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Convicted killer William Reece sentenced to die for 1997 murder
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://kfor.com/video/convicted-killer-william-reece-sentenced-to-die-for-1997-murder/6686070/] |
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If the death penalty was not imposed then "wrong really has finally totally triumphed over right and all civilised society, all we hold dear, is the loser."- John Stevens, Baron Stevens of Kirkwhelpington
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://quozio.com/quote/hwwv7bcchftj/1092/if-the-death-penalty-was-not-imposed-then-wrong-really-has] |
On this date, August 19, 2021, Oklahoma Serial Killer, William Lewis Reece sentenced to death for the murder of Tiffany Johnston in 1997. He is now suspected of killing four women in total. As terrorists, serial killers and mass murderers had changed me from a death penalty opponent to supporter, Davis should get the needle and he should not be allowed to keep his life at all. Hopefully, he will meet the Bali Bomber, Amrozi one day.
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A confessed serial killer who preyed on young Houston girls -- and killed at least two of them -- was formally sentenced to death Thursday by a judge in Oklahoma City. William Reece, 61, was tried for the 1997 kidnapping and murder of Tiffany Johnston, a 19-year-old newlywed in Bethany, Oklahoma.
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/serial-killer-william-reece-death-sentence/285-749d3e7b-82ed-4590-bbb5-b756d1158d77] |
Murder trial begins for man accused of serial killings in Oklahoma, Texas
Nolan Clay
Oklahoman
Tiffany Johnston
After being linked by DNA to a cold case in Oklahoma, Texas inmate William Lewis Reece began confessing.
By the time he was done, he had admitted to the killing in Oklahoma and three more in Texas, prosecutors say. All were in 1997, after he got out of an Oklahoma prison after serving time for rape.
He led investigators in Texas to two bodies after prosecutors there agreed not to seek the death penalty for his cooperation.
Texas Rangers pushed Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater to do the same. The district attorney refused.
Now — almost six years after being charged — Reece, 61, is going on trial in the Oklahoma murder case.
Jurors questioned about death penalty
Jury selection began Monday morning in Oklahoma County District Court. The trial is expected to last three weeks.
District Judge Susan Stallings is having potential jurors questioned one at a time, and away from others, about their opinions on the death penalty.
Potential jurors also are being asked about any exposure to pretrial publicity.
Reece made his confessions to two Texas Rangers and a police detective from Friendswood, Texas, according to testimony at pretrial hearings and court filings.
At trial, "these officers will testify that the defendant stated his reasoning for confessing to these crimes was that he wanted to clear his conscience and let the families have closure," prosecutors wrote in a legal filing.
"At no time did the defendant express remorse for his actions."
Victim abducted at Bethany car wash
Reece confessed to strangling Tiffany Johnston after abducting her on July 26, 1997, from a car wash in Bethany. Her partially nude body was found the next day in tall weeds in Yukon, just south of Interstate 40.
Johnston was 19 and a newlywed.
He said he sexually assaulted her inside a horse trailer and strangled her with his hands and then a rope, according to evidence and testimony in the case. She hit him with a horseshoe at one point.
"He didn't know why. He just said it happened," a Texas Ranger testified at the 2017 preliminary hearing.
Reece also has confessed to killing Kelli Ann Cox, a 20-year-old student at the University of North Texas in Denton, and Jessica Cain, 17, who was from the Galveston area, authorities say. He said he used a bulldozer both times to bury their bodies. Their remains were found in 2016.
He also confessed to killing Laura Kate Smither, 12, of Friendswood, Texas, while working in the area at a construction job.
He claimed he accidentally hit her with his truck while she was jogging in the rain. He said he then snapped her neck to stop her from screaming and dumped her body in a retention pond. Prosecutors allege there is evidence he raped the girl, but he denied any sexual contact.
Her body was found 17 days after she went missing.
Reece was in prison in Texas for abducting a 19-year-old woman in 1997. The victim escaped by jumping from his moving truck.
Held at Oklahoma County jail
He has been held at the Oklahoma County jail since being brought from Texas. There, he has helped out on the medical floor as a trustee, court records show.
Trials involving serial killer suspects are rare, and Reece's case is getting international media attention.
The FBI has described serial murder as "the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events." The FBI put out the definition after hosting a symposium of 135 experts in 2005.
