Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - 'Black Widow' murders husband, then targets, kills her 'lookalike' to assume her identity!

Episode Date: July 17, 2019

Charges filed against Lois Riess who allegedly killed her lookalike to steal her identity so she could hide while on the run for murdering her husband. Riess now under a murder indictment. Nancy Grace follows Lois Riess's deadly trail in this episode with forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, psychologist Caryn Stark, lawyer Mickey Sherman, psycho analyst Bethany Marshall, and Crime Stories contributing reporter John Lemley. Also, help us find missing teen Emma Stokes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A Minnesota woman, a petite platinum blonde, triggers a nationwide manhunt after her husband is found dead on a worm farm. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us in the last hours. Major breaking news in the case of Lois Reese. Her husband found dead, shot by apparently a shotgun.

The ballistics still out on that. 54-year-old David Reese in Blooming Prairie found dead on his worm farm with a blanket over him, shot multiple times. Police now believe his lovely wife, Lois, the petite platinum blonde, then forges business and personal checks stealing about 11 grand from him and fleeing to Florida. She stopped at several casinos and paraded across lobbies and through gambling machines in full view of surveillance video. Gambles to her heart's content stays in a luxury hotel running up the tab with room service and pay-per-views.

Then, surveillance video pops up in Fort Myers Beach. It catches her talking with a petite, platinum blonde doppelganger named Pam Hutchinson at an oyster bar. Well, Louis Rice now accused of befriending Pamela, murdering her, stealing her ID and credit cards and car, and then going on the run. She is apprehended just a couple of miles from the Mexican border at another five-star hotel, yacking it up with another blonde doppelganger. What, she needed to kill a third person so she could steal her identity across the border undetected? Wow. Well, in the last hours, we learned that formal charges have been handed down in Minnesota for the death of Reese's husband.

What does it mean? Will she face the death penalty? Not in Minnesota. But she is charged with murder one in Dodge County. She was just indicted on one count of first-degree premeditated murder and one count of second-degree murder in the alternative. Again, accused of shooting and killing her husband, 54-year-old David Reiss. I guess life on the worm farm just wasn't enough for Lois.

How in the world did we land in a court of law? 54-year-old David Reiss in Blooming Prairie found dead on his worm farm with a blanket over him, shot multiple times. And guess what's missing? on his worm farm with a blanket over him, shot multiple times. And guess what's missing? Over $11,000 from his checking account and his wife, Lois Reese, a platinum blonde who then turns up, A, at a casino having a good old time, and then in Florida in Fort Myers. She's spotted on closed- on closed circuit TV surveillance video

at Smoking Oyster Brewery, chatting up another woman at the bar. And again, she's having a great time. They're drinking, they're talking, they're laughing. She's really holding court at this bar. Smoking Oyster Brewery. It just sounds like a good time right well that woman Pam Hutchison guess what she bears an amazing similarity a semblance to Lois whose husband happens to end up dead on a worm farm and lo and behold just later, Pam ends up dead too, missing her car and all of her identity. That's right. Lois Reese on the run, assuming her doppelganger's identity. I want to go first to John Limley.

John, Crime Stories investigative reporter, start at the beginning and give me a capsulization of Lois Reese's rampage. Nancy, David Reese's business partner, called authorities to ask them to check on him. The partner said no one at work had seen David Reese in more than two weeks. And after an exhaustive search at his home, they then went to his farm. And that is where they discover David Reese's body. And he had been shot multiple times and they weren't able to determine how long he had been dead over that past two weeks and another person was missing. They could not find his wife, Lois. Now, they very quickly learned that Lois may have been at a casino in Iowa, but she wasn't there when they went looking for her. Now, from there, she was believed to have made a beeline for Florida. That's where investigators alleged that she killed 59-year-old

