American Monsters: Paul Dennis Reid - "The Fast Food Killer"

0:00 Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening. Now. True Crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish, the strange in the darkly comic. A podcast that's about more than just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension, home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the unsolved, the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it all just so long as it's kind of murdery.

0:40 I am Zevan Odelberg, and this is kind of murdery. Hey, everybody, thank you for being there. As you know, this season's theme is American Monsters, with the occasional American outlaw thrown in. Today, I bring you a man who started as an outlaw but became an American monster, one of the most notorious killers that the music city has ever known. A man who aspired to be a country star, the next Garth Brooks, but when that dream died, he turned back to the only two jobs he'd ever known, armed robbery and fast food, but this time with a side of murder.

1:17 Kind of murders. The fast food killer Paul Dennis Reed starts now Nashville, Tennessee, February sixteenth, nineteen ninety seven. The sun had yet to rise, but at Captain Dee's on the Lebanon Pike, the morning had already begun. Inside the restaurant, Steve Hampton, the manager, and his young employee, Sarah Jackson, were preparing for the Sunday rush. Steve Hampton was twenty five, a father of three, and a lifer at Captain D's. He'd been with the seafood franchise for a decade, starting at fifteen, cleaning frys and sweeping floors, slowly working his way up the chain, finally making manager, a job he took seriously.

2:06 He was known around town as a dedicated worker, a man who prided himself on running a tight ship. Steve's Sunday routine was a balancing act between prepping ingredients and coordinating the staff, ensuring everything was in place before the first wave of customers. Next to Steve, Sarah Jackson was just sixteen, but already a whirlwind of ambition. She'd been with Captain D's for nine months, a job she took on despite her full schedule. Her life was loaded with activities, clubs, honor roll grades.

2:33 Sarah's mother had hesitated when she asked to work at the restaurant. Mom didn't think it was necessary given everything else on Sarah's plate, but Sarah had insisted. She liked the responsibility, the extra cash. It was a part time gig, just down the street from where she lived, and that Sunday morning, she was there early, eager to start the day just like any other. But February sixteenth, nineteen ninety seven was about to become a date etched in Nashville's memory, a day when routine was shattered and darkness crept into a well lit place.

3:02 No one at Captain D's knew what was coming, least of all Steve and Sarah. A tall, dark haired, muscular man entered the restaurant. Once inside, he wasted no time, demanding that Steve opened the safe. Steve complied, leading the man to the back where the safe was kept. The stranger crouched down, rifling through its contents, Grabbing every last bill and coin, he stuffed the money into a bag. Working quickly methodically. With the cash in hand, the man turned his attention back to Steve and Sarah.

3:30 He marched them toward the walk in cooler. No words, just the silent, terrifying obedience of two people staring down the barrel of a gun. Once inside the deep freeze, he ordered them to lay face down on the cold floor. Then he pressed the muzzle against the back of Steve's head, no hesitation. The shot echoed through the steel walls of the cooler, once, twice, a third time, each bullet finding its mark. He turned to Sarah. She didn't have a chance. Two shots, both fired at close range into her head.

3:58 The gunman moved quickly, his plan clearly thought out. He headed to the office and ripped out the surveillance tape, securing them in his grip. But then a noise from the cooler, a sound that shouldn't have been there. He spun around back to where he had left them. There was Sarah, still somehow alive, fighting to lift herself up from the blood slick floor. He aimed again and fired twice, two more shots, ensuring that Sarah would never get back up. With the tapes in hand, he fled the scene. He wanted nothing left behind, no traces, no clues, nothing that would point back to him, just the silence of an empty restaurant and two lives brutally callously ended.

4:37 Nine thirty a m a motorist cruised by Captain D's, catching a glimpse of a man who seemed out of place. He was tall, muscular, a white male, moving with purpose, almost a jog away from the restaurant. His eyes darted away as the driver passed, avoiding any possible recognition. Seconds later, the man slipped into a parked car. The engine started and he was gone, vanishing into the morning traffic. At the same time, Michael Butterworth, another employee, arrived for his shift. He walked up to the front door and reached for the handle.

