she was a mail-order bride Lord to the
United States with the promise of a
better life just a few years after she
was married she disappeared the clue to
this mystery came from an unlikely
source a second forensic look at the
suspicious death of another woman 16
years earlier
you
Emilie des rêves was 26 years old her
husband Jack was a 52 year old former
Army sergeant now working as a painter
together the couple had a three-year-old
son whom we'll call Theo
emilita had an interesting past when
emelita was 18 she had been her family's
passport out of poverty 11 of her family
members lived in a two-room hut in Cebu
City in the Philippines she was a beauty
queen in her community and she was a
lovely girl she wanted to go to school
but her family had convinced her that
that's how they could have a better life
if she married a rich American at her
family's request emelita put her picture
in cherry blossoms a subscription
service for mail-order brides in 1987
Jack Reeves flew to the Philippines to
meet her there were two other American
men that were there to meet her and he
pretty well bulldozed his way into the
house offered her father more money than
the other men had offered and her father
chose Jack to be Emily's husband
once emilita arrived in Texas Jack
Reeves kept his promise and started
sending em Aleta's family $250 a month a
small fortune compared to the three
dollars a month and milita's father was
earning on October 11 1994 emelita
Reeves went to lunch with some friends
at the Lotus restaurant in Arlington
Texas during lunch
emilita confided to her friends that she
was no longer in love with her husband
instead she was in love with someone
else another woman and was anxious to
start a new life after lunch emelita
went shopping but never returned home
later when her friends couldn't get in
touch with her either on her cell phone
or her pager they called police when
questioned Jack Reeves told police he
wasn't particularly concerned about his
wife's disappearance he said his wife
may have run off with her female lover
Jack was into all this pornography and
he was into watching videos of women
together men and women in the act sexual
acts but he drew the line at emelita
going out with any other men and if he
ever found out that she had close male
friends that she went out with that he
became very angry and Reeves was
convinced his wife would return matter
of fact it was very nonchalant telling
the officers that she would return as
she always does police located emily
t'as lover Mona Lisa pate Mona Lisa paid
admitted to us
she and emelita were in fact engaged in
a relationship she also admitted she was
with emilita until 8:00 p.m. on the
night of her disappearance but she
didn't know where emilita went
afterwards
two days later Emily does abandoned car
was found in a supermarket parking lot
just a few miles from her home police
interviewed her husband once again
initially he said she had just run off
but then he decided he was going to
start helping so he brings in two Tomlin
ors office something that he believes
will help track emelita even with Emily
dissent search dogs were unsuccessful in
another attempt to help the
investigation Jack Reeves offered a
$25,000 reward for information leading
to his wife's safe return
but police got their first break in the
case when a detailed search of a
milita's abandoned vehicle gave
investigators some important insight
into her last ride
police in Texas were starting to believe
that there was foul play involved in
emelita Reeves disappearance when police
inspected EMA leaders abandoned car they
noticed something suspicious when the
vehicle was found the seat was
consistent with someone much taller than
EMA leader who is a very short person
the steering wheel was not locked
is it Malita always locked it and the
alarm was not set on the vehicle which
emelita always did and suspicions
mounted when police learned that none of
em Aleta's clothing was missing from her
home they also learned that emelita was
not in love with her husband emelita
also told friends jack once asked her to
have sex with one of his sons from an
earlier marriage emelita refused police
asked Jack Reeves to come to police
headquarters to retrieve a milita's car
Jack had apparently left town he had
taken his young son and left for nearby
Lake Whitney where he frequently camped
and police also learned the Jack Reeves
had recently offered emelita
a substantial sum of money thirty
thousand dollars if she agreed not to
leave him and speaking with him elitist
friends they reflected several
conversations that emelita had had with
them where she expressed a tremendous
fear that Jack would in fact k*ll her in
her words as he had k*lled his other
wives Jack Reeves had been married three
other times and his second and third
wives both died under mysterious
circumstances
Jack married his first wife amaryllis
when she was only 15 years old her
mother later had the marriage annulled
in 1961 Jack married his second wife
Sharon together the couple had two sons
while Jack was in South Korea with the
US Army Sharon filed for divorce Greaves
immediately flew home to try to save the
marriage a few days later Sharon died
from a shotgun wound to her chest her
death had been ruled a su1c1de after
