[upbeat smooth music plays]
[sheriff] Guys, how are you?
Good to see you. How are you?
Good to see you. Good to see you.
[music fades]
So right now, you're gonna watch a video
of the Lee County Sheriff's Office recruitment.
And what does that mean to me?
It means, "Do you have what it takes?"
As you see, it starts off with a badge.
[dramatic music plays]
Do you have what it takes?
911. What is your emergency?
To answer the call, day or night.
[indistinct chatter]
To serve others before yourself.
"To answer the call, day or night,
and serve others before yourself."
We are a 24/7 operation.
The calls never stop,
and we are in the business of, "What happens next?"
Nationalism is more than just an image, it's an attitude.
Do you have what it takes to be a law enforcement officer?
Then come join my family
at the Lee County Sheriff's Office.
And let's keep paradise paradise.
- [epic music plays] - [helicopter blades whirring]
"Let's keep paradise paradise." That's our motto.
In my county, the great people
and the great residents get to enjoy life.
Lois, our suspect, tried to take that,
and she committed a murder in my county.
And that is why
when you look at this video,
and you see everyone that dedicates their lives
to service to others before self,
that's a personal attack.
When you attack one of my residents,
my great residents, one of my great tourists,
that's a personal attack on me.
[dramatic theme music plays]
[suspenseful music plays]
[dispatcher] Mm-hmm.
[dispatcher]
[Laurie]
[dispatcher]
[Laurie]
[dispatcher]
[suspenseful music continues]
[man] We're in the parking lot of the Snug Harbor
Marina Village on Fort Myers Beach.
Right above me here is room 404,
where the crime scene was
for the homicide investigation.
Uh, and this is where it all started.
This is where we found the body.
I haven't actually been back here
since the investigation wrapped up,
so a lot of different memories
and emotions are coming back to me.
Because I remember being up all those hours
working on this case,
not knowing the answers to all the questions that I have.
So, the frustration coming back,
knowing that I'll probably never know them.
[camera zoom whirring]
[dark, mysterious music plays]
The condominium itself
was in order for the most part,
but once I made entry into the bathroom,
I noticed that the decedent was on the floor.
The manner of death was homicide.
The cause of death being a gunshot.
And it entered her back
and exited out her shoulder area.
It seemed to me that she was taken by surprise,
given that she was in the bathroom.
She was probably getting ready for bed.
Maybe brushing her teeth, brushing her hair,
whatever it may be.
And the gunshot entered from the back.
So whoever did this came up from behind her
and took her by surprise.
The state of Florida has what's called Marcy's Law,
which keeps private
the victim information for any crime,
so that's why we always have to refer to them as victim.
There was towels placed at the bottom of the door.
The towel meant to me that there was somebody else there.
That this wasn't a suicide,
this wasn't something that she had done on her own.
There was no casing,
so someone had cleaned up after themselves.
We knew there was another person involved
and they're no longer on scene.
That's very disturbing for many reasons.
First of all, putting towels down by the door
so the odor of the deceased is not coming out.
So the culpable state of mind is,
"Yes, I committed this homicide,
but now I'm gonna cover things up the best I can
to get as much time as I can to get out of here."
[David] Obviously, the master bathroom,
bedroom was being utilized by our victim,
but what we found in the spare bathroom,
the spare bedroom, was it was being used as well.
There was used soap, used towels.
The bedsheets in the bedroom had been disturbed.
So it was obvious to us
that there was two people in that room,
and staying there as well.
It led us to believe that our victim
knew who our suspect was.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Carmine] It's all hands on deck.
And we quickly scan hours of surveillance.
[ominous music plays]
[David] We got video surveillance footage
from the Smokin' Oyster restaurant,
which is right next door to Marina Village.
In that video footage, we see
our victim meeting a woman at the bar.
[Carmine] So here, this lady, this woman,
looks like anybody's mom,
or anybody's grandmother.
Okay? She's looking at the menu.
She's befriending our victim,
who is in this safe zone, or what appears to be safe zone.
[David] Once we saw our suspect on video,
we didn't really know at that point who she was,
but then putting two and two together,
'cause it just so happened that on the night before, April 8th,
I was on call received regarding the information
of Lois Riess and the Cadillac.
Okay, hold on a second.
Let me see exactly what Lois Riess looks like.
So I made a phone call
to the authorities up in Dodge County.
[printer hums and whines]
They sent me a picture.
That's when I was like, "Oh, okay.
I know who we're dealing with now."
[ominous music plays]
A lot of surveillance cameras
in and around Marina Village.
One of the most helpful ones to us was right here
at the landing for the elevator.
And that provided all the people coming and going.
Later that evening, on April 5th,
we see them two together
going towards the victim's room.
Eventually, we no longer see our victim.
We see Lois Riess
come out to the landing area.
And she appears distraught.
She looks even like she might be crying.
[dark, dramatic music plays]
[Tess] There were all these camera crews
around Snug Harbor.
Snug Harbor is one block away,
so I pull over and I said to a cameraman,
"Um, what's going on?"
He says, "Well, there was a murder in room 404."
That was my inkling there that something bad had happened.
That Lois was involved in it.
That night, we turned on the news,
and we watched every segment of the news,
flipping from channel to channel,
to find out what had gone on.
Deputies found a body inside a room
in the Marina Village at Snug Harbor.
[news anchor 1] Authorities began looking
for 56-year-old Lois Riess...
[news anchor 2] Wanted for murder in two states.
[news anchor 3] One of them her own look-alike.
[news anchor 4] 59-year-old Pamela Hutchinson
of Bradenton, Florida.
[Tess] Learned that this person
who was not with us anymore is Pamela Hutchinson.
Saw pictures of her smiling, happy face.
Felt so bad.
[music fades]
[pensive music plays]
Hey, Roland.
Hi, there.
[soft grunt]
[hoodie zips up]
[man groans]
[man] Looks like we're floating.
What I love about Florida
is I don't have to shovel snow.
And I love the lifestyle down here.
All my neighbors are from different states now,
but we all kind of have
the same interests, it was like magic
that we all ended up on the same street,
or the same area, you know?
'Cause we all had very similar likes,
you know, as far as boating and partying,
and whatever, you know?