5:07 It was locked, unusual for this time of day. Peering through the glass, he noticed the chairs were still up on the tables. Something wasn't right. Those chairs should have been down. The dining areas should have been prepped and ready for the customers who'd start arriving soon. Michael's stomach nodded with unease. He decided to check the back. He made his way around the building, the early morning chill biting at him. He reached the rear door and pounded on it, hoping for an answer, Hoping to hear Steve or Sarah's voice on the other side, but all he got was silence with no answer from the inside.

5:38 Michael Butterworth felt a creeping sense of dread. He walked quickly to a nearby business, asked to use their phone, and started dialing into the restaurant. Each call rang unanswered, no sign of life, no explanation for the locked door, and the chairs still on the tables. Michael's mind raised. He called another employee, hoping they might have some insight, but he needed more than that. The employee's father was a police officer, and Michael thought that maybe that connection could help speed things along find out what was happening inside Captain D's.

6:06 It wasn't until between eleven am and two twelve PM that the Nashville Police finally made their way into the restaurant. What they found confirmed Michael's worst fears. In the cooler, they discovered the bodies of Steve Hampton and Sarah Jackson, both executed in cold blood robbery. Homicide investigators arrived soon after to process the scene, combing through the sparse remains of what little evidence had been left behind, but it was clear the killer had been thoroughed. No fingerprints, no shell casings, no sign that would point easily to whoever had walked through the door and turned the quiet morning into a nightmare.

6:41 But as it turns out, they did find something inside the restaurant, the faint outline of shoe prints on the floor. But there were no fingerprints, no obvious clues, just the barely there shoe prints. This was someone who was careful, calculated. This wasn't the work of a desperate criminal. It was something else, something more practiced. They also noted the missing cash, more than seven thousand dollars, including two hundred and fifty in coins. Steve Hampton's wallet, with six hundred dollars of rent money inside, was gone too.

7:12 The next day, twelve miles away on the highway, a worker picking up trash on the side of the road stumbled upon Hampton's wallet. It was a lucky find. Inside was his identification and a plasticized movie card, And on that card was a thumb print, clear and distinct, but for now a mystery. The print didn't match any in the immediate databases, so it was logged away as evidence, waiting for the day that it might find a match. While that lead cooled, the police turned their attention to Captain D's employees, the ones who worked the night shift before the shooting.

7:43 The interviews brought something interesting to light. Some employees remembered a visitor at the restaurant around closing time. It was ten pm. A man had walked in and asked for a job application. He was wearing a Shonees restaurant apron, claiming he was a cook looking to switch workplaces. The night manager listened, then offf Ford's simple advice, why don't you come back first thing tomorrow and talk to the full time manager. It seemed harmless at the time, just another person looking for work, But now that moment took on a different weight, a possible link in a chain of events that had ended in blood.

8:14 At Nashville Police Headquarters, February twenty second, nineteen ninety seven, the detectives lined up the photos one after another for the three Captain D's employees to review. Faces stared back, but none of them were the man they'd seen that night. No match, another dead end. The police moved to Plan B. The sketch artists worked fast, pulling a face from their descriptions. A few strokes some shading and a composite took shape. It was a start. The next stop was Shoney's, where the stranger said he worked.

8:44 The officers showed the sketch around, looking for any flicker of recognition. It didn't take long. Yeah, one of the workers said, pointing at the sketch, that's Paul Reid. He works here. They had a name, and now they had a target. Paul Reid had called into Shonees on the morning of the sixteenth, just hours for the murders. His excuse for not coming in was simple car trouble. He couldn't make it to work. The detective took his name and ran it through the NCIC, the National Crime Information Center.

