William Lewis Reece murdered four females in Texas and Oklahoma in 1997 and was sentenced to death in the latter state, enough to qualify him as a serial killer. Reece was born to an Oklahoma farm family on July 1, 1959 and had 12 brothers and sisters. The Reeces farmed near Yukon and William spent part of his childhood in foster care. He dropped out of school in the 9th grade and took a horseshoeing job to help support the family and knocked up and married his high school girlfriend Judy Flaming in 1979. Reece then spent a while in the Oklahoma National Guard. His wife divorced him after only a year of marriage, but they quickly reconciled and had another child.Around this time he began beating Judy, who went to police and claimed he threatened her with a knife and shotgun. They divorced a second time in 1982. Reece married another woman, but that marriage also ended in divorce. He began working as a trucker during this time.
Reece's first criminal charges happened in April 1986 when he abducted a Muskogee County deputy's 19 year old daughter when her car broke down on the way to the gym. He pulled up to her in his truck and offered to drive her to a pay phone. Instead, Reece tied her up, drove her around to several parking lots, and raped her. The victim protested that she had to go to the bathroom, so he let her go and she immediately got help. Reece was arrested for kidnapping and forced oral copulation. He paid his bail and went free while awaiting trial, during which time he raped another female. Charged with that offense, he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Reece's attorneys appeals on grounds of procedural errors during the trial. An appeals court agreed and reduced his sentence to ten years. Reece served his time and was paroled October 1996.After getting out of prison, Reece moved in with his mother in Andarko. He regained his trucker's license and moved to Houston in February 1997. That April 3, Reece struck and killed 12 year old Laura Smither with his car in Friendswood in an apparent accident, after which he picked up her body and dumped it in a lake. He later admitted that he strangled Smither, but said he did not rape her. On July 15, he was driving from Oklahoma to Houston when he stopped to buy liquor at a Denton gas station, where 20 year old Kelli Cox, a University of North Texas student, was also filling her vehicle. Reece claimed he got into a scuffle with Cox, strangled her, and buried her in the woods in Brazoria County, but again said he did not rape her.
On July 26, Reece stopped at the Sunshine Car Wash in Bethany to clean his truck. Also at the car wash was 19 year old Tiffany Johnston. Reece claimed he accidentally soaked her with the sprayer hose and, seeing no one else around, dragged her into the trailer, raped her at gunpoint, beat her over the head with a horseshoe, strangled her, and dumped her in some nearby woods, where her body was found the next day. Johnston's '95 Neon was found abandoned at the car wash and the owner said he knew Reece to be a regular customer. Reece also knew Johnston's mother and she had driven him to get his trucker's license back when he got out of prison.On August 17, Reece abducted 17 year old Jessica Cain. Cain had left a Bennigan's in Clear Lake City when he encountered her in the parking lot and offered her a ride. She declined, so Reece followed her in his truck and forced her to pull over, after which he beat and strangled her. He was also suspected in the abduction and rape of 19 year old Sandra Sapaugh in May. Sapaugh was using a pay phone at a Webster gas station when Reece spotted her. She got in her car, but had to stop after a few blocks due to a flat tire. Reece drove up and offered to help. Sapaugh got in his truck after which he tied up her wrists and continued driving down I-45, but she eventually got loose, opened the passenger's side door, and leaped out at highway speed, suffering multiple broken bones and severe abrasions.
She survived and was taken to a hospital where she told police some details about her attacker, but had trouble remembering most of what happened, so she was put under hypnosis and managed to remember his truck's license plate number and later picked him out of a police lineup. Reece was later arrested, convicted of kidnapping, and sentenced to 60 years in prison. In 2015, he was linked through DNA testing to the murder of Tiffany Johnston and charged with it. Reece eventually confessed to the other three murders and providing the locations of where the bodies were dumped in exchange for no death penalty. However, the DAs declined the offer. The sites Reece marked on a map were excavated and the remains of Kelli Cox and Jessica Cain discovered.Reece was extradited to Oklahoma in July 2016 to stand trial for the Johnston murder, which was scheduled to begin April 21, 2017 but his attorneys requested a change of venue on the grounds that the county courthouse had asbestos dust and was a health hazard. An examination of the building found that there was indeed asbestos in there, and the trial was postponed for two years during which Texas authorities announced their intention to try Reece for the Smither, Cox, and Cain murders once the proceedings in Oklahoma were done. However, the COVID-19 lockout postponed the trial further, until May 2021. Tiffany Johnston's relatives, Sandra Sapaugh, and two other rape victims of Reece were all present at the trial and he was found guilty on May 28 and sentenced to death.
After the trial, the DAs claimed that some of Reece's confession was false and he did not provide a fully accurate account of his crimes and motives for them. Reece had also gotten in trouble for having an unauthorized cell phone that fellow inmates sold to him. Reece was then tried in Texas in March 2022, plead guilty, and was sentenced to life in prison. He appealed on the grounds that he'd given a coerced confession in Oklahoma, but this was denied. Reece was transferred to the Sooner State's death row in January 2026.
>>18631243>>18631241tf man. why couldn't boomers help themselves with murdering and raping?
>>18631261Pussy and bussy was just too good to pass up back then. Gotta stick your dick somewhere.
>>18631261all serial killers boil down to mommy issues run amock
>>18631243He was white, we don't care. If he was black and did this we'd have a thread.
>>18631383if he was white and killed a bunch of black girls he'd already be out on parole, assuming the police even investigated at all
