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she was a maale order bride lured to the United States with the promise of a better life just a few years after she
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was married she disappeared the clue to this mystery came from an unlikely Source a second forensic look at the
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suspicious death of another woman 16 years earlier [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
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emilita de Reeves was 26 years old her husband Jack was a 52-year-old former Army Sergeant now working as a painter
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together the couple had a 3-year-old son whom we'll call Theo emalita had an
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interesting past when emilita was 18 she had been her family's passport out of
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poverty 11 of her family members lived in a two- room Hut in SIU city in the Philippines she was a beauty queen in
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her community and she was a lovely girl she wanted to go to school but her family had convinced her that that's how
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they could have a better life if she married a rich American at her family's request emilita
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put her picture in cherry blossoms a subscription service for maale order brides in 1987 Jack Reeves flew to the
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Philippines to meet her there were two other American men that were there to meet her and he pretty well bulldozed
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his way into the house house offered her father more money than the other men had
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offered and her father chose Jack to be Emil's [Music] husband once emilita arrived in Texas
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Jack Reeves kept his promise and started sending Emil's family $250 a month a
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small fortune compared to the $3 a month Emil's father was earning on October 11th 1994
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Emily Dees went to lunch with some friends at the Lotus restaurant in Arlington Texas during lunch emilita confided to
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her friends that she was no longer in love with her husband instead she was in love with someone else another woman and
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was anxious to start a new life after lunch emilita went shopping but never returned
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home later when her friends couldn't get in in touch with her either on her cell
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phone or her pager they called police when questioned Jack Reeves told police he wasn't particularly concerned
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about his wife's disappearance he said his wife may have run off with her female
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lover Jack was into all this pornography and he was into watching videos of women
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together men and women in the ACT sexual acts uh but he drew the line at Emily to
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going out with any other men and if he ever found out that she had close male friends that she went out with then he
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became very angry and Reeves was convinced his wife would return matter of fact he was very
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nonchalant telling the officers that she would return as she always does police located Emil's lover Mona Lisa Pate Mona
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Lisa Pate admitted to us that she and uh emilita were in fact engaged in a relationship she also admitted she was
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with emilita until 8:00 p.m. on the night of her disappearance but she didn't know where emilita went
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afterwards 2 Days Later Emil's abandoned car was found in a supermarket parking
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lot just a few miles from her home police interviewed her husband once again initially he said she had just run
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off but then he decided he was going to start helping so he bring brings in to Tom Leno's office something that he
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believes will help track emilita even with emilita sent search dogs were unsuccessful in another attempt to help
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the investigation Jack Reeves offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his wife's safe
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return but police got their first break in the case when a detailed search of amita's abandoned vehicle gave
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investigators some important insight into her last [Music] ride police in Texas were starting to
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believe that there was Foul Play involved in emilita Reeves disappearance when police inspected
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emal's abandoned car they noticed something suspicious when the vehicle was found the seat was consistent with
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someone much taller than emilita who was a very short person the steering wheel was not locked as emilita always locked
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it and the alarm was not set on the vehicle which emilita always did and suspicions mounted when police learned
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that none of emal's clothing was missing from her home they also learned that
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emilita was not not in love with her husband emilita also told friends Jack once asked her to have sex with one of
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his sons from an earlier marriage emilita refused police asked Jack Reeves to come to Police Headquarters to
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retrieve amita's car jack had apparently left town he had taken his young son and left for nearby
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Lake Whitney where he frequently camped and police also learned the Jack Reeves had recently offered emilita a
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substantial sum of money $30,000 if she agreed not to leave him in speaking with
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Emil's friends they reflected several conversations that emilita had had with
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them where she expressed um a tremendous fear that Jack would in fact kill her in her words as
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he had killed his other wives Jack Reeves had been married three other times and his second and third wives
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both died under mysterious circumstances Jack married his first wife amarillis when she was only 15
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years old her mother later had the marriage anal in 1961 Jack married his second
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wife Sharon together the couple had two sons while Jack was in South Korea with the US Army Sharon filed for divorce
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Reeves immediately flew home to try to save the marriage a few days later Sharon died from a shotgun wound to her
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chest her death had been ruled a suicide after Sharon's death Jack returned to Korea where he met wife