Pamela Hutchinson of Bradenton, Florida, who was in town actually to be with a friend who had just lost her husband, and they were going to spread his ashes in the water there in Fort Myers, Florida. Pam was really only planning on staying in Fort Myers a couple of days, and presumably toward the end of her trip, she stopped by to grab a bite at Smokin' Oyster Brewery, just a couple of blocks from her condo. And it's there that she meets and strikes up a conversation with a visitor in the city, a woman that we now know was Lois Reese. It's around the same time that Pam's family and friends noticed something rather odd. Pam is really big on posting on Facebook, and those Facebook posts come to an abrupt halt. How do we know, joining me, Alexis Tereschuk from RadarOnline.com, how do we know that it was Lois Reese that found her doppelganger and assumed Pam Hutchison's identity after killing her? How do we know she ever made it to Pam Hutchison's condo?

Well, the police have evidence that she was there. She stole Pam's credit cards, her bank account information, and even her ID and leaves her condo and goes out, goes to the bank and gets $5,000 out from the bank cash by using her Pamela's ID. I guess they, the teller didn't even notice that they weren't the same person. So she's caught on camera there. They see her, they've got her. And then she goes on a nationwide what's the word spending spree i guess so because she's got all this money from her dead victims and there's no way you can tell me that she did not hone in on this woman because she the killer the alleged killer, believes this woman, Hutchinson, was her doppelganger, her lookalike. And when you put them, Jackie, look at this.

Look at their faces side by side. Now, the alleged killer, Reese, Lois Ann Reese, has her hair long and pulled back in a bun in that photo. And Hutchinson has her short bouncy but you pull the hair back and change the hair color that's totally a look-alike so she goes from casino to casino and pops up there in Fort Myers Florida on a bar stool at the Smin' Oyster Brewery in Fort Myers Beach. This is still four days before Hutchinson is found dead. Describe what you see on the video, John Limley. She's caught on closed-circuit TV.

True. It's a relatively short clip. And you can see Lois, she is facing that surveillance camera. She pulls her glasses back on her head. She really seems to be, as you mentioned, turning on the charm. She is in her element, seems to be holding court. And you can see the back of the head of this doppelganger, this supposed twin of sorts. Pam. Pam Hutchinson. Pam Hutchinson, right. You can see the back of her head.

She's wearing a red and white cap. They seem to be having a really good time. Well, they're laughing and drinking. And there's also closed circuit video, I think, relating to the condo. Yes, this is before she gets to the condo. It's thanks to surveillance video there at the restaurant that we know how and when the paths of Lois Reitz and Pam Hutchinson first crossed. We see them seated at the bar chatting, having a great time. Lois was on the run, and she saw her chance to gain more time and gain a possible cover. Lois

realized that she and this woman at the bar, Pam Hutchinson, looked a lot alike. Her plan was to assume this woman's identity, so Lois quickly befriends Pam and somehow, we're not exactly sure how, finagles her way into Pam's condo. Two days later, after a man staying in the room above where Pam was staying, started smelling a strange odor. That's when he contacted the management of the condo building. They opened up Pam's condo and discovered her body is there. She's been shot. She's covered in blood and covered with a pile of towels. You know, that's very odd.

Dr. Bethany Marshall, L.A. Psychoanalyst, joining us. I found, this is just anecdotal, it's not a statistical study, Dr. Bethany, that so often killers will take the time to cover up the face of the victim. I know in one case, a girl murders her mother and puts a trash basket, a wicker basket over her head. I had cases where people were murdered out in the open and they would put leaves over the body in this case she put towels over it there's also surveillance video guys of her at the condo that's how we know she was at the condo surveillance video she's walking out of the condo with a plastic bag not only that when she turns up at a five-star resort shortly after she spotted walking across the lobby wearing Pam Hutchinson straw hat she is actually sporting her murder

