Killers in the Family

by Robert L. Snow

  “At [that] stage of DNA testing, the tiny bit that was left of the blood sample after the blood typing wasn’t big enough for DNA testing,” said Detective West.

  West knew, however, that there was another sample of blood that could perhaps be analyzed for DNA. “There was blood on the large piece of carpeting I found . . . the carpeting I believe the Reeses had wrapped Dawn up in. The blood on this carpeting had been typed and found to be type O, and there was still a considerable amount of it left. In the 1990s, I filled out a request to have the FBI Laboratory examine the blood on the carpet and, if possible, do a DNA test on it. However, I would learn from the crime lab that the proteins in the blood sample from the carpet had degraded to the point it could not be tested for DNA.” Smaller samples of blood are often stored in a freezer, but of course the carpet’s size wouldn’t allow this.

  Naturally, West was greatly disappointed. He had hoped that the advent of DNA testing would move the case forward, but it hadn’t.

  “So again, the case stayed the way it was,” said West. Still, the case and Paul Reese Sr. weighed on West’s mind. He couldn’t help but wonder what other crimes Paul Sr. may have been involved in that the police hadn’t connected to him. “As I was getting ready to retire in 2007, I went back again to look through each of my remaining unsolved murder cases to request a DNA analysis and have it entered into the FBI’s CODIS,” said West. “From reviewing Dawn’s case, I went back and obtained a buccal swab DNA sample from Paul Reese Sr. for a possible future comparison. Paul Reese Sr. seemed resigned to the fact and voluntarily gave me a cheek swab sample for comparison without any argument.”

  In late 2010, cold case detective Mark Albert was also thinking about the Reeses and the Dawn Marie Stuard case. He, too, wondered if, in light of the many scientific innovations and advances since 1986, there might be some new DNA evidence that could help move the case along. He telephoned the crime lab and was put in contact with a technician named Shelley Crispin. Albert told Crispin that he was looking into the Dawn Marie Stuard case and asked her to check and see if they still had any of the evidence left from the investigation.

  “She said she would look for the evidence and see what she could do,” said Detective Albert. “Between Thanksgiving and Christmas she was cleaning out the freezer at the crime lab and happened on to Dawn’s blood sample way in the back, still there since 1986. She remembered me asking her about the case, and so she put it aside.”

  Upon talking with Crispin, Detective Albert found that DNA testing had, in the years since West’s first request, progressed to the point where an analysis could be done even on microscopic amounts of evidence. The amount left after the blood typing in 1986, Crispin told him, met the requirements for analysis, and she assured him that a DNA test on the blood sample would be no problem. Detective Albert told Detective West about this—and while elated, West also knew that, in addition to the blood, other evidence would also need to be retested, specifically the carpet fibers found on Dawn and on the road close to where she had been dumped. They would need to be compared to the carpet fibers he had taken from the Reese house back in 1986.

  Fortunately, the crime lab results from the new DNA testing on the blood came back just as Detective West had hoped they would. The blood he had recovered from the brick furnace flue in the Reese’s basement in 1986 did indeed belong to Dawn Marie Stuard. Also, unlike in 1986, when the crime lab could only say that the carpet fibers found on Dawn’s body were consistent with the fibers of the carpet samples taken from the Reese house, they were now able to state definitively that they were an exact match. Suddenly, this investigation now seemed very, very solvable.

  “This was just the right time for the case,” said Detective Mark Albert. “Everything just seemed to come together. I really feel like it was Roy’s diligence in maintaining the case file, Shelley Crispin’s attention to detail, and above all, Ted Stuard’s plea for someone to come forward that were the key factors in bringing Dawn’s case out of the cold case file.”

  Because of Detective Albert’s efforts and the crime lab’s results, Detective West now felt he had enough new evidence to reopen the case and have the murder charges refiled. He had wanted to do so desperately for years, and had even attempted it back in the 1990s only to have the Prosecutor’s Office decline, but now, he was sure, was the time. West, retired from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and working for the Prosecutor’s Office as an investigator for the grand jury, went to a senior member of the prosecutor’s staff and presented his case.