9:10 They waited for a hit, something, anything that could connect him to a previous crime, a pass defense, but the system came back clean. No warrants, no arrests, no record, nothing to hold him on, nothing to justify bringing him in, And just like that, the investigation stalled again. So who was Paul Reid? Well? Paul Dennis Reid was born in Fort Worth, Texas, in November of nineteen fifty seven. By age three, his parents divorced. His father was a drunk, violent and unpredictable. Reid's childhood started on a shaky foundation.

9:44 Paul spent much of his time with his paternal grandmother, and it didn't take long for things to turn ugly. He was a nightmare, putting tax in her food, spraying her with a water hose, even barricading her inside her own room once he tried to set her on fire while she slept. The kid was only a years old and already he was a walking menace. His family had enough. They handed him over to a home for boys, hoping someone else could handle him. But the trouble didn't stop there. As a teenager, Paul bounced between his parents, but neither wanted him around.

10:13 They saw the darkness in him, saw what he was becoming. At sixteen, Paul Reid crossed a bright red line that could not be ignored. He tried to sexually assault both his mother and his sister. That was the last straw. His mother kicked him out for good. Reid had nowhere to go. No one wanted him. He was just a kid with a mean streak and a dark past, a past that wasn't about to let go, a past that would become an even more terrible future. Reid had nowhere left to turn but back to his father, and it wasn't long before the trouble followed him there.

10:46 He tried to sexually assault his other sister, and that was it. His father kicked him out and Reid was back on the streets. Not long after, he was caught stealing a car, his first serious arrest, charged with auto theft, he got lucky. The court handed him three years probation, a slap on the wrist, but Reid didn't take it as a warning. He took it as a challenge. He dug deeper into a life of crime. His rap sheet grew robbery's check fraud, auto theft. He was building a criminal resume, pushing his luck further every time.

11:16 There was no fear, no remorse, just a man who saw the line and kept crossing it. In April nineteen eighty four, Paul Dennis Reid was finally put away, sentenced to twenty years behind bars for robbing restaurants and a hardware store. A solid conviction, the kind that was supposed to keep a man like him off the streets for a long time, but Red only served seven years, seven years before the doors opened and he walked free. Several criminal justice professionals, experts who had dealt with men like him before, raised the alarm.

11:45 They warned anyone who would listen, this man was a danger to society, a ticking time bomb. He wasn't done hurting people, not by a long shot. But their warnings fell on deaf ears. The system had spoken, and Reed was back out, ready to pick up where he left off. Less than a year after his release, Reid landed a job as a truck driver in Fort Worth, Texas, but that didn't last long. He got into a brutal accident, left the truck twisted on the side of the road, But luck or whatever force seemed to be watching over him hadn't run out yet.

12:16 He collected nearly two years of workers comp and a twenty five thousand dollars settlement. So what did he do with that money? Did he pay off debts or invest in a fresh start. No, Paul Dennis Reed spent it on plastic surgery, a skin peel ears pinned back, dental work to straighten his teeth. He had a new plan. He wasn't thinking about crime or escape. He was thinking about reinvention. He wanted to be a country western singer. He took music lessons, worked on his voice, and set his sights on the only place that made sense, Nashville, Tennessee, the music city.

12:48 It was September nineteen ninety five when he rolled into town, dressed for the part, cowboy hat, boots, blue jeans. He had the look down, and he carried himself with the swagger of someone who knew exactly was headed. Reid started introducing himself under a new name, Justin Parks, the next Garth Brooks. He was going to make it big, or at least that's what he wanted everyone to believe. A new city, a new identity, a new ambition. But wherever you go, there you are, and the same old Paul Dennis Reid was underneath it all.

13:19 Within a month of landing in Nashville, Reid found himself behind a grill, working as a cook in a local restaurant. It wasn't much, but it was something. The music career wasn't taking off like he'd planned, and his dreams of becoming Justin Parks were fading fast, so he turned back to what he knew best, armed robbery. But this time there was an important difference. He made a vow to himself. Never again would he leave any witnesses, but to read this was just another fork in a road paved with bad intentions.

