Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Killers Amongst Us: Murder on the Waxworm Farm (part 3)

Episode Date: September 16, 2020

Police are now actively look for Lois Riess for questioning in the death of her husband David. On March 23, 2018, investigators find the body of 54-year-old David in the bathroom of his home, shot multiple times. She shows up at the Florida home of a friend from Blooming Prarie, who has rental properties. Riess is recognized. At a local bar, she meets a new friend, but not for long. What happens to Pamela Hutchinson? 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. How does a platinum blonde who loves to grill out steaks and party at the lake house turn into a serial killer. Statistically, female serial killers are few and far between. But has Lois Reese proven all the experts wrong? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Killers Amongst Us. It all starts on, believe it or not, a worm farm. Take a listen to our friends at Devil We Know.

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 his friend received the text message, which meant someone else had undoubtedly sent the text message. The police had one question, however. Where was Dave's wife, Lois? Well, that was just the beginning of a ball of yarn that had a lot of knots to untie before it could be unraveled.

But very quickly, this emerged. Video from a local come and go gas station. Take a listen to KARE 11. If you want to start heading south, would you take 35 south? Just to keep going on down to the next state? Is that the way to go, you think? I think so. Because I think that goes, 35 goes through, it goes down to Omaha, like past Omaha and all that.

Okay, well thank you. Yep. She certainly sounds chipper if she knows her husband is dead at the worm farm. His body, basically her medically sealed in the bathroom with towels stuffed around the doors, I guess, to avoid the stench of death escaping the bathroom there in the home they had shared. Does she even know he's dead? Because if she does, she doesn't sound too broken up about it. This, as we learn, Lois Reese is a gambling addict.

She has stole tens of thousands of dollars from her disabled sister after she, Lois Reese, was appointed guardian over the disabled sister. What else would she do for money to gamble? You know, when I was traveling out in that neck of the woods, I noticed that in a lot of gas stations and places like the come and go there would be video gambling set up and believe you me there were people planted at every stool gambling i remember one time uh david and the twins and i in order to get to breakfast for dinner we were going to have pancakes on the road we had to walk through a mom and pop casino to get pancakes. Yeah.

So it's everywhere. Who knew? But the big question is, where is Lois Reese? That absolutely was her. Joining me, an all-star panel, Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer, Court TV anchor at AshleyWilcott.com. Renowned psychoanalyst. Joining me from Beverly Hills, Dr. Bethany Marshall, 36 years Seattle PD, 22 without homicide,

author of Seattle's Forgotten Serial Killer, Gary Jean Grant, Cloyd Steiger at cloydsteiger.com, Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet and star of a new series, Poisonous Liaisons on True Crime Network. Tess Koster joining us, special guest, friend of David and Lois Reese in Minnesota, who calls 911.

And what do you find out why? Kellen Thompson, KIMT News 3 Rochester and Amanda Hall, reporter Wink TV, Fort Myers, Florida. So we see her at a come and go. All right, Kaelin Thompson, KIMT News 3 Rochester. Where is the come and go in relation to David Reese's dead body in the bathroom. Sure. It's only about a 45-minute drive from Blooming Prairie, and this come-and-go is right across the Minnesota-Iowa border in a little town called Northwood, Iowa.

Now, I hear her asking for directions, but where is she trying to go, Kaelin? Well, you know, when we see her on the surveillance camera in come and go in Northwood, Iowa, she does ask the clerk, you know, does Interstate 35 lead south? And it for sure does. If you keep going, you'll hit Des Moines, Iowa, and you keep going farther, you'll hit Omaha. So it sounds like she's heading south. Heading south and heading south means all roads lead to Florida. That's you, Amanda Hall, reporter WIENK-TV, Fort Myers. Florida has no idea what's about to hit them, but the APB is out for her white Escalade.

Listen to Devil We Know. The family vehicle, a 2005 Cadillac Escalade, was also missing. Lois didn't waste time getting out of town. She was on the run, driving the family Cadillac, and had no thought of returning to Blooming Prairie. She headed south with the hopes that it wouldn't be discovered for a long time what happened to her husband. It didn't take long for the police to realize that Lois had skipped town, and they soon had her face plastered all over the media with a label naming her Fugitive Grandma. One of Lois' first stops was at the Diamond Joe Casino, which was just across

the Iowa border. The employees at the casino knew who she was and knew that Blackjack was her game of choice. Diamond Joe was only about a 45-minute drive from Dave and Lois' home, and she visited there often. At the casino and all throughout her drive south, Lois used her husband's debit card and checkbook to write herself checks and transfer funds to her bank account, totaling over $11,000. Wow. Joining me right now, longtime friend of murder victim David Reese and wife Lois Tess Koster. Tess, does this sound like the Lois that you knew? 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. When she was spotted on surveillance video of that come-and-go gas station trying to get to the next casino head south asking for directions she also bought a sandwich clearly to you dr bethany marshall psychoanalyst murdering her husband had not affected her appetite nancy it had not and you know have you ever played candy land you know where you go to the gumdrop forest and then the you know lollipop farm. There's all these stops along the way that are all themed around candy. This is what this trip down south was like for her, except it was through all of the casinos. She had one motivation in mind, and that was money. She murdered her own husband for $11,000.

She took from her own disabled sister's estate, a disabled sister where she was the conservator, the trustee. And I believe that what was happening for Lois Reese, as with so many women who kill, is she wanted an idealized life. This is why Casey Anthony killed, why Jodi Arias killed, the idea of getting something better for herself. And how was she going to get it? She was going to gamble and gamble and make a ton of money, buy a mansion, have a great life, and nobody would ever catch up with her. You know, to you, Ashley Wilcott, judge, trial lawyer, anchor, court TV at AshleyWilcott.com. Very often we hear about killers going and chowing down. After the murders, I was thinking about specifically a little girl who was murdered by an engineering student, David Eisenhower, and his friend, Natalie Keepers.

And this little girl, Nicole Lovell, was lured out of her home, murdered. Her body was wiped down with bleach, and she was left naked near the side of the road. They were planning the murder at a local barbecue spot and after the murder apparently went and had food and you hear about it all the time have you ever seen that in all of the cases you've handled and presided over absolutely i do see it not on an unusual basis so let me suggest this i kind of disagree in terms of why somebody like this may commit a crime like this. I think it's because sometimes people want to do what they want to do, period. And they're going to go and do what they want to do. And if I want to go gambling and my husband doesn't agree, I can go

gambling. Maybe I'll kill them. If I want to go do this and I can't, well, then I'll just go commit this crime. And then I can do what I want along those same lines by doing those things to do what I want. Guess what else? I'm hungry. I'm going to do what I want and I'm going to do it in excess, just like I committed a crime that was excess. I like your thinking, Dr. Bethany Marshall. That's just, that's a, that's an outright challenge. Okay. She threw down the gauntlet, right? I mean, that's a slap in the face. You know, what do you have to say to that, Bethany? Are you going to take that?

I do think Ashley will call this right, but that's why I said these women murder. I was hoping for a hair fight. Hey, what I wonder is why get a sandwich at the stop and go? Why not go out to Mastro's and get, you know, a steak and a baked potato and a glass of nice red wine and live the idealized life? We all want to know what is Mastro's. It's a steakhouse here in Beverly Hills. It's very yummy. It's very pricey. It's very yummy. It's very pricey. It's very elegant.

Why can't we catch this woman? How can this woman evade police? She's changing her appearance. I know that, but she's checking in and out of hotel motels, ordering room service, ordering movies. How's she getting away with it? You wonder what credit card she's using.

They should be able to track her down. But sometimes by the time they get to the information back, they're one step behind. Seriously? Because the minute my son orders some video game, it pops up right on my phone. 99 cents. And I know it's John David. That's because it's your phone, right? But to get somebody else's information takes a lot more.

So Joe Scott Morgan, I guess she did hightail it out of town because she left her husband's body rotting in the bathroom. Yeah, and I found it really curious, Nancy, that when you were first talking about this case, you talked about how she sealed the door. And this is something that you see many times in these cases where an individual takes a person into a contained area. We've talked about Jodi Arias before, like in the bathroom, it facilitates the ability to be able to clean up an area if you're going to make a mess and boy, was this a mess. And if you seal off the door, you can't smell or detect that odor of decomposition, which is inevitably going to happen. And it certainly happened in this case. Nancy, this lady's thinking.

She's thinking several steps ahead. That's why it's so difficult to catch her. Well, there's also this bizarre dichotomy because you've got her totally swapping out lives. She's the wife of a worm farmer. And living in Rochester, Minnesota, I mean, Kaelin Thompson, KIMT News, what's the typical winter weather in Rochester? Rochester, Minnesota is bone-chilling cold. Those winters can get really cold and that wind can get really nasty. So Kaelin Thompson, she goes from bone chilling, as you describe it accurately, weather in Rochester, to your neck of the woods, Amanda Hall, WINK-TV, Fort Myers.

She's changing lives and changing latitudes. What's your regular temp in Fort Myers? Oh, we're in the 90s, Nancy. Yep, she chose the seven-mile island of Fort Myers Beach, where we have more sunshine than snow in Minnesota. Dang. So everything is turned upside down for Lois Reese. She's swapping everything out for a new life. But then to Tess Koster, did you have any idea what was about to

hit you? How did it all start with Lois Reese re-emerging in your life? She actually was sitting on Fort Myers Beach at the Selfie Crab and called my daughter, Brianna, about 1030 in the morning, stating that she was a friend of ours and had met us before. And I wasn't answering my cell phone and she didn't have Rod's cell phone number. And could she get the address to where we are and Rod's cell phone number? So my daughter graciously gave that information out because we have rentals. And so people ask all the time how to get a hold of us. And then apparently talked to her for a little while. The caller ID came up as Stormy Liberty at the car lot when my daughter answered the phone.

Stormy Liberty and your daughter so kindly gave out your private number to a suspected killer. So what happened then? We found out from my renters who live right next door to us. She had pulled in the driveway and the parents happened to be gone, walked up the stairs and started to walk in the house. And the younger teenagers that were still there said, Hey lady, what are you doing? And she said, well, I'm renting this. And they said, no, you're not. We have it until Saturday. Oh, sorry. And she walked away and got in her car and drove off. Then about one in the afternoon, 1.30, I was cleaning my garage and her Cadillac S-Blade, pearl colored, had gone by, turned and

parked in my driveway. Again, people do this. They're looking at my signs or whatever for the rentals. And she gets out, walks around behind the car, and I step forward and say, can I help you? And then our eyes met. And I just went, my heart skipped a beat. After hearing all the stories about that she had left her husband dead up in Minnesota, scared me to death. Well, she apparently didn't want me to see her and said, wrong house, wrong house, and put her head down and quick got in her car and drove away. You guys locked eyes and you knew that she was a suspect in Dave's murder. She ducks her head so she wouldn't be recognized and goes, oh, wrong house and takes

off. But you knew, you knew it was Lois Reese. So what did you do when she drove off? At that time, I panicked and ran upstairs to my husband, who happened to be talking to daughter Brianna at the time. And he set the phone down but didn't hang up and I'm oh my goodness Lois Reese was just in our driveway Rod Lois is in Fort Myers Beach we need to call 9-1-1 in fact we should maybe have you drive and follow her and I'll dial 9-1-1 and he said oh no no no she has a gun we are not following her absolutely not so he picked up the phone and he said brianna call the local sheriffs and police and let them know lois is here in fort myers beach she was just in our driveway so we also hung up from her and i dialed 9-1-1 who told me i needed to call the county where this all happened

so i hang up and call steel county whereoming Prairie is not thinking Lois and Dave's house is on the county line and actually in Dodge County so Steele County tells me I need to call Dodge County so I call Dodge County meanwhile I'm googling all these numbers and then Dodge County says no you should be talking to the police department in Fort Myers so they actually connected me with a police department in Fort Myers who told me I needed to talk to the sheriff's department because the sheriff's department handles the beach. So then I hung up and called the sheriff's department,

got them in my driveway a half an hour later. Good gravy. What a run around. And you've got a murderer walking around, coming up in your driveway. And she has to know that you identified her, that you knew it was her. I mean, you guys go way back. So the police finally get there. What happened? After the sheriff's department was in my driveway, they pulled Lois Reese up on their computer screen and said she's only wanted for theft and forgery. She's a person of interest in her husband's murder.

They don't have her under murder charges. So they said there's really, it's not worth us to go looking for her for just those charges. Well, then about a half an hour later, Dodge County Sheriff's Department calls me and questions me, asked me what exactly had happened. And I commented, they don't wanna look for her because there's not enough charges. And they, apparently the two Sheriff's Departments didn't get together.

I do have to say Fort Myers Beach Sheriff's Department was very good at driving by our place and checking on us. And they all thought that Lois had left town or left the beach. But I kept saying, no, I don't think she left. I think she's here. So every Cadillac Escalade, I would be looking at the plate, frantically thinking it's her. I would be scared to death, especially for my children. And this woman who is believed to be a murderer, the cops say it's not worth looking for her because the only official charges are are theft and and stealing from her sister and husband's account I mean really saying it's not worth looking for her are you

serious just think if they had not treated this the way they did other lives could have been saved, but they blew it off. So after you see Lois in your driveway, and you know, she murdered Dave and gone on the lam, what went through your mind, Tess? I was frantic because I thought that we were the next in line. I actually expected that night that she'd be back with a gun trying to get into our house. In fact, I packed up our most expensive belongings in a bag and I kept insisting we were going to stay at a motel that night. And then between my husband and the police or the sheriff's department, they convinced me that she had left the island. And we did sleep at our house that night.

But, yeah, I was that scared. Straight out to Amanda Hall, reporter at WINK-TV, Fort Myers. Tess Koster is right. She didn't leave the area. Lois Rice was there on business. When is Lois Reese next spotted? Lois Reese is next spotted at the Smokin' Oyster Brewery. This is a local, a place that's popular with both locals on Fort Myers Beach and also tourists because it's close to the hotels.

It's walking distance from people to go and have a drink and have dinner near the condos. And she's seen sitting on a barstool, speaking with a woman who looks a lot like her, like they could even be sisters or relatives. And they're sitting on a barstool on surveillance from what we call, locals call SOBs. That's the Smoke and Oyster Brewery. You know, what's so interesting about this is that I've watched the video over and over and over. And what was the name of the restaurant, Amanda? The Smokin' Oyster Brewery, Nancy. I've watched the video surveillance in the Smokin' Oyster Brewery. And it looks like they're on a date because it looks

like Lois Reese has just come in. She sees this woman sitting at the bar, maybe eating and having a drink. And she's like all up in her face and they're laughing. And Lois Reese is throwing her hair back. And it just it's weird. Straight out to you, Joe Scott Morgan. Have you seen that video? Yeah, I have. And it, it kicks us all up to another level of chilling. Uh, that might be an understatement, Nancy, because it is very, she's very, I don't want to say passive, but you know, kind of, uh, friendly, outgoing, smiling, you know, just carrying on like it's just another day. All the while, you know, back up in Minnesota, her husband is left rotting in a bathroom after she's gunned him down. What's all the flirtiness going on at that bar to you, Dr. Bethany?

She already knows when she enters that bar that she needs, that she's probably run out of money at this point. Remember, she's a gambling addict. She has an offending pattern that is firmly established at this point. She kills somebody, drains their bank account, gambles, runs out of the money. Oops. Now she has to procure more money to pay off her gambling debt. So when she goes in, she is trolling, looking for another victim, another woman who looks like her, somebody she can groom and seduce into a sense of safety and trust so she can kill that person with the same gun, take that person's identity, and then go on

and continue gambling. And yes, that video looks like a date. She's very flirtatious with that woman. She is flirtatious with her next upcoming murder victim. She is looking for a doppelganger, a lookalike. What could be wrong with talking to another woman at an oyster bar? Take a listen to this. On April 6th, an employee told police Hutchinson or someone that sounded like her called to extend her stay by three days. Later that day, Reese was captured on video using Hutchinson's information to withdraw $5,000 from her bank account. She may look like anyone's mother or grandmother. She's an absolute cold-blooded murderer. In the days after, while Reese was on the run,

she was seen entering a hotel in Ocala, Florida. Video also captured her pulling up to the hotel in Hutchinson's white Acura sedan. Straight back to Amanda Hall, WINK-TV, Fort Myers. What happened? I've seen the video of Lois Reese leaving Pam Hutchinson's condo. The resort gets a call claiming Hutchinson wanted to extend her stay. But when I see Lois Reese in the video leaving Pam Hutchinson's condo, she's wearing Pam's hat. I think the same hat she had

on at the Oyster Bar. What happened? Well, and I think it doesn't take much to connect the dots, but it wasn't Pam Hutchinson who called the desk to extend her stay those three days. We think it was the fugitive grandma, Lois Reese, extending the stay to buy herself some more time before they went in there and found Lois Reese's new friend, Pam Hutchinson, on the floor. To Professor Forensics Joe Scott Morgan, tell me about the discovery of Pamela Hutchinson's body and her missing hat. Yeah, Nancy, this is an indication that, you know, there was a hat that she was seen wearing. It was a pink ball cap, as a matter of fact, and that was kind of a specific identifier in this case. And it was found associated with her, and it turned out being blood-soaked, if I remember correctly.