Sharon's death Jack returned to Korea
where he met wife number three young ho
Chung
six years later while vacationing at
Lake Whitney Young was on a raft in the
lake while Jack was away gathering fish
bait
and when he came back he claimed that
that's what he found beyond had fallen
off of the raft and had drowned her
sister attended the funeral and found
bruises on her arms and scrapes she
contended from the very beginning when
she learned of me on staff that jacket
k*lled her I talked to the sister and I
said what is this about me on you know
we're all kind of wondering about it and
she said well I wondered not only
because of the nails but because of the
scratches on Jack's hands and I thought
well like he was scratched up by brush
when he pulled her out of the water she
said no not a long parallel scratches on
his hands and it made me think you know
were those from her fingernails after
the funeral Jack had Young's body
cremated despite her family's concerns
there was no investigation
after learning of Jack's past detective
lenoir was convinced emelita Reeves had
been the victim of foul play and set a
trap to test his hypothesis he spoke
once again to Jack Reeves and this time
bragged about the latest advances in DNA
testing I went into this dissertation
which was completely fictitious and made
up on the spot about when an individual
dies
cells on the body immediately die DNA
falls from the body and in fact would
fall and embed itself into his carpet to
where you can shampoo it vacuum it do
whatever you want you're not gonna get
rid of it the only thing is get rid of
the carpet
the next day as undercover police
watched from across the street Jack
Reeves did just that he replaced the
carpet in his home he had taken the bait
there was absolutely no reason for him
to take that particular activity at that
particular time but police still had no
forensic evidence against Jack Reeves
and they still could not find Emily dead
Arlington police detective Tom Leonor
believed his best chance of solving the
disappearance of emilita Reeves was to
investigate the sudden and unusual
circumstances surrounding the deaths of
jacks otherwise Jack's third wife young
Reeves had drowned in ten feet of water
and Lake Whitney after falling off a
raft at the time of the accident the
local game warden reported that Young's
raft was undamaged and had a full air
supply he thought it was unlikely that
an adult could fall off and not be able
to retrieve it and the drowning occurred
in ten feet of water
if myung indeed slipped off a raft
investigators couldn't understand why
she was unable to swim just a short
distance to where she could have stood
in the lake
unfortunately there had been no criminal
investigation and no autopsy was
performed young Reeves had been cremated
Jack's second wife Sharon Reeves
was found dead in her bedroom from what
was believed to be a self-inflicted
g*nsh*t wound to her chest since it was
presumed to be su1c1de there had been no
autopsy performed
and only one photograph of the accident
scene remained Arlington Police sent the
photograph to the internationally known
blood spatter expert Tom bevel at the
time of the accident jack told police
that he believed sharon was sitting on
the bed and pushed the trigger with her
toe
but an analysis of the blood spatter
evidence revealed that Sharon had been
standing at the time the g*n went off
blood on Sharon's thigh was in an L
shaped pattern indicating that Sharon
was standing when blood first dripped
down her thigh from the wound then after
she fell backwards the blood changed
direction head to shin Reeves been
sitting the blood spatter as well as the
blood flows would have looked entirely
different in fact it would been a
reverse and with Sharon in a standing
position she would have been physically
unable to discharge the g*n I would say
that is not absolutely impossible but
highly improbable that that would be the
case detective lenoir now had probable
cause to exhume the body of Sharon
Reeves sixteen years after her death
the autopsy was conducted by Dallas
County Medical Examiner dr. Jeffery
Barnard she had a shotgun wound of the
chest and the entrance wound was in the
front of the chest and had a very sharp
right-to-left trajectory so that the
shotgun entrance was really in the front
but very sharply went to the left
lateral chest and the angle of the shot
was slightly downward with that very
acute projectory
with her being in an upright position
how she would have to hold the w*apon
would prevent her from the ability to
reach the trigger and to discharge it
herself which makes it not possible for
her to have done with a trajectory that
was a very sharp trajectory ending up
with her shot dead on the bed and then
the shotgun standing perfectly vertical
between her legs just made that a very
unlikely scenario I had no doubt
whatsoever that this was not the case of
a self-inflicted g*nsh*t wound Sharon
Reeves death was officially ruled
undetermined suggestive of a homicide
Jack Reeves was in the house when the
sh**ting occurred there was nobody else
in the house at the time so that made it
by process of elimination if Sharon
didn't pull the trigger jack had to it
according to Patricia Springer's book
mail-order m*rder after a milita's
disappearance Jack Reeves was desperate