  “After I received the test results from the crime lab that said the blood from the furnace flue at the Reese house was Dawn Marie Stuard’s, I went to Denise Robinson in the Prosecutor’s Office,” said West. “With these results and the other evidence it was decided that the best course was to file a murder charge against Paul Reese Sr. Our strongest case was against him.” He added, “We knew that he was the last person to see Dawn alive. Paul Reese Jr. had an alibi for the time of Dawn’s murder, him being with Timothy Keller that day. He didn’t get home until after 6:00 P.M., which the pathologist said was after Dawn had died.”

  Paul Reese Sr. had been the last person to be seen with Dawn, and his criminal record showed that he had a propensity for violence. He had served time in prison for trying to kill a girlfriend and had been released only a couple of years before the Dawn Marie Stuard murder. And although the police had also arrested the son, Paul Reese Jr., in 1986 for Dawn’s murder, Paul Jr. had had witnesses who swore he’d been across town at the time of the murder, at the flea market with Timothy Keller. Since the murder involved a sexual assault, Robinson felt that they could additionally rule out the mother, Barbara Reese, as the murderer. And even though West had a witness who claimed to have seen Paul Jr. and Barbara help Paul Sr. carry the suspicious carpet roll out of the house, the statute of limitations had run out on prosecuting them for their involvement in the crime, so they couldn’t be charged with helping to dispose of the body. Robinson also decided against refiling the rape charge due to the lack of semen as evidence. She felt much more confident that they would be able to convict Paul Reese Sr. on the murder charge.

  “When I first reviewed the Paul Reese Sr. case I felt that prosecution of the case would be extremely difficult,” said deputy prosecutor Denise Robinson. “There were multiple conflicting statements taken from witnesses which I felt the defense could exploit. Also, some of the witnesses, law enforcement and civilian, were now unavailable or had no recollection of that day or these events. On the other hand, the reexamination of the evidence, particularly for DNA, enhanced the strength of the case. Detective West and I met numerous times on the case to discuss the strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately I decided to take the chance and file the case.”

  Even with the reduced charges, Detective West felt as if a dark cloud that had been drifting around in his mind since 1986 suddenly dissipated. Perhaps at last Dawn Marie Stuard was going to receive some kind of justice. West also knew that Dawn’s family would be elated by the refiling of the charges but would likely question why the Prosecutor’s Office had only charged Paul Reese Sr. He tried as best he could to explain to them the realities of the situation.

  “I know that Dawn’s family would have liked us to charge Barbara Reese and Paul Reese Jr. with assisting in the crime,” said West. “But the fact was that the statute of limitations simply wouldn’t let us, and so they couldn’t be charged.”

  Ted Stuard did feel disappointed that everyone involved in the crime wasn’t going to be held responsible, but he was happy that the main participant was going to be prosecuted. And yet, along with feeling elated that the case was finally going to trial, he also couldn’t help but feel that it was a shame that other people, specifically Jason Fishburn, Clifford Haddix, Demetrius Allen, and Crystal Joy Jenkins, had had to be injured and killed in order to get his daughter’s case revived.

  “If Brian Reese hadn�
��t gotten involved in that stupid stuff with his father, this case probably would never have been revived,” said Ted Stuard. Ted also couldn’t thank his wife enough for the part she had played in the reopening of Dawn’s case. “If it hadn’t been for Linda this would still have been a closed case,” said Ted Stuard. “She was the one who got it started up again. She’s the one who called Detective Albert.”

  Linda Stuard, though, passed along the credit. “Detective Albert doesn’t get enough praise for what he did,” she said. “But he’s the one who I believe really got the case started up again.”