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number three mang hoi Chong 6 years later while vacationing at Lake Whitney mang was on a raft in the
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lake while Jack was away Gathering fish [Applause] bait and when he came back he claims
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that that's when he found mang had fallen off of the raft and had drowned her sister um attended the
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funeral and found bruises on her arms and scrapes she contended from the very beginning when she learned of mang's
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death that Jack could killed her I talked to the sister and I said what is this about meang you know we're all kind
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of wondering about it and she said well I wondered not only because of the nails
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but because of the scratches on Jack's hands and I thought well like he was scratched up by brush when he pulled her
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out of the water and she said no no no long parallel scratches on his hands and it made me think you know were those
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from her fingernails after the funeral Jack had mang's body cremated despite her family's concerns
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there was no investigation after learning of Jack's past detective Lenor was convinced
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emilita Reeves had been the victim of Foul Play and set a trap to test his hypothesis he spoke once again to Jack
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Reeves and this time bragged about the latest advances in DNA testing I went into this dis ation which
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was completely fictitious and made up on the spot about when an individual dies cells on the body immediately die
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DNA falls from the body and in fact would fall and embed itself into his carpet to where you can shampoo it
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vacuum it do whatever you want you're not going to get rid of it the only thing you have to do is get rid of the
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carpet the next day as under cover police watched from across the street Jack Reeves did just
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that he replaced the carpet in his home he had taken the bait there was absolutely no reason for
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him to take that particular activity at that particular time but police still had no forensic
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evidence against Jack Reeves and they still could not find emilita [Music] Arlington police detective Tom Lenor
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believed his best chance of solving The Disappearance of Emily de Reeves was to investigate the sudden and unusual
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circumstances surrounding the deaths of Jack's other wives Jack's third wife mang Reeves had
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drowned in 10 ft of water in Lake Whitney after falling off a raft at the time of the accident the local
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game warden reported that mang's raft was undamaged and had a full Air Supply
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he thought it was unlikely that an adult could fall off and not be able to retrieve it and the drowning occurred in
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10 ft of water if mang indeed slipped off a raft investigators couldn't understand why
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she was unable to swim just a short distance to where she could have stood in the lake
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unfortunately there had been no criminal investigation and no autopsy was performed young Reeves had been
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cremated Jack's second wife Sharon Reeves was found dead in her bedroom from what was believed to be a
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self-inflicted gunshot wound to her chest since it was presumed to be suicide there had been no autopsy
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performed and only one photograph of the accident scene remained Arlington Police sent the
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photograph to the internationally known blood spatter expert Tom Beville at the time of the accident Jack
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told police that he believed Sharon was sitting on the bed and pushed the trigger with her
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toe but an analysis of the blood spatter evidence revealed that Sharon had been standing at the time the gun went off
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[Music] blood on Sharon's thigh was in an L-shaped pattern indicating that Sharon
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was standing when blood first ripped down her thigh from the wound then after she fell backwards the blood changed
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Direction had the Sharon Reeves been sitting the blood spatter as well as the blood flows would have looked entirely
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different in fact it would have been a reverse and with Sharon in a standing position she would have been physically
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unable to discharge the gun I would say that is it's not absolutely impossible uh but highly improbable that
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uh that would be the case detective Lenor now had probable cause to exume the body of Sharon Reeves 16 years after
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her death the autopsy was conducted by Dallas County Medical Examiner Dr Jeffrey B ared she had a shotgun wound
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of the chest and the entrance wound was in the front of the chest and had a very
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sharp uh right to left trajectory so the the shotgun uh entrance was really in the front but very sharply went to the
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left lateral chest and the angle of the shot was slightly downward with that very acute trajectory
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with her being in an upright position how she would have to uh hold the weapon would pre vent her from the ability to
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reach the trigger and to discharge it herself which makes it not possible for her to have done with a trajectory that
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was a very sharp trajectory ending up with her shot dead on the bed and then the shotgun standing perfectly vertical
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between her legs just uh made that a very unlikely scenario I had uh no doubt whatsoever
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that this was not the case of a self-inflicted gunshot one Sharon ree's death was officially
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ruled undetermined suggestive of a homicide Jack Reeves was in the house when the shooting occurred there was
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nobody else in the house at the time so that made it by process of elimination if Sharon didn't pull the trigger Jack
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had to according to Patricia Springer's book male order murder after amita's
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disappearance Jack Reeves was desperate for female companionship so desperate he called Emil's 21-year-old sister
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asking her to come live with him when that failed Jack renewed his subscription to cherry blossoms magazine
