- 26/05/2025
A man’s body is discovered in his Texas home, hidden for weeks after his murder. When police discover that his family is missing as well, the investigation reveals a desperate escape attempt and a motive rooted in fear and betrayal.
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00:00A grizzly crime scene is discovered in an abandoned trailer in small town Texas.
00:17You're immediately hit with a foul odor.
00:22I saw a deceased male with his head and torso inside of a large green trash can.
00:29It looked like someone had tried to possibly dispose of the body, but gave up.
00:37The victim is a husband and father of three, and with the rest of the family nowhere to
00:42be found, concerns grow.
00:45There were toys, children's clothes thrown about everywhere.
00:50Somebody had left in a hurry.
00:52Where's the wife and where are the three children?
00:56They were entered into TCIC as missing endangered people.
01:01We don't know if this is potential burglary or robbery.
01:05What unfolds is a homicide investigation with five potential victims.
01:12But when detectives track down their killer, they find the truth is more disturbing than
01:17anything they could have imagined.
01:21She wanted to wipe me off the face of the earth.
01:24She was purchasing items to cover up this crime, all while she had her child in tow.
01:32She's a monster.
01:33You might as well arrest me now, because I'm number one on the **** list.
01:39It's the kind of case that causes you to lose sleep at night.
01:54December 4th, 2012.
02:04It's a chilly winter day in Red Oak, Texas, when police receive a frantic emergency call.
02:12Fifty-four-year-old Susanna Asbill says she's outside her son's home with her husband, Terry,
02:18and they think something terrible has happened.
02:22They were concerned because they had not heard from their son, Marlon Wade Reese, or
02:29the daughter-in-law, Amy Reese, in three to four weeks.
02:34On the 13th or 14th of October, I had this really bad nightmare, like something had just
02:40was crushing my heart.
02:42I just knew it was Wade.
02:44My husband asked me what was wrong, and I said, it was a bad feeling.
02:48Wade was fixing to start a new job in Waxahachie, and I knew the job.
02:52They work people like, sometimes they work them 80, 90 hours a week.
02:56I thought, well, you know, he's busy.
02:58He started his new job.
02:59I wasn't no concern or anything.
03:03Susanna says when Thanksgiving came and went without any word from Wade or his wife, Amy,
03:09she decided it was time to pay them a visit.
03:13On December 4th, I looked at my husband.
03:15I said, I don't care what we're doing.
03:18We're getting in the vehicle, and we're going to Red Oak.
03:21As soon as I drove up, I knew something was wrong.
03:24Wade's vehicle was parked backwards, and it was just full of dirt, like it had not been
03:28moved.
03:29When I opened the mailbox, it just was bloated with mail.
03:34Terry says, well, let me go in the house and see what I can see.
03:37He said, you go ask the neighbors if they've seen anything.
03:42Got to the neighbor, and I said, have you seen Wade or Amy?
03:46Have you seen anybody?
03:47And they said, no, we hadn't seen them in a while.
03:51And he says, but we have been smelling something from coming that away.
03:56And about that time, I heard my husband holler.
03:58He said, what's the address here?
04:00I gave him the address, and he says, just, you can't go in there.
04:05There's somebody dead in there.
04:07And I looked at him, and I said, I know it's Wade.
04:14Deputies and investigators quickly arrive and tell Susanna and Terry to wait outside
04:18while they search the home.
04:22We entered the residence, which was a mobile home.
04:28You're immediately hit with a foul odor consistent with decomposition.
04:35I could immediately see that someone had attempted to pack up the house.
04:40There was a TV missing from the wall, where it had clearly been on an entertainment center.
04:47There were toys, children's clothes, books, DVDs.
04:53It was definitely in disarray, stuff thrown about everywhere.
04:58Somebody had left in a hurry.
05:01In the primary bedroom, they find the source of the smell.
05:09I saw a deceased male lying face down with his head and torso inside of a large green
05:15trash can.
05:18His feet were out of the trash can and coming through the doorway.
05:23The feet are bound.
05:24The hands have been tied.
05:26There's a bag over his head.
05:28I've worked multiple homicides before this one, but this one was unique.
05:31It was shocking.