  Of course, while Linda Stuard and Detective Mark Albert both played important parts, much of the credit belonged to Detective Sergeant Roy West. He had never forgotten about the Dawn Marie Stuard case, had looked at the case again and again, and had tried several times to get the Prosecutor’s Office to refile the charges. Now, with the new evidence, all of his work was finally going to come to fruition at the trial of Paul Reese Sr. West could imagine with a smile the look of shock and surprise that would come to the elder Reese’s face when the police arrested him again for Dawn’s murder. Paul Reese Sr. had more than likely believed that he had gotten away with it.

  A murder trial, however, requires a lot of preparation and was months away, yet West still felt excited. He had had a long and lauded career as a homicide detective, but if he could just get a conviction in the Dawn Marie Stuard case, he felt his most poignant regret about his time in Homicide—his unsolved first murder case—would finally be erased.

  FOURTEEN

  On February 17, 2011, the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office formally charged Paul Reese Sr. with the murder of Dawn Marie Stuard. “Over the years, Paul Reese Sr. was a suspect in the death of Dawn Marie Stuard, but dedicated police work and recent DNA evidence are what ultimately led to the charge filed today,” Marion County prosecutor Terry Curry said in a press release. “Sergeant West took this case and never let go.”

  Getting the charge filed, however, was only the first step. Now West and deputy prosecutor Denise Robinson had to prepare the case for court. Getting a murder case ready for prosecution is an extremely involved process. Getting a murder case that is over a quarter century old ready for prosecution is even more difficult.

  “An intense amount of preparation is needed in a homicide cold case like the Dawn Marie Stuard murder,” said Robinson. “The prosecutor has to completely understand the twenty-six-year history of the case and every nuance of that history. I spent hours with Detective West discussing the case, and hours meeting with witnesses and the crime lab. I also went to the crime scene several times, as well as other areas relevant to the investigation.”

  “Any prosecutor who has tried murder cases will attest: there’s no such thing as a ‘simple homicide case,’” Johnson County, Indiana, prosecutor Lance Hamner said. “Witnesses must be meticulously interviewed, evidence must be protected both physically and legally, and arguments must be crafted so that they are as persuasive to the unsophisticated juror as to the highly educated one. The grueling process ends only when the verdict is read. And the verdict must be unanimous, or it’s not a verdict at all.”

  Preparing a murder case for prosecution, besides planning a counterstrategy for whatever tactic the defense may be working up, also involves insuring that the original physical evidence is still available, that any new physical evidence that may have come to light is properly secured, that any new witnesses are thoroughly interviewed, that the original witnesses can be located, in this case after over a quarter century, and that these original witnesses are reinterviewed, if possible.

  The reinterviews with the original witnesses in a homicide cold case, especially in a case like this when so much time has passed since the initial interviews, are very important. The detective and prosecutor must be certain that the testimony of the witnesses will be the same as in the original interviews. In a case like this, with so much time lapsing between the crime and the trial preparation, many things can happen to a witness’s memory or motivation to talk, and when a prosecutor goes to trial, he or she doesn’t want any surprises. A defense attorney will vigorously attack the credibility of any witness who seems to be telling a different story from the original one told to the police.

  And adding even more complexity to this case, the prosecution knew that it had three witnesses who would be extremely vulnerable to character attacks by the defense. All three were convicted criminals, currently incarcerated. James L. Reese, Paul Reese Sr.’s older brother, had contacted the police back in 1986 and told them that his brother had admitted Dawn’s rape and murder to him, and that he was willing to testify about it. However, in 2012 he sat in an Arizona prison, convicted of child molestation. An inmate at the Pendleton Correctional Facility named DeAngelo Gaines, who had shared a cell with Paul Reese Sr., had also contacted the police and said that Paul Sr. had confessed the crime to him, too. And in January 2011, an inmate at the Hendricks County Jail claimed that he had been present at the Reese house on March 17, 1986, and had overheard Paul Jr. arguing with his father. The inmate said he heard Paul Jr. ask his father, “Why did you have Mom do that, man?” The witness said that he later talked with Paul Jr., who told him that his mom had taken the carpet and dumped it along her paper route. These three witnesses had to be extensively interviewed to be certain their testimony would stand up under cross-examination.