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and through the personal ads found wife number five emalia who was also in the Philippines but before the two could
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meet Jack Reeves was arrested we picked him up put him in the car handcuffed and all Jack looks at
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Ranger Cummings and said you know what's the deal what's going on here and Fred
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said you're under arrest for murdering your wife and Jack said which one and we all just kind of looked at
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each other and said well that's probably a fair [Music] question 5 months after The
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Disappearance of emilita Reeves her husband Jack was arrested for murder when he was
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arrested he repeatedly told me that he had not killed emilita and that he should not be
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arrested and that's when I explained to him that he was being arrested for the
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murder of Sharon Reeves and the look on his face and the shock and the complete and total
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devastation that it took on him was was very remarkable Sharon was Jack's second wife
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who died of a gunshot wound 16 years earlier this re any comment I'm not guilty police had tried to build a case
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against Rees for the murder of his fourth wife emilita but they lacked evidence in the trial of Sharon Reed's
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death the case hinged on blood spatter evidence and a shooting reenactment the Reconstruction of the
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shotgun blast challenged Jack story that Sharon was sitting on the bed and pushed
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the trigger with her toe the female police officer assisting in the recreation could not maneuver her toe
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into the trigger guard of the gun the jury was really entranced by that they were into it and they had to
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be because this was a case where first of all we had to show she couldn't have
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pulled the trigger second of all we had to show that there was nobody else available to pull the trigger except for
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Jack and that by process of elimination he had to have been the one that committed the
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Murder Jack Reeves was found guilty of Sharon's murder and was sentenced to 35
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years in prison on October 1st 1995 nearly one year to the date of her disappearance deer hunters at Lake
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Whitney stumbled upon a shallow grave The Remains were sent to the medical examiner's office in Fort Worth Texas
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deputy chief medical examiner Mark Krauss was able to identify The Remains by comparing Emil's dental records to
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the recovered jaw it was a match emilita was found without clothing jewelry or personal items which was not
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consistent with someone ran away Dr Krauss hoped that the bones would tell how emalita was
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killed but there was no bone trauma no bullet holes no knife wounds and unfortunately the hyid bone was
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missing if it's fractured and if it's fractured in a certain way we can assume
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that a strangulation has occurred that the person has been strangled to the point that that bone was damaged and it
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was likely to be fatal but Dr Krauss made an important Discovery in the soil around emal's
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lungs were tiny single celled organisms called datom this was an important finding why diatoms live in water by
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finding a relatively high density of these little microscopic creatures skeletons in the in the area where the
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lungs had once resided when the body was placed in the grave and by finding very
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low concentrations or low numbers of diom Elsewhere the inference could be made that she was drowned that she had
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inhaled water containing diom and when her body decomposed this material was deposited in the
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grave the manner of death was ruled a homicide she was murdered and her body was buried not well apparently somewhat
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hastily and I'm more than more certain than not that she was drowned in a homicidal
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manner that she was killed by Drowning later police visited Lake Whitney with the Reeves young son Theo
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who told police to watch out for the big hole as he pointed in the direction of his mother's grave he also said his
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mother was hurt in the bathtub by his father there there was a likelihood quite frankly a probability that Jack
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actually had his son with him at the time emalita was buried the child made a remarkable
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comment that Illustrated he was familiar with that particular geography he was able to actually pinpoint specific areas
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where emilita was buried that supported our suspicion that he actually watched and
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saw his mother get buried Jack Reeves stood trial again this time for Emil's murder you didn't
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kill emita no I did [Music] not he was convicted of her murder as well when he heard the dword meaning
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divorce from any of his wives he considered it to be death and he killed them Jack Reeves was sentenced to 99
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years in prison he will not be eligible for parole until the age of 106 Jack Reeves is probably one of the
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most manipulative man I've ever met uh he's a sociopath he has absolutely no
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remorse for what he's done he wants to manipulate you into trying to believe
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that he's innocent and then help him prove it Jack Reeves probably has absolutely no redeeming quality about
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him I've interviewed several killers in my life and Jack is probably the most
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cold blooded I've ever met Jack Reeves is definitely where he deserves to be
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and that's in prison for the remainder of his life the forensics made the case
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without them nothing would have happened in either case there would have been no
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identification there would have been no means of death there would have been no [Music]
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conviction w [Music] [Music] [Music]