"Murder 360" Losing Streak Lois

1 00:00:02,920 --> 00:00:04,120 <i>Police say this surveillance video shows</i> 2 00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:05,560 <i>a cunning killer on the prowl.</i> 3 00:00:05,680 --> 00:00:07,160 She's calm. 4 00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:09,320 <i>She has the appearance of a grandmother.</i> 5 00:00:09,440 --> 00:00:12,160 The U.S. Marshals Service today posted a $5,000 reward 6 00:00:12,280 --> 00:00:14,800 <i>for information about a fugitive grandmother.</i> 7 00:00:14,920 --> 00:00:16,920 <i>Here we have the grandma killer.</i> 8 00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:18,720 <i>She had a gambling problem,</i> 9 00:00:18,840 --> 00:00:19,880 and things spiraled out of control. 10 00:00:21,560 --> 00:00:23,320 <i>U.S. Marshals are actively involved</i> 11 00:00:23,440 --> 00:00:25,760 in a national search for this dangerous fugitive. 12 00:00:25,880 --> 00:00:27,520 <i>It is surprising to see somebody</i> 13 00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:29,440 immediately go off on a gambling jaunt 14 00:00:29,560 --> 00:00:30,960 <i>after they kill two people.</i> 15 00:00:31,080 --> 00:00:32,840 <i>Is she looking for another person</i> 16 00:00:32,960 --> 00:00:35,000 <i>to befriend, the next victim?</i> 17 00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:36,560 My fear? 18 00:00:36,680 --> 00:00:38,200 Who is this suspect? 19 00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:40,320 <i>Do we have a serial killer on our hands?</i> 20 00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:44,640 <i>I've had some wild cases that I have covered,</i> 21 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:47,200 but I've never seen one like this before. 22 00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:48,200 <i>She is armed.</i> 23 00:00:48,320 --> 00:00:49,640 <i>She is dangerous.</i> 24 00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:51,680 <i>And she's a killer on the loose.</i> 25 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:59,074 26 00:01:00,760 --> 00:01:03,480 <i>And she kept repeating, "He's going to kill me."</i> 27 00:01:03,600 --> 00:01:05,000 Then he shoots my daughter. 28 00:01:07,440 --> 00:01:09,200 <i>That's about the only time in my career</i> 29 00:01:09,320 --> 00:01:10,680 that I just wanted to shoot him. 30 00:01:19,480 --> 00:01:20,680 <i>You can run.</i> 31 00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:22,240 You can't hide. 32 00:01:39,840 --> 00:01:42,280 So what I think is most important is to understand, 33 00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:45,000 Lee County as a whole, it's 1,200 square miles 34 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:47,240 of land and sea. 35 00:01:47,360 --> 00:01:49,760 <i>We dedicate our lives to making sure these people</i> 36 00:01:49,880 --> 00:01:51,040 <i>and everyone is safe.</i> 37 00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:53,320 So this incident, it rocked us. 38 00:02:35,920 --> 00:02:38,920 <i>I was a detective in the Homicide Unit.</i> 39 00:02:39,040 --> 00:02:41,240 And I received a call from my sergeant, 40 00:02:41,360 --> 00:02:43,760 who told me they had a homicide on Fort Myers Beach, 41 00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:46,560 and he needed me to respond. 42 00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:49,400 He just said an elderly female was found 43 00:02:49,520 --> 00:02:54,000 deceased inside of her condo timeshare apartment. 44 00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:56,160 <i>Driving to the scene initially,</i> 45 00:02:56,280 --> 00:02:58,120 <i>my mind was going from one end of the spectrum</i> 46 00:02:58,240 --> 00:03:00,920 to the other of, okay, who might have done this? 47 00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:02,520 What could have happened? 48 00:03:02,640 --> 00:03:05,000 <i>What went wrong?</i> 49 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:08,320 So it was, at that point, for me, a real whodunit. 50 00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:14,840 <i>Once I arrived on scene, we did a walkthrough</i> 51 00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:16,600 <i>of the crime scene.</i> 52 00:03:16,720 --> 00:03:18,640 <i>I noticed that a towel was placed at the bottom</i> 53 00:03:18,760 --> 00:03:20,640 <i>of the bathroom door.</i> 54 00:03:20,760 --> 00:03:23,120 <i>It had been rolled up and kind of wedged underneath it.</i> 55 00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:25,600 And so that said to me, you know, initially, 56 00:03:25,720 --> 00:03:28,640 okay, someone's trying to hide either the sight, the sound, 57 00:03:28,760 --> 00:03:31,040 the smell of the homicide. 58 00:03:32,200 --> 00:03:34,200 <i>Once I entered the bathroom,</i> 59 00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:36,160 I noticed that there was a pillow. 60 00:03:36,280 --> 00:03:39,440 It appeared to be from the bed itself that had a defect in it, 61 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:41,640 <i>consistent with being a gunshot</i> 62 00:03:41,760 --> 00:03:42,920 <i>and being in close contact</i> 63 00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:45,440 <i>with a firearm as it was fired.</i> 64 00:03:48,040 --> 00:03:49,440 It was from the back. 65 00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:52,720 So, obviously, it was, to me, taken by surprise. 66 00:03:54,440 --> 00:03:59,640 The fatal .22-caliber pillow silenced, bam. 67 00:04:02,040 --> 00:04:04,480 Shoots two rounds into the ceiling, 68 00:04:04,600 --> 00:04:05,600 then into our victim. 69 00:04:09,960 --> 00:04:13,560 It appeared, after investigating the scene, 70 00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:16,720 that it was, in fact, a homicide victim 71 00:04:16,840 --> 00:04:19,320 suffering two gunshot wounds. 72 00:04:19,440 --> 00:04:22,600 And our office was told of this, 73 00:04:22,720 --> 00:04:24,760 and we stood by to provide any assistance 74 00:04:24,880 --> 00:04:27,120 we could to the Lee County Sheriff's Office investigators. 75 00:04:29,600 --> 00:04:33,160 <i>We know that she has suffered from a close gunshot wound</i> 76 00:04:33,280 --> 00:04:36,040 <i>that appeared to be muffled by a pillow,</i> 77 00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:37,880 <i>and she had been covered up with some sort</i> 78 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:40,240 of blanket or cloth. 79 00:04:40,360 --> 00:04:42,160 <i>That killer takes the victim's driver's license,</i> 80 00:04:42,280 --> 00:04:44,840 credit cards, her identity, her vehicle. 81 00:04:44,960 --> 00:04:47,000 <i>The first thing we thought of,</i> 82 00:04:47,120 --> 00:04:50,480 was it a robbery or a theft gone wrong of a tourist? 83 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:02,680 <i>She was spreading the ashes</i> 84 00:05:02,800 --> 00:05:05,680 <i>of a friend's deceased husband on Sanibel.</i> 85 00:05:05,800 --> 00:05:08,400 <i>And, yeah, she had been divorced herself</i> 86 00:05:08,520 --> 00:05:10,400 fairly recently and was starting over 87 00:05:10,520 --> 00:05:12,680 down here in Florida 88 00:05:12,800 --> 00:05:14,800 <i>and renting a condo on Fort Myers Beach</i> 89 00:05:14,920 --> 00:05:16,640 <i>as a more vacation spot.</i> 90 00:05:18,680 --> 00:05:21,040 <i>She was a very trusting,</i> 91 00:05:21,160 --> 00:05:23,360 <i>generous, gregarious individual</i> 92 00:05:23,480 --> 00:05:26,080 who would take somebody under her wing 93 00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:27,640 and be very generous with them. 94 00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:37,080 <i>A couple things that I first noticed when we got there,</i> 95 00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:39,480 the spare bedroom and the spare bathroom looked 96 00:05:39,600 --> 00:05:41,640 like they had been used. 97 00:05:41,760 --> 00:05:43,840 <i>There's only one person in a room,</i> 98 00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:45,720 <i>you would think they would only use one bathroom,</i> 99 00:05:45,840 --> 00:05:46,960 <i>maybe use both.