05:33It was apparent that their actions were to get the body completely in the trash can,
05:37like they were going to take the trash out.
05:41He had skin slippage and marbling of his skin, which implied that he had been there for quite
05:46some time.
05:48We're having multiple discussions about what could have happened, what went on.
05:52Is this Wade?
05:53Where's the wife?
05:54Has he been killed and they've been taken, and now we have an abducted wife and abducted
05:58children?
05:59I want to start talking to people, witnesses, and trying to put the puzzle together.
06:07The Red Oak police showed up and they taped it off, and I just knew it was Wade.
06:14I just knew in my heart it was him.
06:23Marlon Wade Reese was born January 5, 1976, in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
06:31He grew up in Northeast Texas, raised by his mother, Susanna.
06:36We're like third and fourth generation Texans, so I love Texas.
06:41When we moved to Red Oak, we bought a piece of land and we bought a trailer.
06:45Wade was a really good little baby.
06:47When he started walking, that's when the fun really started, because he was getting into
06:51everything, bringing bugs in his pocket and trying to jump off his stuff, and he just
06:56thought he was a tough, tough little guy.
07:01Though his parents split up when he was six months old, Wade remained very close with
07:06his father.
07:08We were too young.
07:09It just wasn't going to stay, and we decided to separate ways, but I had a very good relationship
07:13with Wade's father.
07:17From the age of five, Wade used to spend the whole summer with his grandpa and his dad,
07:24and he would ride motorcycles like crazy.
07:28And as he grew and got bigger, his grandpa would buy Wade whatever he wanted.
07:34I got married again, and then I found out I was pregnant with Crystal, and Wade wasn't
07:40very excited about having another person, because he'd been almost six years, it was
07:46just him and I.
07:49My brother was a very good brother.
07:51He definitely protected me, especially when I got older, there was a lot of boyfriends
07:55that he did not like, but growing up, man, we had lots of fun.
08:00After dropping out of high school, Wade followed in his grandfather's footsteps by pursuing
08:05a passion for mechanics.
08:09Wade was good at taking cars apart, motorcycles, and he would build things, and he always had
08:14a job.
08:15He had quite a few girlfriends.
08:18My brother was a worker, it was, let's get my stuff together so that I can go be a man.
08:26He was looking for that right woman, told him, I said, you may have to kiss a lot of
08:29frogs out there till you get that princess.
08:33At the age of 32, Wade finally met his match on a dating website, a 33-year-old single
08:40mother named Amy Deaver.
08:43Wade said he just met this nice lady in Fort Worth, and he'd been talking to her, and he
08:49just thought she was really cute.
08:51She had two children.
08:52Wade was really protective of them.
08:54They got along really well.
08:56They were very loving.
08:57They was always holding hands and kissing on the couch.
09:02In 2008, Wade and Amy got married.
09:07Wade was just ready to settle down.
09:10He thought he'd found the one.
09:14Wade called me and said, Mom, can you take Amy and buy her a dress?
09:18And I said, sure, I'll buy her a dress.
09:21So I took her.
09:22We went to Walmart.
09:23She picked out a really nice dress.
09:25Not long after that, Wade had another wish fulfilled when Amy gave birth to their son.
09:34Wade was very ecstatic.
09:36Wade knew, wow, I've got a motorcycle partner now.
09:38I've got somebody that can teach how to work on cars.
09:42I really honestly feel like my whole brother's demeanor in life went up a level, you know
09:47what I mean?
09:48Like, OK, this is it.
09:49I got my family.
09:50I got my son.
09:51I was living in North Dallas, and I talked to my husband, and I said, the trailer house
09:56is empty.
09:57I'm just going to give it to Wade.
09:58Amy was very grateful.
10:00He was so happy.
10:02I've never seen them argue, never, not once.
10:06Amy and Wade were just Amy and Wade.
10:11But their happy home has become the scene of a grisly murder, and investigators are
10:17trying to determine what happened.
10:21We don't know if this is potential burglary or robbery or something that just went bad.
10:26I immediately spoke with Terry and Susanna Asbill, and I learned that Amy was missing,
10:33the three children were missing, her van was missing, along with their dogs.