victims hat so dr. Bethany two things in a nutshell why cover up your dead victim face and second does this woman know no shame she's even wearing the dead lady's hat it's it's it's so perverse you know i often think um you can tell how premeditated a murder is by how well the body is covered up and whether or not the perpetrator has prepared a dump site and a place to secrete the body. And in this case, it seems as hasty as, I don't know, shoplifting a target. Like she finds a woman who looks like her, follows her to the condo, shoots her. I think maybe covers her up with towels too, because she doesn't want too much blood to go all over the places. And she also doesn't want to have to see what she's done. Right there, Dr. Bethany, I don't think they give a fig about the blood when you shoot somebody

multiple times. You know there's going to be blood. There's something about covering up their face, Dr. Bethany Marshall. Sometimes I think they don't want to see the victim looking back at them. I've thought a lot about this because it seems that no matter what the MO is, that the perpetrator does tend to cover up the victim's face. And sometimes I think, do they just not want to see the deceased? Do they not want to see their own handiwork? Maybe they just want to deny to themselves all the destruction that they've created. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Major breaking news in the case of Lois Reese. Her husband found dead, shot by apparently a shotgun multiple times.

Well, in the last hours, we learned that formal charges have been handed down in Minnesota. You know, it goes back further even than the murder of the husband. Jason Oceans, defense attorney, joining me out of the New York area. Jason, we've looked into some court records, and they show that Lois Reese was kicked out as guardian for her disabled sister because of a report Lois had been transferring, Lois Reese transferring funds from one account to her own account, and then withdrawing the funds. Where else, Jason? A casino.

So we got a gambling problem, and the means to solve it is to steal money. And then commit murder. Perfect plan. And that was in 2005. We got a hold of an affidavit that said thousands had been spent somewhere called Diamond Joe Casino in Iowa, not too far from her Blooming Prairie home. She was never charged with a crime, but she was ordered to pay back over $100,000. She was probably charged with something

and that was the plea arrangement to come up with restitution so uh you know birds of a feather i mean she she had a premeditated as dr bethany said and this is well thought out and she has an mo in her background jason birds of a feather flock together does not apply to this because she's not flocking with anybody i think the proper one would be when you don't know a horse look at its track record because she's got a long track record unless you know of another bird flocking with her i hope you're ashamed i am thank you for correcting me okay good good good to know good jason you're always so right. I have to use anything I have to fight you, okay? So, Joe Scott Morgan. I appreciate that.

Okay. Joseph Scott Morgan, help me out now. Because it's like there's no shame and no fear. When you go into a casino, there are more surveillance video cameras than NASA, for Pete's sake. And she's killing and murdering and stealing and then going to casinos and tromping around, flouncing, flouncing. Let me pull that out of the drawer. Flouncing, as my grandmother used to say,

across the lobbies of five-star resorts and casinos wearing the dead victim's hat. Joe Scott? Yeah, isn't that kind of bizarre? We're talking about face covering for a moment where, in my experience, they have this period of time where they don't want to look at the face because they're kind of ashamed of what they've done, but yet she goes and puts on this woman's hat and goes to one of the most public locations she possibly could, where she can be observed from multiple points, and walks around

as this person. It's very bizarre. And also, it's almost like she's jacked up in the sense that she's on a rush or something. She's got all of this money. She's traveling across the country under an assumed identity, and she's blowing it. She's blowing it every, it's like she has nothing else to live for. And it's, it's scary. It's scary in the, in the fact that thank God that no one else has gotten into her path who she could destroy their lives. A woman who investigators believe murdered her husband in Minnesota then goes to Florida, where she uses the very same gun, according to the ammo comparison, to slay her doppelganger, her lookalike to assume her identity, Pam Hutchinson, captured where else? At a South Texas resort. To John Limley, Crime Stories investigative reporter, tell me, how was Lois Reese finally captured? Where is she now? Well, the man who actually recognized Lois Reese, who was wanted for these murders, of her husband and the woman that she resembled, told authorities that it was her hair that gave her away. She was spotted sipping a drink at the bar inside the Sea Ranch restaurant in South Padre Island, Texas. From all accounts, it appears she

was cool as a cucumber until the marshals arrived to take her into custody. The restaurant's manager, Becky Galvin, told the Washington Press that they had received a call from another restaurant before that, that she had been spotted. The authorities just missed her there, but they were able to catch up with her, realize she was on her way into this restaurant and alerted the restaurant staff that she was coming in.