</i> 100 00:05:47,080 --> 00:05:48,800 <i>But then again, the bedroom,</i> 101 00:05:48,920 --> 00:05:50,680 <i>the second guest bedroom was-- also looked like someone</i> 102 00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:52,760 had slept in the bed. 103 00:05:52,880 --> 00:05:54,320 I knew that there was only one person 104 00:05:54,440 --> 00:05:56,160 that checked into the room. 105 00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:00,200 <i>The Sheriff's Office immediately goes</i> 106 00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:03,720 <i>to the condominium owners, the front desk,</i> 107 00:06:03,840 --> 00:06:07,120 and requests to look for video. 108 00:06:07,240 --> 00:06:08,840 <i>It's the simplest,</i> 109 00:06:08,960 --> 00:06:11,400 <i>most direct, immediate form of evidence</i> 110 00:06:11,520 --> 00:06:14,720 that they could start working their investigation from. 111 00:06:14,840 --> 00:06:17,920 Remarkably, the video is perfect, 112 00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:20,280 <i>perfect clarity.</i> 113 00:06:20,400 --> 00:06:22,480 <i>And what we find through the video</i> 114 00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:24,560 <i>is our victim</i> 115 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:29,240 <i>and another white, middle-aged female going back and forth</i> 116 00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:32,800 from the victim's condominium room on a number of occasions 117 00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:34,760 over a course of a few days. 118 00:06:36,880 --> 00:06:38,840 <i>We see them leaving, we see them entering,</i> 119 00:06:38,960 --> 00:06:40,280 and then all of a sudden, we don't see 120 00:06:40,400 --> 00:06:42,640 our victim leaving the condominium anymore. 121 00:06:48,160 --> 00:06:51,560 <i>This woman, we see her back and forth on the videos</i> 122 00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:54,080 <i>numerous times, in and out of the room.</i> 123 00:06:54,200 --> 00:06:58,800 <i>We see her also at some point seem to be not distraught,</i> 124 00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:00,600 <i>but certainly thinking things through.</i> 125 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:04,680 <i>She's almost pacing on the landing of the hallway</i> 126 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:08,160 <i>outside the condo room.</i> 127 00:07:08,280 --> 00:07:12,240 It certainly shows somebody who's maybe thinking 128 00:07:12,360 --> 00:07:14,320 of many, many things at one time, 129 00:07:14,440 --> 00:07:17,760 maybe not fully aware that she may be being recorded. 130 00:07:19,160 --> 00:07:21,480 <i>And that begins, really, the investigation.</i> 131 00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:23,920 <i>Who is that other woman with our victim?</i> 132 00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:41,400 <i>The Sheriff's Office checked other videos</i> 133 00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:43,920 <i>on Fort Myers Beach, and they were able to detect</i> 134 00:07:44,040 --> 00:07:46,000 <i>the victim and this woman together</i> 135 00:07:46,120 --> 00:07:48,280 <i>at the Smoking Oyster Brewery,</i> 136 00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:50,200 which is very close by to the condominium. 137 00:07:53,560 --> 00:07:55,320 <i>When I look at the video of them,</i> 138 00:07:55,440 --> 00:07:57,320 <i>it looks like they've been friends forever.</i> 139 00:07:57,440 --> 00:08:00,080 <i>I mean, it looks like maybe two women that came</i> 140 00:08:00,200 --> 00:08:02,560 <i>to Fort Myers Beach together to have a good time,</i> 141 00:08:02,680 --> 00:08:06,120 <i>get away, spend a few days in the beautiful weather,</i> 142 00:08:06,240 --> 00:08:07,920 the fun atmosphere. 143 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:10,080 They look like they had been friends forever. 144 00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:13,480 <i>She's somebody that, to me,</i> 145 00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:15,880 <i>would just blend in with everyone else.</i> 146 00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:18,000 She does not stand out in any particular way. 147 00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:23,120 <i>The woman became a suspect.</i> 148 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:25,880 <i>Let's look at our suspect.</i> 149 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:27,800 You know why she's able to fly under the radar? 150 00:08:27,920 --> 00:08:31,240 Because she looks like anyone's family member, 151 00:08:31,360 --> 00:08:33,320 grandmother, whose identity, at this point in time, 152 00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:34,600 we don't know. 153 00:08:35,920 --> 00:08:37,680 <i>Then it dawned on me.</i> 154 00:08:37,800 --> 00:08:41,760 The night before the homicide, our agency found a vehicle 155 00:08:41,880 --> 00:08:44,480 related to another homicide investigation 156 00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:47,040 that was currently underway in the Minnesota area. 157 00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:52,080 <i>It was located about a mile away from where our scene was.</i> 158 00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:54,960 And so it dawned on me, okay, 159 00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:57,320 we had that call a couple days ago. 160 00:08:57,440 --> 00:08:58,680 Let me get a picture 161 00:08:58,800 --> 00:09:00,840 of the person of interest for that case. 162 00:09:00,960 --> 00:09:02,640 And once I received a picture 163 00:09:02,760 --> 00:09:05,160 from Dodge County Sheriff's Office up in Minnesota 164 00:09:05,280 --> 00:09:07,160 of who their person of interest was, 165 00:09:07,280 --> 00:09:09,400 I compared it to our video surveillance, 166 00:09:09,520 --> 00:09:11,320 and they were the same person. 167 00:09:13,200 --> 00:09:15,680 <i>We were all just kind of dumbfounded</i> 168 00:09:15,800 --> 00:09:17,320 and speechless for a minute. 169 00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:19,240 We were like, okay, this appears to be our person. 170 00:09:21,480 --> 00:09:24,200 So that way, we had good information, 171 00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:27,120 pretty much from the beginning, of who we might be looking for. 172 00:09:38,200 --> 00:09:42,120 <i>Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes.</i> 173 00:09:43,120 --> 00:09:45,000 <i>My name is Jeffrey Jackson.</i> 174 00:09:45,120 --> 00:09:47,480 <i>I'm the former managing editor</i> 175 00:09:47,600 --> 00:09:49,280 <i>of the "Owatonna People's Press"</i> 176 00:09:49,400 --> 00:09:51,400 <i>in Owatonna, Minnesota.</i> 177 00:09:52,880 --> 00:09:56,560 <i>Blooming Prairie is a small, small town,</i> 178 00:09:56,680 --> 00:09:59,600 <i>less than 2,000 people.</i> 179 00:09:59,720 --> 00:10:05,280 I've lived in this community for... 180 00:10:06,760 --> 00:10:08,760 16 years now. 181 00:10:08,880 --> 00:10:11,920 And I can count on one hand 182 00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:14,360 the number of murders we have had. 183 00:10:14,480 --> 00:10:18,080 <i>It just doesn't happen here.</i> 184 00:10:23,320 --> 00:10:27,200 <i>The incident occurred right outside of Blooming Prairie</i> 185 00:10:27,320 --> 00:10:29,240 in Dodge County, Minnesota. 186 00:10:32,200 --> 00:10:34,600 The body had been there for some time. 187 00:10:36,480 --> 00:10:37,800 Multiple gunshot wounds. 188 00:10:41,400 --> 00:10:44,280 <i>His body had been covered up with a blanket.</i> 189 00:10:44,400 --> 00:10:47,040 It would have been a gruesome sight for anybody. 190 00:10:48,400 --> 00:10:50,800 <i>The community was shocked.