- [Erin] Do you like to party? - Yeah, some--
Not as hard as I used to, but... [chuckles]
[gentle music plays]
They always have live entertainment
out by the water there.
And this was one of Pam's...
pretty much favorite haunts on Bridge Street here.
If there was one person left to talk to,
it was hard to get her out.
It's hard to put into words.
Yeah, so many, uh...
[chokes up] ...fond memories on this boat.
[tender, emotional music plays]
[woman] I don't know anybody who didn't like her.
She's got a smile, she's got an attitude.
Very open personality. Very outgoing.
There would be times when I was supposed to meet her somewhere,
and she didn't make it 'cause she'd stop somewhere for lunch,
and she'd get to talking to somebody,
and she never made her final destination,
or whatever, you know? She just, like...
[chuckles]
So, um, she was a free spirit.
You could be the jealous type when you're out with Pam,
'cause she talked to anybody. [laughs]
There were times when she would come home
from being out and I'd been in bed,
she said, "Barbara, you up?"
"I am now. What do you want to talk about?"
We'd be up talking till three, four in the morning.
I'm like, "Pam, I can't keep doing this." [laughs]
This is Pam.
[laughs] This is her.
This is her. This shows what she's really like.
She's fun, exciting, um,
not too shy to express herself.
Oops.
This is the blouse.
If you go on her Facebook page,
you'll see her sitting on that horse
as free as a bird, wearing this shirt...
when she was in Mexico, and...
it reminds me of her.
There you go, Pam.
[sniffles]
[clears throat]
It's just strange to look at that shirt with not her in it.
She brought everything to life.
Everything.
I think she wanted to come to Florida to start over.
She had been married, was divorced,
and came up here
and wanted to start a life over again.
And it's a good place to start.
[Gary] She was in a very controlled marriage.
She couldn't really see the friends that she grew up with,
or whatever, it was basically
whoever he brought to the table.
And it sounds like he was,
you know, totally controlling, I guess.
Eventually, she just rebelled or whatever.
Sometimes mental abuse can be just as bad
as physical abuse, you know?
She always said she was happy
that I came along when I did,
when she really needed some help,
or something to make her feel good about herself,
'cause she had been downtrodden for so long.
I introduced her to all of my friends and...
[mumbles, choked up]
I've met a lot of...
women over the years,
and she was kind of like...
a one of a kind, you know, at least in my eyes, but...
[sniffles]
[pensive music plays]
[Barbara] A friend of hers had a husband who died.
And this friend of hers wanted to scatter the husband's ashes
on Sanibel, on the beach on Sanibel.
And Pam started checking into room rates,
and she said, "Man, it's expensive."
And I said, "Pam, why don't you let me call
Snug Harbor where I've got a time-share.
Let me see if I can get you a room rate there." And I did.
And I said, "When you go, you've gotta go to SOB's.
It's the shrimp and oyster bar under the North Bridge.
You have to have their spicy shrimp.
It is out of this world."
[soft, dramatic music plays]
[Gary] We were talking and texting
while she was down there,
and she was saying what a good time it was,
and that she was gonna stay an extra day.
[notifications chime]
[Barbara] I think she mentioned she had met somebody
and had been talking.
And that was it, she dropped off the charts.
I tried texting her, calling her, texting, calling.
[dark, intriguing music plays]
[John] She had met a woman,
gone out to dinner with that woman,
been sad hearing her story
about this woman being widowed.
Pam was the kind of person who would pick up stray dogs
and she liked to have a good time herself,
but she also had a big heart and was caring,
and felt compassion for this woman and her story,
and so invited her to spend the night.
[John] And that woman turned out to be Lois Riess.
When I didn't hear from her the next day,
that's when...
I thought, well, it was Pam, I just figured
she got sidetracked again or something.
Whatever, you know, I didn't get alarmed.
I just thought she got sidetracked.
So then I started getting worried.
And I called Snug Harbor
and the girl said, "Barb?
Don't you know?" I said, "Know what?"
And she said, "Pam's been murdered."
And I s-- I said, "What?"
[eerie music plays]
[John] Pam Hutchinson was gonna go back home on Thursday,
but Lois talked her into staying an extra night.
And that was the night that Lois killed her.
I mean, you hear about stuff like that
happening every day, unfortunately,
in today's-- in the world we live in today,
but you never think it's gonna happen to you.
I felt terrible because I had told Pam to go there.
And I felt guilty
because I thought it was a safe place.
I really did, I-I would go there myself.
It's outside, it's open air.
It's a safe place, I thought,
and I told her to go there.
[people chattering]
Is it my fault?
No. I-- No.
But I-I loved Pam.
I really did, I could...
"Pam, what the hell were you doing?"
They pinned it down to a woman.
You never think a murderer is a woman.
Especially with a gun.
[dark, dramatic music plays]
It takes all the feelings out of your heart and soul
when you see that somebody could do something like that.
[garbled chatter over police radio]
[Brian] We were all kind of shocked and floored
by what had transpired,
'cause we didn't really think that Lois
would commit any further crimes.
She didn't fit the profile of some-- as...
somebody that would go out and commit another homicide.
[Barbara] When I heard that this lady had called the police,
reported Lois being there,
and the police told her, "Well, I'm sure she's not here anymore
on Fort Myers Beach,"
and she was.
Now this way,
behind the green part of the fence,
Lois had her car parked
with her nose facing toward the fence.
So she was half a block from my house.
[Erin]
I don't think they looked.
Like I said, lack of communication.
I think Dodge County and Lee County
should've been talking to each other
and looking for her more.
[Kay] Lee County,
in checking their nationwide database,
sees that
Lois is a person of interest
but not a suspect in a homicide.
And nobody comes after her.
It is not a stretch to believe that
Dodge County's failure to name her
as a suspect,
and issue an arrest warrant,
meant that Lee County went... You know?
Person of interest? That might mean,
"What happened at your house?" You know?
"Was your husband fighting with somebody?
Can you tell us something?"
And that wasn't the case.
They let her go because she was not named as a suspect.
So, of-of course that would have changed the whole...
It would have changed the future of a lot of people,
including Pam Hutchinson.