Her body was found in a pool of blood in the hotel room. And it is also known that it appears that she was shot with a.22 caliber pistol, which is, in fact, what Lois's husband was killed with. Joseph Scott Morgan, do you see the similarities in the way Pam Hutchinson is found dead and the way David Reese was killed? Yeah, these are tiebacks. That shows, Nancy, let me give you just a couple of quick tiebacks here. First off, I believe it's the same weapon. And many times when you have people that are serialized killers like this, they return to those things that are very familiar with them, the tools of their trade, if you will. So she's going to use this.22 caliber pistol that she has in her possession. And then you go to the way the scene is found. They're both in

isolation. That is David and this poor woman. They're both found in these locations and locked down so that no one can get access to them. And then she moves on. This goes to kind of the stealthy nature in which she's practicing these horrible crimes. And Dr. Bethany Marshall, she specifically picked Pam Hutchinson because she's a lookalike. She has picked, as you said earlier, a doppelganger. She knows when she walks into that bar, when she accompanies Hutchinson to her hotel room, that she is going to assume this woman's identity. Can you see how the offending pattern is getting practiced and rehearsed and elaborated upon so that each time grandma serial killer kills, she's actually adding another note, another way of doing it. It's like practicing the piano when you play the same bar again and again and again, and all of a sudden you decide to add another

melody and then another melody. But what she's adding in at this point is assuming other people's identities. It's not enough that she drained her husband's business account and her disabled sister's bank account, now she's going to take over a person's entire life. So she is escalating in her offending pattern. And in a sense, she's beginning to go on a crime spree. Lois Reese captured on video using Hutchinson's information to get five grand from a bank account, then pulls up at a hotel to order room service and movies in in room movies in Hutchinson's car with Hutchinson's driver's licenses and driver's license and credit cards. She's assumed not only her ID, but her car, her insurance, her credit cards, even her hat. Does this woman know?

No shame. And back to you, Tess Koster, you were right to be physically ill for the next two days, ill with fear. You had to be afraid that she had been coming after you. Yes, after the fact. At first, I thought she was just wanting to squat in one of my houses, find a place to live for free. Then after the whole Pamela thing happened, then I started thinking back, oh, my goodness, I do look a lot like her. Same height, blonde hair, same statue. So I'm thinking that it could have been me. That's a scary thought. So seven days after Tess Koster spots her old buddy, Lois Reese, Pam Hutchinson's body was found. Correct. Pam's timeshare condo, less than a block. Murder was one block from our house in Snug Harbor on the fourth floor.

At a distance, you could be a sister of Lois Reese's. But didn't the deputies tell you that Lois could have very well been coming after you? The day that I went in to identify her on all the videotapes, yes, they commented that we did look similar. And those videotapes, they were heartbreaking, just heart-wrenching. in the hallway of snug Harbor, apparently about right after the murder pacing back and forth, going to the elevator, then going back toward the door and going to the elevator and pacing back and forth. Then they had a videotape of her the next day on Friday,

loading her Pamela's car actually, um, with things. And according to the sheriff the hat was even Pamela's that she was wearing and then they had photos of her at the ATM machine with Pamela's hat on withdrawing money from Pamela's account. They also had the video of her at smoke and oyster brewery when her and pamela were first meeting and her swinging her long platinum hair that was on tv quite often so lois reese is now assuming pam hudgenson identity but where is she headed? Listen. Wanted, the nationwide hunt for the accused

killer grandma just escalated big time. Giant new billboards are going up in four states, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. They feature the face of 56-year-old Lois Reese being sought for the slaying of her lookalike in Fort Myers, Florida. The U.S. Marshals Service has assumed command of the search. This case has really grabbed the attention of the nation. Now, look at this. It's the image of a middle-aged woman robbing a bank in Pasadena, California. She's wearing a hat and glasses, and she's about the same age and body type as Lois Reese. Could that be her?

We are receiving several tips. Some are very credible and some are not so credible. Reese was last seen in Corpus Christi, Texas, driving a white Acura she allegedly stole from her last victim, Pamela Hutchinson, who cops say was targeted by Reese because they looked so much alike. Where will Lois Reese turn up next and who will be her next victim? Maybe she'll pull up at a red light beside you. Nancy Grace, Killers Amongst Us, signing off. Goodbye, friend.

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