially close to her mother and her cousin, Misty.

Tiffany didn't know a stranger. She was always talkative, bubbly, outgoing, and she was quite feisty. She was opinionated. She didn't back down or give in to the crowd. Tiffany said what she thought, which came from her mama. We liked the same things. I mean, I was Tiffany's best friend. The two of us together liked to cause trouble

and stay up later than we should. As we got a little older, we would go to some of the little country dance places. It was at one of those dances that Tiffany got close to her future husband, Ryan. Tiffany and Misty knew Ryan from their time at Moore High School. They had the same social circle. While Ryan was more reserved than Tiffany, they complemented each other's personalities well and quickly became inseparable.

About a year after graduation, she goes, Mom, I'm going to get married. I go, oh, you are? Yeah. They had wine that my grandpa had made, and that was something I thought was really special. And I remember that it rained, but it didn't ruin the wedding. It was special because my grandma used to say that the rain would wash the bad stuff away. The newlyweds were young, but determined to build a life for themselves. Tiffany began waitressing at a Mexican restaurant and worked part-time in an electronics store. Her goal was to go to college to study floristry. She drove from one side of the city to the other to work two jobs to fund her dream.

Ryan was equally hardworking and found employment at a manufacturing plant. But unfortunately, their conflicting work schedules meant that they didn't get to spend as much time together during their honeymoon period as they would have liked to. They made sure to make the most of each moment they had together. And on their three-month anniversary, they had arranged to meet up at the club. But Tiffany never made it. Tiffany's mother and family members meet at the young couple's apartment and form a search party within hours of her disappearance being noticed. Through the dead of night, they search the quiet streets near the car wash, and they find no sign of Tiffany anywhere.

One call to the Oklahoma State Police changes everything. It's been one day since Tiffany's car was found abandoned at the car wash in Bethany. Motorists along the I-40 and Gregory Road notice a spot in the grass that draws their attention. Someone stops and discovers the body of a white female lying face down wearing only a bathing suit top. The Oklahoma City crime scene agents process the scene and determine that the victim had probably been strangled, as there were marks visible on her neck. The Bethany police are informed, but the small suburban police department isn't used to crimes of this magnitude, so they request the assistance of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. The OSBI came to say that a body had been found, but it was not positive if it was Tiffany or not. The atmosphere was very tense.

There was a lot of things not being spoken that everybody was fearful of. They pulled Ryan aside and spoke to him. That's when we knew that it was even more not right. The OSBI agents show Ryan a photograph of the victim, and he positively identifies her as his wife, Tiffany Johnston. Tiffany's family is devastated and stunned by the senseless loss of the young, ambitious newlywed at just 19 years of age. Tiffany's mother, Kathy, channels her grief into pushing the police and agents

to find out what had happened to her daughter. I thought, why Tiff? She didn't do anything to anyone. You can't imagine who would want to her daughter. I thought, why Tiff? She didn't do anything to anyone. You can't imagine who would want to murder her. But we were bound and determined to find who did this to Tiffany. Major Lynn Williams with the OSBI begins analyzing the crime scene and the area where Tiffany's car had been found. That car wash is fairly busy.

If somebody would have tried to have abducted Tiffany, there would have been one hell of a fight. But the scene where her car was at didn't show that. The car was unlocked. Nothing around that scene was disturbed. That led you to believe that there was any altercation there. So the struggle that took place didn't take place there. It took place at another stall where she knew the person and just got in the car with him and talked to him.

It's a case where anyone could be the suspect. It's a terrifying prospect that the killer could be in the community, and the fear felt by those closest to Tiffany becomes paralyzing at times. After Tiffany's murder, I had a lot of social anxiety to where I would get easily panicked inside a grocery store. If somebody got in line behind me, I would panic and walk out of the store, leaving my stuff there. I had shut down a lot due to my fear of the unknown. Tiffany's body is transported to the medical examiner for an autopsy. The medical examiner determines that the manner of death is homicide caused by strangulation,

but they aren't able to determine an exact time of death. OSBI agents and detectives from Bethany PD determined that the last time anyone saw Tiffany alive was at the car wash shortly after 6 p.m. As with most cases where one spouse is murdered, Tiffany's husband becomes the first point of investigation. Ryan has a solid alibi. Several co-workers saw him at work from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m.,

