(suspenseful ambient music) - Everyone called
Tiffany my shadow. Wherever mama went,
Tiffany was with me. It was very hard to deal
with her getting murdered. The police had no
idea who to look for. Tiffany's was just
another cold case. Whenever I got so disheartened, I go, maybe I should give up. But then my Indian
blood comes out, and I go out, and
I talk to nature, and I talk to Tiffany, and the red birds
come into the yard, which is a good symbol that means your loved
one is close by. And I said, I will not give up. I will find who did this to you. (pensive orchestral music) - [Narrator] It's
nearly midnight and Sergeant Sean
Reid is on his way to a call in Bethany, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City. While driving, he
spots something odd at the Sunshine Carwash. - A white Dodge Neon was
parked in the far west stall, but no one was around it. I didn't pay much
more attention. (ominous music) After finishing the call, I drove by the
Sunshine Carwash again, and that same white Dodge Neon was still in the far west stall. - [Narrator] Now, the Dodge
Neon is the only vehicle left at the carwash. - I sent the license plate
number to headquarters. - [Narrator] The
car is registered to 19-year-old Tiffany Johnston. Reed finds Tiffany's keys
and purse in the car. In the glove box, he discovers the phone number
for Tiffany's mother, Kathy, who lives 60 miles away
in Anadarko, Oklahoma. - I received a call from the
Bethany Police Department wanting to know if
Tiffany was with me. I told him, no, she was supposed to meet
her new husband, Ryan. They were going to go to
their little club type disco place that they always
go to at 11 o'clock at night, because that was when
Ryan got off work. You get woke up in the
middle of the night wanting to know if
your daughter's there, but you know
something's not right. Back then, we had pagers. We didn't have cell phones. So I was burning up her pager, trying to get her to answer. But her pager was in her car, so we knew something was wrong because Tiffany always
took her pager with her. But we didn't want
to believe the worst. - Tiffany didn't
know a stranger. She was always
talkative, bubbly, outgoing, and she
was quite feisty. She was opinionated. She didn't back down or
give in to the crowd. - Tiffany said what she thought, which came from her mama. We liked the same things. I mean, I was
Tiffany's best friend. - The two of us together
liked to cause trouble and stay up later
than we should. As we got a little older, we would go to some of the
little country dance places. - She had met Ryan at a
little disco type place and it was divided between
over 21 and under 21. - Ryan is somebody that
I went to school with. We both went to
Moore High School. We had the same social
circle of friends. He was kind of quiet,
somewhat reserved, but Tiffany and Ryan
instantly got along great. They clicked with each other. And from then out,
they were inseparable. - And about a year
after graduation, she goes, mom, I'm
gonna get married. I go, oh, you are? Yeah. - They had wine that
my grandpa had made. And that was something I
felt was really special. And I remember that it rained, but it didn't ruin the wedding. It was special because
my grandma used to say that the rain would
wash the bad stuff away. - After Tiffany and
Ryan got married, Tiffany was working
as a waitress at a Mexican restaurant. And she also had a part-time job as a salesperson in
an electronic place. And Tiffany would drive from
one side of Oklahoma City to the other side to
go to her second job because she wanted
to go to college. She wanted to work with plants
and do flower arrangements. - Ryan and Tiffany
were both hard workers. Ryan worked in a
manufacturing plant, and unfortunately, sometimes
their job hours meant they didn't get to spend
a lot of time together as newlyweds. But whenever they did,
they made the best of it. - And so she was
supposed to meet Ryan at the club that night, except Ryan made it and
Tiffany didn't show up on their three
month anniversary. - [Narrator] Tiffany's
mother and family meet at Tiffany and
Ryan's apartment and form a search party. They set out for the
area near the carwash. - There was nobody
on the streets. It was kind of dead because Bethany was a
very small community. They had maybe four
police officers. - [Narrator] There's no
sign of Tiffany anywhere, but with one call to
Oklahoma State Police, everything changes. (bird cawing) - Around I-40 and Gregory Road, locals noticed a
spot in the grass and that drawed their
attention to it. They stopped and found a
body of a white female. Once the crime scene agents
get there from Oklahoma City, they processed the scene. A white female was
