Original subtitles

How are you?

Good to see you. How are you?

Good to see you. Good to see you.

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.

Do you have what it takes?

911. What is your emergency?

To answer the call, day or night.

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 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.

"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.

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.

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.

The frustration coming back,

knowing that I'll probably never know them.

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.

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."

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.

It's all hands on deck.

And we quickly scan hours of surveillance.

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.

So here, this lady, this woman,

looks like anybody's mom,

or anybody's grandmother.

She's looking at the menu.

She's befriending our victim,

who is in this safe zone, or what appears to be safe zone.

Once we saw our suspect on video,

we didn't know at that point who she was,

but then putting two and two together,

because it so happened that on the night before, April 8th,

I was on call received regarding the information

of Lois Riess and the Cadillac.

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.

They sent me a picture.

That's when I was like, "Oh, okay.

I know who we're dealing with now."

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.

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.

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,

"what's going on?"

He says, " 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.

Authorities began looking

for 56-year-old Lois Riess...

Wanted for murder in two states.

One of them her own look-alike.

59-year-old Pamela Hutchinson

of Bradenton, Florida.

Learned that this person

who was not with us anymore is Pamela Hutchinson.

Saw pictures of her smiling, happy face.

Felt so bad.

Hey, Roland.

Hi, there.

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.

Because we all had very similar likes,

as far as boating and partying,

and whatever.

- Do you like to party? - Some...

Not as hard as I used to, but...

They always have live entertainment

out by the water there.

And this was one of Pam's...

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.

So many...

...fond memories on this boat.

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 because she'd stop somewhere for lunch,

and she'd get to talking to somebody,

and she never made her final destination,

or whatever. She, like...

she was a free spirit.

You could be the jealous type when you're out with Pam,

because she talked to anybody.

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."

This is Pam.

This is her.

This is her. This shows what she's like.

She's fun, exciting,

not too shy to express herself.

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.

It's 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.

She was in a very controlled marriage.

She couldn't see the friends that she grew up with,

or it was basically

whoever he brought to the table.

And it sounds like he was,

controlling, I guess.

She rebelled or whatever.

Sometimes mental abuse can be as bad

as physical abuse.

She always said she was happy

that I came along when I did,

when she needed some help,

or something to make her feel good about herself,

because she had been downtrodden for so long.

I introduced her to all of my friends and...

I've met a lot of...

women over the years,

and she was kind of like...

a one of a kind, at least in my eyes, but...

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."

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.

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.

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.

And that woman turned out to be Lois Riess.

When I didn't hear from her the next day,

that's when...

I thought, it was Pam, I figured

she got sidetracked again or something.

I didn't get alarmed.

I 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 said, "What?"

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.

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 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.

Is it my fault?

No. I...

But I loved Pam.

I 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.

It takes all the feelings out of your heart and soul

when you see that somebody could do something like that.

We were all kind of shocked and floored

by what had transpired,

because we didn't 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.

When I heard that this lady had called the police,

reported Lois being there,

and the police told her," 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.

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.

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.

Of course that would have changed the whole...

It would have changed the future of a lot of people,

including Pam Hutchinson.

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 a mistake,

or anything went wrong.

It was the fact that Minnesota

was not that far in their investigation yet.

We did what we could to locate her,

but she seemed to kind of blend in

and no one else knew of her.

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,

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.

Completely changes

our understanding of who Lois Riess is.

Do you think that when you met Pamela,

you knew that something bad was gonna happen to her?

No.

She approached me and met me.

She was also alone.

And we were having dinner,

sitting barside, having dinner, two single women,

and,

like I said, I make friends easily.

And she does too. She seemed nice.

And she was a very nice lady.

And,

we were 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.

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.

Trying to be honest, you did bring it...

She helped me unload all my luggage

and it was in my luggage.

But so how did it go from

meeting her, she's a very nice woman,

- to killing her? - 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,

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 can grasp...

That's so scary because it wasn't her taking...

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.

It sounds like that.

Mental illness. The mind is a crazy thing.

All I know is it happened.

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 actions.

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.

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 doesn't make sense to me.

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.

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.

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...

She did it.

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.

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.

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.

What are you doing, woman?"

I was taken aback.

Like, "Holy mackerel." You know?

I am in awe. I don't know how it happens.

Is money worth that much to murder people?

Why?

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.

For me to leave my family was terrifying,

and terrifying for me.

I never in my life would imagine

leaving my children and grandchildren.

