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You are now listening to True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True crime History and the authors that have written about him Gaesy Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Good Evening. Laura Smither twelve was taken from the road in front of her home in the small suburban Texas town of Friendswood. Sandra Sapal barely escaped with her life when she was abducted from a waffle house parking lot in the tiny Texas coastal town of Webster. Kelly Cox vanished from the police department parking lot in the Texas college town of Denton. Anjeanette Sorrentino fled into woods in Harris County trying to escape a man with murderous intentions.
He caught her. Tiffany Johnston was raped and murdered in the Oklahoma City suburb of Bethany. She was washing her car when she disappeared. Jessica Kane was on her way home from dinner with friends to the village of Tikey Island, Texas, population seven hundred and seventy eight. Within five months in nineteen ninety seven, all six, most likely more some say many more suffered the same fate. They met a monster
wearing the face of a man. The book we're featuring this evening is What Evil Lurks, The Good Samaritan Killer, with my special guest journalist and author, Donna Fielder. Welcome to the program, and thank you so much for this inner Donna Fielder.
Hi, Dan, it's nice to talk to you today.
Nice to talk to you. Thank you so much for this interview. This is among extraordinary stories. This is even topsac. This is one incredible, credible story. End book. Let's get right to that, because we have so much to cover in this extraordinary tale. You have so much information, you had access to everything. So we get to hear from everyone's survivors, victims, and then later on from the killer himself.
Let's get to April twentieth, a pardon me, April third, nineteen ninety seven, and Laura smither As we introduced in the introduction, a twelve year old in Friendwood, Friendswood Texas, a suburb of Houston. Tell us about Laura's Smither and what happened that day.
Laura Smither was twelve years old. She was going to be thirteen in about about a week, but she did not make it that far. Laura had her life already planned out. She and her parents and her younger brother lived outside of Houston in a little bitty suburb. They lived down a country road. Their parents were very concerned about Houston, Houston which has it had a reputation for being a rough place, but that's where her father worked, so they moved them out into the country and they
homeschooled them to keep them safe. That did not work out very well. La Laura had her entire life planned out. She was going to be a ballet dancer. She was already a member of the Houston Ballet. She practiced, she took lessons, and she knew that ballet dancers had to have very song legs, So even at twelve years old,
she was working toward that future. And that morning of April third, it was it's kind of drizzling rain, but Laura wanted to go for a run because she did every morning, and her mother said, you know, I'm cooking breakfast. Why don't you wait? And she said, no, I need to go now, but I promise I'll be back in twenty minutes. Laura didn't come back in twenty minutes, she didn't come back in two hours, she didn't come back
in two days. Laura never returned home. She met a man somewhere on that short run on the road that ran in front of her house. She somehow met a man, was kidnapped, raped and murdered, and her body was dumped in a retention pond in Pasadena, which is another suburb of Houston. About It only took a number of hours for her parents to realize there's something terribly wrong. Laura,
even at twelve, was a very responsible young woman. She did what she was told to do, She did what she said she would do, and this time she said she'd be home in twenty minutes. Since she wasn't, they called the police, and the police immediately believed that something bad had happened to Laura. They begin looking looking for her. The community began looking for her. A tremendous turnout of people yes left their jobs, left whatever they had planned
to do, and began looking for Laura. It took seventeen days to find her, and when they found her, her body was in a retention pond in Pasadena. It had been dumped there, and she was wearing only a pair of socks. The medical examiner did an autopsy and said that her cavs showed they had been bound to the back of her legs. So she had been tied up in a horribly hurtful way, and she was riped and strangled. They did not know who did this to Laura. They
had their suspicions, but they had no proof. And so for a very long time, a monstro got away with murder.
You say a long time. But May sixteenth, three weeks after Laura's body is found, and her body is found, like you say, in seventeen days, So in short order, twenty one days after Laura's body's found, there's a woman named Sandra Sapal and she's living with the father of her two kids. It's not a good situation whatsoever. She meets another person, nas James Sapal, and they get married and she's in another bad situation. Tell us about Sandra Sapaw, Well,
what happens one day? What are the circumstances in which she sees a man in a white pickup truck.