The FBI noted in the same report that a federal law in 1998 described serial murder as a series of three or more killings.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=114298550786143&id=101692122046786
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Snakes are poisonous wherever they are. You can't underestimate a snake just because there's only one. It's dangerous wherever it is. - Ashin Wirathu
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://quozio.com/quote/cfng2qb4scqt/1289/snakes-are-poisonous-wherever-they-are-you-cant] |
Judge Seals Fate of Oklahoma Serial Killer After Jury Recommended Death Penalty in Slaying of Teen
Adam Klasfeld
Aug 19th, 2021, 2:47 pm
A little more than two months after an Oklahoma jury recommended a death sentence, serial killer William Lewis Reece’s fate has been sealed by a judge over the death of a teen, according to news reports and the case’s docket.
During Reece’s trial for strangling newlywed Tiffany Johnston to death in a car wash, jurors reportedly heard the man’s confessions to four separate slayings in 1997: three in Texas and one in Oklahoma. Reece had been previously serving a 65-year sentence for the aggravated kidnapping of Sandra Sapaugh, who jumped out of a car and lived to tell police about her brush with a man authorities called a “true predator,” according to the ABC-affiliated TV station KTRK.
Johnston was not able to escape Reece with her life. The killer choked her to death at age 19 that same year. The teen disappeared in July 1997, when authorities spotted her Dodge Neon with her keys in the ignition. But she reportedly was not in the car.
Authorities found the victim’s naked body the next day in a field in Oklahoma’s Canadian County.
Nearly two decades would pass before DNA evidence linked Reece to Johnston in 2015, after examiners reportedly took vaginal and rectum swabs from the slain newlywed. Reece, who had been incarcerated for Sapaugh’s kidnapping at the time, confessed to the four killings when confronted by authorities the next year.
Oklahoma County District Judge Susan Stallings, who affirmed the death penalty for Reece on Thursday, let prosecutors show the jury his confessions during his trial this past spring, the Oklahoman reported.
As reported by the Oklahoman, Reece agreed with detectives that he had a dark side right after his confession.
“Well, yeah, ain’t no doubt about it. I ain’t going to lie to you,” Reece reportedly told the detective.
In 2016, Reece also reportedly confessed to killing Kelli Ann Cox, 20; Jessica Cain, 17; and Laura Kate Smither, 12. He used a bulldozer to bury Cox and Cain’s bodies, the paper reported.
“He likes to abduct, sexually assault girls and young women and sometimes kill them,” Assistant District Attorney Jimmy Harmon reportedly told the jury during closing arguments in late May. “It was his thing.”
An Oklahoma jury previously sentenced Reece to death in June, some 24 years after the deaths of the young women and girls.
Records show that Reece filed his notice of appeal on Thursday. Reece’s lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Jacob Benedict, did not immediately respond to a voicemail requesting comment, but press accounts suggests he did not dispute that his client is a killer. Instead, Benedict reportedly told jurors that his client confessed because a Texas Ranger had promised that prosecutors would not seek to put him to death in Texas.
“A promise he couldn’t keep, but still a promise,” Benedict told jurors, according to the Oklahoman.
Oklahoma authorities refused to sign onto the deal.
When Reece was being tried on death-penalty counts this past spring, Jessica Cain’s father released a statement that the family would be at peace, whatever the outcome.
“I’m just glad that he can never harm another innocent young woman,” C.H. Cain told KTRK in a statement. “We will miss Jessica every day of our lives, but as for Reece, my heart had been at ease for a very long time, because I know that the final judgement belongs to God. What happens on Earth is temporary. What God decides is eternal.”
(Photo via KTRK screengrab)
INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=166663468882984&id=101692122046786
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William Reece, 62, was convicted in June of kidnapping and murdering Tiffany Johnston, 19, in the town of Bethany, Oklahoma.
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://www.click2houston.com/news/investigates/2021/08/19/convicted-killer-formally-sentenced-to-death/] |
‘He’s not really sorry’: Convicted killer, William Lewis Reece, formally sentenced to death
An Oklahoma judge affirmed a jury’s death sentence for a man accused of a string of murders in 1997.
William Reece, 62, was convicted in June of kidnapping and murdering Tiffany Johnston, 19, in the town of Bethany, Oklahoma.