We know she stopped at least at one casino,

where she won a $1,500 jackpot.

This was in Louisiana.

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 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 forgot

where she was, who she was supposed to be playing.

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.

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.

I was seeing all of these articles

on Facebook and the news.

They're saying all of these crazy things,

like, "Killer Grandma."

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.

But is she elderly? How old was she?

Fifty-six? Do we think she's elderly?

When you look at our suspect...

...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.

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.

One thing that comes to mind

is she's heading for Mexico.

So we're reaching out to CBP

along the border of Texas.

But then, once again,

she disappeared from sight,

and they didn't know where she was.

When Lois was here...

What was her favorite song?

"Parrotheads in Cowboy Boots."

You should sing it. Do you remember it?

Let's see if I can remember it.

Most people don't know South Padre Island exists.

We're a very small island

off the southern tip of Texas.

It's one of those comforting, wonderful places,

that you wouldn't even know was here.

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 dressed in beachwear and she has on a hat.

And she's happy and she's kind of.

And she's sitting there, looking at the entertainer,

which is my husband,

and she's enjoying every bit of it.

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, that's why I...

I normally 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.

I saw this in a cartoon once.

So I'm 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 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, " do you want to go out?"

And I looked her up and down

because I'd fed her three top-shelf margaritas.

There's no way she's getting up off that stool.

And she said, " I'll be back at eight o'clock."

And then she...

...drunk-stumbled off her chair and went home.

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,

she wanted him and they were gonna be the next item.

So the next day, she comes in again.

She asked me back to the pool.

And I said, "I gotta work all night."

Missed your chance.

I didn't say what was in my head.

- Which was? - "Crazy woman."

"What are you, nuts?"

- No. - Why "crazy woman"?

Because 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.

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

Miss Congeniality.

And 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.

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,

there's only one way of getting that when you're on the run.

I wanted a friend.

Thought that she was gonna be a good friend to me,

and we were gonna hang out.

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 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,

"I guess we're both eating alone tonight."

So then we started talking

and she said that she was

there to get property.

She wanted to make South Padre her home.

She had lost her husband,

and that her family wasn't allowing her to grieve properly.

And we hit it off,

like we've been best friends forever.

When she told me she was a widow,

I had no clue that she was a widow

because she killed her husband.

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 seems very unusual.

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.

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 going to

be where she wanted to make her home.

And I mentioned,

that she might like where I live.

I certainly wouldn't bring a man

that I met back to my house,

but a woman, I didn't think anything of it.

We ended up going to the hot tub,

and 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...

...but she explained to me.

It's bait for fishing.

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.

We got up the next morning,

then I dropped her off.

Later on in that week,

we talked about getting together

the following weekend

to have fun.

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.

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.

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 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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

April 19th, 2018,

around 7:00 p.m., we received a tip

regarding a fugitive, Lois Riess.

We fielded the call quickly,

so we were able to get to the location

to interview the tipster.

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,

one restaurant north

parked outside the bar entrance door

to the Sea Ranch restaurant.

U.S. Marshals contacted us.

They sent two deputy marshals over.

I have my four officers

stage up around Sea Ranch,

as a safety perimeter

in case something went south.

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."

to give you an example...

Let's pretend this is a hundred-dollar bill.

I took the hundred-dollar bill,

she was sitting here, I put it there,

because I had to go make a drink over there.

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."

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.

Cut to the chase.

I gotta make a drink right now if that's okay.

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 hard to tell

what's going on inside of her head.

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.

Hello.

Step over here, please.

Stand right here.

So we're gonna walk this way towards the elevator.

She was very cooperative...

...when we told her to move to a certain location,

so we could take her photograph,

she did it compliant.

Follow me.

News travels fast on our little island.

The whole story was put over Facebook

quickly and we all knew,

and we were in shock.

Everyone on our island is quite friendly and trusting.

We are a little too friendly

and too inviting,

and that there are bad people out there,

and, 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?

I would text her.

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...

I started feeling 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.

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 she knew

that these cameras did a job.

And I think that God had me

under his wing.

Somebody is looking after me.

And I felt very blessed that I'm still alive.

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.

Go into that room right over there.

The decision was made, actually,

that Sergeant Divis would attempt an interview

along with one of the Minnesota guys.

She said that she did not wish to speak with us,

and she remained silent.

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."

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,

because 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.

I think I 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,

"where are they gonna try her at?" You know?

Florida get her, Minnesota get her, or what's gonna happen?

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.