Well, this is what we know. We know that she was only 27 miles from the Mexican border. Alexis, while there is a lot you have to go through to come from Mexico into the U.S., to go from the U.S. into Mexico, people just fly right across the border. 27 miles from the Mexican border. Alexis? Absolutely. It's fairly easy to get into Mexico. I've been in the car asleep one time when we drove through. So she could have done it very easily. And she had thousands of dollars. She actually, she stole $11,000 from her husband. I don't know if that's stealing, but I'm going to call it stealing. And then she had another $5,000 from Pamela. So she was flush with cash. She could have

easily made it over, but she was so brazen in these restaurants, just eating out in public, not even like drive-through fast food where there maybe would have been less cameras, but she just was not afraid to be out in public. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Welcome back. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us. This is Crime Stories. In the last hour is a break in the case of who I like to refer to as Wrong Way Lois. Lois writes a petite bleached blonde kills her doppelganger after targeting her at a Florida oyster house. This after her husband found dead on the family worm farm and his bank accounts drained she's finally apprehended all the way across the country found uh caught on video in multiple casinos and luxury hotels karen stark with me we're now new york psychologist karen she's got one husband dead at the worm farm

all right long time husband and now she's gambling at the casino karen what is that state of mind you leave your husband shot multiple times dead on the worm farm back home and she's in iowa running through all that money it's she might as well take out a billboard on third avenue that says look at me i kill my husband here I am at the slot machines in Iowa. Come and get me. Well, and what it also says is, look at me. I killed my husband and I don't care. I'm having a good old time using the slot machines because I don't have a conscience. And that's what's happening with this woman. Okay, Karen Stark, help me reconcile this gregarious, charming, bottle blonde with a beautiful white smile, sitting at a barstool, chatting up everybody around her with a laser lock on her next murder victim.

What's so frightening about encountering a person like this is that she can come across as your very best friend, the most charming, gregarious. You want to know her. She's got her sunglasses on and off and making eye contact with you. And the last thing that anyone would ever suspect is the whole time she's plotting to kill you. That's what's so deceiving about someone who's a sociopath who's capable of murder, is that they can really come off as quite charming. And you would never believe that this is about to happen. Who would ever think, oh, I'm meeting this new person.

Isn't she great? Oh, and by the way, I better be very careful because she's going to assume my identity and kill me. Mickey Sherman, renowned defense attorney in multiple jurisdictions and author of How Can You Defend Those People? Mickey Sherman, you and I have seen it all. Let me knock on wood on that one because just every time I say we've seen it all, then something tops it. But, Mickey, this frame of mind, if you and I had committed a crime, had committed a murder, we would be ducking and diving. We would be using only cash. We'd go all Jodi Arias and get our gas in cans in the trunk so we wouldn't have a

receipt anywhere we'd be hiding out paying cash at a hotel six staying totally under the radar until we hit mexico right but that maybe we've i don't know you gotta speak for yourself on that one oh okay so i would be at the high level slot. Oh, okay. That's right. The high level, the 25-cent slot. So, Mickey, this woman is brazen. Really? That's what she is, brazen. Well, that's generally the nature of someone who kills other people. So, I mean, the psychologist will have a field day with her.

But the fact that she's done this dastardly deed and then goes to a casino, I don't think that's out of the realm of normality for somebody who has no conscience. You know, you've actually hit on something, and I don't really know how to verbalize it, but you're right. People that we kill so brazenly are not thinking the way you and I think, Mick. I mean, you know, another thing, Mickey Sherman, I know you're probably going to argue it's all, quote, circumstantial evidence, which it is. FYI, circumstantial evidence under the law is to be considered on equal footing

with direct evidence such as a confession,na or fingerprint but mickey sherman i know you're going to argue well we don't know she killed her look-alike her twin pam hutchinson but i'm looking at surveillance video of her the black widow lois ann reese right now and she is spotted at hutchinson's condo just before her dead body's found. So she's on video with her at the barstool at Smokin' Oyster Brewery in Fort Myers. She's also spotted at Pam's condo, and Pam ends up dead. What about that, Mick? Well, it is circumstantial evidence, and I'll be the first to concede that circumstantial evidence is often better than eyewitness or confessions or what else.