laying face down. The only thing that she had on
was a top of a swimming suit. It was a homicide possibly
caused by strangulation because she had
marks on her neck. And that's when Bethany PD requested OSBI to assist
with the investigation. - The OSBI came to say
that a body had been found, but it was not positive
if it was Tiffany or not. The atmosphere was very tense. There was a lot of
things not being spoken that everybody was fearful of. They pulled Ryan aside
and spoke to him. That's when we knew that
it was even more not right. - Agents took a
picture of the body, showed it to Ryan, and
Ryan identified Tiffany. - I had a lot of anger. I was mad at God. I was mad at whoever did this, even though we didn't know
who or how many were involved. There was a lot of
sadness and disbelief. Everybody was trying
to process the grief and Kathy is the person that was really on
the police constantly with wanting answers,
wanting information. She led that charge. - I thought, why Tiff? She didn't do
anything to anyone. You can't imagine who
would want to murder her, but we were bound and determined to find
who did this to Tiffany. - That carwash is fairly busy. If somebody were to try
to have abducted Tiffany, there would've been
one hell of a fight. But the scene where her car
was at didn't show that. The car was unlocked. Nothing around that
scene was disturbed that led you to believe that there was any
altercation there. So the struggle that took
place didn't take place there. It took place in
at another stall, or she knew the person, and just got in the car with
them and talked to them. It's a case where anyone
could be the suspect. (somber orchestral music) - After Tiffany's murder, I had a lot of social anxiety to where I would get easily
panicked inside a grocery store. If somebody got
in line behind me, I would panic and
walk out of the store, leaving my stuff there. I had shut down a lot due
to my fear of the unknown. - During the autopsy, the medical examiner determined that the manner of
death was a homicide caused by strangulation. - [Narrator] The medical
examiner collects swabs for forensic testing, but the results
are inconclusive. - Without any physical
evidence to assist you, you go back to those who often are considered
the principle individuals in a homicide. So in this case,
we had a dead wife. Now, we have a living husband, and oftentimes, the
husband is responsible for the death of the wife. - The medical examiner
wasn't able to determine exact time of death. The last time she was seen
alive there at the carwash was shortly after six o'clock, and several coworkers saw
Ryan Johnston at work. He had a solid alibi that he
was at work from 3:00 to 11:00. - [Narrator] Investigators
focus on the carwash. - The witness who had
actually seen Tiffany washing her car around 6:00 p.m. He noticed three people
who were observing her. - The witness observed Tiffany walk from the stall she
was at to the coin machine, which was kind of in the
middle of the carwash. He said, as she was walking, the three subjects were kind
of watching her very close. - [Narrator] The
witness believes the three people at the carwash might have been involved
in Tiffany's murder. - We put out several
press releases through Crimestoppers
and through our tip line. And we had received hundreds
of tips of potential people who may fit the description of the people who were
seen at the carwash. - [Narrator] Police tracked
down this suspicious trio and questioned them
about the murder. - Alibis were looked at. Investigators even went one
step further and polygraphed, but the polygraphs
were all successful. They were at the car wash, but had nothing to do with
Tiffany's disappearance. - [Narrator] While police
search for Tiffany's killer, the community rallies
around her family. - Tiffany's death
affected a lot of people and the town of Anadarko is
a very community-minded town. My house was flocked with people because everyone come
to show their support. (pensive music) I was lost. A parent's not supposed
to bury their child. The children are supposed
to bury their parents. I wasn't thinking a whole bunch because I just needed
to get Tiffany's clothes taken care of. We had to have something
long sleeved and high neck because of the strangulation
around her neck. But one of my friends,
Patsy Miley, helped me. She did Tiffany's clothes for
her funeral. - Tiffany's funeral was hard. It took place in the same church
that three months earlier, her and Ryan got married in. I would say the
that's the first time I actually just
broke down and cried was there in my grandma's arms. Probably at least 400 people