for female companionship so desperate he
called em elitist 21 year old sister
asking her to come live with him
when that failed jack renewed his
subscription to cherry blossoms magazine
and through the personal ads found wife
number five and Malia was also in the
Philippines but before the two could
meet Jack Reeves was arrested we picked
him up put him in the car handcuffed and
all Jack looks at Ranger Cummings and
said you know what's the deal what's
going on here and Fred said you're under
arrest for murdering your wife and Jack
said which one and we all just kind of
looked at each other said well that's
probably a fair question
five months after the disappearance of
emelita Reeves her husband Jack was
arrested for m*rder when he was arrested
he repeatedly told me that he had not
k*lled him Aleta and that he should not
be arrested and that's when I explained
to him that he was being arrested for
the m*rder of Sharon Reeves in the look
on his face and the shock and the
complete and total devastation that it
took on him was was very remarkable
Sharon was Jack's second wife who died
of a g*nsh*t wound 16 years earlier just
really common I'm not guilty
police had tried to build a case against
wreaths of the m*rder of his fourth wife
Amelita but they lacked evidence in the
trial of Sharon Reeves death the case
hinged on blood spatter evidence and a
sh**ting reenactment the reconstruction
of the shotgun blast challenged Jack's
story that Sharon was sitting on the bed
and pushed the trigger with her toe the
female police officer assisting in the
recreation could not maneuver her toe
into the trigger-guard of the g*n the
jury was really entranced by that they
were into it and they had to be because
this was a case where first of all we
had to show she couldn't have pulled the
trigger
second of all we had to show that there
was nobody else available to pull the
trigger
except for jack and that by process of
elimination he had to have been the one
that committed the m*rder
Jack Reeves was found guilty of Sharon's
m*rder and was sentenced to 35 years in
prison on October 1st 1995 nearly one
year to the date of her disappearance
deer hunters at Lake Whitney stumbled
upon a shallow grave the remains were
sent to the medical examiner's office in
Fort Worth Texas deputy chief medical
examiner Marc Krauss was able to
identify the remains by comparing and
milita's dental records to the recovered
jaw it was a match
emilita was found without clothing
jewelry or personal items which was not
consistent with someone who ran away dr.
Krauss hoped that the bones would tell
how Emily de was k*lled but there was no
bone trauma no b*llet holes no knife
wounds and unfortunately the hyoid bone
was missing if it's fractured and if
it's fractured in a certain way we can
assume that a strangulation has occurred
that the person has been strangled to
the point that that bone was damaged and
it was likely to be fatal but dr. Krauss
made an important discovery in the soil
around EMA leaders lungs were tiny
single-celled organisms called diatoms
this was an important finding why
diatoms live in water by finding a
relatively high density of these little
microscopic creatures skeletons in the
area where the logs had once resided
when the body was placed in the grave
and by finding very low concentrations
or low numbers in diatoms elsewhere the
inference could be made that she was
drowned that she had inhaled water
containing diatoms and when her body
decomposed this material was deposited
in the grave
I'm more than more certain than not that
she was drowned in a homicidal manner
that she was k*lled by drowning later
police visited Lake Whitney with the
Reeves young son Theo 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 mother was hurt in the
bathtub by his father there was a
likelihood my frankly a probability that
Jack actually had his son with him at
the time emilita was buried the child
made a remarkable comment that
Illustrated he was familiar with that
particular geography he was able to
actually pinpoint specific areas where
emelita was buried that supported our
suspicion that he actually watched and
saw his mother get buried Jack Reeves
stood trial again this time for Emily
t'as m*rder he didn't really believe
that law turn on
he was convicted of her m*rder as well
when he heard the D word meaning divorce
from any of his wives he considered it
to be death and he k*lled him
Jack Reeves was sentenced to 99 years in
prison he will not be eligible for
parole until the age of 106 he's a
sociopath he has absolutely no remorse
for what he's done he wants to
manipulate you into trying to believe
that he's innocent and then help him
prove it Jack Reeves probably has
absolutely no redeeming quality about
him Jack Reeves is definitely where he
deserves to be and that's in prison for
the remainder of his life the forensics
made the case without him nothing would
have happened in either case there would
have been no identification there would
have been no means of death there would
have been no conviction
if the
07x23 - Cold Storage
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Documentary that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness.
Documentary that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness.