Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Killers Amongst Us: Murder on the Waxworm Farm (part 1)

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

By all accounts, David and Lois Riess were a well liked couple in their Blooming Prairie, Minnesota community. David, know for his sense of humor, owned a waxworm farm. Lois opened a daycare and joined a bowling team. When David Riess doesn't show up for work after two weeks, his employees knew something was wrong. That was confirmed when Lois Riess could could not be found. On March 23, 2018, investigators find the body of 54-year-old David in the bathroom of his home, shot multiple times. Who killed David Riess? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Hi guys, Nancy Grace here. Welcome back to Killers Amongst Us, a production of iHeartMedia and Crime Online. Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, with a population of around 2,000. If you look at a picture of Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, it looks like Main Street of Mayberry. I don't know if you know about Andy of Mayberry, Andy Griffith, but I sure do. And I know all about Mayberry, not too far from Raleigh. In my mind, looks just like the real live Blooming Prairie. Blooming Prairie,

Minnesota. So how does a man end up shot dead in his own property? His wife goes missing. I'm Nancy Grace killers amongst us joining me an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again first of all Tess Koster a longtime friend of David and Lois Reese. Ashley Wilcott, judge, trial lawyer, anchor, Court TV. Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst to the stars, joining me from Beverly Hills. Cloyd Steiger, 36 years, Seattle PD and author. Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, and author, Callen Thompson, KIMT, News 3, Rochester, Minnesota. Let's start at the very beginning with Blooming Prairie.

The city of Blooming Prairie is known for its historic downtown. There are tunnels underneath Main Street that were dug during the Prohibition era. The tunnels were used for making and peddling moonshine. This quiet town, with its old bones and its Midwest feel, went almost 30 years without having a murder. You are hearing our friend Aaron Bluey, Devil We Know podcast. You know, to me, when I look at Blooming Prairie, it looks like Andy of Mayberry, like nothing would ever go wrong there. To Kellyn Thompson, I guess you got a pretty low crime rate, huh? Right. You're completely right. It's like out of a movie. It's small town, Minnesota, close knit community. You wouldn't think anything like that would happen here. You know, I'm looking at pictures of Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, and literally it reminds

me of where my grandparents on my dad's side lived, Oglethorpe, Georgia. There was one main street, and at the end of the main street, there's just a bunch of trees. Now, that's more than I had where I grew up in middle Georgia, but I'm looking at, look at this, Jackie, the water tower in Blooming Prairie with the flag on it. Am I correct? There's only about 2000 people there? Yes, you are correct. It's very small. And like you said, the water tower is right at the end of the main street. If you drive too fast, you might miss it, honestly. Well, I know this. It's been there since 1868. It was incorporated in 1874, and it's actually on the National Register of Historic Places. Now, here's the kicker, because before Pro prohibition, it was, let me just say, not dry.

So it was a big city because of moonshine. But that's how long Blooming Prairie has been around. Population 2,000. You know, that's very important to the murder of David Reese and the disappearance of his wife. To you, Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. Joe Scott, why is that critical to figuring out who murdered David Reese and took Lois?

Hey, Nancy, look, with most homicides, we think about people that are in our intimate circle. And you're talking about this beautiful place, which to me, Minnesota is one of the prettiest states in the union. It's absolutely gorgeous. Small town. You've got a limited number of people that are surrounding you. And so how many people would you actually have in your circle? I would venture to guess that there are not that many homicides that take place in this pretty little town. Looking at it, Cloyd Steiger, now you did 36 years Seattle PD, 22 of that as homicide detective,

author of Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer, Gary Jean Grant at CloydSteiger.com. Cloyd, now you're used to sleuthing and solving murders in Seattle. That's a far cry from Blooming Prairie. Blooming Prairie is the kind of town where the neighbors know when somebody doesn't show up for work. They notice when you don't bring your newspaper in from your driveway. They see it. That's a lot different from where you policed. Yeah, this is that.

