[music playing]
NARRATOR: It's nearly midnight, and Sergeant John Reid
is on his way to a call in Bethany, Oklahoma,
a suburb of Oklahoma City.
While driving, he spots something
odd at the Sunshine Car Wash.
JOHN REID: A white Dodge Neon was
parked in the far west stall, but no one was around it.
I didn't pay much more attention.
After finishing the call, I drove by the Sunshine Car Wash
again.
And that same white Dodge Neon was
still in the far west stall.
NARRATOR: Now the Dodge Neon is the only vehicle
left at the car wash.
I sent the license plate number to headquarters.
NARRATOR: The car is registered to 19-year-old Tiffany
Johnston.
Reid finds Tiffany's keys and purse in the car.
In the glove box, he discovers the phone number
for Tiffany's mother, Kathy, who lives 60 miles
away in Anadarko, Oklahoma.
I received a call from the Bethany
Police Department wanting to know if Tiffany was with me.
I told them no.
She was supposed to meet her new husband, Ryan.
They were going to go to their little club-type disco place
that they always go to at 11 o'clock at night
because that was when Ryan got off work.
You get woke up in the middle of the night,
wanting to know if your daughter's there,
but you know something's not right.
NARRATOR: There's no sign of Tiffany anywhere.
But with one call to Oklahoma state police,
everything changes.
LYNN WILLIAMS: Around I-40 and Gregory Road,
locals noticed a spot in the grass.
And that drawed their attention to it.
They stopped and found a body of a white female.
Agents took a picture of the body,
showed it to Ryan, and Ryan and identified Tiffany.
That car wash is fairly busy.
If somebody were to try to have abducted Tiffany,
there would have been one hell of a fight.
But the scene where her car was at didn't show that.
The car was unlocked.
Nothing around that scene was disturbed
that led you to believe that there
was any altercation there.
So the struggle that took place didn't take place there.
It took place at another stall.
Or she knew the person and just got in the car with them
and talked to them.
It's a case where anyone could be the suspect.
NARRATOR: A medical examiner collects
swabs for forensic testing, but the results are inconclusive.
So in this case, we had a dead wife.
Now, we have a living husband.
And oftentimes, the husband is responsible for the death
of the wife.
LYNN WILLIAMS: The medical examiner
wasn't able to determine the exact time of death.
The last time she was seen alive there at the car wash
was shortly after 6 o'clock.
And several coworkers saw Ryan Johnston at work.
He had a solid alibi that he was at work from 3:00 to 11:00.
The owner of the car wash called headquarters with a tip.
He had seen news reports of a gentleman that was arrested
on an abduction in Texas.
He recognized that individual as a customer of his car wash.
William Reece at one time resided
in the Anadarko, Oklahoma area.
He was convicted of two sexual crimes
committed here in Cleveland County,
and he was released in 1996.
Two months prior to Tiffany's murder,
in 1997, he was involved in the abduction of Sandra Sapaugh.
KAITLIN MCCULLEY: Sandra Sapaugh was 19 years old,
and she was pregnant.
She was parked at a Waffle House and noticed that her tires
had been slashed.
And Reece, pretending to be a good Samaritan,
hopped up and said, hey, I can help you with that.
Do you need a ride?
And at knifepoint, put her into his truck and kidnapped her.
They're driving down the interstate, I-45 in Houston.
She noticed the back door is unlocked,
and she's able to kick out the back door,
jump out of the moving vehicle on the interstate,
roll away, and escape.
NARRATOR: Sandra was kidnapped in Texas two
months before Tiffany's murder.
She wasn't able to ID Reece as her abductor until three months
after Tiffany was killed.
LYNN WILLIAMS: The owner of the car wash
said he had seen Reece at the car wash
several times, had tried to start a conversation with him,
and that Reece typically drove a white Dooley pickup truck.
Agents discovered that Reece had used a payphone
in the town of Yukon, which is a little
bit further west than Bethany.