10:39You can hear jibber-jabber from the police saying, whoever was in there, there was something
10:43on top.
10:44And I thought, oh, Lord.
10:45I thought they were going to find my grandson dead also.
10:54Coming up, the crime scene provides several clues about the killer.
10:59To abuse a body like that just shows an enormous lack of respect for human life.
11:10And the autopsy reveals startling details.
11:15The person stood up outside the bed in a downward manner, shooting while he was asleep.
11:23Before the search for Amy and the children takes an unexpected turn.
11:29The story just kept getting worse.
11:46An unidentified body suspected to be Wade Reese has just been discovered decomposing
11:52in his family's mobile home.
11:55After securing the crime scene, Red Oak sheriffs put out an alert for Amy Reese and the children.
12:03In the event that anybody were to come in contact with law enforcement, we would be
12:08notified.
12:09And they were entered into TCIC, NCIC as missing endangered people.
12:19Homicide detectives then take over, scouring the trailer for any clues.
12:25We were collecting blood, articles of evidence that we could use to compare with DNA that
12:31potentially could be left at the scene by the suspect.
12:35His head was wrapped in a trash bag.
12:39He was bound using duct tape and rope by the legs.
12:44I felt like that the trash bag is probably concealing a manner of injury of some type.
12:52I got the impression this was likely a gunshot wound and the trash bag had been tied over
12:58the victim's head to contain the fluids that were actively coming out of his head.
13:04I noted some blood splatter on the bed.
13:07I noted a void in the mattress.
13:10I ended up cutting that void open where I recovered a projectile that was a bullet.
13:22Investigators aren't able to locate a murder weapon, but they do find empty shell casings
13:28as well as evidence of a hasty cleanup.
13:32There was smeared blood on the trash can and a dolly with blood smeared on it as well.
13:39It looked like someone had tried to possibly dispose of the body, but gave up in the middle
13:47and just left.
13:50He was a very tall man and bodies are not easily movable.
13:56That's the reason they used the phrase dead weight.
13:58To abuse a body like that, it just shows an enormous lack of concern or respect for
14:09human life.
14:12We couldn't readily identify the body at the scene because of the advanced stages of decomposition.
14:20Outside the home, investigators find another trash can by the curb.
14:27Inside the trash can, we found several plastic or rubber gloves.
14:32We found the boxes for borax, laundry detergent, and carpet deodorizer.
14:39I was able to develop fingerprints on the packaging for a 3M respirator mask, which
14:44would have been used to block out any sort of decomposition odor.
14:48And I was able to find a fingerprint on a box of contractor trash bags.
14:55All the gloves that were found, the duct tape, the mask, those items were submitted
15:00for DNA analysis.
15:03It was a lucky break that the trash can had not been picked up and all of those items
15:08disposed of at that point because two months had gone by.
15:13The crime scene tells detectives this was no simple robbery attempt.
15:18Somebody was trying to mask a scene and it was apparent by what I was looking at when
15:24I was walking around the crime scene that it was quick.
15:28It was not well thought out.
15:30When we went into some of the children's bedrooms, we could see that the closets had been cleared
15:34out.
15:35I saw several suitcases around the house that appeared to be partially packed up and left
15:40behind.
15:41It wasn't a situation where somebody was looking to find something.
15:47Somebody was leaving in a hurry.
15:50I'm working something like this and I find out there's children.
15:53My focus always is where are the children?
15:57What's going on with the children?
16:01Desperate for answers, investigators pull Amy and Wade's bank records.
16:07We investigated the couple's finances and found pattern to a local storage facility
16:13in a nearby city.
16:14It was in Duncanville, Texas.
16:17We executed a search warrant there and we found several items of interest inside the
16:22storage unit.
16:25We found several trash bags that contained bedding that had been stripped from the bed
16:29at the house.
16:31We found several articles of clothing that had apparent blood on them.
16:35We found several firearms and things of that nature.
16:39One of the articles of clothing was a pair of camouflage cargo shorts that had blood
16:44stains on both sides and within the waistband of the shorts.
16:50We were actually shocked that these trash bags were in this storage unit.
16:53We did not think it was going to be that easy.