13:50 Fast forward now over two years to March twenty third, nineteen ninety seven, in Hermitage, Tennessee, a town of nearly forty thousand just about fifteen miles from now Nashville. Hermitage is most famous for being the home of another American monster, President Andrew Jackson, the man on the twenty dollars Bill, who had a reputation as tough as iron. Why am I calling Andrew Jackson an American monster, you ask, Well, let's talk about it for a moment. Andrew Jackson was so cantankerous, so combative that during his lifetime he issued over one hundred challenges for duels to the death.

14:24 Only one ended with shots fired, the eighteen oh six duel where Jackson killed Charles Dickinson after a dispute over a horse race. During this duel, Jackson himself was shot in the chest and the bullet stayed lodged there for the next thirty nine years of his life until his death in eighteen forty five. It was part of the legend that earned him the nickname Old Hickory, a man too tough to die. As President, Jackson did more than his fair share of damage. He decimated the value and stability of the American dollar by breaking up the Central Federal Bank, which led to regional currencies and economic chaos.

14:59 This only serves to sketch the faintest outline of a man driven by spite, anger, and misplaced pride. None of it is the reason why I've gone so far as to call Andrew Jackson another American monster. That mantle of depravity comes from something else. Jackson was the architect behind the infamous Trail of Tears, a brutal twenty year forced relocation of over one hundred thousand Indigenous people from their ancestral homelands in the American Southeast to eastern Oklahoma. This relocation, which is far too tame a word, targeted the Cherokee, Muskogee or Creek, Seminole, Chicksaw, and Choctaw people and amounted to more than a five thousand mile forced death March.

15:47 Over fifteen thousand Native people died on the Trail of Tears. That is why Andrew Jackson is an American monster, and why his face on the twenty dollars bill is at best why wildly inappropriate? But I digress back to March twenty third, nineteen ninety seven, barely a month after the walk in freezer slayings at Captain D's. At a McDonald's in Hermitage, twenty seven year old Ronald Santiago and three of his employees twenty three year old Robert Sewell, thirty year old Jose Gonzalez, and seventeen year old Andrea Brown, were wrapping up their shift.

16:21 It was the end of a long day and they were ready to head home. Santiago went to the side door, turned the key, and unlocked it. One by one, they started to make their way out. No one knew what was waiting for them. Just beyond the door, a man with a gun stepped out of the shadows, catching them by surprise. He moved fast, pushing them back inside, hurting them into a small office at the rear of the McDonald's. The gunman kept his weapon trained on them as he emptied the safe, taking whatever cash he could find.

16:49 But he wasn't finished. He marched all four employees into a dry storage room. That's where he decided to end it. He started executing them one by one, but when he got to Jose Gonzalez, something went wrong. The gun jammed it misfired. Gonzalez saw his chance. He lunged at the gunman, fighting for his life, but the attacker was quick and ruthless. He grabbed a knife and started stabbing seventeen times. He drove the blade into Gonzalez, and when Jose finally went down, he did the only thing he could think of.

17:19 He played dead. The gunman, satisfied his work was done, fled the scene. Knowing the attacker was finally gone. Gonzalez dragged himself to a phone and managed to call nine one one. When first responders arrived, they found Ronald Santiago and Robert Sewell already dead. Gonzalez was still alive, but barely. He wasn't responsive, but he was breathing. Paramedics rushed him to the hospital, where surgeons worked through the night to keep him from slipping away. Andrea Brown, the youngest, was also rushed to the er, but it was too late.

17:48 The doctors pronounced her brain dead. The following morning, she was taken off life support. One survivor, three dead. A new crime scene painted with the same casual brutality, the same cold blooded precision, and the same sense that whoever was behind this wasn't done yet. Meanwhile, detectives combed through the McDonald searching for anything the killer might have missed. They knew they were dealing with a sophisticated criminal, no fingerprints, no obvious mistakes, but this time they did find something.