</i> 191 00:11:08,640 --> 00:11:12,280 Their family, naturally, when this first started, 192 00:11:12,400 --> 00:11:16,240 <i>it was a shock to them what had happened.</i> 193 00:11:21,040 --> 00:11:24,800 This was a couple 194 00:11:24,920 --> 00:11:28,840 that could have been any couple in Blooming Prairie. 195 00:11:28,960 --> 00:11:31,440 <i>They were just a normal couple.</i> 196 00:11:31,560 --> 00:11:33,560 <i>They had children.</i> 197 00:11:33,680 --> 00:11:35,040 <i>They had grandchildren.</i> 198 00:11:35,160 --> 00:11:37,920 <i>They would go to their grandchildren's</i> 199 00:11:38,040 --> 00:11:39,640 <i>sporting events, support them,</i> 200 00:11:39,760 --> 00:11:41,160 <i>support the community.</i> 201 00:11:41,280 --> 00:11:42,960 <i>They were known in the community,</i> 202 00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:45,000 <i>liked in the community.</i> 203 00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:49,320 There was nothing that would have made a person guess 204 00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:51,440 that this would have happened. 205 00:11:54,360 --> 00:11:58,560 <i>Beforehand, Lois had sent texts to people,</i> 206 00:11:58,680 --> 00:12:01,520 saying that David was not well, 207 00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:03,240 <i>that he was under the weather,</i> 208 00:12:03,360 --> 00:12:05,360 <i>and that he would not be able to go to work</i> 209 00:12:05,480 --> 00:12:08,120 <i>or be able to do several things like that,</i> 210 00:12:08,240 --> 00:12:10,320 <i>that he was going to be gone for a while.</i> 211 00:12:10,440 --> 00:12:12,960 <i>When she--when people would ask her, "Is he okay?"</i> 212 00:12:13,080 --> 00:12:14,400 <i>Yeah, yeah.</i> 213 00:12:14,520 --> 00:12:18,120 He's just-- he's needing to get better. 214 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:28,640 <i>It was well over a week</i> 215 00:12:28,760 --> 00:12:31,680 that people began to get a little suspicious. 216 00:12:31,800 --> 00:12:32,960 They wondered, where is he? 217 00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:34,440 They couldn't-- they would call. 218 00:12:34,560 --> 00:12:36,040 They couldn't-- they couldn't reach him. 219 00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:37,720 They couldn't contact him. 220 00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:39,880 <i>And, finally, a friend called</i> 221 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:41,720 <i>the Blooming Prairie Police Department</i> 222 00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:44,840 <i>and asked for a welfare check.</i> 223 00:12:44,960 --> 00:12:49,040 They just wanted to make sure, is he okay? 224 00:12:49,160 --> 00:12:51,400 And that's when police discovered his body. 225 00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:56,680 <i>What was being alleged or being suspected</i> 226 00:12:56,800 --> 00:12:58,600 <i>from the very beginning</i> 227 00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:02,080 was that Lois had killed David and then taken off. 228 00:13:04,360 --> 00:13:06,280 <i>She kills her husband in Minnesota.</i> 229 00:13:06,400 --> 00:13:07,600 <i>And where does she end up?</i> 230 00:13:07,720 --> 00:13:09,600 <i>Fort Myers, Florida.</i> 231 00:13:22,080 --> 00:13:23,560 We have a murder investigation 232 00:13:23,680 --> 00:13:25,760 going on in Minnesota. 233 00:13:25,880 --> 00:13:28,800 At the same exact time now, 234 00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:31,360 <i>we have a murder investigation going on</i> 235 00:13:31,480 --> 00:13:33,560 <i>in Fort Myers Beach, Florida.</i> 236 00:13:34,960 --> 00:13:37,080 <i>My fear--</i> 237 00:13:37,200 --> 00:13:40,600 do we have a serial killer on our hands? 238 00:13:40,720 --> 00:13:42,040 <i>We're getting calls from everywhere,</i> 239 00:13:42,160 --> 00:13:44,160 because people are afraid. 240 00:13:44,280 --> 00:13:47,000 Is there a killer on the loose? 241 00:13:47,120 --> 00:13:48,280 <i>Are the people safe locally?</i> 242 00:13:48,400 --> 00:13:49,720 <i>People are afraid.</i> 243 00:13:49,840 --> 00:13:52,560 It rocked this county. 244 00:13:52,680 --> 00:13:55,080 We want to gather information as much as we can 245 00:13:55,200 --> 00:13:57,520 from Minnesota so that we can find 246 00:13:57,640 --> 00:13:59,000 and track down the person that's responsible 247 00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:01,240 for this horrific crime. 248 00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:04,400 <i>But also we don't want to release information</i> 249 00:14:04,520 --> 00:14:07,160 <i>that could ruin their investigation or ours.</i> 250 00:14:07,280 --> 00:14:10,320 We developed a rapport, started communicating 251 00:14:10,440 --> 00:14:13,160 basically nonstop over the next couple weeks, 252 00:14:13,280 --> 00:14:15,080 just going over things, 253 00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:17,680 providing them information, and vice versa. 254 00:14:17,800 --> 00:14:21,640 <i>We actually received photos of their crime scene up there</i> 255 00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:24,040 <i>and compared it to what we had down here.</i> 256 00:14:27,120 --> 00:14:29,040 <i>They were very similar with what happened</i> 257 00:14:29,160 --> 00:14:30,800 <i>up there and down here.</i> 258 00:14:30,920 --> 00:14:32,640 <i>The way she left the body,</i> 259 00:14:32,760 --> 00:14:35,200 the way she stuffed towels under the door. 260 00:14:35,320 --> 00:14:38,800 That solidified for us that, okay, 261 00:14:38,920 --> 00:14:40,720 the person who was responsible up there 262 00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:44,760 was also responsible for the homicide down here. 263 00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:49,400 <i>Not only does she shoot the victim,</i> 264 00:14:49,520 --> 00:14:51,240 <i>but then she covers up.</i> 265 00:14:51,360 --> 00:14:54,160 <i>She starts to do her own cover-up of the crime scene,</i> 266 00:14:54,280 --> 00:14:57,520 <i>puts the towel by the door so there's no odor coming out.</i> 267 00:14:57,640 --> 00:14:59,000 She was cold. 268 00:14:59,120 --> 00:15:01,040 She was calculated. 269 00:15:01,160 --> 00:15:03,280 She staged that crime scene. 270 00:15:03,400 --> 00:15:05,120 She knew exactly what she was doing. 271 00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:15,200 <i>It appeared to me, based upon the information</i> 272 00:15:15,320 --> 00:15:17,200 that we were given by the Minnesota detectives, 273 00:15:17,320 --> 00:15:20,720 that there was obviously some family difficulties. 274 00:15:20,840 --> 00:15:22,360 <i>She appeared to have been struggling</i> 275 00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:24,800 <i>with her mental health, possibly,</i> 276 00:15:24,920 --> 00:15:27,280 <i>and financial situations at home.</i> 277 00:15:27,400 --> 00:15:30,320 All the stresses that it seemed as if it just 278 00:15:30,440 --> 00:15:33,320 kind of came to a point one day. 279 00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:35,400 <i>And it seemed like she just snapped.</i> 280 00:15:38,480 --> 00:15:42,880 <i>When the sheriff of Dodge County</i> 281 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:46,560 first reported Lois, 282 00:15:46,680 --> 00:15:48,680 that she was a person of interest, 283 00:15:48,800 --> 00:15:51,800 one of the things that he mentioned was 284 00:15:51,920 --> 00:15:55,200 the fact that she had a history 285 00:15:55,320 --> 00:15:57,960 of going to casinos. 286 00:15:58,080 --> 00:16:01,080 <i>And that piqued our interest</i> 287 00:16:01,200 --> 00:16:03,040 <i>because we weren't quite certain</i> 288 00:16:03,160 --> 00:16:05,040 <i>why he would have said that.</i> 289 00:16:05,160 --> 00:16:08,000 So I remember going to the courthouse, 290 00:16:08,120 --> 00:16:11,120 <i>and that's when I stumbled across some documents</i> 291 00:16:11,240 --> 00:16:14,120 <i>concerning an older sister of Lois's.