  And so, West went to work with the evidence and the new and old witnesses, giving the case the same meticulous attention he had given to every other murder case he’d had during his long career as a homicide detective. And again, this case was special to him. It had been his first case. It had involved a totally innocent victim. And it had gone unsolved. West deeply wanted this case solved and closed. He wanted to be standing there when Paul Reese Sr. received an appropriate and lengthy sentence.

  Finally, after over a year of preparation, the prosecution felt it was ready to go to trial. On June 18, 2012, more than twenty-six years after the death of Dawn Marie Stuard, the trial for her murder finally began in Criminal Court 2 in Indianapolis, with Judge Robert Altice presiding. Michelle Wall, an attorney with the Public Defender’s Office, represented Paul Reese Sr., who had been brought down to Indianapolis from the prison in Pendleton. Deputy prosecutors Denise Robinson and Mark Hollingsworth would handle the prosecution.

  Before the trial began, Wall told the judge that she was concerned about the name Reese. She feared that prospective jurors would recognize it because of all the media attention Brian Reese had received, and would relate the name to the family’s past criminal history. Judge Altice said he would ask all prospective jurors if they knew Mr. Reese or anything about him. Wall also said she was concerned about the State calling DeAngelo Gaines to testify because it would let the jurors know that Paul Reese Sr. had been incarcerated when he spoke with him. The judge said he would allow the testimony but instruct the jurors not to infer any criminal actions from Paul Sr. having been incarcerated. With these motions out of the way, the trial could begin.

  The first step, of course, was jury selection. Good defense attorneys and prosecutors know that they can help their cases, no matter how tough they are, through careful jury selection. In this case (as opposed to Brian Reese’s case, where his lawyer was merely hoping for a reduced sentence), the defense attorney needed jurors whom she could convince that Paul Reese Sr. was innocent of Dawn’s murder. And, of course, the prosecutor, Denise Robinson, needed jurors whom she could convince that Paul Reese Sr. was guilty of Dawn’s murder.

  Still, the jury selection process in the Paul Reese Sr. case didn’t take long. It began at 9:00 A.M. on June 18, 2012, and by 1:30 P.M. the prosecution and defense had agreed on seven women and five men.

  Linda Stuard thought that the prosecution had done a good job with jury selection, with one exception. “There was a young man on the jury that I worried about,” she said. “He didn’t seem to be paying attention.”


  Following the seating of the jury at 1:30 P.M., the judge ordered a short recess. He scheduled opening statements to begin at 3:00 P.M.

  In any serious criminal trial, the defense attorney naturally has the defendant clean up for court, even if his or her client is incarcerated, as was the case with Paul Reese Sr. Instead of wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, he showed up well groomed and in a shirt and tie. He paid close attention to the proceedings, leaning over every once in a while to confer with his attorney.

  During her opening statement, deputy prosecutor Denise Robinson told the jury, “[Dawn] was brutalized, she was strangled, her body was dumped in a ravine.” She also told them that they’d “hear a lot about carpeting and fibers at this trial.” She then told the jury that she intended to show that the person responsible for Dawn’s murder was Paul Reese Sr.

  Defense attorney Michelle Wall, on the other hand, told the jury that it was impossible for the State to prove that Paul Reese Sr. had killed Dawn Marie Stuard. She said that she would show that there had been many people in and out of the house on Bosart Street that day, and that any one of them could have murdered Dawn.

  The first person prosecutors called to testify the next day, June 19, 2012, was Officer Jeremiah Sedam, the first officer to respond to the crime scene. After being sworn in, he told the court that a dispatcher sent him to the 4600 block of East 23rd Street to secure the crime scene. He described the area to the court as consisting of a lot of trees and debris. Sedam said that he could see the body at the bottom of the hill, lying among the trash and debris, but that he didn’t go down. He waited for Homicide. Sedam told the jurors that he was the first one at the crime scene, and that he secured it, and then made sure that no one entered the crime scene before Homicide got there. The defense had no cross-examination, so the judge excused him.