Sandral was trying to survive. Basically, she had dropped her She had two children, she had dropped them off with her parents, and she was basically living from motel room to motel room, trying to just trying to find a way to make her life ride again. She had she had found a man who was willing to help her move her things out of the apartment she shared with her husband. She drove to a she she was living
in a motel room. She she drove to a convenience store and she made a telephone call to this man to tell him she was ready, she needed the help, and he said he would come. She went to a waffle house and had dinner, and when she came out, she just going that she had a flat tire. So she was trying to figure out what to do when a man in a white pickup truck drove in behind her. She basically blocked her way out of there, and he said,
looks like you've got a problem. She said yes, and he said, I'll be glad to help you with that.
I'll help you.
Change your tire, and she said, okay. The man went around to the front of the vehicle and she said, look in my truck. I need a rag. There's a white rag on the There's a white rag on the seat of my truck. Well, she leaned in and she couldn't find any white rag. And she said, there's no white rag here, and he said, oh, yeah, maybe it's on the floor.
On the floor.
Well, she began to get worried. This didn't seem like the kind of thing that white rag wasn't something you needed to change a tire, right, So she turned around and stood up and the man was standing right in front of her, invading her personal space. And he had a knife, and she said, get in the truck, bitch. Yeah, she didn't really have any choice, and he forced her into the truck and he took off down. This happened
in Webster, Texas. He took off down Highway I forty five with her in the truck, and she knew that if she didn't figure something out really quick, she was going to die. She felt that she knew that m So she figured out a way to out with this man and he told her take off all your clothes. So she looked at the at the buttons on the truck and decided that her door was not locked. So she told him, well, I need to take my shoes off before I can take my pants off, and he said, okay.
Do it.
When she bent over, she grabbed the handle of the truck. She pulled on the door, and going at highway speeds on an interstate highway, she jumped out of that truck. When he realized what had happened, he was already a little way ahead of her, and he pulled over. She ran out onto the highway, waving her arms, hoping she wasn't going to get run over, and a woman stopped and helped her and took her back. She just wanted to go back to her car, but the woman called
nine one one and paramedics came, and police came. They took her to the high spittle. The man in the white pickup truck drove very quickly away and so they did not know who he was. But she saved her own life that day.
You say that she gave a description to police. Finally that was she.
She She had been pretty badly injured and was was on pain medication. There was a woman who was the police chief of Tiki Alan, which is a tiny little island just off the tip of Texas, right, And this police chief was a She had learned hypnosis, So the Webster police asked her, would she hypnotized Sandra and see if she could remember, because she really couldn't remember very much at all. This woman's name, I'm sorry, I've lost her.
Name, Sue Ditrich.
That this police chief in time did hypnotize Sandra. She remembered an amazing amount of detail. Under hypnosis. She could describe the man, she described the truck. She actually could read numbers that she had seen just briefly, and did moments of terror. She could remember part of a police part of a telephone number that she saw on a post it note on the on the truck.
Incredible that man's description.
Matched that of a man that police were already looking at in the death of Lord Smither.
But let's laun more that. Yeah, before we get to that, we're in at that you talk about. They turned this criminal case over to the Criminal Investigation Division of the Webster Police Department, but short orders. In July fifteenth, nineteen ninety seven, Lawrence Harris, a man is in Denton, Texas. He's at the police department parking lot and he's waiting for his girlfriend. Tell us about this again, another incredible chapter of this extraordinary story.
Yes, it was July fifteenth, nineteen ninety seven. Kelly Cox was a student at the University of North Texas in Denton. She was at the police department with a class with a criminal justice class that were touring the jail. The class teacher had told the students that they would not be allowed to bring anything into the jail, which was kind of a misunderstanding. They weren't going inside jail sales.
They were going inside the jail itself, and they were allowed to bring things into the jail where they would be secured. They had a place that they secured things like pursues, things like that. So Kelly was told that she needed to leave everything in her car and come and empty handed, which she did. She left a little bit early because she had a test to take in another class, So just about noon she left the Denton
Police Department. She went to her car. She had she had hidden a key to the car in one of those magnetic boxes that you hide somewhere like under a under a fender or something like that. She got it out and it would not work. She could not make the key open her car door, so she's locked out of her car because her regular car keys are locked insider locked inside her car, she first went to the Denton Police Department, is then a large building that takes
up an entire city block. It has other city offices there. At that time, it also housed a community college. She first went to an office in the community college and asked the woman if she could the phone. She had another set of keys at her home and her boyfriend lived just a few houses down the street from where she lived in Carrollton. The woman said, if this is a local call, you may use the phone. If it isn't, we're not allowed to let people make long distance calls
on this. So Kelly didn't know what to do, and the woman said, well, there's a payphone right down on the corner down there. You can go down there and use that payphone. So she had a pocket full of change and she went to the payphone and called her boyfriend. He wasn't very happy about the whole situation. He complained to her that he had to make the drive from Carleton to Denton, which was twenty five miles. Maybe they didn't have a very happy conversation, but he did agree
to come. When he got there, he couldn't sign Kelly. He called Kelly's mother and told her the situation, and Kelly's mother immediately knew Kelly had an eighteen month old daughter. She adored that daughter right That daughter meant the world to her. That daughter was with the babysitter, and Kelly did not pick her up that day. Kelly's mother knew that would never have happened if Kelly had the power to reach her daughter. They called it in police department.
They explained the situation. Police Chief Jezz immediately knew that this wasn't your normal teenage girl doesn't come home story. He called in every available officer he had and said, this is the real deal. This is a who done it. We need to find Kelly Cox, and we're not going to do anything else that we don't have to do until we find her. The officers worked all the rest of that day, They worked all night, they worked all
day the next day. They continued to work until they had run down every single lead, and there weren't very many of them. This was a young woman who simply vanished. They could not find one clue, not one as to what had happened to Kelly Cox, and it remained that way for nineteen years.
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Now you talked about Kelly Cox, but there wasn't a detective named Benny Parky, and he was assigned the lead detective, and he did go to that convenience store and did talk to that person, so we did get that information. But he was involved at that time.
You talk about yes twenty a detective in the case that every single police officer for the City of Denton Police actually worked on that case off and own for years. Benny was the leading vesta. He was devoted to finding Keilly. But he told me later there just aren't any clues to follow. In order to solve a crime, you have to follow the clues, and there aren't any. She simply vanished. There's no blood, there's no sign of struggle, there are
no witnesses. We've done everything we can, and we will continue to do everything we can, but we can't find Kelly without some kind of clue somewhere, and one did not appear.
Right now. Five days later, July twentieth, nineteen ninety seven, Anjeanette Sorrentino, twenty three year old. Her and her boyfriend are breaking up, and this is near Tiki Island as well. Anyway, tell us about why she ends up at a convenience store looking for cigarettes and again notices a man at a phone.
Booth Anginette was very upset. That night she and her boyfriend were breaking up. She had gone to a bar. He had followed her there and continued in argument with her. She left that bar. She was going to go to another one, but she stopped to buy cigarettes at a convenience store, and when she walked in, she saw a man on the pay telephone outside. She looked at him and he just looked strange. He had the phone to his ear. He pretended to be talking, but she didn't
think he was really talking to anybody. So she went in and used the bathroom and bought her cigarettes. And she looked back outside and he's still out there, and he's still making talking noises. And she was really afraid, but she didn't have any choice. She went out to get in her truck. She took off in the truck and quickly realized that she was She had a flat tire, so she pulled over. And the place she pulled over in was it was dark. There were no streetlights. It
was in a wooded area with no houses. She got out of a truck and the man came up and said, you look like you're in trouble. I'll be glad to help you. She just did not trust this man at all. It was the same man in the white pickup truck that she had seen in the parking lot. Of the convenience store. She turned and ran, and she ran into the woods, thinking that she would find houses on the other side of the woods and she could get help.
But she didn't get that far. This man caught her, beat her, strangled her unconscious, and actually threw her in the back seat of his car unconscious. She woke up. She told Houston police that she saw him murder a young man who seemed to be part of the whole story, and his name is Joey. Houston police did not believe Enginette. They thought that her boyfriend had beat her up. But when they checked, he had. He had an alibi and it was a good one and it stood. But they
still didn't believe her story. It's not clear exactly why, but they just would not. They would not help Enginette. So she and her mother took her story the same Kiki Allen police chief because she had a reputation of helping young women. That woman's name was Sue dietrich Nance and she was still police chief, and Kiki Allen. She gathered information, She interviewed Engeanette. She put together a file and she took it to the Houston police and was
told this is not your jurisdiction. We don't believe this woman. We think something else happened to her and she's covering it up. So you just go on to bag your business because this is our case. Well, Sue, she was helpless in this case. It wasn't her case. She did everything she could. She kept the foul, She followed every
clue that she could come up with. She independently worked that case, and she came to the conclusion that the man who attacked a Jeanette was the same man who had killed Lors Smither and she was never able to the case wasn't her jurisdiction. The Houston police did not listen to her. She could not like the case against this man, whose name was William Reeves. He was never charged in a kidnapping of Engine Anne. The police told her that they never found any indication that a man
named Joey had been murdered. Right, They just didn't believe any of this and they never did anything about it. Wow, So if William Reese was the man who kidnapped her that night, he was never charged with it. He was never found guilty of anything that had to do with Engine Anne. But she believes and Sue Nance believes that he was the man who kidnapped her that night.
Certainly, certainly, now you write July twenty sixth, nineteen ninety seven, just a few days later, in the car wash, there's six stalls, and this is in Bethany, Oklahoma, and a couple of police officers, Detective Daniel Mobley and patrol Officer J. D. Reid. It's about near midnight. They spot a white sedan in the stall at the car wash. Tell us what happens after that.
Tiffany was a newly win She had plans for her life. She wanted to be a nurse. She had just gotten married. She and her husband lived in Bethany, which is a it's kind of a satellite to the moship of mothership of Oklahoma City. She got off work that evening. She worked as a waitress. She actually had two waitress jobs. She was trying to save money to go to college, to go to nursing school in the farm. She and
her husband were going to go out that night. She decided to wash her car, so she went to a car wash and began washing her car, and something happened that point. No one knew exactly what happened. But something happened at the Sunshine car wash that night, and when those two police offer two police officers show by on routine patrol, they noticed this car sitting there. The doors were open, there was no one around it. They didn't know at that point that something or anything had happened
to Tiffany Johnston. About an hour later, they made that same trip by that car wash and the car was still sitting there, so they investigated. They found the queues were still in the car. They found a purse in the car, They found a cell phone in the car, but they did not find Tiffany Johnson. They called her husband and he said, I've been waiting for her to come home. We were supposed to go out, but she never showed up. And I've called her mother. She doesn't know anything about her.
I don't know.
I don't know what to do now. That immediately set off a search for Tiffany, and her body was found outside of town along at her road the next day. She had been raped and she had been strangled.
What's interesting is right away, as a result of the NewsCap asked as a result of the police report, a man named George Brown, who was the owner of the car wash in Bethany saw the TV broadcast and saw his car wash on the news, so he called contacted police to tell him what he saw. What did he tell police about who he saw?
He told police that there was a man who hung around the car wash. His his name was William Reese and that the description of the pickup truck that was seen there fit the description of the truck that William Rees strove. There was no evidence whatsoever that connected William Reeves to Tiffany Johnston on the fact that she disappeared from that car wash. So at that point, Oklahoma City police believed they had a suspect, but they had no
evidence whatsoever. There was semen found on Tiffany's body, but they didn't have anybody to compare it to. So the DNA, which could have been really strong evidence, it couldn't be explored because there was no one to compare it to. That case went cold, as well as these other cases.
He was questioned by state uh State police. Did they get anything from that other than establishing He said he had an alibi, but you said it was no physical evidence. But what did he, if anything, say to those police at that time?
At that time, he claimed he had been in Texas on the day Iffany disappeared, and the police couldn't prove that he had not been in Texas. This is back in nineteen ninety seven. A lot of things that police have available to them now to help themselves cases was not available at that time.
Sir, you talk now, you've read about in August.
Sorry, go ahead, I'm sorry, Go ahead.
William Rees had been arrested in the case of Alexandra Sapau and he was in jail. I see, so he was, he was off the streets. There's no telling how many young women's lie were saved because he was in jail and he couldn't he couldn't pull his stunts, he couldn't kidnap them.
Before that, you write about August seventeenth, nineteen ninety seven. Then Jessica Kan who was seventeen years old, ready to leave for san for Houston State University in Huntsville to study drama. And so she's women with their parents in Tiki Island again, Tiki Island comes up. Tell us what happens August seventeenth, nineteen ninety seven.