“There’s an old saying the law, ‘justice delayed is justice denied.’ Justice will not be delayed any longer in this case. I sentence you to death,” Oklahoma County judge Susan Stallings said during the hearing.
Johnston’s mother, Kathy Dobry, also spoke during the hearing.
“Tiffany was my shadow, we talked and shared her thoughts about the future, having children and me being a grandparent. William Reece’s actions left me with just my memories,” said Dobry. “William Reece might have taken my baby, but he can’t take my memories.”
Reece is also charged with murdering Laura Smither in Friendswood, Jessica Cain in La Marque and kidnapping Kelli Ann Cox from Denton before murdering her and burying her body in a Brazoria County field. All of these murders were committed in 1997, but it took two decades for Texas Rangers and several law enforcement agencies to gather enough evidence to charge Reece.
Reece has been in prison since 1998. He was also charged with kidnapping Sandra Sapaugh from a parking lot in Webster. Sapaugh escaped by jumping from Reece’s truck and her testimony was crucial in securing a 60-year prison sentence for Reece.
Both Kelli Ann Cox’s and Laura Smither’s families traveled to Oklahoma for today’s hearing.
“I am just thankful he will not ever be out on the streets again, I mean ever,” said Jan Bynum, Cox’s mother.
At the time Cox was kidnapped and murdered she had a 19-month old daughter. Alexis Bynum also attended the hearing and spoke about the pain of growing up not knowing what happened to her mother.
“I remember looking for her,” said Alexis Bynum.
Cox’s body was not found until Reece confessed in 2016 and led detectives to the spot where she was buried.
“Disgusting, he’s disgusting,” Alexis Bynum said. “I mean you could feel the evil enter the room and leave it when he was coming in and out.”
Reece also confessed to Cain’s murder in 2016 and finally led investigators to her remains. Cain’s family declined to comment.
Smither’s body was found a few weeks after she disappeared while jogging near her Friendswood home.
“You would hope for something in a person to say I’m sorry,” said Gay Smither.
The judge did give Reece a chance to speak, but he declined. Gay Smither said that silence told her all she needed to know.
“It confirms that even though we have confessions he’s not really sorry for what he did,” said Smither. “That’s always disheartening to recognize that somebody is so broken that they don’t even know what they did was wrong.”
Reece’s attorneys say they will appeal his sentence. Prosecutors in Galveston and Brazoria counties have not yet decided whether to continue pursuing their cases against Reece.
Smither said she wants prosecutors to keep Laura’s and the other women’s cases active, at least until the appeal process in Oklahoma is finished. While he had not completed his 60-year sentence in Oklahoma, Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials said they will not seek his return now that he has been sentenced to death.
Prior to the murders, Reece served time in an Oklahoma prison for rape.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2042783905872970&id=1299628893521812
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If the criminal taking of a human life does not merit forfeiture of one's own life, then what value have we placed on the life taken? - Pat Buchanan
‘There is no closure on love.’ Victims’ families speak out after judge sentences convicted serial killer to death
Emily Akins/KFOR
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – An Oklahoma family finally sees justice 24 years after a young newlywed’s murder.
“There’s an old saying in the law, ‘justice delayed is justice denied,’ justice will not be delayed any longer in this case, I sentence you to death,” said Judge Susan Stallings.
Judge Stallings sentenced accused serial killer William Reece to death in an Oklahoma County courtroom Thursday.
William Reece after being sentenced to death.
A look back at the trial and grisly confessions of a serial killer sentenced to death in Oklahoma
In 1997, Tiffany Johnston was abducted from a Bethany car wash.
Her body was found in a field in Canadian County a day later.
Investigator connected Reece to Johnston’s murder.
The jury found him guilty in June.
Johnston’s mother has been fighting for answers for more 20 years.
“He might’ve killed her, but he can’t take my memories,” said Kathy Dobry. “I believe in God and all that, but I’ll never forgive him… and I’m glad people can, but not this momma.”
Convicted serial killer sentenced to death for murder of Oklahoma teen
Tiffany wasn’t Reece’s only victim.
Reece is also accused of and confessed to killing three other young women in Texas around the same time Johnston was murdered.
In 2016, Reece led investigators to a grave in Texas, containing remains of 20-year-old Kelli Cox’s body.