I'm looking at the town myself right now, I bet you they have had less than five murders in their entire history, if that many. I mean, so this is a really unusual thing. And the way you go about investigating this crime is going to be completely different because of that. So straight out to Tess Koster. Tess, how is it that you managed to meet up with Dave and Lois Reese? Lois and Dave came to Blooming Prairie, 2004, 2005, something like that. And we met them as the new people in town. It's a small town. There's not a stoplight. There's not a movie theater. It's

just a close-knit group. So dave liked to fish my husband liked to fish they got to know each other that way we'd go have a beer at the servicemen's club or at jnh liquor um run into him here and there then dave start opened his waxworm farm which is right on their property and okay right there what is that what's a wax worm it is a little white worm that people fish with usually panfish so like sunfish bluegills perch and yeah um lois opened a daycare all the daycare moms and dads thought she was great. She was always a happy, fun, loving, very sweet, nice person. Happy-go-lucky person. Went bowling with the bowling. She was on the bowling team.

The bowlers all loved her. In about 2010, we invited them as a couple, Dave and Lois, to come to our lake home, along with some of our employees and their spouses. And she was just a wonderful guest. She brought steak for everyone, cleaned up afterwards, served us all breakfast. The guys all went out fishing. We went pontooning. Had a great time. Dave had this infectious laugh, so he was always fun to be around

because he was telling jokes and making everybody feel good and happy. So Dave and Lois show up for a weekend at your lake house, and they're wonderful. Dave, fun to be around. Lois brings steaks for dinner for everybody, gets up and fixes breakfast. Now, that's the kind of people you want to invite over. So this is what we know about Dave Reese. Take a listen to our friend Aaron Bluey, Devil We Know podcast.

Dave decided to follow his dreams and open a bait shop in Rochester with a friend of his. His bait shop was very successful when he decided to sell the shop and open Prairie Wax Worm Farm, which he owned with another friend. He had a true passion for the outdoors and was always fishing, hunting, or boating. The thing people remember most about Dave, however, is how he had a great sense of humor. Nancy, let me jump in here and say that is one of the things that people comment about David and Lois Reese, is how well they were liked in the community. With me here in the studio, Jackie Howard. Jackie, what do you know?

I know that Tess Koster and her family stepped in and helped David and Lois Reese a little bit more than what she said before. Let's listen to Amy Bennett WilliamsWilliams with the news press. A year after they moved there, a fire tore through their home. Soon, donation cans appeared throughout downtown, and Rod and Tess Koster, who owned a Blue Wing Prairie-used car lot, put the couple up on the second floor of one of their downtown buildings while the Reeses rebuilt. Dave served on the board of the local servicemen's club, where the couple often grabbed meals.

Lois went bowling with the gals at Bunky's, a vintage four-lane alley. She fit right in with all the bowling gals and was friendly to everybody in town. Lois set up a childcare business babysitting town children. Lois Reese was a daycare provider for a good friend of mine's son when he was little. She was around the community more than he was. My friend used to talk about taking his little boy out to her place, and he thought she was a nice lady. I mean, and so did, I think, most of the people in town. Smiley and warm-seeming, appeared to love her young charges.

Caring for others was part of her identity. Lois and Dave may have been from somewhere else, but they fit comfortably into the life of Blooming Prairie, which embraced them. Dave served on the board of the local servicemen's club, where the couple often grabbed meals. Lois went bowling with the gals at Bunky's, a vintage four-lane alley. She fit right in with all the bowling gals and was friendly to everybody in town. Lois set up a childcare care business babysitting town children. Lois Reese was a daycare provider for a good friend of mine's son when he was little. She was around the community more than he was. My friend used to talk about