Jessica Kane, Jessica King had her laugh all planned out. She was going to be an actress. She was a beautiful young woman. All of these young women were beautiful, They had long, dark hair, They were all smart. They all had plans for theirs, and they were all working those plans. Jessica was already packed.
To move.
Into her apartment to go to college. She was going to major in drama. That night, she had appeared in a play and all the people who were in the play had gone to dinner together. She had a curfew, but her parents told her that she could stay out until midnight that night to be with her friends, to have dinner with her friends, and then she was going to drive home to Tea Yaan. She didn't come home that night. Her dad knew something bad had happened, because.
That was not Jessica.
She was a very She was a very steadfast young woman. She could be depended upon. She was supposed to be home. She didn't come home. When her dad looked for her, he found her the pickup truck not far from the Tiki Islands cut off. She had made it nearly home. Her purse, her keys, and her cell phone were locked inside that truck. She was not to be found. She had vanished, just like these other young women.
You write that there was a witness emerged though, and told the Lsmark police again another little town, that he had seen a truck park behind Jessica's truck. What was the description of that truck.
It was a white pickup truck and it had a sort of lot bar across the top. This person said that when he passed by, that truck was parked behind Jessica's truck, and he believed that it was some sort of either a law enforcement officer or maybe a tow truck. Maybe she had had car trouble. He thought nothing of it until he read in the paper that she had disappeared. But that truck matched the description of the truck that
people had described when they had seen William Reese. So again we have a suspect, but we have zero clues, no clues, no information, nothing. So in all four of these cases, William Reese was a suspect, but he was not charged with any of these because there was no physical evidence whatsoever. Nobody had actually seen him. These young women just and were not heard from again.
Right, you say that the detective Pam Mitchell was the lead investigator on the case, in les Mark, but fortunately she was friends with Sue Dietrich Nance. Again, no jurisdiction in the case. She's been told to beat it before, but she teams up with Detective Pam Mitchell. Anyway, let's use this as an opportunity Donna to stop for a second to hear from our sponsor, which is Every Plate.
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you can't let this go. And they know that they have this person that is the main suspect is William Reese. He fits the bill. He's attacked other people, but he's in prison for the attack of Sandrasapow I believe, And so now we have different people over the years, after this cold case is run for many, many years, what happens in the pursuit of William Reese.
In the mid twenty fifteen twenty sixteen time period, the Oklahoma City Police believed that they might have a chance. William Rees showed up in the files he was in prison. He was in prison for kidnapping. They believed he was a viable suspect. They had a little bit of DNA left. They had tried DNA a couple of other times over the years, but it hadn't worked. DNA was not very reliable. At that time. They had a little bit of DNA left.
They had one more chance, and they decided to ask a Texas ranger to interview him and see if they could get something that would make them confident in using their last little bit of DNA to see if it could if the suspect could be William Reese. So they contacted the Texas Rangers who had a cold case investigator whose name was James Holland Texas Ranger James Holland. They asked him if he would interview Reese, and he said that he would. At the same time, he was already
talking to Reese about some of these other murders. Some other police detectives on the cases, and at this point Benny Parky, the Denton detective, had retired and another detective named Eric Beckwith had taken over the case. In the meantime, there were many many years that detective I'm sorry, yeah, I can't remember his name. Another detective had a case for many, many years, Mike Leverton. He had retired and
so Eric Beckworth had taken this case. It was at that point a very very cold case, but he had gone through the files, he had done some catching up. He wanted to to work with James Holland, the Texas Ranger, to see if maybe they could make a case against Reese and Achille Cox case. So Holland talked to Reese and he told him Reese at firstday night everything and he said, well, you know, we have this against you, We have that against you. We have people who saw
your truck. I believe that you committed these murders, and I believe that Oklahoma City has DNA they're going to use against you, and they want the death penalty. And Reese told him if you can get these Texas cases, if you can get them to take the death penalty off the table, I will tell you things that will help you. So Holland went to the other police departments and said, will you drop the death penalty? And I think we can find these young women. At the time, Kelly,
talk to Kin, we're still missing. There was still no justice for those young women. Their parents wanted to find their bodies. They wanted that more than anything else. At that point, they agreed, Yes, we'll take the death penalty off the table if you'll, if you'll find their bodies for us, so we can bury them, so we can have a place to go to mourn them, so we
can have a little bit of closure. And so James Holland told Reese, Okay, you tell me what you know, and if it leads to finding these young women, we will not charge you with the death penalty murder. Right, And so Reese told them, yes, I murdered Lauris, Yes I murdered Kelly Coals, Yes I murdered Jessica Kine. He still at that point denied having murdered Tiffany Johnson because
they didn't actually have the DNA. At that point, he allowed them to do a swab of his mouth to get DNA right that came back positive, and they knew. They knew that William Lewis Reese had murdered Jesse had murdered Tiffany Johnson. Right, So Holland came back and talked to Reese again and said, will you show us where you hid their bodies, and he said, yes, I will.