18:20 Six Remington twenty five caliber automatic casings scattered across the floor. The cash register had been emptied of twenty three hundred dollars, mostly in coins. It was a familiar scene, the same kind of robbery, the same cold blooded executions. The mo was almost a mirror image of what had gone down at Captain D's just five weeks earlier. By the spring of nineteen ninety seven, five Nashville food workers had been gunned down in two separate armed robberies, exactly five weeks apart. But this time there was a big difference.

18:51 This time there was a witness, Jose Gonzalez, who had fought for his life, had survived, and was under twenty four hour surveillance at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Gonzalez was in bad shape. Knife wounds covered his body and he could barely speak when the detectives came in, but he was determined to help. He communicated however, He could signs, symbols, nodding, and eventually in hushed whispers. Piece by piece, he gave the cops the best description he could of the man who had terrorized them that night.

19:19 With Gonzalez's help, detectives worked with a sketch artist to create a composite a white male, dark hair, a mustache, wearing a baseball cap. They laid it next to the earlier sketch, the one generated from the Captain D's employees a month back. The two images didn't line up perfectly, different details, different faces, but there was enough to make them pause to see the pattern forming between the two crimes. The investigators knew they were looking at something more than just coincidence. Despite the mismatch, law enforcement went public with the sketches just days later.

19:50 They knew the crimes were too similar to ignore. Two robberies, two executions, just five weeks apart. It was time to connect the dots before the killer could strike again. April twenty five, nineteen ninety seven, Clarksville, Tennessee. Angela Holmes, twenty one years old, night manager at the local Baskin Robbins was wrapping up her shift. She had a lot to get home to, a husband and a young daughter beside her. Sixteen year old Michelle Mace, a high school student working part time, was finishing up as well.

20:16 Angela escorted the last customer out and locked the front door behind them. As she turned the key, she noticed a red car slowing down then pulling into the parking lot. Something about it caught her eye, but she brushed it off. Just another car in the lot, she might have thought. Moments later, Michelle's brother, Craig Mace, arrived to pick her up from work. He parked and waited. Fifteen minutes passed, no sign of Michelle, no phone call, just silence. Craig started to get worried. He made a few phone calls to the shop, no answer.

20:46 His unease grew. He got out of his car, walked up to the Baskin Robbins and found the front door locked. But something didn't sit right with him. He forced the door open and pushed his way inside, looking for his sister. As Craig stepped into the Baskin Robbins, all the lights were off. The place was dark. Too quiet. He started calling out, shouting names, shouting for Michelle or Angela, but no one answered. No sign of Michelle, no sign of Angela, just an empty ice cream parlor. Panic setting in.

21:16 Craig ran back outside and called nine to one one police arrived on the scene quickly. They swept through the place looking for anything that could explain the sudden disappearance. In the back office, they found the floor safe, open its top sitting on a desk. The cash was gone, around twelve hundred dollars missing. Angela and Michelle's purses were there, but only with a small amount of money inside, like they'd been left behind in a hurry. The surveillance tape was gone too. It was the same pattern for the third time, a robbery, cash stolen, the surveillance tape taken.

21:45 But this time crime scene technicians found something they could use. There were shoe prints on the floor, clean ones, and better yet, three identifiable latent fingerprints. There was no question there'd been foul play and time was running out. Within an hour or two, the police were scouring the metropolitan area searching for any trace of the two young women, hoping they could find them before it was too late. April twenty fourth, nineteen ninety seven, Dunbar Cave State Park. A man out for a morning walk with his dog, routine, nothing out of the ordinary until the dog starts pulling hard toward the lake, barking.

22:20 The man follows it, and that's when he sees it, a body floating face down in the water. Investigators arrived quickly, moving with a grim efficiency, they pulled the body from the lake, a woman. Her hands were tied behind her back with a basket Robin's apron, a clear connection linking the body right back to the ice cream parlor. They began searching the woods nearby, fanning out looking for more. It didn't take long. About one hundred feet away they found the second body, Michelle Mace in the woods, Angela Holmes in the water.