can be held in that church. I believe there was
standing room only by the time the funeral
actually started. And I remember scanning
the crowd constantly, wondering who is that person
and who is this person? It was almost like everybody
was a suspect to me if I didn't know who they were. - The police had no
idea who to look for, so we decided we would
do our own investigating. One of my friends set up
a video with the funeral in case someone
looked suspicious. - [Narrator] Watching the
funeral on video is painful, but Kathy and her family
study every second of it, searching for anyone
that looks out of place. - But we didn't come up with
anything on that at all. - [Narrator] Five months
pass with no solid leads, but then, finally,
investigators get a break. - The owner of the carwash
called headquarters with a tip. He had seen news
reports of a gentleman that was arrested on
an abduction in Texas. He recognized that individual
as a customer of his carwash. - William Reece at one time (pensive music) resided in the
Anadarko, Oklahoma area. He was convicted of two
sexual crimes committed here in Cleveland County, and he was released in 1996. - When William
Reece left prison, he worked as a farrier,
shoeing horses. He did this in the
Oklahoma City area all the way down to
his home in Texas. - Two months prior to
Tiffany's murder in 1997, he was involved in the
abduction of Sandra Sapaugh. - Sandra Sapaugh
was 19-years-old and she was pregnant. She was parked at a waffle house and noticed that her
tires had been slashed. And Reece, pretending
to be a good samaritan, hopped up and said, hey,
I can help you with that. Do you need a ride? And at knife point, put her into his truck
and kidnapped her. They're driving down the
interstate I-45 in Houston. She noticed the back
door is unlocked and she's able to kick
out the back door, jump out of the moving
vehicle on the interstate, roll away and escape. - [Narrator] Sandra
was kidnapped in Texas two months before
Tiffany's murder. She wasn't able to ID
Reece as her abductor until three months after
Tiffany was killed. - With the help of a hypnotist
at a law enforcement agency, she was able to recall
specific details about Reece, about his truck that
were strong enough to pin this crime on Reece. - The owner of the carwash said he had seen Reece at the
carwash several times, had tried to start
conversation with him. And that Reece typically drove
a white dually pickup truck. Agents discovered that
Reece had used a payphone in the town of Yukon, which is a little bit
further west than Bethany. - This is in the days
before cell phones and the calling card was the way that people communicated via
long distance at payphones. We requested those calling
card records of William Reece, and there were two phone calls that were of
particular interest. One was on the day of, just an hour before
Tiffany was abducted. And that was made
from the La Quinta Inn at I-40 and Mustang Road. That location is probably
four or five miles away from the scene of the abduction
at the Sunshine Carwash. - [Narrator] Investigators
believe Reece is the killer, but their case is weak. - We have William
Reece in the area now, but we don't have
him at the car wash at the time of
Tiffany's disappearance. There was just no
physical evidence. There was no eye witness, there was nothing to corroborate that he was at the Sunshine
Carwash at that particular time. - [Narrator] With no solid
evidence against Reece, the investigation stalls. - The agents eventually
reached a point in time that they'd ran every
lead that they had and still didn't have enough
to establish probable cause of who committed the crime. There wasn't anything
left to follow up on. - [Narrator] So the
case of the newlywed who never showed up goes as cold as an
Oklahoma prairie on a moonless winter night. - I'd call the Bethany
PD and harass them, but they really had
ran out of leads and they didn't know what to do. So Tiffany's case was thrown
back in cold case files. And in the meantime, I
go back to work again to help cover the cost
of Tiffany's funeral. - [Narrator] While the case
goes cold for law enforcement, it's still red hot for Kathy. - I was really angry and bitter. Whoever had killed my baby, I really hated them. And I think that was what
got me through most of it was the anger and
the bitterness. - I had come to accept
that it wouldn't be solved. Kathy's the one
that led that fight. She wasn't going
to give up on this. - Every year after
Tiffany passed away, I would call our
newsperson and say, hey, the police aren't
doing their job. Can we do a
remembrance of Tiffany? They would say, people
get tired of hearing this. And I said, I don't care. There's gotta be
