{"id":112988,"date":"2026-01-06T18:01:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T18:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/112988\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T18:01:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T18:01:07","slug":"texas-serial-killer-william-reece-continues-fighting-his-oklahoma-death-sentence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/112988\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas serial killer William Reece continues fighting his Oklahoma death sentence"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEXAS \u2013 Texas serial killer, William Lewis Reece, continues fighting his death sentence<\/a> in Oklahoma. Reece was recently transferred from a Texas prison back to Oklahoma.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma court records show Reece\u2019s appeal of his 2021 death sentence was denied in July 2025, and his request for a rehearing was also denied in Sept. 2025.<\/p>\n

Officials with the Oklahoma Attorney General\u2019s office tell 2 Investigates Reece now has a direct appeal pending before the US Supreme Court and has other avenues of appeal at the state and federal levels. Officials with the AG\u2019s office said an execution date will not be requested until all of Reece\u2019s appeals have been exhausted.<\/p>\n

Reece, 66, grew up in Oklahoma but visited Texas in the 80s. Reece served nearly 10 years in an Oklahoma prison after raping two women in 1986. After he was released from prison, Reece moved to Harris County.<\/p>\n

William Reece (Copyright TDCJ Communication Department 2025)William Reece (Copyright TDCJ Communication Department 2025)<\/p>\n

In Apr. 1997, Reece kidnapped and murdered Laura Smither while she was jogging near her Home in Friendswood. Smither\u2019s body was found 3 weeks later in a Pasadena retention pond. <\/p>\n

In May of 1997, Reece kidnapped Sandra Sapaugh from a convenience store in Webster. However, Sapaugh was able to escape by jumping from Reece\u2019s truck as it barreled down the Gulf Freeway.<\/p>\n

William Reece (Copyright TDCJ Communication Department 2025)William Reece (Copyright TDCJ Communication Department 2025)William Reece (Copyright TDCJ Communication Department 2025)William Reece (Copyright TDCJ Communication Department 2025)<\/p>\n

In July 1997, Reece kidnapped Kelli Cox from a gas station in Denton before kidnapping and killing Tiffany Johnston at a car wash in Bethany, Oklahoma, the same month. In August 1997, Reece kidnapped and killed Jessica Cain while she was driving to her home in Galveston County. <\/p>\n

In Oct. 1997, Reece was arrested for Sapaugh\u2019s kidnapping. He was then convicted and sentenced to 60 years in prison. He denied involvement in any of the murders. <\/p>\n

In 2015, new DNA evidence linked Reece to Johnston\u2019s murder. In 2016, Reece finally started talking to investigators and led them to where he buried Cain\u2019s body in southeast Houston<\/a> and Cox\u2019s body in a field in Brazoria County.<\/p>\n

William Reece (Copyright TDCJ Communication Department 2025)<\/p>\n

Reece was then sent back to Oklahoma, where he faced trial in 2021 for Johnston\u2019s murder. After his conviction and death sentence, Reece was brought back to Texas<\/a> in 2022 and finally pleaded guilty to Smither, Cain and Cox\u2019s murders. He received life sentences for all three murders.<\/p>\n

Officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said Reece was transferred back to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections on Dec. 29.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2013 Texas serial killer, William Lewis Reece, continues fighting his death sentence in Oklahoma. Reece was recently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13358,1313,12597,5778,49987,49988,49986,2926,49990,18966,27,29,28,49989,49985],"class_list":["post-112988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-brazoria-county","tag-denton","tag-galveston-county","tag-investigates","tag-jessica-cain","tag-kelli-cox","tag-laura-smither","tag-oklahoma","tag-sandra-sapaugh","tag-serial-killer","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tiffany-johnston","tag-william-reece"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}