</i> 292 00:16:14,240 --> 00:16:17,720 <i>She was in the court documents described as having</i> 293 00:16:17,840 --> 00:16:21,800 the cognitive level of a ten-year-old. 294 00:16:23,480 --> 00:16:26,480 And in 2012, 295 00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:30,080 Lois applied to become her guardian, 296 00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:33,880 her legal guardian, 297 00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:37,720 because she was a vulnerable adult. 298 00:16:39,240 --> 00:16:43,840 And by 2015, the Human Services 299 00:16:43,960 --> 00:16:48,680 here in Steele County and in Dodge County petitioned 300 00:16:48,800 --> 00:16:53,440 <i>the court to try to get Lois removed as guardian</i> 301 00:16:53,560 --> 00:16:56,480 because they said there was evidence 302 00:16:56,600 --> 00:17:00,920 that she was taking money from her sister 303 00:17:01,040 --> 00:17:03,640 and using it to go gambling. 304 00:17:05,360 --> 00:17:08,120 <i>The court determined that Lois had taken</i> 305 00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:12,080 just over $100,000 of her sister's money. 306 00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:14,840 <i>Wow.</i> 307 00:17:14,960 --> 00:17:16,600 <i>It was amazing.</i> 308 00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:28,320 <i>There was a knowledge within the community</i> 309 00:17:28,440 --> 00:17:33,120 that Lois had an issue. 310 00:17:33,240 --> 00:17:37,480 And that issue was gambling. 311 00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:44,680 And they were well aware that she had that problem. 312 00:17:48,080 --> 00:17:53,360 <i>Diamond Jo's Casino, that Lois frequented a lot,</i> 313 00:17:53,480 --> 00:17:57,000 <i>that's about an hour away.</i> 314 00:17:57,120 --> 00:18:02,880 <i>There was a history of depression in her family.</i> 315 00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:04,840 This could have been her way of trying 316 00:18:04,960 --> 00:18:08,520 to find fulfillment by going out 317 00:18:08,640 --> 00:18:11,000 <i>and gambling the way she did.</i> 318 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:14,360 <i>She had a gambling problem,</i> 319 00:18:14,480 --> 00:18:15,920 and things spiraled out of control. 320 00:18:19,240 --> 00:18:21,960 <i>Once she had shot and killed her husband,</i> 321 00:18:22,080 --> 00:18:28,480 Lois--the very day that his body was discovered, 322 00:18:28,600 --> 00:18:32,520 Lois had taken money out of his accounts 323 00:18:32,640 --> 00:18:36,360 and transferred them or wrote checks on his accounts. 324 00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:39,520 <i>She cashed them, put them in her account,</i> 325 00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:41,280 and went gambling again. 326 00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:09,280 Even on her way down to Florida to try to hide out, 327 00:19:09,400 --> 00:19:15,320 she was stopping at casinos and spending money 328 00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:19,120 that she had taken from her husband 329 00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:22,000 after she had shot and killed him. 330 00:19:22,120 --> 00:19:26,280 <i>She was interested in the money</i> 331 00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:29,840 to feed her need to gamble. 332 00:19:29,960 --> 00:19:33,840 That was her need, her addiction. 333 00:19:46,120 --> 00:19:49,160 <i>She's at the bar, and she's smiling,</i> 334 00:19:49,280 --> 00:19:52,920 <i>and she's befriending our victim.</i> 335 00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:59,280 <i>Now, why is our victim befriended by the suspect?</i> 336 00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:01,640 And what was that about? 337 00:20:01,760 --> 00:20:04,160 <i>There's a very general resemblance</i> 338 00:20:04,280 --> 00:20:08,360 <i>as far as age and race and color of hair,</i> 339 00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:11,600 maybe build somewhat. 340 00:20:11,720 --> 00:20:14,960 And it appears that Lois Riess took advantage 341 00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:19,360 of a very kind, good-natured, lovely person. 342 00:20:19,480 --> 00:20:22,280 <i>It looked like she had done it to assume</i> 343 00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:24,800 <i>a new identity of the woman that she killed,</i> 344 00:20:24,920 --> 00:20:26,640 <i>because she was on the run.</i> 345 00:20:29,160 --> 00:20:30,760 She had an agenda. 346 00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:33,160 She had a plan. 347 00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:36,600 She wanted to steal this woman's identity. 348 00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:39,480 <i>Obviously, she had her husband's car.</i> 349 00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:43,600 <i>And she knew that soon, that sometime,</i> 350 00:20:43,720 --> 00:20:45,360 <i>that would be discovered.</i> 351 00:20:45,480 --> 00:20:46,920 <i>She had to get rid of it,</i> 352 00:20:47,040 --> 00:20:48,920 <i>get another mode of transportation,</i> 353 00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:52,000 and get another identity. 354 00:20:52,120 --> 00:20:53,480 She's a wolf in sheep's clothing. 355 00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:57,080 <i>She walks up.</i> 356 00:20:57,200 --> 00:20:58,400 <i>She smiles.</i> 357 00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:00,080 <i>She's calm.</i> 358 00:21:00,200 --> 00:21:02,040 She has the appearance of a grandmother. 359 00:21:02,160 --> 00:21:03,480 She's collective. 360 00:21:03,600 --> 00:21:06,560 But make no mistake, she's calculated. 361 00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:11,000 <i>And I will tell you that this was unique,</i> 362 00:21:11,120 --> 00:21:13,040 because here we have the grandma killer. 363 00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:16,560 <i>They had drinks together.</i> 364 00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:18,600 <i>They had fun together.</i> 365 00:21:18,720 --> 00:21:21,000 They talked. They laughed. 366 00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:24,320 Until Lois killed her. 367 00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:28,680 My cousin went out helping the world. 368 00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:31,160 She befriended this woman, probably. 369 00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:33,120 The woman probably gave her some sob story. 370 00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:35,600 She took her in, alley cat thing. 371 00:21:35,720 --> 00:21:39,080 <i>She just was-- she's just giving to a fault,</i> 372 00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:40,640 <i>to her death.</i> 373 00:21:40,760 --> 00:21:42,880 <i>Pure evil, that's really the only thing</i> 374 00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:44,720 <i>that could resonate with my system,</i> 375 00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:47,200 <i>because it's not necessarily her or whatever.</i> 376 00:21:47,320 --> 00:21:50,240 It's just evil that flowed through, 377 00:21:50,360 --> 00:21:51,840 because how can you go around killing people 378 00:21:51,960 --> 00:21:53,320 for no other good reason 379 00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:55,240 other than to keep yourself out of prison? 380 00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:02,280 <i>She's driving away right now after committing two murders.</i> 381 00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:04,800 She's got the victim's vehicle. 382 00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:07,560 <i>This woman had no heart.</i> 383 00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:09,360 <i>She killed in cold blood.