22:50 Both viciously murdered, and their deaths had been anything but quick. Multiple stab wounds, their throats slashed. They were left there like discarded tread, a final act of cruelty from a killer who had no intention ever of leaving them alive. Whoever this was, it was clear that his pattern was escalating. The police pressed on with their investigation, piecing together what they could about the killer. At the same time, they shifted tactics, upping their surveillance and patrols around local restaurants.

23:21 They weren't just watching, they were waiting. Undercover officers slipped into rolls as fast food employees, blending in behind the counters, keeping a sharp eye on the doors. Each one was armed, ready to confront the killer if he made his move again. They were setting a trap, hoping to draw him out, but the killer didn't take the bait. Weeks went by and nothing happened. The city waited, tents and on edge, wondering when and where the fast food killer might strike next. Joelton, Tennessee, June first, nineteen ninety seven.

23:51 Mitchell Roberts, a forty five year old manager at a Shawnee's restaurant in Nashville, was at home with his family. His son was fooling around with a home video camera, capturing those small moments that make up everyday life. Then there was a knock at the door an unexpected visitor. It was Paul Reid, a former employee, standing there on the porch. Reed had been fired on February twenty seventh, just eleven days after the Captain D's murders. Now he was back, pleading, practically begging for his old job.

24:19 Mitchell listened, then gave him the answer that Reed didn't want to hear. I can't hire you back, he said, turning to walk read back to his car. But Reed wasn't taking no for an answer. He pulled a gun, then reached into his pocket and brought out a pair of handcuffs. You're coming with me, he ordered, his voice low and cold. Mitchell didn't hesitate. He bolted back toward the front door. Reid was right on his heels, this time with a knife in his hand. Mitchell made it to the porch, turned and fought back.

24:47 He shoved Reid hard, slamming the door in his face. Get a gun, he shouted to his wife, even though he didn't own one. It was a bluff, a desperate gamble, but it worked. Reed panics, turned on his heel and sprinted back to his car. Moments later he was gone, tires screeching as he sped off into the night. Mitchell had escaped, but it was a close call and a sign that Paul Reid was far from finished. Minutes later, Mitchell sat in his living room recounting the wild events to law enforcement. When the phone rang, the room went silent.

25:17 Mitchell answered, and who wasn't well? It was Paul Reid. He was calling to apologize. At the officer's request, Mitchell played along, coaxing Reed to come back to the house. Reid took the bait. When he arrived, officers were waiting. They moved in quickly, taking him down and into custody. Sheriff's deputies escorted Reed back to the station, booked him and began the questioning. Reid tried to play it smart, gave them a false birth date, a stall tactic, but it meant there were no hits in the NCIC database for now.

25:46 His criminal passed stayed hidden. He was booked into Cheatham County Jail for assault, but with charges like that, he could be out on bail in no time. Mitchell wasn't having it. He believed Reid was the fast food killer and pressed the authorities to file more series his charges to make sure that Reid stayed locked up. The police agreed. They hit Reed with a charge of attempted kidnapping and aggravated assault. That bought them time kept Reid from walking out that night. Now they had him in custody, and the investigation was about to kick into high gear.

26:16 They had one chance to tie him to the murders and stop him before he struck again. Officers moved quickly, reaching out to Jose Gonzalez, the lone survivor of the McDonald's attack. They handed him a stack of over three hundred photos, looking for a face that would break the case wide open. Gonzalez studied each one carefully, deliberately. Then he stopped and pointed to a single picture Paul Reid, the man who had attacked him. With Gonzalez's ID, police doubled back to the fingerprint from Steve Hampton's movie Car Tot Captain D's.

26:46 This time no question a match. Paul Reid. He'd been in there the day of the murders. There was no escaping it now. Investigators got a warrant and searched Reed's apartment. Inside they found four one gallon jugs stuffed with more than a one thousand dollars in coins, a suspicious stash for a guy without a steady job. And they found something else, even more damning, a pair of white sneakers stained with traces of human blood. Forensics ran the test and got a hit the blood belonged to the two Baskin Robbins employees.