So.
In March of two thousand and fifty, the Texas Rangers, Denton Police and other officers and other estate officers first went to a place that was that was in a secluded area, I will say in Brazilia County, Texas. He said, I brought this girl. He called her the Denton girl. He said, I brought her here and I buried her body.
It took a little bit of condensing from James Holland, but he finally admitted that he spent the night in his truck, which had a camper there with Kelly Talks, parked in that included area, in some woods in what had once been a rice field, and he told them that he killed her and he buried her body, and he knew sort of he knew sort of where the body was buried, but he unfortunately things had changed in that field. The trees had grown up, it didn't look
exactly like it used to look. It was raining by that point. They did a little bit of work in that field with the back hole, but it was raining and so they had to stop. When the rain ceased. They went to the other side of Houston near Hobby Airport, and he told them, Okay, this is where I buried Jessic Cane. And they began digging in that area and they found the remains of Jessica Kane. Then they went back to the Bassoia County area and they looked some more,
and they dug some more. They went through it. They strained dirt into buckets and they found one of Kelly Cox's teeth. They found a bone. They believed that that bone was a thigh bone from Kelly's leg. Eventually found enough evidence at that side that they charged William Rees with those two murders. By that time, the DNA had come back as positive in the Tiffany Johnston case, and they also in Oklahoma City charged Oklahoma County charged William
Reese with capital murder in that case. So Reese was not looking forward to being moved to Oklahoma because they were going after the death penalty. He did not have a death penalty looking at him in Texas. So Texas law enforcement agreed to wait and see what happened in the Oklahoma case before they tried reached in Texas.
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Now you talk about this capital case, what happens with that prosecution?
Everything moves slowly in the criminal justice system. These murders happened in the spring and summer of nineteen ninety seven. The trial in Oklahoma County of bringing reached for the murder of Tiffany Johnston began on May tenth, twenty twenty one. Well, it had been twenty four years since Tiffany died, twenty four years since Jessica died, since Kelly died. That's a
very long time to wait for justice. But the Oklahoma County prosecutors believed they had a strong case against William Rees and they wanted they wanted the death penalty for him. They believed he deserved it. They believed that Oklahoma County jurors would would believe that he deserved it as well.
You talk about sea years of pow testifying at this trial as well, I was wrong. There was an Oklahoma survivor. The Oklahoma people he attacked. Sandrasapau testified at this trial as well.
That is correct. There were two young women who had been attacked by Reese many years earlier, and it seems like William Rees learned by doing, and by that I mean his first two cases. He kidnapped a young woman from her car when it stopped running. She was in Oklahoma City. She outsmarted him and got away from him, but not before he committed oral sexual assault on her.
She told police who she believed he was. They arrested him, He made bail, and before he came to trial on case, he followed a woman home from a bar and sexually attacked her. He was convicted of those two crimes and went to prison for eight years. He had been out of prison less than six months when Laura who was the first victim that we know of in Texas, was murdered. William Reeves had learned one thing while he was in prison. If you leave them alive, they'll finger you and you'll
get caught. You can't leave them alive, and so he began to murder his victims. But it took twenty four years for a man who had not graduated from high school, who had spent most of his youth in foster homes and orphanages. He was one of thirteen children, and all he had learned was how to shoe horses and how to drive big equipment. So that's what he was doing. That's why he was on the highway back and forth between Texas and Oklahoma the whole time looking for work.
That's why he was in the area when Laura Smither went for her morning run. It was drizzling rain. He was supposed to drive some heavy equipment on a nearby in a nearby area where they were building homes, and he got sent home, and that's how he came to meet with Laura on the road in front of her house.