</i> 384 00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:13,320 She was calculated, and she was on the run. 385 00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:15,680 We do not expect to see somebody who is 386 00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:20,400 a typical suburban mom, grandmom, 387 00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:24,320 who has been involved in not only killing their husband, 388 00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:27,120 <i>but assuming the identity of a completely innocent person</i> 389 00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:29,680 <i>and then killing them to get that identity.</i> 390 00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:31,960 That was very surprising to us. 391 00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:34,440 We have to get her before she commits another murder. 392 00:22:34,560 --> 00:22:36,080 We knew what happened in Minnesota, 393 00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:38,120 we knew what happened here, and we did not want 394 00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:40,280 there to be a third victim. 395 00:22:57,280 --> 00:22:59,080 We have someone-- someone that's already 396 00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:01,880 killed now twice. 397 00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:03,520 Do we want a third person, a fourth person? 398 00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:04,920 Of course not. 399 00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:06,960 Let's get this person off the streets 400 00:23:07,080 --> 00:23:09,520 immediately before we have major events 401 00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:11,280 and God knows where. 402 00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:13,800 So our detectives are working so hard 403 00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:16,320 <i>to stopping this person from killing again.</i> 404 00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:18,200 <i>Is she looking for another person</i> 405 00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:20,720 <i>to befriend, the next victim?</i> 406 00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:24,000 We have to stop her and put an end to it immediately. 407 00:23:24,120 --> 00:23:25,720 <i>We knew who we were looking for.</i> 408 00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:27,400 <i>We had her name, her date of birth,</i> 409 00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:29,800 <i>and the vehicle that she was traveling in.</i> 410 00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:31,880 <i>We then disseminated that information</i> 411 00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:35,080 through our sheriff's office to other states, 412 00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:37,720 other agencies, other regions of the country 413 00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:39,920 for where we think she might be going. 414 00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:42,640 She's got the credit cards, debit cards of the victim. 415 00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:46,000 <i>She's got the victim's vehicle.</i> 416 00:23:46,120 --> 00:23:47,640 She's got resources. 417 00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:49,160 Where is she going? Who knows? 418 00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:55,440 <i>We were following her financial information</i> 419 00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:57,720 <i>and the victim's financial information.</i> 420 00:23:57,840 --> 00:23:59,720 We were behind the eight ball a little bit. 421 00:23:59,840 --> 00:24:03,040 But with the investigation going forward 422 00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:06,160 and all hands on deck, we were able to, you know, 423 00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:09,160 make great progress in it very quickly. 424 00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:10,880 <i>She goes to an ATM</i> 425 00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:12,760 <i>or to a bank on Fort Myers Beach,</i> 426 00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:15,840 where Lois Riess withdraws $5,000 427 00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:17,960 from the victim's bank account. 428 00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:22,440 And off she goes in the victim's car, the Acura, 429 00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:25,720 <i>not to be seen until many, many hours later,</i> 430 00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,440 <i>farther up north in the state of Florida.</i> 431 00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:41,760 <i>We actually found that she was in the Ocala area.</i> 432 00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:44,320 She stayed at the Hilton Hotel in Ocala. 433 00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:46,160 She walks up to the front desk-- 434 00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:51,280 once again, her MO-- smiling, calculated, cool, 435 00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:53,840 the appearance of anyone's grandmother. 436 00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:56,200 <i>She did the best she could to conceal herself.</i> 437 00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:57,640 <i>She was wearing a hat.</i> 438 00:24:57,760 --> 00:24:59,160 <i>We have her on video doing that.</i> 439 00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:02,280 <i>And she uses the victim's--</i> 440 00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:03,680 it's the first time now. 441 00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:05,320 She's taken on this new persona. 442 00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:08,000 And she's now using the victim's identification 443 00:25:08,120 --> 00:25:11,000 and credit card to check into a hotel. 444 00:25:11,120 --> 00:25:12,960 <i>She's on the run for murdering her husband.</i> 445 00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:14,280 <i>She doesn't want to be detected,</i> 446 00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,280 <i>so she assumes our victim's identity.</i> 447 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:19,080 There was some general similarity 448 00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:21,040 that allowed her to use the identification 449 00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:22,400 without detection. 450 00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:24,040 <i>She orders room service,</i> 451 00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:25,360 <i>and she checks out the next morning,</i> 452 00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:28,360 <i>and then she's on the road again.</i> 453 00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:34,640 <i>She headed north out of Ocala,</i> 454 00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:36,720 <i>and then she essentially turned left</i> 455 00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:41,000 <i>and had the rest of the country in front of her.</i> 456 00:25:41,120 --> 00:25:45,120 <i>And we know this because there are license plate readers</i> 457 00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:50,240 <i>that are able to identify the Acura by its license plate</i> 458 00:25:50,360 --> 00:25:52,160 <i>progressively down the interstates.</i> 459 00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:54,600 <i>She was lighting out for the territory.</i> 460 00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:58,800 I imagine there was a bit of a thrill, 461 00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:02,760 a bit of a adrenaline rush-- the road trip of her life. 462 00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,040 <i>Well, that's a great way to describe it.