and he had planned to meet Tiffany once he finished. With Ryan excluded as a suspect, the investigators focus on the car wash. Detective Daniel Mobley and Sergeant John Reed speak to the last person who reported seeing Tiffany on the night she was killed. The witness who had actually seen Tiffany washing her car around 6 p.m., he noticed three people who were observing her. The witness observed Tiffany walk from the stall she was at to the coin machine, which is kind of in the middle of the car wash. He said as she was walking, the three subjects were kind of watching her very close. The witness believes that the three people at the car wash that night

could be involved in Tiffany's murder. Investigators put out a number of press releases through Crimestoppers to track down the suspicious trio. A tip finally leads them to the people they were searching for. Alibis were looked at. Investigators even went one step further and polygraphed, but the polygraphs were all successful. They were at the car wash,

but had nothing to do for Tiffany's killer, the community rallies around her family. Five days after her murder, Tiffany's funeral service is held in Anadarko. Tiffany's death affected a lot of people, and the town of Anadarko is a very community-minded town. My house was locked with people because everyone come to show their support. I was lost.

A parent's not supposed to bury their child. The children are supposed to bury their parents. I wasn't thinking a whole bunch because I just needed to get Tiffany's clothes taken care of. We had to have something long-sleeved and high neck because of the strangulation around her neck. But one of my friends, Patsy Miley, helped me. She did Tiffany's clothes for her funeral. Tiffany's funeral was hard. It took place in the same church that three months earlier her and Ryan got married in. I would say that's the first time I actually just broke down and cried was there in my grandma's arms.

Probably at least 400 people can be held in that church. I believe there was standing room only by the time the funeral actually started. I remember scanning the crowd constantly, wondering who is that person and who is this person. It was almost like everybody was a suspect to me if I didn't know who they were. Kathy has the same suspicion and enlists the help of a friend to videotape the service in case the killer is hiding amongst the mourners.

While re-watching her daughter's funeral is painful, Kathy and her family study every frame, searching for anyone that looks out of place. But nothing stands out. Five long months go by with no solid leads until finally, the investigators get a break. It's January 1998, and the owner of the car wash has just called the OSBI headquarters with a tip. He had seen news reports about a man who was arrested for an abduction in Houston, Texas, and the car wash owner recognized the man as a customer. The man in question is named William Reese.

William Reese at one time resided in the Anadarko, Oklahoma area. He was convicted of two sexual crimes committed here in Cleveland County, and he was released in 1996. When William Reese left prison, he worked as a farrier shoeing horses. He did this in the Oklahoma City area all the way down to his home in Texas. Just two months before Tiffany was killed in 1997, Reese was involved in the abduction of a woman named Sandra Sapaw. ABC 13 reporter Caitlin McCauley recalls the details of that May 17th abduction

in Houston, Texas. Sandra Sapaw was 19 years old, and she was pregnant. She was parked at a Waffle House and noticed that her tires had been slashed. And Reese, pretending to be a good Samaritan, hopped up and said, hey, I can help you with that. Do you need a ride? And at knife point, put her into his truck and kidnapped her. They're driving down the interstate, I-45 in Houston.

She noticed the back door is unlocked, and she's able to kick out the back door, jump out of the moving vehicle on the interstate, I-45 in Houston. She noticed the back door is unlocked and she's able to kick out the back door, jump out of the moving vehicle on the interstate, roll away and escape. Sandra's bravery may have saved her life, but it takes time before she can identify her abductor. Three months after Tiffany was murdered, Sandra undergoes hypnosis under police supervision, and she recalls specific details about her abductor and his truck that leads the investigators straight to William Reese. With the information from the car wash owner that Reese had been seen in the area driving a white pickup truck, the agents begin to look into his movements at the time. They discovered that he had used a payphone in Yukon,

a town eight miles west of Bethany. This is in the days before cell phones, and the calling card was the way that people communicated via long distance at payphones. We requested those calling card records of William Reese, and there were two phone calls that were of particular interest. One was on the day of,

just an hour before Tiffany was abducted, and that was made from the La Quinta Inn at I-40 and Mustang Road. That location is probably four or five miles away from the scene of the abduction at the Sunshine Car Wash. It seems like too much of a coincidence, and the investigators believe that Reese is Tiffany's killer. But their case isn't strong enough for an arrest. We have William Reese in the area now, but we don't have him at the car wash

at the time of Tiffany's disappearance. There was just no physical evidence. There was no eyewitness. There was nothing to corroborate that he was at the Sunshine car wash at that particular time. The lack of solid evidence against the prime suspect causes the investigation to stall.