We have William Reece in the area now,
but we don't have him at the car wash at the time
of Tiffany's disappearance.
There was just no physical evidence.
There was no eyewitness.
There was nothing to corroborate that he was at the Sunshine Car
Wash at that particular time.
KATHY DOBRY: I'd call the Bethany PD and harassed them,
but they really had ran out of leads,
and they didn't know what to do.
So Tiffany's case was thrown back in cold case files.
LYNN WILLIAMS: I received a laboratory
report from the [inaudible].
A couple of the swabs that were taken by the medical examiner
contained a partial male DNA profile.
NARRATOR: Swabs taken during the autopsy
finally, after 16 years, give detectives a partial DNA
profile of the killer.
The swabs also show that Tiffany was sexually assaulted.
The challenge with cold cases is
that over time, the DNA evidence has broken down or degraded.
So based on the portion of the swab remaining,
we were able to obtain a partial DNA profile.
And that was not enough information
to enter that profile into the DNA database known as CODIS,
the Combined DNA Index System.
We went back and re-identified, located,
and obtained buccal swabs from people who Tiffany worked with,
many of the ex-boyfriends, acquaintances,
even people who were at the car wash
at the time that she was there.
We went as far as Ryan Johnston himself.
Even though he had a solid alibi and he cleared the polygraph,
we still took a buccal swab from him to compare.
WENDY DUKE: But all of the male DNA profiles that
were submitted from the people of interest
at the crime scene and the husband,
they were all excluded from the partial profile
of the rectal swab.
LYNN WILLIAMS: But William Reece, who the car wash owner
identified and who was a very strong person
of interest in the case, was the only person
that hadn't been eliminated.
NARRATOR: In addition to the attempted abduction of Sandra
Sapaugh in May 1997, Reece was a suspect
in a string of missing person cases
that occurred within weeks of Tiffany Johnston's murder.
The quest to solve Tiffany Johnston's cold case
might have led investigators to a serial killer.
We reached out to the Texas Rangers
to obtain a buccal swab.
And if I'm a betting man, I bet William Reece is going
to be the contributor of it.
NARRATOR: State investigators compare Reece's DNA to what
was found at the crime scene.
It's a partial match.
William Reece and all of his paternal male relatives
could not be excluded from the partial profile
of the rectal swab, which means that William
Reece, or any one of his male relatives,
could have contributed to that profile.
NARRATOR: Even though it's not a perfect match, it is progress.
Investigators need time to build their case against Reece.
And for once, time is on their side Reece is locked away,
serving a 60-year sentence in Texas for kidnapping
Sandra Sapaugh.
LYNN WILLIAMS: We were fairly confident
that William Reece was the killer,
but we needed to get the confession from him.
NARRATOR: The Texas Rangers tell Reece
they won't ask for the death penalty
if he cooperates in their open cases.
LYNN WILLIAMS: William Reece reaches a point
that he confessed to those other missing person cases in Texas.
And when they talked about Tiffany Johnston's homicide,
William Reece admits that he was at the car wash
and that he'd abducted and killed Tiffany.
NARRATOR: If only to spare his life,
Reece gives investigators his version of what happened that
night, nearly 20 years earlier.
William Reece said that he and Tiffany had an altercation.
He had put her inside the horse trailer that was
behind his white Dooley pickup.
And inside the horse trailer, he ended up raping her.
And she ended up being killed there.
But the scene where her car at didn't show that.
Nothing around that scene was disturbed
that led you to believe that there
was any altercation there.
The first thought goes through my mind
was that it was quick and violent,
and there wasn't time for any struggle,
or she knew the person and just got in the car with him
and talked to him.
NARRATOR: After admitting to killing Tiffany,
Reece also says he knows exactly what happened to missing women
Jessica Cain and Kelli Cox.
After years of delays, his trial begins.
LYNN WILLIAMS: The jury came back with a guilty verdict.
William Reece was convicted of first degree
murder and kidnapping.
Justice was reached for Tiffany, and her family knew it as well.