taking his little boy out to her place and he thought she was a nice lady. I mean and so did I think most of the people in town. Smiley and warm seeming appeared to love her young charges. Caring for others was part of her identity. Lois and Dave may have been from somewhere else but they fit comfortably into the life of Blooming Prairie, which embraced them. So I'm getting a picture of what life is like for this couple. Joining me, friend of the Reese family, Tess Koster, Ashley Wilcott. Let me go to you, Judge, trial lawyer, Anchor Court TV at AshleyWilcott.com. It's really hard for me to reconcile this happy picture and this beautiful little town of 2000

blooming prairie in Minnesota and know for a fact that he, David Reese, is shot dead and Lois goes missing. Well, automatically with those facts, it's suspicious. And, you know, what it makes me think is who has come in to this beautiful little quaint town and done such a crime? And I would go directly in my mind towards kidnapped, taken, absconded with his wife. And it paints a very unwelcoming picture of someone coming into this beautiful place and committing not one but two crimes. Dr. Bethany Marshall, it's like murder in Mayberry. You just don't see it coming. It's like I always compare it to Scott Peterson in a different way. Because there were many people that thought Scott Peterson was handsome. I mean, he was a golf pro. He was a star in high school. I think he may have had a golf scholarship, roomed with Phil

Mickelson at college. Beautiful wife, beautiful home. I was at their home many, many times. And then suddenly his wife turns up dead. Okay, people would look at Scott Peterson and think, impossible. Why? Many people think he's handsome, he's smart, college degree, great job, great personality. He would never do this. That's what it feels like when you look at Blooming Prairie, like, uh-uh, no. Who would kill him and take away Lois? Why is that so hard for us to take in?

Well, Nancy, you're right. The facts just don't add up. The beautiful town, if it were a larger city, you might think about a crime of opportunity. But this is this bucolic setting with very few people. Everybody knows each other. If just one spouse was killed or had gone missing, you would look at the other spouse, right? You would begin to think about, you know, was there a pension or in the marriage, had somebody taken out a life insurance policy,

something like that. But here, one spouse is shot, the other goes missing. If the husband was shot and the wife was left alone, I would have thought, you know, he started this new business, the waxworm farm. I would wonder, you know, was there a lot of cash in the business? Had an employee come and tried to, a disgruntled employee who was angry at Dave, or there's a lot of cash and an employee wanted access to it. But then just Dave would have been shot. Here you have one partner shot and the other one goes missing. There's no pattern I can think of that matches up with this crime. You know, Blooming Prairie, the crime rate is 11 times lower than the national average.

11 times lower. Take a listen to our friend Aaron Bluey. After a couple of weeks, Dave's coworkers finally decided to call the police to report him missing. He hadn't been seen or heard from. One of Dave's friends told the police that they received an odd text message from Dave. The content of the message wasn't what seemed off. What was striking to the friend was the fact that the message used punctuation. Dave never used punctuation, not even a period whenever he wrote a text message or an email.

On March 23rd, 2018, after receiving the missing persons report, the police discovered Dave's body in the bathroom of his home. The investigator and coroner weren't able to pinpoint the exact time or date that Dave died. His cell phone was found on the kitchen counter. Police believed that Dave probably had been dead when was found on the kitchen counter. Police believe that Dave probably had been dead when his friend received the text message. Whoa, straight out to Kalen Thompson, K-I-M-T, News 3, Rochester, Minnesota. Kalen. So a couple of weeks pass, he's not showing up to the worm farm. And for a while, nobody was worried because they had gotten a text message from him.

I'm the same way. When I text, no punctuation, no capitals, nothing. You know, I try to do a couple of spaces between sentences. I speak in broken English because it's just, you know, like shorthand. I get it. If I wrote a full-on sentence with capitals and punctuations, Jackie here in the studio would know somebody had my phone because I would not be doing that. So tell me about the discovery of his body. What do we know what the cause of death is, Kaelin?