And after exhausting every other lead, the investigators have nothing else to go on, and the case goes cold. Kathy won't give up easily. It's now April 1998, and she's as determined to find her daughter's killer as she was nine months earlier. I'd call the Bethany PD and harass them, but they really had ran out of leads,

and they didn't know what to do. So Tiffany's case was thrown back in cold case files, and in the meantime, I go back to work again to help cover the cost of Tiffany's funeral. I was really angry and bitter. Whoever had killed my baby, I really hated them. And I think that was what got me through most of it, was the anger and the bitterness. I had come to accept that it wouldn't be solved. Kathy is the one that led that fight.

She wasn't going to give up on this. Every year after Tiffany passed away, I would call our news person and say, hey, the police aren't doing their job. Can we do a remembrance of Tiffany? They would say, people get tired of hearing this. And I said, I don't care. There's got to be someone out there

that knows something about Tiffany's case on every anniversary little trinkets started showing up on Tiffany's headstone rings necklaces little homemade doily things flowers and I was on the phone calling everyone that I knew would go out and no one knew who was putting this stuff on Tiffany's grave on those days. But I'm glad that someone didn't forget Tiffany's case. For 15 long years, Tiffany's mother refuses to give up, and she won't let the detectives give up either. She persists in calling the police department,

local representatives, and the media, doing all that she can to try and get Tiffany's case reopened. Kathy Dobre really never gave up this entire time and kept asking law enforcement to take another look. Because of her, law enforcement started reexamining Tiffany Johnston's case as a cold case. I'm Lola. And I'm Megan.

And we're the hosts of Trust Me, cults, extreme belief, and manipulation. We both have childhood cult experiences, and we're here to debunk the myths about people who join them and show that anyone can be manipulated. Our past interviews include survivors and former members of the Manson family, NXIVM, MS-13, Teal Swan, Heaven's Gate, Children of God, and the Branch Davidians. Join us every week as we help you spot the red flags.

Get new episodes of Trust Me every Wednesday on Podcast One, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's early 2012, and after years of constant pressure from a determined, grief-stricken mother, Oklahoma State Police reopened the cold case. A year and a half passes before Major Lynn Williams finds something that could crack the case. One of the challenging things from the very beginning is that there was nothing of evidence or value to help link anyone to the crime. So one of the first things I did was pulled out every box of evidence and I noticed a buckle swap. We really didn't think we

had any DNA evidence at the time because it had been tested earlier and there was no DNA profile. So I sat down with our criminalist at our OSBI lab and asked with modern technology what can we do with it and that's when the criminalist says I think we can retest it and it's worth a shot. I received a laboratory report from the criminalist. A couple of the swabs that were taken by the medical examiner contained a partial male DNA profile. After 16 long years, the swabs taken during the autopsy provide the detectives with a partial DNA profile

of the man who sexually assaulted and killed Tiffany Johnston in 1997. OSBI DNA analyst Wendy Duke explains the difficulties associated with only having a partial profile. The challenge with cold cases is that over time, the DNA evidence has broken down or degraded. So based on the portion of the swab remaining, we were able to obtain a partial DNA profile. And that was not enough information to enter that profile into the DNA database known as CODIS,

the Combined DNA Index System. The investigators need a suspect to compare the profile with. So, Major Williams begins tracking down everyone who had originally been interviewed at the time of the murder. The new DNA evidence gives detectives hope that they will have enough to convict an original suspect. Major Williams identifies, locates, and obtains buckle swabs from people who had worked with Tiffany, ex-boyfriends, friends, and even people who had been at the car wash at the same time as her.