</i> 463 00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:22,120 Where does she go from there? 464 00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:24,680 We know she has a gambling habit, okay? 465 00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:26,200 She's got resources. 466 00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:28,800 She's in the casino. 467 00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:30,040 <i>And here she is now, fleeing,</i> 468 00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:31,880 <i>now having committed two murders,</i> 469 00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:34,920 and still feels the need to stop and gamble 470 00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:37,160 in broad daylight at a casino in Louisiana. 471 00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:40,760 <i>Well, she goes to the casino, and, remarkably,</i> 472 00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:43,600 <i>she calls attention to herself because she has a bit of luck,</i> 473 00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:45,520 and she wins. 474 00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,840 She wins about $1,500 at the slot machines. 475 00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:52,880 <i>And when she presents to the window to collect,</i> 476 00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:55,160 <i>she shows her Minnesota driver's license,</i> 477 00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:57,080 <i>Lois Riess,</i> 478 00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,120 and her Social Security card in order to claim the winnings. 479 00:27:02,360 --> 00:27:04,560 <i>And she continues to head west on the interstate</i> 480 00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:05,960 <i>towards Texas.</i> 481 00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:14,080 It is surprising to see somebody--and unusual-- 482 00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:16,840 immediately go off on a gambling jaunt 483 00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:19,400 after they've killed two people. 484 00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:23,280 <i>She heads south towards the Mexican border,</i> 485 00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:25,240 where she's picked up again on a license plate reader 486 00:27:25,360 --> 00:27:27,120 in Refugio, Texas, 487 00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,360 which is a suburb of Corpus Christi. 488 00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:34,200 <i>In my belief, she knows we're on her tail.</i> 489 00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:35,800 <i>It's clear where she's going.</i> 490 00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:37,120 She wants out of the country. 491 00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:39,520 Perhaps she thought she could escape. 492 00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:47,480 She had so amazingly eluded... 493 00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:50,880 law enforcement at that time 494 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:55,480 that they thought she might make it all the way to Mexico. 495 00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:11,560 <i>She checks into a Motel 6</i> 496 00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:13,840 <i>right in the center of South Padre Island,</i> 497 00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:17,840 and it appears that she checks in for a period of two weeks. 498 00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:24,840 She got out there, and she made friends... 499 00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:28,000 much the same way she made friends with our victim 500 00:28:28,120 --> 00:28:29,920 in Fort Myers Beach. 501 00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:36,680 She encountered a woman at the pool at the Motel 6 502 00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:38,200 and started chatting her up. 503 00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:43,200 It amazed me that Lois would yet befriend another person... 504 00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:49,720 And somehow get invited to stay in her guest room. 505 00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:54,360 <i>She also had the murder weapon with her.</i> 506 00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:56,640 Certainly, she had now committed one murder 507 00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:59,720 with the intention of concealing her identity. 508 00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:02,000 So it was very important to try to find her 509 00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:05,280 so that she wouldn't do that again. 510 00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:10,120 <i>I've had some wild cases</i> 511 00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:14,080 <i>that I have covered over the years.</i> 512 00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:16,640 But I've never seen one like this before. 513 00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:19,720 This one was wild. 514 00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:21,760 <i>It eventually captured the attention</i> 515 00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:23,320 <i>of the entire nation.</i> 516 00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:26,800 Good afternoon. 517 00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,240 I'm undersheriff Carmine Marceno. 518 00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:32,160 I thank you for attending today's press conference. 519 00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,440 <i>There comes a point in time where we want the media--</i> 520 00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:39,400 we want everyone, because now we go country-wide. 521 00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:41,920 <i>Riess's mode of operation is to befriend women</i> 522 00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:45,600 <i>who resemble her and steal their identity.</i> 523 00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,800 <i>U.S. Marshals are actively involved in a national search</i> 524 00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:50,800 for this dangerous fugitive. 525 00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:53,080 Riess is considered armed and dangerous 526 00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:55,720 and should not be approached if located. 527 00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:58,240 We want everyone to help us. 528 00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,240 Let's get this information out. 529 00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:01,840 Let's be on the lookout. 530 00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:03,840 Let's put her face on the billboards everywhere, 531 00:30:03,960 --> 00:30:05,400 because where is she going? 532 00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:07,600 We don't know, but we need to all work and stop her 533 00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:09,440 before she commits another murder. 534 00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:12,560 <i>Police say this surveillance video shows a cunning killer</i> 535 00:30:12,680 --> 00:30:16,680 <i>on the prowl, 56-year-old grandmother Lois Riess,</i> 536 00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,480 <i>targeting 59-year-old Pamela Hutchinson</i> 537 00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:21,160 <i>in a Fort Myers bar.