Search warrant was executed,

room 227, Motel 6,

South Padre Island.

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 murdered, or whatever.

I thought that was disgusting.

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.

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.

She's charged with first degree murder

in the death of Pam Hutchinson,

and she's facing the death penalty.

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.

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.

Something pushed Lois this far.

She didn't get here by herself.

And it's 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.

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.

To the charge of first degree murder

with a firearm, a capital felony

which is punishable by the death penalty.

How do you plead?

Guilty.

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?

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.

I wish I would've gone to trial

and said my stories,

and helped with the doctors with me,

but, 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 like my mother.

I'll plead guilty, that way I get a life sentence

and not the death penalty.

Being as I've been, 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 do.

I'm not saying I felt good.

I felt better.

It was the right thing to happen.

I liked Lois too, you know.

I wasn't rooting for her,

but I don't think I hated her at that point.

Disgusted, pissed off, but not hate yet.

You know?

And 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.

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 shocked

that it was held in a high school.

I attended the hearing

in the high school auditorium,

because the Dodge County courthouse

could only accommodate seven people.

We got there and we walked in.

There was media all around, as you could imagine.

Once it started, they walked Lois in.

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.

It was 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 know

that he was in a bad mood that day.

They argued on the drive home.

According to Lois, they continued to argue

when they got home.

- He had a smoking closet. - A big, huge closet.

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.

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?"

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... - It was your dad's gun.

It was my dad's gun,

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.

And she says that then she looked at him,

pointed the gun at his heart, and fired,

fully intending to kill him.

He probably wanted me to kill myself that day.

And it didn't happen that way.

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 happened?

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.

After that, it was lots of blacking out,

lots of...

I hate to say this, but I was...

I'd wake up incontinent.

And I started losing track of time.

And then to drive.

I would drive and drive for thousands of miles.

I ended up in Florida.

Why do you think you went to Florida?

That's...

the mind is a crazy thing.

I have no idea.

I was in and out of...

real life. It was...

a puzzle I still don't know

how to put together yet.

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."

She apologized to her family

for murdering her husband.

I never heard her apologize

to anybody on Pam's side.

The woman had no conscience whatsoever,

you know what I mean?

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.

Unfortunately, when you say you don't remember...

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.

For all...

their faults, but Pamela especially,

because she reached out to me to be my friend.

I wish I would have been in a better state of mind.

I could have been her friend.

She 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...

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.

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 doesn't.

It is-it is a successful MO, is what it is.

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.

My sister Cindee...

she, she was in the throes of a breakdown,

and she took her own life a couple years ago.

I don't know too much about the end of Cindee's life.

What I do know is that

her demons took over.

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."

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.

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.

Dave and Lois had three children.

The youngest one, Braden,

seemed like a good kid.

He worked for me one summer. He was a hard worker.

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.

My son Braden died a year ago today.

And he had severe depression

and mental health issues.

I wish he would have got help.

I know for a while it was meth,

and then, I also know that it had

graduated into heroin.

Braden struggled with addiction

before this took place,

but then you throw this in the middle of it...

He was ready to be done.

He needed to get out of the game.

Then we found out that he

was found deceased in his truck

in his friend's driveway.

And it was ruled an overdose.

He died shortly after I started visiting her,

so she's 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.

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.

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 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.

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...

...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... - Did you talk about

what happened in Florida?

No, no, we've never talked about that.

It came up and she put her head in her hands.

She can't...

She doesn't seem to want to...

be able to talk about it and I didn't push it.

Looking sort of ten years down the road,

do you think you and Lois will still be close?

Definitely.

Because I think a lot of people have abandoned her.

Might be a bridge too far for most people.

But why not for you?

Because...

I don't know.

I mean...

I don't know, probably,

my dad was a minister

and he visited people in prison.

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...

that's hard.

All I do is I...

pray for her every night.

What do you say when you pray for her?

That she can come to some peace

of her acceptance

of why she did it.

Is anybody gonna eat those for dessert?

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.

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 a monster.

And I may ruffle some feathers, but I feel like that is

what a lot of my family, is doing.

Because, with them,

they're still thinking that

David is the same old jolly David

that he's always been.

But because he was that way with them,

I know, doesn't mean that that's how he was

at home with his wife.

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 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.

I think about Pam a lot,

but I got a lot of Pam pictures that I

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.

Here... this was her last

trip to Mexico a few months before.

It says, "Was not supposed to be goodbye."

"Until we meet again, my BFF."