Cox’s mother and daughter were both in the courtroom Thursday.
“He will not be able to ever do this to anyone else,” said her mother, Jan Bynum.
“No one needs to go through this, not even William Reece himself would I wish this upon him,” said Kelli’s daughter, Alexis.
Alexis was only 19 months old when her mother was murdered.
“It flipped my entire life upside down,” she said.
The family of 12-year-old Laura Smither, a Texas child Reece admitted to killing, was sitting alongside the Coxes.
“He will never be able to get out and harm another child, that’s very important,” said Laura’s mother, Gay Smither.
An image of William Reece next to images of his victims.
Smither carries a picture of Laura on necklace that sits close to her heart.
“Keep dancing baby,” she said, “Laura loved to dance and she’s free to dance for all eternity now.”
“I want everyone to know she was an absolutely beautiful person,” said Johnston’s cousin, Misty Witt
Even though real ‘closure’ doesn’t exist for any of these families, they feel justice was served.
“It doesn’t change anything… it just helps everybody so that he can’t hurt anybody else,” said Deborah Maxwell, Laura’s aunt.
“You do what you got to do to keep going,” said Alexis Bynum.
“There is no closure on love,” added Smither.
Reece also admitted to killing Jessica Cain in Texas.
The victim’s families also want this to be a reminder that this can happen to anyone.
The defense filed to appeal the death penalty ruling. They declined to interview.
INTERNET SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2041959985955362&id=1299628893521812
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It diminishes the victims when people burn candles and mourn someone who has committed a heinous crime. People on death row are some of the worst individuals that appear on the face of the earth. The abolitionists refuse to acknowledge that evil exists and evil has to be put down. – Marc Klaas
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://quozio.com/quote/kspp5czvzbmx/1011/it-diminishes-the-victims-when-people-burn-candles-and] |
OTHER LINKS:
On a personal level, do any of you disagree with the fact that child rapists deserve the death penalty? I used to be not really pro-death penalty. I'm super pro-death penalty now. – Steven Crowder
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=242342334648430&id=101692122046786
“I care more about how the families feel than I care about this guy being trapped or not being trapped. And if the families are telling me that the way they’re going to get closure is by him being put to the death penalty, then so be it. Because the priority, for me, is the families that had those lives stolen from them.” – Ana Navarro said, referring to the alternative of him spending life in prison.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2095705927247434&id=1299628893521812
Parents of Murdered Children Demand Steeper Penalties for Killing Kids
https://vk.com/wall-184585082_352
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2118661191618574&id=1299628893521812
https://news.wttw.com/2021/11/16/parents-murdered-children-demand-steeper-penalties-killing-kids
YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udP09XDUpXY
Anti LWOP/Mass Incarceration:
3a. "I believe life without parole is death by another name, and I do not believe in death sentences," Miranda told her colleagues on Tuesday. "I do not believe that justice is upholding mass incarceration in our communities that perpetuates generational poverty, violence and trauma."
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=195606665988664&id=101692122046786
3b. Mass. Lawmakers Consider Bill Ending Sentences of Life Without Parole
People who have lost loved ones to violence spoke both in support of and in opposition to a bill that would end life sentences without parole in Massachusetts
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=195607442655253&id=101692122046786
Victims’ Families against parole:
4. Parents Of Murdered Daughter Need Your Help To Keep Killer In Prison
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2078721268945900&id=1299628893521812
Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3350621811720081/permalink/4364685930313659
Families of homicide victims, including Colleen Ritzer’s parents, split over parole for offenders
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2078738875610806&id=1299628893521812
Ritzer Family Speaks Against Bill That Would End Life Without Parole Sentences In Massachusetts
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2082908501860510&id=1299628893521812
Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3350621811720081/permalink/4369445149837737
Chicago mother fighting to keep daughter's killer in prison: 'It is torture for me'https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2079474945537199&id=1299628893521812
https://www.facebook.com/Fox32Chicago/posts/10160490323573797
Mass. lawmakers introduce bill to end life without parole
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2101863139965046&id=1299628893521812
https://tuftsdaily.com/news/2021/11/02/mass-lawmakers-introduce-bill-to-end-life-without-parole/
RELATED LINKS:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/65004628/tiffany-michelle-johnston