[Erin] So where do we think the mistake happened?
Was it that they didn't charge her with homicide?
What went wrong?
I can't say or wouldn't say it was really a mistake,
or anything went wrong.
It was just the fact that Minnesota
was not that far in their investigation yet.
We did what we could to locate her,
but she just seemed to kind of blend in
and no one else really knew of her.
[John] The identity of who Lois Riess is
takes on a new dimension,
because of the care with which she
prepared the body.
And the fact that she was able to, again, spend the night
in the same condo as her victim,
just like she did with Dave.
There was a thoughtfulness to this process.
That strikes me.
Also, the fact that she has picked this victim,
a stranger,
and killed her in cold blood.
I mean, completely changes
our understanding of who Lois Riess is.
[eerie music plays]
[Erin] Do you think that when you met Pamela,
you knew that something bad was gonna happen to her?
No, no.
She-she approached me and met me.
She was also alone.
And it was at-- we were having dinner,
um, sitting barside, having dinner, two single women,
and, um,
like I said, I make friends easily.
And she does too. She seemed really nice.
And she was a very nice lady.
And, um...
we were just sharing some stories
and she was recently divorced
from an abusive marriage,
and she was staying in Florida.
And she says I didn't have to stay in a hotel,
that I could stay with her.
And that's how I met her.
But never, I had never anticipated--
anticipated hurting that woman.
[Erin] But you did bring a gun to the hotel.
The gun was one of the things I brought with me when I packed.
I packed the most unusual things
when I left Minnesota.
[Erin] Just trying to be honest, you did bring it--
She helped me unload all my luggage
and it was in my luggage.
[soft laughter]
[Erin] But so how did it go from
meeting her, she's a very nice woman,
- to killing her? - Well, that's where,
when I say it's a puzzle, it truly is a puzzle because...
I don't have all the memories
and all the answers for that.
I know I had asked her to help me
with a suicide attempt.
I know I asked this woman,
and we stayed up way into the light-- night, um,
talking about her life and my life,
and she understood,
from what I told her of my life,
she understood me wanting to take my life.
And I don't know, that's all I really can grasp--
[Erin] That's so scary because it wasn't her taking--
I mean, you killed her. It wasn't-- again, you--
It feels like potentially,
you're thinking about what happened with David.
Both of these people ended up dead
when it was talking about taking your own life.
- Yeah. - [Erin] Yeah.
It sounds like that.
Mental illness. The mind is a crazy thing.
All I know is it happened.
[dramatic music plays]
[Marti] When you look at the gambler,
and they're thinking, and they're playing,
they can remove everything emotional
within themselves, away from it.
And that's how they can survive it.
To me, it looks like
she impulsively killed her,
and she is so removed
from herself at that point
that it's just actions.
[Lindsey] Having to work through
my uncle's murder,
and then to find out it happened again,
like, nothing adds up.
David's situation, it added up to a certain extent.
You know, I could put the pieces of that puzzle together,
but the Pamela situation,
still to this day does not--
I don't know how to put it into words,
it just doesn't make sense to me.
[John] After she shot Pam,
she spent the night in the condo
with Pam, the dead Pam,
and the next day,
she packed up all of her belongings
into Pam's car,
which was a white Acura,
and then she left.
[David] The suspect took some belongings of the victim.
A lot of personal items, personal information,
that being a credit card, debit card, her checkbook.
Lois was using the victim's information
to make her getaway.
She went to a bank and actually, in person,
went up to the teller and was wearing Pam's hat.
And she withdrew $5,000,
posing as Pam.
[Barbara] God, I remember that hat.
It gives me the chills thinking about it.
The first thing that came to me was
how Pam would put it on her head and cock it.
And it was like...
God.
She really did it.
[David] We know that she stopped at a Hilton hotel
in the Ocala area,
and made three separate withdrawal transactions
for $500 each,
also using the victim's information.
[Carmine] She smiles,
shows the ID of our victim,
as if it was her,
and goes on her way and drives off.
It's like nothing happened.
She's got a cold heart.
She's able to execute,
kill, and go on her way.
And she could absolutely be killing again,
and the last thing I wanted was a serial killer on the run.
[soft, dramatic music plays]
[John] It's one thing to shoot your husband,
if there's a bad marriage, anger in the marriage.
But then now she's someone
who has coldly and calculatedly
chosen a victim,
and killed her,
simply so she can steal her identity,
use her funds, and evade the law.
So this becomes much more chilling
at this point of who Lois Riess is.
I was-- I was like, "Jesus.
For crying out loud.
I mean, what are you doing, woman?" I just--
I was taken aback.
I was like, "Holy mackerel." You know?
I am just in awe. I don't know how it happens.
Is money worth that much to murder people?
Just, why?
[tense music plays]
[Brian] When Lois left Florida,
it always seemed like we were one step behind her
in this timeline.
We're finding out information about her and where she'd been,
but we weren't finding out information about
where she was going and what her true intentions were.
I was thousands of miles away from my home.
I was a hands-on mother and a hands-on grandmother.
I-- For me to leave my family was
terrifying, and terrifying for me.
I never in my life would imagine
leaving my children and grandchildren.
[John] We know she stopped at least at one casino,
where she won a $1,500 jackpot.
This was in Louisiana.
[David] She used her own identity,
her own information to collect her winnings,
which I thought was very strange.
She had already used the identity of the victim
to withdraw money down here,
so why wouldn't she just continue that?
That's not very smart
if you're trying to hide from law enforcement.
I don't know if she got confused
and she just forgot
where she was, who she was supposed to be playing.
[John] Maybe at that point,
she figured she didn't want to use
Pam Hutchinson's identity
because that would be a clue as to where she is.
I'm sure she's not thinking that the car is being tracked
by highway cameras.
[David] She had attempted a transaction
at a local gas station, which was declined,
using the victim's information.
And then we received a license plate reader hit
in the Corpus Christi, Texas area, as well.
[Lindsey] I was seeing all of these articles
on Facebook and the news.
They're saying all of these crazy things,
like, "Killer Grandma."
[news anchor] You've heard of the killer grandma.
- So called, "Killer Grandma." - First, the killer grandma
murdered her husband Dave in Minnesota.