16:57The shorts that were found could have been worn by a male or a female.
17:02We believe that one of the pairs of shorts that we found in the trash bags belonged to
17:06our victim.
17:09Detectives send the bloody pants out for testing, but they leave with more than just another
17:17piece of forensic evidence.
17:19When we executed that search warrant and met with the storage facility personnel, we learned
17:27that Amy had come to the storage facility with the children.
17:31They didn't know what Amy was doing, but they watched the children while Amy was in and
17:35out of her storage building.
17:37Once we were able to put eyes on Amy and the children, we no longer believed Amy had been
17:44abducted.
17:4624 hours into the investigation of the Reese family's disappearance, after speaking to
18:04an employee at their storage unit, police have just discovered that Amy and the children
18:09are alive.
18:12While detectives are working to track them down, they receive the autopsy report.
18:19The doctor who performed the autopsy told us that because of the advanced stages of
18:25decomposition, they were going to have to take extra steps to identify them.
18:31Mrs. Hasbill had relayed that Wade had a tattoo of a Texas Longhorn tattoo on his arm, I believe,
18:39and then a Yo Samity Sam cartoon character on his chest.
18:46Later at the medical examiner's office, the doctor did note tattoos consistent with the
18:52description on the body.
18:58Once we were able to get the identification of the decedent, Wade Reese, we continued
19:04our process of trying to figure out what happened.
19:08My focus, immediately, was where's the wife and where are the three children?
19:15The pathologist made the determination that Wade had been shot on the right side of the
19:20head and that would have been the entry wound, and that the exit wound was right above the
19:24left ear, and he would have died instantly.
19:29With Wade laying on his side, we concluded that the person stood up outside the bed in
19:36a downward manner, shooting Wade while he was turned away from them asleep.
19:46The medical examiner also notes burns likely caused by sulfuric acid.
19:53It had been thrown on Wade's face.
19:56Whoever did this thought they could take that chemical, and I feel like they were trying
20:01to dissolve the body, get rid of the body by the chemical eating away at the flesh.
20:13The blood on the shorts found in the Reese's storage unit is confirmed to be Wade's.
20:19This combined with the sighting of Amy and the children causes detectives to consider
20:24Amy a suspect.
20:27They talked to Wade's loved ones to see if there's a motive.
20:33Detective Fitzgerald called me, and he said, I'm coming to your house to talk to you.
20:37By that time, I'd already cried for two days straight.
20:41He showed up, and he confirmed it was Wade.
20:43I don't think I even cried, to be honest with you.
20:48And he said, you don't know any places that they would go.
20:51The only thing I just knew was that Amy's mother lived down in Temple, Texas.
20:57She didn't have a very good relationship with her mother, but she still tried to go see
21:02her mother because Amy had a little sister.
21:05Amy grew up in South Texas.
21:07She grew up in the foster care system.
21:09She was a habitual runaway, living with grandparents throughout her childhood.
21:15She had been in and out of different group homes.
21:18Amy started at a young age getting in relationships with men.
21:25I want to say the gentleman was probably 20, maybe 25 years older than her.
21:31She had her first child together with this man.
21:34This man ultimately was arrested and convicted of sexual assault of a different child.
21:43She directly went to a second relationship, didn't get married, but had another child.
21:54According to Wade's family, he did his best to help Amy and her daughters heal from their
22:00traumatic experience.
22:02Amy, she needed somebody that she could rely on, somebody that would nurture her.
22:07She didn't have that.
22:09She only had one of the little girls half the time.
22:12One of the girls went to her grandmother's on the weekend.
22:15He wanted to make sure that they knew that they could come to him and they didn't have
22:20to worry about anything happening to them, that he was like a safe place.
22:27As far as Wade's mother is concerned, Amy had no reason at all to kill him.
22:33But Wade's sister recalls an incident that occurred several months before his death.
22:40When Amy got into a fight one night, Wade went outside and slept in his car in the yard
22:48that we had.
22:49Well, apparently Amy's daughter called the cops and was like, my parents are fighting.
22:55And the cops showed up and drugged my brother out of his truck while he was asleep and arrested him.
23:02We were able to determine that Amy had also been arrested for assaulting Wade.
23:09We learned that the children had been removed from the home in 2009, but we also learned
23:15that they had worked those services and that the children were allowed to be reunited with
23:20Amy and Wade.
23:23We were highly concerned for the children initially because we didn't know her status.
23:28We didn't know whether or not Ms. Reese was involved.
23:32All of the evidence, both circumstantial and physical, pointed towards Amy.
23:38It was just a matter of putting it all together.
23:43Coming up, the search for Amy heats up.
23:48Knowing that two months had gone by at this point, she could have been anywhere.
23:53And when detectives find her, she makes a startling accusation.
23:58It was abusive for my daughters.
24:01It was getting physical and inappropriate.
24:04So she's levying these accusations against Wade when, in fact, Child Protective Services
24:11took the children due to Amy, not her husband.
24:27Days into the search, the unidentified body is now known to be Wade Reese.
24:37With the positive ID, detectives are even more intent on finding his wife and three
24:43children.
24:44There was a teenage daughter and two littles.
24:48I knew that they had been enrolled in the local Red Oak Independent School District.
24:53I was able to talk to administrators and get some key information about the children being
24:57unenrolled.
24:59It was noted that there was a family emergency.
25:06Records indicate Amy pulled the children out of school on October 15th.
25:12At the scene, when we were going through the mail, it was dated the 16th of October.
25:16So the murder occurred right around the time that Amy took the kids out of school.
25:21I knew that our target was focusing on Amy.
25:24Knowing that two months had gone by at this point, she could have been anywhere in the
25:29country or in the world.
25:34Calls to Amy's cell phone are going straight to voicemail and GPS data has been turned
25:39off.
25:40So police track her using a more antiquated method, the DMV.
25:47I had our dispatch center start running Amy's name throughout all 50 states and they were
25:53able to get a hit of a Colorado driver's license.
25:59When we found out that Amy was in Colorado, it told us a couple of things.
26:03It told us one, she was okay.
26:06We didn't have any reason to believe that she fell victim to anybody.
26:10Two, we got pretty excited because we had a general area where we could look for her.
26:17We had found the address on her driver's license and we reached out to the Denver
26:23Police Department, requested their assistance.
26:28Denver police locate the children through enrollment information.
26:33We learned that the children were okay.
26:35One child had been left with a family member.
26:37The other two children, we discovered they were okay.
26:41Denver police moved into their procedures and got their local child protective services
26:46involved.
26:50When Denver police report to the address listed, they are met by the residents who
26:55tell them Amy is not there.
26:58We found out Amy had befriended and was living with the owner and that owner was able to
27:05help her out to watch her kids while she went and looked for a job.
27:10Police convinced the resident to call Amy and falsely tell her that the littlest child
27:20is out in the street and they need her to come home.
27:27When Amy responds to the emergency call, she's taken into police custody.
27:35Detective Castro is a part of Denver Police Homicide.
27:38He was asked to come in and help and he met with Amy at headquarters.
27:45My first priority is to, you know, see if I could build a rapport with her.
27:51Amy was very responsive to my questions.
27:54She was cooperative.
27:56She didn't seem like the typical homicide suspect.
28:01What I learned from Amy during our interview was that she left Texas to get away from her
28:05husband.
28:06Why don't you tell me about that?
28:07It was abusive.
28:09What do you mean it was abusive?
28:12Emotional, verbal, and for the kids, for my daughters, it was getting physical and inappropriate.
28:19They'd had previous fights where they were both arrested.
28:24She basically says that, you know, the final straw in this was when Wade picked up her
28:28daughter and slammed her on the floor, she knew she had to get out of this relationship
28:32for her kids.
28:35She said they left on October 14th in the middle of the night.
28:39She took their white van.
28:41That's the last time you saw him?
28:43That was the last time I saw him.
28:45My daughters and my son, we snuck out of the house, got what we could get and snuck out.
28:54She said that she returned the next day.
28:57She drove around the property a couple of times, hoping that he wasn't there.
29:02She had to sneak into the house to get their belongings, and then she left.
29:10She traveled through Oklahoma, Kansas, and eventually settled here in Denver because
29:14she said she liked the area.
