Convicted serial killer William Lewis Reece is now back in Oklahoma to face the finality of his death sentence for a crime committed over two decades ago. The Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester is where he will remain, after being transported there from Texas, where he was serving life sentences for multiple murders. At 63, Reece's confessions and the DNA evidence that followed closed cases that had long echoed with questions and the anguish of families seeking answers.
In July 1997, 19-year-old Tiffany Johnston was taken from a car wash in Bethany, assaulted, and ultimately killed by Reece, who then discarded her body in a remote area. While Reece had avoided detection for years, with the case unsolved, it was in 2016 that his confessions to a Texas Ranger blew the cold case wide open. Having been convicted in 2021 by an Oklahoma County jury, his sentence now comes to a head, serving as a stark reminder of the brutality he exacted upon the young woman who was just embarking on her life as a new bride.
As reported by Oklahoma's Office of the Attorney General, Reece's guilty plea in Texas in 2022 for the murders of Laura Smither, Jessica Cain, and Kelli Cox concluded a harrowing spree of violence across two states. Reece received life sentences for these crimes. Reflecting on the array of tragedies left in Reece’s wake, Attorney General Gentner Drummond said, “This predator has left a trail of devastated families across two states. Tiffany Johnston was a young bride with her whole life ahead of her when he violently ended it.”
Currently, Reece is in the process of appealing his death sentence, a last attempt at evading his final punishment ordained by the jury's decision. The Attorney General’s Office, as it lays in opposition to Reece's attempts to overturn the judgment, intends to ask for an execution date upon the exhaustion of his appeals. “I am grateful to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections for its work to bring back this predator so he can face the punishment a jury determined he deserves,” Drummond said, firmly committed to upholding the sentence derived from the enormity of Reece's crimes.