Our suspect, she's an elderly woman.
[Erin] But is she elderly? How old was she?
Fifty-six? Do we think she's elderly?
- When you look at our suspect... - [Erin] Yes.
...you feel she's harmless.
She's up in her age.
She looks like someone's mom or grandmom.
And she's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
[John] They put billboards up in four different states.
They offered a reward. She became...
the highest level of wanted criminal
for the U.S. Marshals.
[Brian] One thing that comes to mind
is she's heading for Mexico.
So we're reaching out to CBP
along the border of Texas.
[John] But then, once again,
she disappeared from sight,
and they didn't know where she was.
[motor sputtering]
[woman] So, when Lois was here...
[man] Yeah.
What was her favorite song?
"Parrotheads in Cowboy Boots."
Oh, you should sing it. Do you remember it?
Let's see if I can remember it.
[upbeat music plays]
♪ Headed south down 77 ♪
♪ Friends told me that it would be heaven ♪
♪ 110 in the shade, not a cloud in sight ♪
♪ Looked like hell to me... ♪
[woman] Most people don't know South Padre Island exists.
We're a very small island
off the southern tip of Texas.
It's just one of those comforting, wonderful places,
that you wouldn't even know was here.
♪ ...There were Parrotheads in cowboy boots ♪
♪ Deadheads in tie-dye swimming suits ♪
♪ Pearl snap shirts and bikini bottoms ♪
♪ Cowboy hats, everybody had 'em ♪
♪ Europeans in guayabera shirts ♪
♪ Grandmas in their birthday suits ♪
♪ Rum, cerveza, and tequila shooters ♪
♪ Was the damnedest sight to see ♪
♪ But it surely looked like home to me ♪
[song ends]
[Cathy] PadreRitaGrill is a fun, family-oriented place.
The Motel 6 had a lot of people come over.
We stayed open late.
They'd check in late and they'd say,
"Go to PadreRitaGrill. It's right in the parking lot."
This lovely lady walks in and sits
at the corner of the bar.
And she's, um,
dressed in beachwear and she has on a hat.
And she's happy and she's kind of pretty.
And she's sitting there, looking at the entertainer,
which is my husband,
and she's enjoying every bit of it.
So, of course, I get behind the bar,
and I start talking to her, and I asked her name.
And she went, "La-- Donna."
And I went...
"That's odd. LaDonna.
That's kind of like... Madonna."
And she goes, "Oh, yeah, that's why I--
I normally just go by Donna."
And I said, "Oh, okay."
So every time she came in it was like Cheers,
and we'd go, "LaDonna!"
And she'd sit down at the same place at the bar.
And she would tell me stories about
how she was looking for a condo on the island,
and how she recently came into some money,
and she was a widow.
She definitely became one of the family.
We all knew her. We all joked with her.
Arnie flirted with her.
♪ If I'd have known you were coming, I'd have baked a cake ♪
♪ Baked a cake, baked a cake ♪
♪ If I'd have known you were coming, I'd have baked a cake ♪
♪ But instead, you get a crappy daiquiri ♪
I saw this in a cartoon once.
So I'm pretty sure I can do it.
Don't you dare.
Don't you dare!
Anyway, I saved it.
It goes like this.
Bam, bam, bam.
And that's for me.
The very first time I talked to her,
I happened to be standing behind a bar.
And she ordered a top-shelf margarita.
She was wearing a yellow and white floral shirt
and she had blue jean shorts on.
I thought she was really cute,
and she paid for her first drink in cash.
And she tipped me very well.
And then she ordered another one about ten minutes later.
I come back and I said, "Are you done?"
And she goes, "No.
I want another top-shelf margarita."
She said, "What time do you get off?" I said, "Well...
What time is it now? About 5:30, 6:00?"
I said, "I get off at 8:00."
And she goes, "Well, do you want to go out?"
And I looked her up and down
because I'd just fed her three top-shelf margaritas.
There's no way she's getting up off that stool.
And she said, "Okay, I'll be back at eight o'clock."
And then she just... [laughs]
...drunk-stumbled off her chair and went home.
[Erin] She never came back that night?
No.
No, she never went anywhere that night.
Because I did my job.
We teased him a lot that, um,
she wanted him and they were gonna be the next item.
[Arnie] So the next day, she comes in again.
She asked me back to the pool.
And I said, "I gotta work all night."
[Erin] Missed your chance.
I didn't say what was in my head.
- [Erin] Which was? -"Crazy woman."
[laughs] "What are you, nuts?"
- No. - [Erin] Why "crazy woman"?
'Cause she was crazy.
When you wait tables as long as I have,
and bartended as long as I have,
you know when somebody is off.
And she was a little off.
[intriguing music plays]
[Cathy] It's been said that South Padre Island
is a minimum security prison for misfits,
and, truly, that is the case.
She wanted to be a local,
and she wanted to be treated like a local.
And it was easy to do that because she was so, um...
Miss Congeniality.
And it-- she was a friend,
and we were happy to see her.
All these law enforcement departments searching for her,
again, have no idea where she is once
the Acura is last seen in Texas.
So it's a worldwide woman hunt.
Okay? And we are out there
doing everything we can because we know every second,
every hour,
she has the ability to kill again.
She's already shown that she's done it twice,
and she's willing to travel, she's willing to
take what she needs from whoever she needs.
And it's only a matter of time before
she needs to eat again,
she needs a new vehicle.
Whatever it may be, so,
there's only one way of getting that when you're on the run.
[woman] I just wanted a friend, you know?
I just really
thought that she was gonna be a good friend to me,
and we were gonna hang out.
[background chatter]
In 2018, I was alone,
and very much
kind of to myself a lot.
And was anxious to find friendship.
I had already been a widow for about three years.
I'd go to South Padre almost every weekend.
People are really friendly over there,
and we'll start a conversation.
I met LaDonna at Liam's restaurant.
I was sitting at the bar, having an appetizer,
and she sat down and she says,
"Well, I guess we're both eating alone tonight."
So then we just started talking
and she said that she was
there to get property.
She really wanted to maybe make South Padre her home.
She had just lost her husband,
and that her family wasn't allowing her to grieve properly.