29:16She wanted to get a job, and she thought that she could come here and basically start a
29:22new life.
29:25Eventually we come to a point where I had to ask her if she knew what happened to her
29:28husband, and she claimed that she didn't.
29:31I just told her, you know, I was just on the phone with Ellis County sheriffs and he's
29:37dead.
29:38He was murdered.
29:39Murdered?
29:40Mm-hmm.
29:41Here you are, you're an abused wife.
29:46He's being mean to your kids, and you pick up and leave town.
29:51I think you did what you had to do to protect your kids.
29:56But did you two have to do more?
29:58No, I left.
30:01When he was sleeping, I left.
30:04I tried to sympathize with her.
30:06You know, there's a lot of women in your situation, and I think people would understand.
30:11I'm trying to draw this out of her, try to get her to explain, you know, why she did
30:15this.
30:17To investigators, Amy's response is telling.
30:21I want to go down for this regardless, and talk about it.
30:25You might as well write to me now, because I'm number one on the f***ing list.
30:43Amy Reese's interview with Denver police raises further suspicions, but she ends it
30:49before they can probe any further about Wade's murder.
30:54It doesn't matter even if I have an attorney, I'm going to go down for this, regardless
30:58if I did it or not.
31:00My life is over.
31:03She ultimately requested an attorney to represent her, and she stopped the interview.
31:09Obviously, we didn't get a confession where she said that she murdered Wade.
31:14But I think we narrowed down dates.
31:17I thought it was strange that, you know, she left on October 14th, and then she had to
31:21sneak into the house on the 15th.
31:24As an investigator, you know, when I'm hearing this, I'm thinking, he's already dead at this
31:28point, and she's driving around the property making sure nobody's a witness there.
31:35She told Detective Castro that she had gone back into the house and collected belongings.
31:41So she was implicating herself in the crime scene.
31:47Whitney is released for the time being, but Denver police keep her under surveillance
31:52while detectives continue their investigation, as well as request that she submit her electronic
31:58devices for review.
32:03When they ask Wade's family about the allegations of abuse, they vehemently deny them.
32:10There was absolutely no proof that Wade had ever harmed any of those children.
32:19There was no indication that Wade had been anything other than a loving father.
32:28I never seen him yell or get angry.
32:31110% I knew my son would never do anything like that, never.
32:36So she's levying these accusations against Wade when, in fact, Child Protective Services
32:43took the children from the home, and that was due to abuse and neglect by Amy, not her
32:54husband.
32:57Investigators obtain a search warrant for Amy's electronic devices, and what they find
33:03suggest her reasons for leaving had nothing to do with the children.
33:07When we had forensics go through her computers and phones, we found that she lived a life
33:14of deviant sexual acts.
33:18Within days of Wade being dead, she was already on sexually explicit websites and chat rooms.
33:29She was sexting with men, you know, sending them graphic photos of herself as if she knew
33:37that he was dead.
33:39So perhaps Amy was having an affair.
33:43She was tired of Wade.
33:45She was ready to start a new life with somebody else.
33:48It was apparent with her deviant sexual texting that was going on.
33:52It showed that Amy had no remorse that she was able to leave her husband rotting in that
34:00trailer for two months, acting as if nothing was wrong.
34:09But as suspicious as Amy's exploits might be, what detectives need is evidence tying
34:15her to the murder.
34:18We discovered they were on government assistance, and that led us to Amy's WIC card.
34:26And when we ran a history on that, that's when we started to tie purchases that she
34:31had made.
34:32Through looking at Amy's financials, we were able to locate receipts that indicated she
34:40had made purchases both at a Walmart local in Red Oak and then again at a nearby town
34:48in Waxahachie.
34:54Investigators compare Amy's purchases to the cleaning supplies found in the Reese's garbage.
35:00I met with the loss prevention folks at Walmart, and we immediately started running some of
35:06the barcodes that we had found at the scene.
35:08We were able to hone in to the surveillance of when those articles were purchased.
35:15When we discovered that Amy was on camera, she had her daughter with her.
35:23And she's smart.
35:24Halfway, she goes to the ATM, pulls cash out, and pays for it with cash.
