I was reminded recently while watching Crime Watch on TV about a story on the “Killing Fields” of Southeast Texas. The corridor running from Houston to Galveston to be exact, my stomping grounds for the last ten years. Well recently, a few months back of this year, a multi acreage plot of private property had been dug and sifted thru. Making a long story short, the Feds were looking for more victims of William Reece, a convicted rapist, murderer and now serial-killer. He was just recently found guilty of murdering a woman in Oklahoma, so to keep the pesky death sentence off the table, a plea deal was reached…if he, Reece showed authorities where other bodies of his “supposable” victims were buried he could avoid the death sentence; wimp-boy Reece afraid of losing his own useless life hopped on that gravy train.
So for weeks he breathed the free-world air and most likely got to eat local take-out food, taxpayer paid, of course, because he was out and about (all though under guard and partly shackled) in order to show investigators exactly where to dig. And I mean for weeks, he conveniently forgot exact locations on the property, which provided him with more gad-about, free air breathing time. Doing “time” in a Texas prison is no cake walk, I can assure you of that.
I worked as a C.O. inside a maximum security prison here in Texas, and I lasted for only three weeks to be exact (I wrote another article about how woman guards do not belong working in a male prison and, boy, do I have stories!) Working inside is like doing time yourself and yet I’ve never had the shiny bracelets on my own wrists, ever. But compared to a death sentence, it’s a game changer and convicts will use whatever leverage they have to stay out of inside the walls.
Inside Texas prisons, the first thing you will notice upon entering is the stench, I didn’t want to breathe for my whole shift and the walls themselves even stunk. The noise level is beyond anything you could imagine; I probably heard the words “mother f**ker” a hundred times a minute (no exaggeration) … talk about noise pollution. I could only take a deep breath of air after I exited thru the prison gates at the end of my shift and I heard the final gate click.
So I couldn’t help but think while watching the news and the videos of Reece roaming around on fields of green grass, smelling good air and eating good food, how grotesquely unfair this was, it was truly an insult to the no-longer-breathing victims. I know families are desperate for answers and are willing to give-up true justice for a death sentence… I get that. Yet, if they knew what went on inside of prisons, the devastated victims’ families would know that “life in prison” is no punishment and therefore is no justice served.
Image: Screen Grab: http://www.news9.com/story/31320512/texas-cold-case-could-be-linked-to-case-in-oklahoma
