Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Grandma is a Murderer - The Lois Riess story

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Lois Riess is a killer grandma.

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Here, you're not the predator. You're the prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey, prey. Critics are saying it's epic, stunning, and breathtaking. Many have come here. None have survived. Predator Badlands, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus, rated PG-13. Is your grandma capable of murder? Are you sure about that?

So this woman, let's call her grandma. And grandma has a problem. She has quite a gambling addiction. Like she's in and out of local casinos, losing a ton of money. From what I read, she's lost a minimum of a hundred grand playing slot machines, which is all her money. So she's in a lot of debt. Now, grandma is married to this man, who will just call grandpa.

And one day, she and Grandpa are at home, and I guess she needs more money, or maybe she's just ashamed to tell Grandpa that she's in so much debt from gambling. It isn't really clear. But Grandma suddenly gets a pew-poo, and blam, blam! She unalives Grandpa. Then she goes to the employees of the worm farm that they own, and she tells them that Grandpa won't be coming into work for a while because he's been feeling sick. Now, this is supposed to buy her some time before people start getting it. suspicious. Then she continues living in her home while Grandpa's body is there, decomposing for a whole ass 11 days. Then Grandma embezzles about 10 grand from Grandpa's business account, and she flees,

driving away in his escalate. So now Grandma's on the run, but she's a gambling addict. So as she drives from Minnesota to Florida, along the way, she's stopping at casino after casino. And as she's driving, she comes up with this crazy plan to escape the law. She's going to find someone who looks kind of like her, unalive them, and steal their identity. Now eventually, Grandma arrives in Fort Myers, Florida. And there, she decides to go to a local bar. And at the bar, she spots a woman who kind of looks like her, kind of. This woman, Pam.

And Grandma sits down and she orders a drink, and she strikes up a conversation with Pam. and she and Pam really hit it off. So they keep drinking and chatting, and eventually they're like best friends. Like one night they hang out at Pam's condo that she rented, the next night they go out to a brewery. And on one of those nights, Grandma goes back to Pam's condo with her,

and once they're alone, she pulls out her pew-poo that she brought, and blam, blam, she shoots Pam unaliving her. The next morning, Grandma goes back to Pam's condo, and she calls the front desk from there, and she pretends to be Pam. And she asks them to extend her stay for a few nights. And this is going to buy her a little time to get away.

Then she combs through all of Pam's stuff, taking any clothes she likes, cash, credit cards, Pam's ID, and she loads everything into Pam's car and steals her car. And they actually got security footage of that. And from there, she drives from Florida all the way over to Texas, South Padre Island. And of course, she stops at a bunch of casinos on the way, because, you know, she's got to hit up those slots. Regardless, she ends up on South Padre Island.

And there, Grandma's on a mission to find another lookalike to steal their identity again. And pretty quickly, she finds one. She's at a local restaurant, and she spots her next target. This woman, Bernadette. And so Grandma approaches her, and they start chatting and drinking and hitting it off. And they have so much in common. What a quinky dink! And just like Pam, Bernadette is just happy to have made a new friend.

And so she and Grandma, they get drinks the next night and Grandma stays over at Bernadette's and the next morning they have breakfast together and then they make plans to meet up again in a couple of nights for dinner. But shady-ass Grandma is about to unalive her too. But here's what Grandma doesn't know though. Back in Minnesota, Grandpa's employees and coworkers at the Worm Farm, they hadn't heard from him in a while. So police end up going to his house to do a welfare check and they find his body.

Now separately from that, in Florida, at the hotel, police find Pam's body. Now, at this point, they know these two murders are connected. They also know that Grandma is the one who did it because she used the same PewPoo in both murders. So they launch a nationwide manhunt looking for her. Now, you know how Grandma really likes to go to casinos? Well, all those casinos she gambles at, they all have tons of security cameras. so police are able to get CCTV footage of her, plus her banking activity, and this helps them track her down to South Padre Island.

Meanwhile, this story is getting tons of news coverage. Authorities say that Lois Rees may be targeting women who look like her so that she can steal their identity. And they start posting Grandma's photo all over the news. So right before, she's supposed to meet up with Bernadette so she can unalive her, grandma's sitting at a local bar having a drink. And there, the manager of a restaurant next door to the bar recognizes her from her picture being on the news

and they call police. Minutes later, U.S. Marshals, along with the local police, they swoop in and they surround her and bam, they finally arrest her. This is actually security footage of her being arrested at the bar, but it's kind of hard to make out. Regardless, here's her mugshot. And Grandma ends up pleading guilty

and she gets two life. sentences. Grandma's be crazy sometimes.