35:29Some of the stuff in Red Oak, she purchased with her WIC card.
35:33Amy was purchasing items that she was using to cover up this crime, all while she had
35:40her child in tow.
35:44When we discovered that she was on video with the trash can, we knew we had her.
35:54Detectives get further confirmation when lab results come back on the fingerprints and
35:58DNA they collected.
36:02We discovered Wade's blood along with Amy's fingerprint in a trash bag that contained
36:09Wade's blood, which is a direct link to the crime scene.
36:15The latent fingerprints that were found that were confirmed to be Amy's, in addition to
36:20the absence of anybody else's prints or physical evidence, led us to get the arrest warrant
36:27on Amy.
36:31Investigators are confident that Amy pulled the trigger.
36:34Now, prosecutors must convince a jury this mom turned murderer.
36:40Regards to her childhood and how she came up, I don't know how it relates to why she
36:45did what she did.
36:47I felt that there was an obvious tension in the house.
36:51For whatever reason, Amy was feeling pressure to get out of this relationship.
36:56I think she was ready to move on to another man.
36:59She was tired of Wade and ready to move on.
37:02So she killed him.
37:04At this point, we are tying up loose ends, making sure we have all our evidence processed.
37:12That way, the prosecutors have the best case that we can put together to bring justice
37:19to Wade's parents and family.
37:31On January 20th, 2013, Amy Reese is extradited from Colorado to Texas, where she is charged
37:46with the murder of her husband, Wade Reese.
37:50I stayed in contact with the family of Wade throughout this entire process.
37:56They were asking the same questions that we had.
37:59Why?
38:00Why did she do this?
38:02Why could something happen like this to their son?
38:06The evidence we had against Amy was several DNA profiles.
38:12We had latent fingerprints.
38:13We had her on video, purchasing the items that were used in her attempts to conceal
38:19or clean up the crime scene.
38:24When her trial begins in April, Amy makes a surprising announcement.
38:30Amy and her lawyer decided she would plead guilty.
38:36So the trial was to determine punishment.
38:44I think she knew that the evidence was stacked up against her.
38:51Rather than contesting the details of the murder, the defense makes an appeal to the
38:56jury for leniency.
39:01What her attorney tried to do was show that Amy had a very difficult upbringing.
39:12When Amy was on the stand, she says that at about age 11, she began to be sexually abused.
39:23She was abused by her own father.
39:26I think Amy was trying to put that out there to justify why she killed Wade.
39:33She said that he was molesting their children, and she discovered that, and so she killed
39:40him to protect her children.
39:44We had local advocacy centers in Denver forensically check the children, and we found no evidence
39:53to support that theory.
39:59The prosecution argues that Amy's past trauma was not repeated in her life with Wade.
40:06The fact that Amy is now accusing Wade of abuse, both physical, sexual abuse, it feels
40:16very convenient.
40:19It seemed that she had a pattern of doing this.
40:22It seemed that this was just her way of getting what she wanted.
40:29We could see that she communicated with other men quite frequently in a sexual manner, so
40:35that could have been one of the motives that she had.
40:38I also believe that she was already talking to other men and was trying to get out of
40:47the situation.
41:02She didn't just shoot him.
41:04After she found out that she couldn't lift a dead body, that's when she went and got
41:09the stuff, the respirators, the gloves, and was going to put him in that trash can.
41:15She wanted to wipe him off the face of the earth.
41:22It's the kind of case that causes you to lose sleep at night.
41:28In fact, one of the jurors at the trial had to be excused because he was so traumatized
41:36by the details of the case.
41:41On April 21st, 2013, the jury renders their verdict.
41:48She was asking for mercy, but the jury did not believe anything she had to say, and they
41:55sentenced her to the most that they could, which was life in prison.
42:03I think justice was served.
42:05She can't hurt anybody else.
42:07She can't hurt the children anymore.
42:09She can't hurt anybody.
42:12All I have is a box with my son cremated and the memories in my head.
42:23I would never have thought something like this would happen to our family.
42:27She's a monster.
42:28The only thing I can ask her is, why?
42:30Why couldn't you just walk away?
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