Sure. Well, this brings us to Saturday, March 24th. As the weekend anchor, we have the scanners going in the newsroom, and it's one of my jobs to kind of keep an ear on that as I'm producing the show, just to make sure we don't miss anything as far as news goes. And we were hearing about a gas investigation in Dodge County, and the Prairie Wax Worm Farm address was being relayed from law enforcement. So I was thinking, okay, we better send someone out there. So this is Saturday night. It's dark. It's so cold in Minnesota. I think there's possibly still snow on the ground as well. So we send a reporter out there to Prairie Wax Worm Farms on Highway 218, just outside of Blooming Prairie in Dodge County.

And of course, she wasn't able to get any information at the scene, but she did get video, possibly not the highest of quality just because of how dark it was. But that's all we knew at that point was there was law enforcement on scene and it was suspicious activity going on in that small town of Blooming Prairie. So then Sunday rolls around. I was able to make some calls, but of course, nothing really came out of that. Still tight lipped. And then Monday rolls around March 26.

And as a reporter, I was assigned to go to Blooming Prairie that day to see what I could go find out. So I made the 40 minute drive from Rochester, Minnesota to Blooming Prairie that day to see what I could go find out. So I made the 40-minute drive from Rochester, Minnesota to Blooming Prairie and drove up to the Prairie Waxworm Farms. And of course, there was law enforcement still on scene. So I was able to grab video and then I made my way down to Main Street to see maybe what I could rake up there. And as I was going from business to business, it was pretty certain early on that I wasn't really going to get much from this community. They were pretty tight-lipped and they did not say much. However, I was able to get one business owner

on camera. However, I wasn't able to identify her and I couldn't show her face. I just had to record her hands. But she knew of what had kind of went down as far as what happened at the Prairie Waxworm Farm of just there was suspicious activity there. And when I did ask her if she knew of the Reese family, she said she did. Guys, I'm looking, and you can do it too, I'm looking right now at the address. And I can see the home. I can see the wax worm farm and the home are on the same place, right? Is that right, Kaylin? That's correct. So he has a wax worm farm, I guess, out behind his home. And it is beautiful. There's all green grass, beautiful trees all around. it's like rolling country and I bet that was a big surprise Kellen Thompson when you suddenly hear there's a lot of police activity at 75859 US 218 Blooming

Prairie like what the hay what was your first thought when you heard that right well when I pulled up to the scene and because I had never been to the Prairie Waxworm Farm so when I pulled up to the scene and because I had never been to the Prairie Waxworm Farm. So when I pulled up, I was like, oh, there's a house right next to it. And then there were law enforcement vehicles there. And like you said, you're just like, well, this isn't supposed to be happening here. This doesn't look right. I'm looking at a 360 degree view and behind the home, I can see there's plowed up earth. There's a big field behind it. And 360 degrees. You don't see anything but in the distance, a farm. And in the distance, away from the house, across the street, is a railroad track. I mean, you don't see anything.

And that means a lot too. Straight out to you, Joe Scott Morgan, what does that mean, you don't see anything. And that means a lot, too. Straight out to you, Joe Scott Morgan, what does that mean to you? There's nothing else around. Yeah, who would want to go out to a location like this and perpetrate a crime? I mean, this is the height of isolation, Nancy. You know, you got to see it, Joe Scott. Go to zillow.com i will that's where i get all my info 75859 u.s highway 218 blooming prairie it's just like kaelin thompson is telling us from kim tv and you can do a 365 360 degree and it's uh about a 2500 square foot home, three bedroom, two bath, single family. And it's very pretty on this beautiful property. Okay, I butted in. Go ahead. No, I mean, I know exactly what you're talking about. You know, when I was little, my papa raised horses. You know, we had a farm,

if you will, and it was isolated, Nancy. You have to, it's not someplace you show up by accident, is what I'm saying. You have to be purposed in going there. And so when I begin to hear about cases like this and I think about things like this, the first thing that comes to mind is, well, somebody did this that knew this gentleman. Somebody did this that had a very familiar relationship with him. Or somebody that had a grudge or some sort of disagreement, because this is not random. I can tell you that right now. And to you, Kaelin Thompson, KIMT News 3,

what can you tell me about the caliber? I mean, this guy wasn't shot just once. He was killed many times over, right? Sure. Well, for investigators, we learned that it was a.22 caliber gun, and he had multiple gunshot wounds. Whoa. And where was he on the property, Kim? Wasn't he in his bathroom?