someone out there that knows something
about Tiffany's case. On every anniversary, a little trinket started showing
up on Tiffany's headstone. Rings, necklaces, little
homemade doily things, flowers. And I was on the
phone calling everyone that I knew would go out and no one knew who
was putting this stuff on Tiffany's grave
on those days. But I'm glad that someone
didn't forget Tiffany's case. - [Narrator] For 15 years, Tiffany's mother never gives up and she won't let
detectives give up either. - I was a very persistent mother that wanted justice
for my child. (phone ringing) I started calling
representatives that was supposed to
represent our districts. Hey, I want Tiffany's
case opened. What can you do about
getting it open? - Kathy Dobry really never
gave up this entire time and kept asking law enforcement
to take another look. Because of her, law enforcement started re-examining
Tiffany Johnston's case as a cold case. - [Narrator] The
constant pressure from Tiffany's determined
mother gets results. Oklahoma State Police
reopen this cold case. (pensive music) - One of the challenging
things from the very beginning is that there was nothing
of evidentiary value to help link anyone
to the crime. So one of the first things I did was pulled out every
box of evidence and I notice a buccal swab. We really didn't think we had
any DNA evidence at the time because it had
been tested earlier and there was no DNA profile. So I sat down with our
criminalist at our OSBI lab and I asked, with
modern technology, what can we do with it? And that's when the
criminalist says, I think we can retest it
and it's worth a shot. (pensive music) I received a laboratory
report from the criminalist. A couple of the swabs that were taken by
the medical examiner contained a partial
male DNA profile. - [Narrator] Swabs taken
during the autopsy finally, after 16 years, give detectives a partial
DNA profile of the killer. The swabs also show that
Tiffany was sexually assaulted. - The challenge with cold
cases is that over time, the DNA evidence has
broken down or degraded. So based on the portion
of the swab remaining, we were able to obtain
a partial DNA profile. And that was not
enough information to enter that profile
into the DNA database, known as CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System. - [Narrator] The 16
year old DNA profile is only half of the equation. Investigators need a suspect. - And that's when I
really hot and heavily went and chased down just about everybody in that
report again to interview. (pensive music) - I didn't know, but I've
got a DNA profile now. We went back and
re-identified, located, and obtained buccal
swabs from people who Tiffany worked with, many of the ex-boyfriends,
acquaintances, even people who at the
carwash at the time that she was there. We went as far as
Ryan Johnston himself, even though he had a solid alibi and he cleared the polygraph, we still took a buccal
swab from him to compare. - But all of the
male DNA profiles that were submitted from
the people of interest at the crime scene
and the husband, they were all excluded from the partial profile
of the rectal swab. - [Narrator] The
detectives have eliminated all the suspects from the
original investigation, except one. - We had a multitude of people who could be considered
persons of interest, but William Reece who the
carwash owner identified and who was a very strong
person of interest in the case was the only person that
hadn't been eliminated. (pensive orchestral music) While I was evaluating
who William Reece was in the past criminal
activities he was involved in, I discovered that he's
a person of interest in other abductions
in the Texas area. - [Narrator] In addition
to the attempted abduction of Sandra Sapaugh
in May 1997, Reece was a suspect in a
string of missing person cases that occurred within weeks
of Tiffany Johnston's murder. - On August 17th,
1997, Jessica Cain, a 17-year-old high school
student went missing. - She loved theater,
she loved performing. And in fact, she had
just left a cast party with her theater
friends at a restaurant. - But after the party, she was last seen traveling
south from that restaurant and had not been seen since. On July 15th, 1997, Kelli Cox, a criminal justice major
there in the Denton area just completed a tour of
the Denton dispatch center. When she left, she realized she locked
the keys in her car and went to a payphone to call
her boyfriend for assistance. And she was never
seen after that point. - Kelli Cox was 20-years-old. She was a student at the
University of North Texas. She was also a young mother. There were suspicions