</i> 538 00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:22,920 <i>And now law enforcement has out</i> 539 00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:26,720 a full-fledged media campaign to try to catch her. 540 00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:30,640 There's a BOLO, which means be on the lookout, for her. 541 00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:32,640 And her picture's everywhere. 542 00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:40,360 So that way, hopefully, someone could come into contact 543 00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:42,960 with her and catch her. 544 00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:46,200 The U.S. Marshals' Service today posted a $5,000 reward 545 00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:48,680 for information about a fugitive grandmother. 546 00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:50,080 <i>Lois Riess is suspected</i> 547 00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:52,160 <i>of murdering her husband in Minnesota</i> 548 00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:54,720 <i>and a lookalike woman in Florida.</i> 549 00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:56,200 It has been determined that Riess has 550 00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:58,080 fled southwest Florida 551 00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:00,120 and has traveled through the Gulf states 552 00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,960 and into Corpus Christi, Texas, area. 553 00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:05,000 And current whereabouts are unknown. 554 00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:39,480 She's sitting in a bar in South Padre, 555 00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:42,640 and the bartender looks at her and says, 556 00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:47,160 oh, that's the woman who's wanted who I just saw on TV... 557 00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:52,960 <i>And does the, of course, extremely correct thing</i> 558 00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:55,040 <i>of calling local law enforcement,</i> 559 00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:58,000 who in turn calls in the U.S. Marshals. 560 00:31:59,960 --> 00:32:01,720 <i>She got a tap on the shoulder,</i> 561 00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:03,720 <i>and it was a U.S. Marshal.</i> 562 00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,120 <i>And he asked her to step outside, and she did.</i> 563 00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:14,040 <i>And she was asked to produce identification, and she did.</i> 564 00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:17,960 And she was arrested. 565 00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:21,560 The story, it gained a lot of notoriety. 566 00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,960 People were using things like Killer Grandma 567 00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:28,680 or Losing Streak Lois. 568 00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,000 A tip-off led to the arrest of Lois Riess, 569 00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:32,320 a suspected murderer who had been 570 00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:34,320 <i>on the lam for nearly a month.</i> 571 00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:36,800 When you look at the folks that she befriended 572 00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,240 in South Padre Island-- I don't want to speculate, 573 00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:42,520 but it is certainly something that has crossed my mind 574 00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:45,120 that had she not been captured when she was, 575 00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:46,480 <i>perhaps she would have done the same thing.</i> 576 00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:53,600 <i>Those people should thank their lucky stars that--</i> 577 00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:55,080 because she had the gun. 578 00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:57,440 <i>She had the gun.</i> 579 00:32:57,560 --> 00:32:59,400 <i>She could have done it again.</i> 580 00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:03,360 Lo and behold, they discovered that the gun that had been used 581 00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:06,560 on Pamela Hutchinson was the same gun 582 00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:08,560 <i>that had been used on David Riess.</i> 583 00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:13,560 She was certainly interested in casino gambling again, 584 00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:16,600 because she did have literature that we found 585 00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:20,160 in her hotel room that showed some sort of interest 586 00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:22,640 in going to a casino somewhere in Texas. 587 00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:26,040 <i>Obviously, gambling was going to be part</i> 588 00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,960 of her continued life on the run. 589 00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:37,240 <i>Lois was first taken back to Florida,</i> 590 00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:39,960 where there was always going to be the question 591 00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:43,560 of whose jurisdiction--who would get to try her first. 592 00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:49,680 <i>You committed that murder on a tourist in my county,</i> 593 00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:51,160 and we are going to get you. 594 00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:53,080 And in the end, I wanted her to specifically 595 00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:54,680 face the music here. 596 00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,480 <i>In this case, in our opinion, you had a very clear,</i> 597 00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:01,760 premeditated first-degree murder. 598 00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:04,760 <i>You got a woman who comes to Florida,</i> 599 00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,000 <i>looks like she's looking for somebody</i> 600 00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:08,840 <i>who looks at least somewhat like her</i> 601 00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:11,840 <i>to kill and assume their identity.</i> 602 00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:14,840 To us, that was clear signs of a premeditated murder. 603 00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:18,080 <i>So we charged her</i> 604 00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:20,840 <i>with first-degree premeditated murder.</i> 605 00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:23,680 Once you're convicted of first-degree murder in Florida, 606 00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:25,440 there's only two possible sentences. 607 00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:29,400 One is a life sentence without the chance of release, 608 00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:31,840 and the second sentence is the death penalty. 609 00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:35,520 In this case, we decided to seek the death penalty. 610 00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:55,120 <i>Our attorneys handling the case were contacted</i> 611 00:34:55,240 --> 00:34:58,440 <i>by the defense for Lois Riess, and they said,</i> 612 00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:00,920 <i>she wants to take responsibility.