And we just hit it off,
like we've been best friends forever.
[ominous music plays]
When she told me she was a widow,
I had no clue that she was a widow
because she killed her husband.
[John] Her time on South Padre Island puzzles me,
because it seems like she was there
as a tourist, not as a fugitive.
To be drinking at the bar,
shopping, hanging out on the beach,
sitting by the pool,
befriending people.
It just seems very unusual.
[Marti] Addictive gamblers will
seek out pleasure centers
and areas
that they can put themselves into
to make them feel superior.
We see it all the way through her journey
to South Padre Island.
The beach communities,
the people she sought out,
the places she sat at the bar,
because if you sit at the bar,
you can be the center of attention.
That is very, very typical of a gambler.
[music fades]
[Bernadette] The next time we got together was,
I believe it was Friday the 13th.
She took me to dinner at Liam's.
She had mentioned she wasn't sure
if South Padre was really going to
be where she wanted to make her home.
And I just mentioned, you know,
that she might really like where I live.
I certainly wouldn't bring a man
that I just met back to my house,
but a woman, I just didn't think anything of it.
[suspenseful music plays]
We ended up going to the hot tub,
and just kind of relaxing, and talking.
She kept saying how she felt so relaxed.
It is very relaxing.
You can almost go to sleep in there.
I asked her what she had retired from,
and she said that she and her husband
had a wax worm farm.
I didn't know what that was... [laughs]
...but she explained to me.
It's bait for fishing.
Oh, I finally asked her how her husband had died,
and she said he had a heart attack.
Then she slept in the guest room
and I slept in my bed.
[water bubbling]
We got up the next morning,
then I just dropped her off.
Later on in that week,
we talked about maybe getting together
the following weekend
to have fun.
[notifications chime]
[upbeat music plays]
[man] What we're doing here with the white shrimp
is very mellow flavor,
and the brown shrimp has more iodine.
Once we get them breaded like this,
we drop them into this egg wash.
Egg wash...
into the panko with more seasoning.
Of course, you always got people wanting it different ways,
but here at Dirty Al's, it's fried.
[upbeat music ends]
[intriguing music plays]
A lady walked into Dirty Al's in the evening.
And my waiter, Carlos Grant,
was talking to her, she was asking questions about what
bars she can go to,
because she wanted to sit at our bar,
and Carlos told her there's no bar.
He was talking to her and I was standing behind her,
about four or five feet.
I kept staring at her and I kept going, "I know this lady."
There is a nationwide manhunt tonight for a grandmother.
Police say she has killed twice
and should be considered armed and dangerous.
She's led police and U.S. Marshals
on a pursuit stretching from Minnesota to Florida,
and now Texas, where police fear
she could kill again.
[George] I happened to watch,
every morning, CBS News,
and for three days straight, I kept seeing a picture of her.
I'm very bad with names.
But apparently, I'm pretty good with faces.
She looked like a person
that was having a good time, I thought.
Had a smile on her face, nothing going on,
wasn't worried about--
just enjoying herself.
And that's kind of funny,
from all the stories I heard about her on the news,
about killing a lady
and her husband so she could go gamble.
I know it's not funny about killing people,
but she was enjoying herself.
That, I couldn't understand.
[mysterious music plays]
She wanted to meet people.
That's exactly what she was talking to Carlos,
where could she go to meet people? Carlos told her
to try next door at Sea Ranch.
We watched her drive
and pull in over to the Sea Ranch.
[woman] A lady came into the bar,
sat right there,
and ordered a glass of Riesling.
And that's the beginning of this story.
One glass of Riesling.
[George] After she left, I told everybody that was Lois Riess.
Of course, all my employees were telling me I was wrong.
I called the U.S. Marshals and they were here
within 15 minutes.
[woman] April 19th, 2018,
around 7:00 p.m., we received a tip
regarding a fugitive, Lois Riess.
We fielded the call pretty quickly,
so we were able to get to the location
to interview the tipster.
[suspenseful music plays]
Myself and our task force officer
began to do a grid search of the island
to try to locate the car.
We began to proceed north
through a conjoining parking lot.
Lo and behold, there was the car right there,
just one restaurant north
parked outside the bar entrance door
to the Sea Ranch restaurant.
[motor sputtering]
U.S. Marshals contacted us.
They sent two deputy marshals over.
I have my four officers
stage up around Sea Ranch,
just as a safety perimeter
in case something went south.
[Lori] She wanted to pay her bill,
and her bill was $34,
and she asked me if I had change for a hundred-dollar bill.
And I said, "Sure, no problem."
So, to give you an example...
[register clattering]
Let's pretend this is a hundred-dollar bill.
So, I took the hundred-dollar bill,
she was sitting here, I put it there,
because I had to go make a drink over there.
[tense music plays]
[Shelly] The first three of us were wearing plain clothes.
So we walked kind of past her,
turned around behind her,
and I grabbed one of her arms.
The task force officer grabbed the other arm.
And I said, "Lois, we're gonna take you out of here.
Don't cause a scene. Don't do anything stupid."
[Lori] Four U.S. Marshals come in
and zip-tie her and lead her out.
So I'm shaking a cocktail, and I'm looking,
and the hundred-dollar bill is still on the bar,
so the tab was paid.
[laughs heartily]
Cut to the chase.
[glass clinking]
I gotta make a drink right now if that's okay.
[Lori laughs]
[Shelly] It's a little bit odd.
Usually fugitives have something to say, good or bad.
They're very emotional.
They're upset that they've been arrested.
She had no facial expressions whatsoever.
She may have had remorse,
but it's really hard to tell
what's going on inside of her head.
[police car siren wails]
[Michael] It was decided that we would bring her
to the South Padre Island Police Jail.
And at that point,
she looked back towards the front of the vehicle
and held her head down.
[police car siren wails and fades]
[footsteps]
[metal clattering]
[officer] Hello.
Step over here, please.
Stand right here.
[door slams shut]
Okay, so we're gonna walk this way towards the elevator.
[man] She was very cooperative...
[elevator bell beeps]
...when we told her to move to a certain location,
so we could take her photograph,
she did it compliant.
[officer] Okay, follow me.