And most people feel, however, that if it's circumstantial, it's not worth anything. And those of us who try cases know that that's not the case. The bottom line is they still need something to drive this home. Granted, she may have picked up this woman at the oyster bar, but they still need something to build the bridge between being spotted. Oh, oh, oh, I've got something. I've got something for you, Mickey. You got it. Oh, you're going to hate this.

The gun, the weapon used to kill the husband, is the same weapon used to kill Pam Hutchinson. They both died with the same gun. Everybody, you know how that works. A gun, when it is made, has an individual marking inside the barrel where the metal dries. It's like a fingerprint. As a bullet hurtles down the barrel, it is struck with high velocity against the inside of the barrel leaving striations or markings on the bullet that only one gun in the world can leave so when you can match up those bullets taken out of the victim's body under microscope you can. It's very plain when you look at it, Joe Scott. It sounds like high science, but Joseph Scott Morgan, it's very plain to see under a microscope.

Yeah, Nancy, it's a ballistic fingerprint, and it is unique to that particular weapon, being that this is apparently, at this point in time, the same weapon that she used relative to her husband. We can take those rounds and tie those back. And this is pattern evidence, Nancy, stuff that comes along as a result of her continued behavior. Catch this.

Tell me where you think this is headed, Dr. Bethany Marshall. I'm looking at the video right now of when Lois Reese is arrested by fugitive magistrates, the video shows her walking into the restaurant and taking a seat at the edge of the bar where she always does. She orders a glass of wine. Right. And an entree. And she eats for over an hour, befriending another woman at the bar in the process. You know how that was going to end, right, Bethany? Absolutely. This is her offending pattern, right? She finds someone who looks just

like her, kills that person, assumes their identity, steals their money, and then runs out of cash. Then she has to find a new victim. Nancy, I read one report where apparently she and her husband had some couple friends. And the wife of the couple was in the garage and looked up. And there was Lois Reese writing down the address numbers to that couple's house. And I don't know if you read that report. And that she felt very freaked out. She had heard that Lois was on the lam and she became afraid that perhaps she was going to be Lois's next victim. It sounds like Lois hung around their neighborhood for about a week before moving on

to another bar and like serial killers do, looking for another victim. She was befriending another woman at the bar, Alexis Tereszczuk, just like she did Pam Hutchison before she gets access to her condo and murders her to steal her identity. I guarantee you she was there to kill the woman, get her identity and cross over to the Mexican border. I'd be very interested to find out what that woman looked like. Exactly. This is exactly what she does. And that's why she, it's so strange that she didn't change her hair color because she, the platinum white blonde is so noticeable. If she'd gone brown, she probably could have found a lot more people that look just like her that could have been her victims. Luckily, these guys, these bartenders were so smart and they noticed this. I don't know that I ever noticed anybody sitting next to me in a restaurant. So I really give them a lot of thanks for catching this lady. Well, we also know this to John Limley,

Crime Stories investigative reporter. It never ends with this woman. When police search her hotel room, they find a 22 and a nine, both in her room. What about that? It was not over yet for her. She had a lot of plans of murder and embezzling and stealing money ahead. Absolutely. And when they were able to get into Pam Hutchison's room, discovered that a lot of the items that Lois had with her when she was found in Texas, that woman's credit ID and her vehicle as well. She swapped vehicles there in Fort Myers before she started the 1,300-mile trip. And she was staying there in South Padre Island in a $59-a-night room at Motel 6. Yeah, she had left the fancy resort and was scoping out her next victim.

Take a listen to this. The detectives from both here and the other two states are still collecting and comprising all the evidence, and it looks like she'll be transferred to county for a short stint and then as soon as the extradition takes place it looks like she'll it looks like it's she's going to be going to florida first and they're also trying to move some of the evidence like the car towards florida Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Welcome back. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

The gambling, addicted, bleached blonde, referred to as Wrong Way Lois or Losing Streak Lois, now charged with her husband's murder one year after allegedly shooting him dead, sparking a nationwide manhunt found at the Mexican border, chatting up her alleged third victim. And then there's the matter of lookalike doppelganger Pam Hutchison.

Wrong Way Lois accused of stealing Hutchison's identity and murdering her before going on the run. There's actually video of Lois Rice leaving Pam's condo wearing the murder victim's hat. Now that takes some chutzpah. A grand jury in Minnesota indicts the woman who authorities allege fatally guns down her husband before going on the run to Florida and killing a woman there. Rice, known as Losing Streak Lois or Wrong Way Lois, Losing Streak comes from her gambling habit, allegedly killing her husband David at their Blooming Prairie worm farm, his body found at home with multiple gunshots, Lois Rice nowhere to be found. She even chats up and goes on video at a local 7-Eleven getting directions to Florida. Shows up in shorts and a tank top at a luxury resort on the Mexican border.

And just to throw another wrench in the works, her lookalike sister, now charged with running down the sister's grown son, and tells police, quote, he didn't believe I would do it. Yes, apparently it runs in the family. The sister apparently growing angry with her adult son and running him down in her SUV. The sister, a brunette lookalike, her name is Cynthia Lee Grund of Salem Township, now behind bars on second-degree assault and reckless driving. Now, this is according to documents we have obtained from Olmstead County Jail, what it runs in the family.

And then she brags about it, quote, he didn't think I would do it. Wow. it wow the son has been identified as jason finstad and is suffering from major lower body injuries uh having been run over by lois's sister wow you know what i'm looking at um multiple mug shots of these two and it's amazing how in the world have two sisters, lookalike sisters, landed in two separate courts of law with very violent felonies charged against them. Guys, on a different note, major breaking news. Dave Mack, what's it all about? Emma Stokes is 16 years old.

She and a friend went missing about a week and a half ago. The Park County, Colorado Sheriff's Office said that the girls were being treated at a home for significant health issues and that both girls left the home without their medication, without any electronic communication devices whatsoever. And the search has been on for a week and a half. Lisa and Jerry Stokes are Emma's parents. Lisa, what's the update? What's happening right now? Well, I mean, there's, we don't know where she is. We have no leads on the case at all. And, I mean, there's been zero sightings of her.

And, I mean, I guess my biggest frustration right now is we, the Clark County, the Clark County Sheriff's Department is still over, technically over the case, and they're refusing to hand it over to the CBI. Okay, and that's something that the Sheriff's Department has to do in order to move it to the next level? Right. All it takes is a phone call from the sheriff. That's all it takes. And he's told us no. Now, so far, what are some of the things you guys have done to raise awareness? I saw the Facebook page has over 10,000 followers on it already. Yes, we've done that. We have people from, a lot of people from Texas, our friends, have come up here. And we've done searches.

We've went to various cities we've put flyers and posters everywhere we've we've talked to a gazillion people um we've um went to all the homeless shelters um and you know and anywhere that we think that they might have gone because the dog, the scent, ended at Highway 285 northbound, which is northbound would take you to Denver. Emma's dad, Jerry, joins us now. I cannot imagine what you're going through,erry uh as a dad what's going on with you right now what are you thinking uh right now i feel basically helpless um i don't i don't even

know where to go to try to help my daughter yeah you want to you want to fix it and save them and be their protector but you can can't. And it's just... You know, it's tough. I know it's tough. Very tough. Tip line is 719-836-4121. That's 719-836-4121. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend.

This is an iHeart Podcast.