Yes. The investigator said that he was found on the bathroom floor. And look, when you hear waxworm from him, granted, I didn't know what the test cost. You had to explain to me about it. Now I know what she's talking about because whenever I take the twins fishing, we have to go get bait. You know, worms, waxworms can be very profitable up to like almost $10 a pound. Okay, so you raise the worms, you can make money off of them.

Dr. Bethany Marshall joining me, Psycho Analyst joining us out of Beverly Hills at drbethanymarshall.com. What does that tell you that there were multiple shots in the bathroom with a small caliber, a.22? But let's start with the multiple shots. They killed him many times over.

This is what we call overkill, Nancy. And so whenever there's a case of overkill, you have to consider certain factors. The first thing I always think of is methamphetamine because that can cause overkill if the perpetrator is on some kind of drugs, PCP, crystal, crystal meth, whatever words you want to use, these types of drugs cause an enormous amount of energy and an enormous amount of rage. But I do not think that Blooming Prairie is the meth capital of the world.

So I would have to rule that one out. The second would be extreme ragefulness that whoever did this was extremely enraged at Dave. But that doesn't make sense either because everybody in this town knew each other. So if somebody had a grudge or something like that against them, I think that somebody in this town would know. So again, this crime is not fitting any pattern that is familiar to me. It just seems very mysterious. Well, now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Dr. Bethany Marshall. The very first crime on the books to you, Ashley Wilcott. You're a judge and trial lawyer, Court TV anchor, ashywilcott.com. The very first murder we know of, Cain and Abelel and they were in the garden of eden

yeah so grudges happen even in small towns absolutely and to me what this means in the bathroom close range multiple shots is that clearly this is somebody who had a grudge who knew him and you know what it doesn't matter where you live what you do what you have what you don't have anybody can be a victim of a crime well here's another thing what you do, what you have, what you don't have. Anybody can be a victim of a crime. Well, here's another thing. What about this fact to you, Cloyd Steiger, 36 years Seattle PD, cloydsteiger.com, multiple gunshots, the guy shot in his bathroom and his cell phone. Isn't that right, Carolyn Thompson, K-I-M-T, his cell phone was there on the kitchen counter? Yes, I believe

so. What about that? What do you make of the multiple gunshot wounds, Floyd Steiger? Well, what I'd want to know looking at that is not just multiple, but where on his body are they? Because like shots to the face generally make it a more personal attack. So I'd want to know, was he shot multiple times in the face? That would be someone who was angry at him. Or was it just because he had a.22 and he had to keep shooting him to kill him? And then the phone on the, we know that the person probably texted with that phone. So of course, you're going to want to check that for TouchDNA and see what you can find from that. Guys, we're talking about the multiple gunshot murder of the life of the

party. David Reese living happily with Lois Reese. They've got children that have moved away. Why would any body do that? And where is Lois Reese? Take a listen to Kellen Thompson, our friend at KIMT. Deputies were at the Prairie Wax Worm Farm Saturday night. I'm told Reese lives where Dodge County authorities are investigating. Just right outside of town. Is it next to that Prairie Wax Worm Farm? Yes, yep the house is located on the same property. Many versions of the story of what people think happened are going around town but one thing is for certain. It's a situation affecting the

entire community of Blooming Prairie. I had gone to bed Saturday night thinking about what a wonderful community this is because we had our Blooming Prairie Education Foundation auction.

And then the next thing I know I hear this and it's just, yeah, it just seems unreal for our little community. Authorities are asking for your help in locating Reese. He's dead. She is missing. Where is Lois Reese? And who gunned down David Reese in the bathroom of his own home? Nancy Grace, Killers Amongst Us, signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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