that Reece was involved, but no hard evidence to
link him to either case. In looking at the pattern
of women that went missing, this predator is able to get
them away from their friends or whoever they
may have been with. They're all vulnerable,
alone, and young. - [Narrator] The quest to solve
Tiffany Johnston's cold case might have led investigators
to a serial killer. - After the male DNA
profile was generated and we had eliminated
all the other people that had been potential
persons of interest, we reached out to the Texas
Rangers to obtain a buccal swab. And if I'm a betting man, I bet William Reece is gonna
be the contributor of it. (pensive orchestral music) - [Narrator] State investigators
compare Reece's DNA to what was found
at the crime scene. It's a partial match. - William Reece and all of
his paternal male relatives could not be excluded
from the partial profile of the rectal swab, which means that William Reece or any one of his male relatives could have contributed
to that profile. - At first, it kind
of disappointed me in that I was really
wanting to slam dunk an exact match on the DNA. - [Narrator] Even though
it's not a perfect match, it is progress. Investigators need time to
build their case against Reece. And for once, time
is on their side. Reece is locked away, serving a 60 year
sentence in Texas for kidnapping Sandra Sapaugh. - We were fairly confident that William Reece
was the killer, but we needed to get
the confession from him. (slow music) The Texas Rangers went
to the institution that William Reece
was confined in for the aggravated
kidnapping of Sandra Sapaugh to interview him on several
cases in the Texas area, and also the Tiffany
Johnston homicide. (pensive orchestral music) During that interrogation, the Texas Rangers
informed William Reece that Oklahoma has DNA that
links him to Tiffany Johnston, and that potentially, there could be a death penalty
case that comes out of that. - [Narrator] The Texas
Rangers tell Reece they won't ask for
the death penalty if he cooperates in
their open cases. - William Reece reaches a point that he confessed to those
other missing person cases in Texas. And when they talked about
Tiffany Johnston's homicide, William Reece admits that
he was at the carwash and that he'd abducted
and killed Tiffany. - [Narrator] If only
to spare his life, Reece gives
investigators his version of what happened that night
nearly 20 years earlier. - William Reece said that he
and Tiffany had an altercation. He had put her inside
the horse trailer that was behind his
white dually pickup. And inside the horse trailer, he ended up raping her and she ended up
being killed there. (ominous music) - Reece blamed Tiffany
for being rude to him. He said he had like
sprayed her with water at some point from the carwash, and she yelled at him, and then they quote
unquote got into it. - But the scene where her
car at didn't show that. Nothing around that
scene was disturbed that led you to believe that there was any
altercation there. The first thought
goes to my mind was that it was
quick and violent and there wasn't time
for any struggle, or she knew the person and just got in the car
with them and talked to him. - Lynn Williams
came to the house to tell us that he had
William Reece as his suspect. I couldn't believe it because
I knew who William Reece was. He would come in the
restaurant where I worked and he would sit off to himself. He wouldn't join anybody. I didn't know who he was until I had went to pick up
my ironing at his mom's house. And so she introduced me to him. His mother was Patsy Miley. - [Narrator] Patsy Miley
was the same friend who prepared Tiffany's
funeral clothes. - And when Tiffany was murdered, Patsy called and took
time out of her day to give her condolences
for Tiffany's death. And I didn't think
anything else about it. - [Narrator] Police
have to wonder if Tiffany recognized Reece and let her guard down
when he approached her. Kathy also now realizes
that the mysterious visitor who left keepsakes once
a year at Tiffany's grave might have been Patsy Miley. - Around 2014, the
trinkets stopped because that was around
the time Patsy died. I think Patsy put the
trinkets on Tiffany's grave for her own peace of mind,
for her son killing Tiffany because I really believed
that she knew he did it. - [Narrator] After admitting
to killing Tiffany, Reece also says he knows
exactly what happened to missing women Jessica
Cain and Kelli Cox. - Now, with this being a
potential death penalty case, William Reece offered
to provide the location to where he buried them. (pensive orchestral music) - I was out covering
news of the day and I got a call from