[ominous music plays]
[Cathy] News travels really fast on our little island.
[notifications buzz and pop]
The whole story was put over Facebook
really quickly and we all knew,
and we were just in shock.
Everyone on our island is quite friendly and trusting.
We maybe are a little too friendly
and too inviting,
and that there are bad people out there,
and, um, she didn't look like a bad person at all.
So it's kind of confusing, in a way,
like, who do you trust and who don't you trust?
Like I said, I thought she was a little off,
but I never thought she would kill anybody.
But you never think anybody is gonna kill anybody, do you?
[Bernadette] I would text her.
[notifications click]
She didn't respond.
I'd call her a couple times
and no answer.
I went over to Liam's anyway, that following Saturday.
And I told the bartender,
"I don't know if my friend's gonna show up,
because I've been trying to call her, text her.
I haven't gotten any kind of response." And he says,
"I guess you haven't seen the news.
She's been arrested for double murder."
And I just...
I started feeling really sick.
I don't-- I can't describe the feeling that I had.
This woman befriended me
the way that she befriended Pam,
and she ended up killing that woman.
I don't know how I escaped it that night
that she was here.
Maybe because I had told her about
an incident with my security cameras.
The police had knocked on my door one day,
they wanted to see some footage from my cameras,
because somebody was breaking into cars.
So I'm thinking that maybe she knew
that these cameras did a job. [laughs]
And I just think that God had me
under his wing.
Somebody is looking after me.
And I just felt very blessed that I'm still alive.
[tense music plays]
[David] Myself, and at the time, Sergeant Divis,
flew out there, we landed in Houston.
Then we drove all the way down to Brownsville,
eventually made our way out to South Padre Island.
[officer] Go into that room right over there.
[David] The decision was made, actually,
that Sergeant Divis would attempt an interview
along with one of the Minnesota guys.
[David] She said that she did not wish to speak with us,
and she remained silent.
[dark, intriguing music plays]
[Tess] My husband and I left Florida
to go back to Minnesota.
I believe it was April 19th,
and we ended up at J&H Liquors
in the evening, meeting some friends in town.
And somebody says, "Turn up the TV!
We think that Lois is on the TV."
[news anchor] Around 8:30 last night,
U.S. Marshals and South Padre Island Police
captured Riess after the restaurant manager
called in the tip.
The whole place erupted in a big cheer.
My husband Rod even bought a round for the whole house,
'cause everybody was so excited that,
now we didn't have to worry about where she was
and what she was up to,
and somebody else was not gonna get murdered.
[Scott] I think I just said, "Good. Good, finally. Good."
Of course the next big thing that goes on is...
that's over within a day or two,
and then you move on to,
"Oh, where are they gonna try her at?" You know?
Florida get her, Minnesota get her, or what's gonna happen?
[David] I think Sheriff Marceno
wanted her to come back to
Fort Myers first, because he knew
the case that we had.
We knew that it was solid.
Florida first, Lee County,
she's coming back, she's facing the music here,
and she's getting hit like a tsunami.
There's a sense of relief today
because a killer's off the streets,
and furthermore, no matter where she went,
no matter where she hid, we were gonna get her.
[dramatic music plays]
[David] Search warrant was just executed,
room 227, Motel 6,
South Padre Island.
[camera shutter clicks]
[camera shutter clicks continue]
This is what we call her "go bag."
It was a small black bag.
This is out in the master bedroom.
There was duct tape as you can see in the background.
There was holsters, there was magazines,
there was ammunition, there was these latex gloves
inside of it.
And you can see a pair of sunglasses
that was wrapped up in a white towel.
That towel was consistent with the ones that were
used at Snug Harbor.
And those are actually the victim's sunglasses.
So it appears as if she kept
a trophy of some sort in this "go bag."
And who does that? Who wears somebody's clothes
that you just murdered, or whatever, you know?
So, I thought that was disgusting, you know?
[Carmine] When she gets back to Lee County,
she looks disheveled,
but I'm proud to say that what we did
can't bring that loved one back,
but she does face justice.
- [cameras flashing] - [people chattering]
In my county,
the very few that come here
that wanna commit crimes,
if they're lucky, if they're lucky,
they go to the Marceno Hotel.
The Marceno Hotel is my jail.
That's my jail.
[automated voice over phone]
[Lois]
[automated voice over phone]
[Bria]
[Lois]
[Bria]
[Lois]
[Bria] Mm-hmm.
[Lois crying]
She's charged with first degree murder
in the death of Pam Hutchinson,
and she's facing the death penalty.
[news anchor] This morning, this Minnesota grandmother
is fighting a possible death penalty.
Prosecutors in Lee County, Florida,
explain the homicide was committed
in a cold, calculated, and premeditated manner.
[Lois]
[inmates clamoring]
[somber music plays]
[Barbara] Something was not satisfying her
in her life.
She needed something fed
in her heart and soul
that she wasn't getting and didn't know how to get.
[Lindsey] Something pushed Lois this far.
She didn't get here by herself.
And it's really hard for a lot of people
to understand
how hard he may have been on her
unless you've walked a mile in her shoes.
[David] What she did was wrong.
Regardless of whatever she wants to say
or claim happened,
or what happened in the past
that drove her to this,
homicide is homicide.
I believe, obviously, if it went to trial,
we would've probably learned and been told
more about possible mental health issues
that she or her family suffered from.
Unfortunately, those weren't discussed
because this case didn't go to trial.
[woman] To the charge of first degree murder
with a firearm, a capital felony
which is punishable by the death penalty.
How do you plead?
[Lois] Guilty.
[woman] Do you admit that on or about or between
April 5th, 2018,
and April 9th, 2018,
in Lee County, Florida,
you did unlawfully form a premeditated design
to affect the death of a human being,
Pamela Hutchinson? Do you admit that?
[Lois] Yes.
Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, ma'am,
I will adjudicate you guilty.
I will sentence you to the Florida Department
of Corrections for a period of life.
[Lois] I wish I would've gone to trial
and said my stories,
and helped with the doctors with me,
but, you know, my mother died in a mental institution.
I didn't want to die in a mental institution.