The investigators go as far as taking a sample from Tiffany's widowed husband, Ryan, just to cover all of the bases, but no matches were found. All of the suspects from the original investigation have been excluded, except for one. We had a multitude of people who could be considered persons of interest, but William Reese, who the car wash owner identified and who was a very strong person

of interest in the case, was the only person that hadn't been eliminated. While I was evaluating who William Reese was and the past criminal activities he was involved in, I discovered that he's a person of interest in other abductions in the Texas area. In addition to the attempted abduction of Sandra Sapaw in May 1997, Reese was a suspect in a string of missing person cases that occurred within weeks of Tiffany Johnston's murder. One case Reese was suspected of involvement in was the August 17, 1997 disappearance of 17-year-old Jessica Kane.

Jessica loved theater and performing, and she was last seen traveling south after leaving a cast party with her theater friends at a restaurant. Another case Reese's name had been associated with was the disappearance of 20-year-old Kelly Cox on July 15, 1997. Kelly was a criminal justice major living in Denton who had just completed a tour of the Denton Dispatch Center on the night she went missing. When she left the center, she realized she had locked her keys in her car, and she went to a payphone to call her boyfriend for assistance, but she was never seen again. She was a student at the University of North Texas. She was also a young mother. There were suspicions that Reese was involved, but no hard evidence to link him to either case. In looking at the pattern of women that went missing, this predator is able to get them away from their friends or whoever they may have been with.

They're all vulnerable, alone, and young. The quest to solve Tiffany Johnston's murder may have led investigators to a serial killer. After the male DNA profile was generated and we had eliminated all the other people that had been potential persons of interest, we reached out to the Texas Rangers to obtain a buckle swab. And if I'm a buckle swab, and if I'm a betting man, I bet William Reese is going to be the contributor of it. It's now January 29, 2014, 17 years after Tiffany was killed,

and state investigators compare Reese's DNA to the sample found at the crime scene. It's a partial match. William Reese and all of his paternal male relatives could not be excluded from the partial profile of the rectal swab, which means that William Reese or any one of his male relatives could have contributed to that profile. At first, it kind of disappointed me that I was really wanting to slam dunk the exact match on the DNA. It's not a perfect match, but it is progress. Investigators need time to build their case against Reese. And fortunately, time is on their side as he's still in prison,

serving a 60-year sentence for kidnapping Sandra Sapaw. We were fairly confident that William Reese was the killer, but we needed to get a confession from him. It's February 16, 2016, and Texas Rangers travel to Huntsville to interview William Reese in prison. He's questioned about several cases in the Texas area, and the Rangers also ask him about Tiffany Johnston's homicide in 1997. They inform him that Oklahoma law enforcement has DNA Others also ask him about Tiffany Johnston's homicide in 1997. They inform him that Oklahoma law enforcement has DNA that links him to the murder and tell

him that he could potentially face a death penalty case. William Reese reaches a point that he confessed to those other missing person cases in Texas. And when they talk about Tiffany Johnston's homicide, William Reese admits that he was at the car wash and that he abducted and killed Tiffany. The prospect of capital punishment is enough to make Reese confess, and he gives the investigators his version of what happened almost 20 years earlier.

Reese says that he and Tiffany had an altercation after he sprayed her with water when he perceived her as being rude to him. When Tiffany yelled at Reese, he forced her inside of the horse trailer that was attached to his pickup truck. It was inside the trailer that he raped and strangled her to death.

But the scene where her car at didn't show that. Nothing around that scene was disturbed that led you to believe that there was any altercation there. The first thought goes to my mind was that it was quick and violent and there wasn't time for any struggle, or she knew the person and just got in the car with him and talked to him. Reese's version of events is troubling, but the news causes unexpected emotional turmoil for Tiffany's mother, Kathy. Lynn Williams came to the house to tell us that he had William Reese as his suspect. I couldn't believe it

because I knew who William Reese was. He would come in the restaurant where I worked and he would set off to his self. He wouldn't join anybody. They didn't know who he was until I had went to pick up my ironing at his mom's house. And so she introduced me to him. His mother was Patsy Miley.