the assignment editor at my former television station, who said that the
newsroom received a tip that there was a lot
of police activity and a lot of digging going
on in this remote field off of I-45 southeast of Houston known as the Texas
killing fields. Investigators were
digging up the field and my assignment editor had
grown up in Southeast Houston, so she remembers these girls
when they first went missing. So that was really
the first time when we knew there was
something big here. Could this be the
body of Jessica Cain? Could this be the
body of Kelli Cox? Could these be answers that these families have been
looking for for so many years? - [Narrator] For weeks, the
Texas Rangers come up empty. So they turn to the one
person who can help them. - William Reece agreed to assist and arrangements
were made for him to be released from
the penal institution to accompany the Texas Rangers. William Reece led
him to the sites where he buried both bodies. I'm thinking that just
adds more ammunition for our case in Oklahoma and getting justice for Tiffany. - [Narrator] With
Reece's trial looming, Tiffany's mother has
to make a choice. - The district attorney
called to tell us that they were filing
charges on William Reece, and they would like
to know what I wanted. And I said, I want
the death penalty. I can't forgive Reece
for killing Tiffany. The Bible says that
an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth, and I'm a firm believer in that. (pensive music) - [Narrator] William
Reece is sent from Texas to Oklahoma to face
murder charges. Since prosecutors in Oklahoma are asking for
the death penalty, Reece pleads not guilty. After years of delays,
his trial begins. (pensive orchestral music) - The opening day was
definitely the hardest for me just because I was intimidated. William Reece had a
connection to our family. He had to have known Tiffany. I was questioning
if at any point, Reece had ever seen me before. I sat right there on the
front row the first day and I couldn't even look at him. - And of course,
they cleaned him up. He didn't have shaggy hair and he didn't have
his shaggy beard. And you look at him
and you're going, oh, I'd like to
get ahold of you. How can you sit here and plead not guilty
when we know you did it? - I've been trying to figure out what can possibly
motivate Reece. Definitely, power
drives William Reece. I don't know if it
was never about sex, but it was definitely
about control. - [Narrator] The one
woman who did survive, Sandra Sapaugh, testifies
at Tiffany's trial. - She gave me strength
through that trial, seeing how she
talked with purpose. In the first few
days of the trial, I could just feel
somebody looking at me. And anytime I would look up, Reece would just
continue to stare at me. I would look away. It was uncomfortable. It was intimidating. But after her testimony
and seeing her strength, from that point on, if
he looked over there, if he tried intimidating, I would stare right back. He would look away
fairly quickly. He couldn't maintain
that eye contact. (pensive orchestral music) On the last day when the case
was handed over to the jury, we were told this
could be an hour, this could be 12 hours,
and don't go far. There was just a lot of chatter about how long do
you think it'll take? And when it came back so fast, just, it was this
wave of electricity went through everyone
that was there. - [Foreperson] We, the jury, impaneled and sworn in
the above entitled cause do upon our oaths
find as follows. The defendant is guilty. - The jury came back
with a guilty verdict. William Reece was convicted
of first degree murder and kidnapping. A weight lifted off my chest that this one is finally over and I'm looking out of
the corner of my eye, not staring at Tiffany
Johnston's parents and her husband. And just seeing them just
take the big sigh of relief. It's just satisfying that with all the work
you've put into everything, justice was reached for Tiffany and her family knew it as well. - All rise. Good morning, please be seated. - [Narrator] On
August 19th, 2021, Reece is sentenced. - 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. - It was the Tiffany
Johnston case that led to his confession
in the other Texas cases. A lot of that was to do with
her mother, Kathy Dobry, who really never gave
up this entire time and kept asking law enforcement
to take another look. - We've waited for 24
years for this day. It gets hard and
you want to give up, but you're the one that's
gonna have to be out there for your person, your relative, your sister, your
daughter, your son. Don't give up. After all this time, I
got justice for Tiffany, and that was my main thing was
to get justice for Tiffany.