27:16 They turned to Reed's car, next a red Ford escort, and in the back seat, on the floor mats, they found fibers. Fibers that matched the clothing of Michelle Mace and Angela Holmes. Every piece of evidence added weight to the case against him. The picture was becoming clearer by the minute, and at all pointed to Paul Reid. Detectives sat down with Paul Reid for an eight hour interrogation. They knew they had the right man, an ex con tied to the murders of seven fast food workers during a two months free but Reid wasn't giving an inch.

27:47 He denied everything flat out, claimed he had nothing to do with any of the killings. It didn't matter. The evidence was stacked against him. They were charging him with all seven murders and taking him to trial. Prosecutors spent the next year in half tightening their case, making sure that every piece fit perfectly. They knew they had one shot to put Paul Dennis Reid, the fast food killer, away for good. By April of nineteen ninety nine, Reid found himself in court. Over the next thirteen months, Paul Reid was charged in three separate capital murder trials, the first for the Captain D's murders, the second for the Baskin Robbins slayings, and the last for the triple homicide of MacDonald's.

28:26 In every trial, the prosecution aimed for one thing, the death penalty. They wanted to make sure Paul Reid never walked free or alive again. The prosecution laid out their case piece by piece, aiming to show that Paul Reid was the killer. Witnesses testified, painting a picture of Reed's actions and his desperate financial situation. Red was deep in debt, yet suddenly he had large amounts of cash on hand. The prosecutor asked a simple question, if he had the money, why didn't he pay off his debts.

28:55 The answer seemed clear, because that cash came from somewhere recentere criminal. Then came Jose Gonzalez, the lone survivor from the McDonald's attack. When he took the stand, his testimony was powerful, direct. It was the final nail in Reed's metaphorical coffin. The jury heard Gonzalez's story and saw what he had lived through. Reed himself never took the witness stand, not in any of the three trials. He stayed silent. His defense team had their own strategy. They argued that Reed's brain was broken, damaged by years of head injuries.

29:28 They brought in brain scans, expert testimony from doctors who diagnosed Reed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia and a nosa noosia, symptoms of psychosis that left him unaware he was even sick. The defense argued that Reed was mentally unfit, that his actions were the result of these deficits and traumas, not a deliberate choice. They claimed he wasn't culpable, that his damaged mind couldn't form intent. But the problem with that defense was simple. If Reed were so mentally broken, so incapacitated, then how could he planned these crimes with such precision?

30:02 The jury wasn't buying it. Reed was convicted on seven counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, and he was sentenced to death. For years, he fought his convictions, filing appeal after appeal, But then in March of two thousand and three, there was a shift. Reid, still refusing to admit his guilt, wrote a letter announcing he wanted to drop all of his appeals against his death sentence. The families of his victims came out to the prison expecting closure, justice, but at the last minute, almost literally, Reid backed out.

30:32 He changed his mind, clung to life a little longer. Ten years passed, and then on November one, twenty thirteen, at five fifty five pm in Nashville, Tennessee, Paul Dennis Reid, the Fast Food Killer, died not by lethal injection, but from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia. From the very start, Paul Dennis Reid was a problem, even as a child, a serious violent problem, and he grew into a man who was nothing but trouble, selfish, narcissistic, motivated by greed, but driven by something darker.

31:07 He didn't just rob he enjoyed it, reveled in taking lives as if something inside him needed that violence. In the end, the Fast Food Killer earned seven death sentences, the most ever handed down to a single person in the state of Tennessee. And even if he'd had just two fewer lives than a cat and could have actually been executed seven times, even that would not be enough to fully measure the harm that Paul Reid caused. Instead, for the families of his victims and others whose lives Paul read destroyed, the fast food killer's end was frustratingly normal.

31:46 His executioner nothing more than November pneumonia. I'm Zevan Odelberg and this has been kind of murdery. If you liked to show he subscribed, you can tell your friends. You can find us on social media at Kinamurdery or email at Kinomurdery at gmail dot com.