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William Lewis Reece (born July 1, 1959) is an American serial killer, rapist and kidnapper. In 2015, he was linked via DNA to the 1997 cold case murder of a woman in Oklahoma, for which he was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death.
- Oct. 18, 1996: William Reece Is Released from Prison
- April 3, 1997: Laura Smither Disappears in Friendswood, Texas
- April 20, 1997: Laura Smither Is Found
- May 16, 1997: Sandra Sapaugh Is Kidnapped in Webster, Texas
- July 15, 1997: Kelli Cox Goes Missing in Denton, Texas
- Jan Bynum's Fight to Find Kelli
- July 26, 1997: Tiffany Johnston Vanished in Bethany, Oklahoma
- July 27, 1997: Tiffany Johnston's Body Is Discovered
- Aug. 17, 1997: Jessica Cain's Truck Is Found in La Marque, Texas
- Searching For Jessica Cain
After serving nearly 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting two women in his native Oklahoma, William Reece was released from prison in the fall of 1996. After his release, Reece briefly stayed with his mother in Anadarko, Okla., before moving to Harris County, Texas where he found work as a farrier (putting shoes on horses) and construction wo...
Laura Smither, a 12-year-old aspiring ballerina, went for a morning jog near her home in Friendswood, Texas, but never returned. As days passed, Gay and Bob Smither searched for their daughter with the help of their community, thousands of volunteers and even the U.S. Marines, but no one was able to find a trace of the missing girl.
After 17 days of searching, Laura Smither's decomposed body was found 12 miles from her home in a Pasadena, Texas, retention pond by a father and son out walking their dogs. After weeks in the water, her cause of death was unclear. Despite this devastating news, a suspect quickly emerged. It was William Reece, who worked at a construction site just...
Sandra Sapaugh, 19, stopped at a convenience store near I-45. Sapaugh says she noticed a man staring at her in the parking lot and when she saw him again at the Waffle House restaurant across the street, he offered to help her with a newly discovered flat tire. Sapaugh was confused by this and says before she knew what was happening, the stranger f...
Kelli Cox, a 20-year-old mother and student at the University of Northern Texas, was taking a tour of the Denton police department as a part of her criminal justice class but left early to take an exam. Shortly after leaving, Cox discovered that she was locked out of her car and used a pay phone at a nearby gas station to call her boyfriend for hel...
Kelli Cox was a dedicated student, taking summer classes and hoped to graduate early with a degree in social work. Although Kelli was a young mother to her daughter Alexis, she embraced it fully. Alexis was Cox's whole world and Kelli's mother Jan Bynum knew that Kelli would never leave Alexis behind. Still, the days of searching turned into weeks ...
Tiffany Johnston was 19 years old and newly married when she vanished in broad daylight, from a car wash in Bethany, Oklahoma. Her floor mats were still hanging on the drying racks and keys were still in the ignition, but there was no sign of Tiffany and no one at the car wash reported seeing anything out of the ordinary that day. Tiffany's mother ...
Just a day after her disappearance, Tiffany Johnston's partially clothed body was found in tall grass, next to an unpaved rural road close to the interstate. It was just 15 miles fromthe car wash where Tiffany Johnston was last seen alive. She had been strangled and sexually assaulted.Investigators were able to recover the killer's DNA from Johnsto...
Just three weeks after Tiffany Johnston's murder, 17-year-old Jessica Cain was last seen leaving a restaurant in Clear Lake, Texas, where she was out with friends. When Jessica missed curfew, her father C.H. Cain went out looking for her. After searching for hours, C.H. Cain found his daughter's truck abandoned on the shoulder of I-45 just a couple...
Search parties and friends looked for any sign of Jessica, but they had no luck. Gay and Bob Smither, who were still processing the loss of their own daughter Laura, just four months earlier, joined the search immediately, saying they felt called by God to help. After weeks of searching for answers, once again, investigators were left without leads...
- 42 min
- Shaheen Tokhi
Oct 21, 2023 · But instead of being sent right to death row, Reece first made one final trip back down the interstate to Texas, where he agreed to plead guilty to murdering Laura Smither, Kelli Cox and...
- 48 Hours" Correspondent
- 42 min
- CBS News
- Erin Moriarty
As of July 1, 2024, there were 2,213 death row inmates in the United States, including 48 women. [1] The number of death row inmates changes frequently with new convictions, appellate decisions overturning conviction or sentence alone, commutations, or deaths (through execution or otherwise). [2]
NameDescription Of CrimeTime On Death RowTortured and murdered his girlfriend's ...6 years, 333 daysMurder of 9-year-old Autumn Wallace.32 years, 109 daysKidnap, rape and murder of 5-year-old ...19 years, 168 daysMurdered three men during an attempted ...34 years, 336 daysJun 29, 2022 · Cain, 17, and Smither, 12, disappeared within months of each other. Smither's remains were found three weeks after her abduction, but Cain's body remained missing for nearly 20 years.
- John Wayne Ferguson
- Reporter
Nov 30, 2022 · In June 2022, he was extradited to Texas where he was found guilty of the murders of Smither, Cain and Cox. He pleaded guilty and received three life sentences. Where is Serial Killer William...
People also ask
What happened to Jessica Cain?
Where was Jessica Cain last seen?
Who killed Jessica Cain & Kelli Cox?
Who is Jessica Cain?
Who killed Jessica Cain & Laura Smither?
Who killed Smither & Cain & Cox in Galveston County?
Jun 2, 2021 · Cain disappeared while driving to her Tiki Island home in Galveston County and Reece led detectives to her body in a field in southeast Houston.