And that was my biggest fear,
is if I had to go to trial,
because that's how I felt.
I felt mentally incompetent.
I was in the middle of a breakdown.
And I felt that...
that's what would happen, I'd end up just like my mother.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Barbara] I'll plead guilty, that way I get a life sentence
and not the death penalty.
Well, being as I've been really, really poor,
and couldn't even buy bread, milk and cereal for my kids,
I can't see paying
thousands and hundreds of dollars
to keep someone alive in prison till they die.
I think she should've gotten the death sentence.
I really do.
[Scott] I'm not saying I felt good.
I felt better.
It was the right thing to happen.
You know, I liked Lois too, you know.
I wasn't rooting for her,
but I don't think I just hated her at that point, you know?
Disgusted, pissed off, but not hate yet.
You know?
[John] And so, then she was extradited
from Florida to Minnesota to face the charges
for the murder of her husband.
She agrees to another plea deal
where she'll be able to spend
her sentence, her life sentence
without any chance of parole
in Minnesota so that she can be closer to her children
and her grandchildren who can visit her.
[Lindsey] I heard about Lois's sentencing
and I knew it was something that
I was not gonna miss.
I wanted some answers
and I felt like that might give them,
and I was really shocked
that it was held in a high school.
[John] I attended the hearing
in the high school auditorium,
because the Dodge County courthouse
could only accommodate seven people.
[Lindsey] We got there and we walked in.
There was media all around, as you could imagine.
Once it started, they walked Lois in.
[dramatic music plays]
[John] She's got her hands shackled at the waist
and gets sworn in.
She recounts the details of how she killed Dave
through a series of questions
that her attorney is asking her.
[Lois] It was just one of his normal, angry days.
We went to lacrosse, and saw my grandson's game,
and he only let us stay there for 15 minutes.
It was a two-hour drive to get there
and we stayed for 15 minutes,
and drove back home, but...
I just know
that he was in a really bad mood that day.
[John] They argued on the drive home.
According to Lois, they continued to argue
when they got home.
[Lois] He had a smoking closet. A big, huge closet.
[camera shutter clicks]
He was smoking and he had a dresser where he kept
all his stuff, and all I remember
is that he handed me a gun.
[John] According to Lois, Dave took a loaded .22 pistol
out of the drawer,
and said, "Why don't you kill yourself
and get it right this time?"
[Lois] He said, "Do it right."
And that's all I know about that,
is I've never had a gun, I don't shoot guns...
- He handed me a gun... - [Erin] It was your dad's gun.
It was my dad's gun, yeah.
After my dad had died,
David got his guns.
It was my dad's gun and he had it in his dresser.
I didn't know he had it in his dresser.
[John] And she says that then she looked at him,
pointed the gun at his heart, and fired,
fully intending to kill him.
[dark, dramatic music plays]
[Lois] He probably wanted me to kill myself that day.
And it just didn't happen that way.
[Rick] I don't know that I believe that.
It seems hard to believe.
Especially with everything that was going on
in her life that we found out,
through the mental illness, the gambling.
Is this how it happened?
This is Lois's story that she gave as testimony in court,
but is this how it really happened? Um...
[Erin] What does your gut tell you?
I am suspicious. I don't believe that version.
First of all,
that's-that's not the response to that.
If you've got the gun in your hand,
then, cool, he's not gonna use it on you.
Once you had the gun,
I would think you would burst into tears
and run out of the house.
And that's not what happened.
[ominous music plays]
[Lois] After that, it was lots of blacking out,
lots of, uh...
I hate to say this, but I was...
I'd wake up incontinent.
And I just started losing track of time.
[clock ticking]
And then to drive.
I would drive and drive for thousands of miles.
I ended up in Florida.
[Erin] Why do you think you went to Florida?
Well, that's--
You know, the mind is a crazy thing.
I have no idea.
I was just in and out of...
real life, you know? It was...
a puzzle I still don't know
how to put together yet.
[John] Then they had the reading of the victim's statements.
Dave's mother is elderly,
could not be there, but a representative read
a statement on her behalf.
It says, "When you killed David,
you took my heart."
This is a mother speaking about her son.
"David was this family's ray of sunshine.
I will never forgive you."
At this point, Lois makes her statement.
She says, "What I did is an unpardonable crime.
Solitude is forever.
I feel I deserve this.
I will have no reprieve.
My life without David is my sentence,
my penance.
I apologize to David's family
for taking him from you.
I apologize to David's friends."
[Gary] She apologized to her family
for murdering her husband.
I never heard her apologize
to anybody on Pam's side.
The woman just had no conscience whatsoever,
you know what I mean?
[Erin] What was the first thing
when you came out of the blackout,
when you realized what had happened to Pamela?
I don't-- I don't know for real what happened.
I know I wasn't running. I wasn't hiding.
[camera shutter clicks]
[Erin] Unfortunately, when you say you don't remember...
- Yeah. - It feels like you're evading.
It was shown to me that I took her life.
I still don't know the reason why it happened.
But I do, I feel absolute remorse and shame.
And I feel terrible that I took her life,
and David's life.
I mean, for all...
their faults, but Pamela especially,
because she reached out to me to be my friend.
I just wish I would have been in a better state of mind.
I could have been her friend.
She just caught up in my-- in my breakdown.
And it was-- it was awful.
And I'm very sorry for her family
that I took her life.
It wasn't intentional.
It, uh...
[ominous music plays]
[Kay] They found Dave
in the bathroom of the Riess home.
Lois had opened a window in the bathroom,
presumably due to the smell.
She then stole some money
from his account
and got in her car and left.
Pamela Hutchinson was killed in the bathroom
of her condominium.
The air conditioning, because now we're in Florida,
was turned down.
She had put some towels
along the bottom of the bathroom door,
again, possibly to prevent the smell from escaping.
Lois stole a bunch of money,
and got in her car and left.
[ominous music continues]
That's not a coincidence.
So any claims that she may make,
not remembering what happened,
blacking out in the days that followed,
that she was having these-these
extreme mental breaks...
Boy, you sure knew what to do, though.
You know? And you did the same thing again.
That doesn't hold water to anybody
that's got an ounce of logic. It just doesn't.