This he led police to the bodies. He made a confession, he I don't know he was candid about his motivations for the murders and the rapes. There wasn't much to set him off. Again. He was paroled in.
Each of these young women for what happened to them. He was, you know, in his mind he was blameless. He said that that Kelly Cougs was routed to him and threw a soft drink on him because they bumped into each other. And so in his mind it was okay for him to kidnap her, ripe her murderer, and bury her body. That's the way William Resh's mind worked.
Yeah, And this this idea of disabling a car. These people all had flat tires or a rescue. As you say, he learned. So maybe once he just happened to be help out somebody that had a flat tire, but certainly after that he planned the disabling of these people's vehicles. Very interesting to hear about that. In light of a couple of weeks ago we had another book, the Flat Tire Murders. Again, the modus operandi was to disable the vehicles via a flat tire. Very good technique, it seems.
Yes, young young women often don't know what to do when they have a flat tire, and it's scary. You can't drive your vehicle and suddenly you're pretty helpless and up jumps this man who says, hey, I'll thinks that flat tire for Are you no problem? It's very difficult to say no, go away in circumstances Black Fan. But in the case of in the case of Sandra Sapau, they found a stab wound in one of her tires
that had flattened the tire. They believed he used to knife, probably the same knight that he forced her into his truck with. He caused the problems to cause these young women to need help, and then suddenly here he was their hero. He was going to change their tire for him. He was going to get him out of the situation they suddenly found themselves in. And that worked really well
for him. The very first case that was made on him was the young woman in Oklahoma City who was driving down the interstate in the rain and suddenly her car stopped. She didn't have a flat tire, but she just suddenly she had car trouble. He was driving down the interstate in a nineteen wheeler, pulled up behind her, appeared at her window and said you're going to get hit. You're on the interstate. You need to get in the truck with me and we'll go get some help and
we'll find somebody to tow your car for you. I think this was the thing that led him to believe this is a great way to get women. And I think that he manipulated the other situations so that he could be their hero and then he could rape and murder them because he locked it.
Yeah, were the parents of some of these victims, Kelly Cox, Lauris Smithers. Were they okay with the rationale for the plea bargain and that he wouldn't be put to death.
They agreed to it because they they want enclosure. They wanted to know where their daughters were. They knew they were dead. They had to be dead. It had been at that point nineteen years since they lost their daughters. They wanted them desperately. And yes, they agreed that if he were going to be tried in Oklahoma City for a death penalty case, that it was okay with them. It was okay with them to not dry him in a death penalty case in Texas. That's how they That's
how they found their daughters absolutely. Kellicoxiu's mother actually said, if he doesn't find our daughter for us, all bets are off. But if if he leads us to her body, then we still want to have a trial. We still want to look him in the eye. We want to hear what excuse he might have for the things he did to our daughter. So there was some hesitation that they wanted so badly to find their daughters that they did agree to him.
This is a remarkable book too, because you do demonstrate and have access to the information about these incredible people that were just again they had the future ahead of them. I know it's a cliche, but these people again innocent people, remarkable stories like somebody abducted from a police department parking lot, somebody out for a job for twenty minutes. All of these innocent people with their lives ahead of them, and
this William Reese came into their lives. But also dedicated police detective and police chiefs like Sue dietrich Nance which just emerge as a just a hero in this book for being dedicated and never giving up the fight, and along with some other detectives that you have mentioned as well that stuck with this case. Because they believe they knew who was the perpetrator. I want to thank you very much, Donna Fielder for coming on and talking about
what evil lurks the Good Samaritan Killer. I know that you are an author of other books such as Lady Killer, Let's Kill Mom, Pennies on Her Grave, and The Vanished Wife. Is there a website they might take a look, might take a look at, or an Amazon page? Tell us how they might take a look at other books and information about this one.
I have a website called Donna Fielder books dot com. If you go to that website, all the books are listed there. They're all available on Amazon and many are available bookstores. But if you want to if you want to get a book to download, there's an Amazon button beside each book. If you press that Amazon button, it will take you directly to the place that you need to be in owner to bout those books.
Yeah, there we go.
Thank you so much, Donna. It's been incredible. What evil lurks the Good Samaritan Killer? Donna Fielder, you have a great evening. Thank you so much for this interview.
Goodnight, Thank you, good night.
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