</i> 613 00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:02,920 She wants to enter a plea to life 614 00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:05,280 without the possibility of parole or release 615 00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:07,440 and go back to Minnesota, 616 00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:09,840 where she was also facing murder charges. 617 00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:14,320 And we determined that because she still had a case pending 618 00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:17,080 in Minnesota and she needed to go back to Minnesota, 619 00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:19,760 with the family, the next of kin's blessing, 620 00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:22,040 we decided that the best thing to do in this case 621 00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:24,080 would be to take the life sentence 622 00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:25,880 and let her go on her way to Minnesota 623 00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:27,840 and stay there and answer her charges there. 624 00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:33,960 And we knew by that plea that she would be spending 625 00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:37,200 the rest of her life in prison on our charges, 626 00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,640 regardless of what happened in Minnesota. 627 00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:42,680 <i>She came out in her orange jumpsuit,</i> 628 00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:44,040 <i>very matter-of-factly.</i> 629 00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:46,000 She answered the questions posed to her 630 00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:47,800 <i>by the prosecutors and by the judge.</i> 631 00:35:50,240 --> 00:35:51,760 Do you understand why you're here today? 632 00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:53,160 Yes. 633 00:35:54,720 --> 00:35:57,320 To the charge of first-degree murder with a firearm, 634 00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:00,800 a capital felony, which is punishable by the death penalty 635 00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:03,360 or life, how do you plead? 636 00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:05,120 Guilty. 637 00:36:05,240 --> 00:36:06,800 Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, ma'am, 638 00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:08,960 I will adjudicate you guilty. 639 00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:12,080 I will sentence you 640 00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:13,440 to the Florida Department of Corrections 641 00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:15,680 for a period of life on Count I. 642 00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:18,600 She understood and accepted her responsibility, 643 00:36:18,720 --> 00:36:20,240 and she took the plea, 644 00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:21,920 and off she went, back into the holding cell. 645 00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:38,560 <i>She was extradited back to Minnesota,</i> 646 00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:40,400 <i>where she was going to be tried</i> 647 00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:42,840 for the death of her husband, David. 648 00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:48,040 It was a pretty packed area when the judge announced, 649 00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:50,800 you know, we've reached a plea agreement. 650 00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,040 And she pleaded guilty that day 651 00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:56,520 and was sentenced that day to life in prison. 652 00:36:58,720 --> 00:37:00,600 <i>The court determined that on the night</i> 653 00:37:00,720 --> 00:37:05,960 <i>that David was shot and killed...</i> 654 00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:08,880 <i>he and Lois had apparently gone</i> 655 00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:13,040 to see grandkids in sporting events. 656 00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:18,880 And on the way back to their home 657 00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:21,160 there in Blooming Prairie, 658 00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:25,040 <i>they started arguing, probably about money,</i> 659 00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:28,360 <i>probably about her gambling addiction.</i> 660 00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:33,960 And according to Lois... 661 00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:36,440 while they were arguing at their home, 662 00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:40,240 he handed her a loaded pistol 663 00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:44,160 <i>and told her basically to shoot and kill herself.</i> 664 00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:48,240 And instead, she took the gun, pointed it at him, 665 00:37:48,360 --> 00:37:50,520 and shot him three times. 666 00:37:56,320 --> 00:38:00,760 Where I have my doubts is his handing her the pistol 667 00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:02,920 <i>and saying, shoot yourself.</i> 668 00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:05,480 <i>I have my doubts.</i> 669 00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:08,360 It's always disturbing to me as a prosecutor 670 00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:10,120 and as a member of the community 671 00:38:10,240 --> 00:38:13,400 to see when people do evil things 672 00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:17,080 and just don't seem to have any care about what they did. 673 00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:21,640 <i>The way she had befriended the victim,</i> 674 00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:24,280 <i>who was a loving and obviously a very trusting person,</i> 675 00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:27,040 <i>and then killed her, we thought had the marks</i> 676 00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:28,840 of a really evil killer. 677 00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:32,440 <i>The enormity of this case,</i> 678 00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:37,800 geographically as well as just in terms 679 00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:40,760 of what happened and how this destroyed 680 00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:43,720 <i>so many families' lives,</i> 681 00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:46,400 <i>I've never seen anything like before.</i> 682 00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:48,560 And I hope I never see again. 683 00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:51,720 And in the end, justice is served. 684 00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:53,720 That killer is off the streets. 685 00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:55,520 She's behind bars where she belongs. 686 00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:00,200 You commit a crime in my county, you can run. 687 00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:01,960 You can't hide. 688 00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:18,120 Everyone was looking for Micah. 689 00:39:18,240 --> 00:39:20,080 <i>Where was Micah?</i> 690 00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:24,720 Where would someone have come by and tried to abduct her? 691 00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:26,120 <i>You add all the things together,</i> 692 00:39:26,240 --> 00:39:27,600 and something's not right. 693 00:39:27,720 --> 00:39:30,840 It was clear that they knew about guns. 693 00:39:31,305 --> 00:40:31,150