Patsy Miley was the same friend who had supported Kathy and prepared Tiffany's funeral clothes. And when Tiffany was murdered, Patsy called and took time out of her day to give her condolences for Tiffany's death. And I didn't think anything else about it. The police have to wonder if Tiffany had let her guard down when Reese approached her, if he was someone she recognized. Kathy also now realizes that the mysterious visitor who left

keepsakes at Tiffany's grave every year could have been Patsy Miley. Around 2014, the trinket stopped because that was around the time Patsy died. I think Patsy put the trinkets on Tiffany's grave for her own peace of mind for her son killing Tiffany because I really believe that she knew he did it. Closure also comes for the families of Jessica Kane and Kelly Cox when Reese admits that he murdered them and agrees to tell investigators where he had buried them in an attempt to avoid the death penalty.

After weeks of digging in an area of I-45, known as the Texas Killing Fields, William Reese accompanies the Texas Rangers and leads them to the sites where he had hidden the bodies of Kelly Cox and Jessica Kane 19 years earlier. The skeletal remains of the victims are found. With Reese's trial looming, Tiffany's mother has a difficult decision to make. The district attorney called to tell us that they were filing charges on William Reese and they would like to know what I wanted. And I said, I want the death penalty.

I can't forgive Reese for killing Tiffany. The Bible says that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and I'm a firm believer in that. On May 10th, 2021, after years of delays, William Reese is transported from Texas to Oklahoma to face trial for the murder charges. Because the prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, Reese pleads not guilty.

The opening day was definitely the hardest for me just because I was intimidated. William Reese had a connection to our family. He had to have known Tiffany. I was questioning if at any point Reese had ever seen me before. I sat right there on the front row the first day and I couldn't even look at him. And of course they cleaned him up. He didn't have shaggy hair and he didn't have his shaggy beard. And you look at him and you're going, oh, I'd like to get a hold of you. How can you sit here and plead not guilty when we know you did it? I've been trying to figure out what can possibly motivate Reese. Definitely power drives William Reese. I don't know if it was never about sex,

but it was definitely about control. Sandra Sapaw, the one woman who did survive her ordeal with Reese, testifies at the murder trial. She gave me strength through that trial, seeing how she talked with purpose. In the first few days of the trial, I could just feel somebody looking at me. And any time I would look up, Reese would just continue to stare at me. I would look away. It was uncomfortable. It was intimidating. But after her testimony and seeing her strength,

from that point on, if he looked over there, if he tried intimidating, I would stare right back. He would look away fairly quickly. He couldn't maintain that eye contact. On the last day when the case was handed over to the jury, we were told this could be an hour, this could be 12 hours, and don't go far. There was just a lot of chatter about how long do you think it'll take. When it came back so fast, just, it was this wave of electricity went through everyone that was there.

On June 2nd, 2021, 24 years after Tiffany's life was cruelly ended, the jury finds William Reese guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping. It's a long-awaited relief for Tiffany's family and widower, and the conviction is satisfying for the investigators who worked so hard to see justice served. On August 19th, 2021, William Reese is back in court for a sentencing hearing. The judge quotes the old saying that justice delayed is justice denied,

and states that justice will not be denied any longer in this case. Reese is sentenced to death. He is currently on death row. The unconditional love and unwavering determination of a mother pays off. It was the Tiffany Johnson case that led to his confession in the other Texas cases. A lot of that was to do with her mother, Kathy Dobre, who really never gave up this entire time and kept asking law enforcement to take another look. We've waited for 24 years for this day. It gets hard and you want to give up, but you're the one that's going to have to be out there for your person, your relative, your sister, your daughter, your son. Don't give up.

After all this time, I got justice for Tiffany, and that was my main thing was to get justice for Tiffany. Cold Case Files is hosted by Paula Barrows. It's produced by the Law and Crime Network and written by Eileen McFarlane and Emily G. Thompson. Our composer is Blake Maples. For A&E, our senior producer is John Thrasher, and our supervising producer is McKamey Lynn. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz, Maite Cueva, and Peter Tarshis. This podcast is based on A&E's Emmy-winning TV series, Cold Case Files. For more Cold Case Files, visit aETV.com.