It is-it is a successful MO, is what it is.
[music fades]
I hope that Lois is sitting in her jail cell
thinking about how many lives she ruined.
Not only Pamela's family,
Dave's family, her immediate family.
[somber music plays]
[Lois] My sister Cindee...
she, uh, she was in the throes of a breakdown,
and she took her own life a couple years ago.
[Samantha] I don't know too much about the end of Cindee's life.
What I do know is that
her demons took over.
[John] Jason, Cindee's son,
had a history of violence himself,
and he had shown up drunk
at his mother's and stepfather's house,
and they argued.
She had asked her son, I believe, to leave,
and he didn't want to,
and he actually laid down on the pavement
in their driveway, and said,
"What are you gonna do, run over me?"
And so she ran over him with her car.
So when the cop asked her,
"Did you mean to do that?"
She replied, stone cold sober, "You betcha."
[Lindsey] She knew what she was facing.
And she knew what Lois was going through.
And she didn't want to go to prison
like Lois.
[Kari] Lois felt responsible for that.
She thinks Cindee probably
took a lot of grief
based on what happ-- what Lois did,
and couldn't handle it.
Cindee went up to Quarry Hill.
That was kind of a place where we hung out a lot.
So I guess she must have gone up there
as a place that was familiar to her,
a place that she liked,
and hung herself.
If I wouldn't have done these crimes,
I would have been out there to help her.
Because that's what I always did.
So I feel bad
that my sisters and brothers are dying alone.
And I'm not there because of what happened.
[dark, dramatic music plays]
[Scott] Dave and Lois had three children.
The youngest one, Braden,
um, seemed like a good kid.
He worked for me one summer. He was a hard worker.
[Lois] My focus was my children my whole life
because they're my best accomplishments.
My children,
they still love me.
And they-they know our lives.
Um...
[choked up] My son Braden died a year ago today.
And he had severe depression
and mental health issues.
I wish he would have got help.
[sniffles]
[Samantha] I know for a while it was meth,
and then, um, I also know that it had
graduated into heroin.
[Lindsey] Braden struggled with addiction
before this took place,
but then you throw this in the middle of it...
[Samantha] He was ready to be done.
He just needed to get out of the game.
[Lindsey] Then we found out that he
was found deceased in his truck
in his friend's driveway.
And it was ruled an overdose.
[Kari] He died shortly after I started visiting her,
so she's really been struggling with that.
She knows that what she did added a lot
of pain and suffering,
and trauma, and you name it,
on her kids' plates.
[Erin] What would he say to you if he were here today,
about you doing this?
He would be proud of me.
I've never given an interview...
because I have such shame and regret for what I did.
And that's why I didn't fight,
because when they showed me what I did,
you have to pay for what you did.
I took their lives, but Braden would be proud of me.
[sniffles]
[Barbara] I try to understand why people do what they do,
because of what I myself have gone through
with a lot of abuse.
I knew that I had been abused
and I went in for counseling,
I went to sessions, I went to retreats,
I read books.
I really dug into my mind
and my heart
to try to dig out the poison
that abuse
makes you feel.
We are all intelligent enough to get help.
We all have to live with what we do.
[Kari] I went and visited her in August of 2021,
I think it was.
So I hadn't seen her in four years,
and she gave me a huge, long hug.
She didn't want to let go. It was like...
[laughs] ...almost uncomfortable because
she said that I was the first human contact
she had had in four years.
So that was kind of surprising to me.
And then she talked, we had an hour,
and she talked the whole time.
And she told me all about what led up to the...
shooting of Dave.
- And, uh... - [Erin] Did you talk about
what happened in Florida?
No, no, we've never talked about that.
It came up and she just put her head in her hands.
She just can't...
She doesn't seem to want to...
be able to talk about it and I didn't push it.
[Erin] Looking sort of ten years down the road,
do you think you and Lois will still be close?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
Yeah, because I think a lot of people have abandoned her.
Might just be a bridge too far for most people.
[Erin] But why not for you?
Well, 'cause...
[deep sigh]
I don't know.
I mean...
I don't know, probably,
you know, my dad was a minister
and he visited people in prison. [sobs softly]
[Erin] Norma, what do you think about forgiveness?
That doesn't help us, does it?
There's a lot of scriptures that admonish us
not to be judgmental,
and, uh...
that's hard.
- [oven bell dings] - All I do is I...
pray for her every night.
[Erin] What do you say when you pray for her?
[Norma] That she can come to some peace
of her acceptance
of why she did it.
Is anybody gonna eat those for dessert?
[Erin] Yes.
[Norma laughs]
[soft, intriguing music plays]
[Kay] This story has
a load of shame to it.
It's full of shame and hurt.
And I think it continues.
This town has shame
about what happened.
Shame is a powerful, powerful emotion.
It makes you hide, it makes you lie,
it makes you steal, and the only way to fix it
is to face it.
[Lindsey] Lois was very well-known around the town.
She had a lot of friends.
She did day care for a lot of people in Blooming Prairie.
And after this all happened,
she was just a monster.
And I may ruffle some feathers, but I feel like that is
what a lot of my family, you know, is doing.
Because, with them,
they're still thinking that
David is the same old jolly David
that he's always been.
But just because he was that way with them,
I know, doesn't mean that that's how he was
at home with his wife.
[Kay] The fact that people speak
and continue to speak so highly of Dave,
they don't wanna talk ill of him.
If he was abusive, that's a really shitty thing.
They don't dare say it,
but you can say it and still-- and think that
he didn't deserve to die because of it, for heaven's sake.
We don't want to be disloyal,
perhaps, to Dave's memory.
We don't want to provide excuses
for Lois's behavior.
I don't know. It's a reluctance
all the way around to look inside.
[Gary sighs]
[mouse clicks]
[Gary] I think about Pam a lot,
but I got a lot of Pam pictures that I just
access quite a bit.
I think Pam
would like to be remembered
as a free spirit and her own woman.
I think she finally proved
that she could make it on her own.
[sniffles]
Okay, here-- this was her last
trip to Mexico just a few months before.
It says, "Was not supposed to be goodbye."
"Until we meet again, my BFF."
[sniffles]
[somber piano music plays]