American Monsters: Paul Dennis Reid - "The Fast Food Killer"
Sources:
https://serialkillercalendar.com/PAUL-REID-THE-FAST-FOOD-KILLER.php https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/fast-food-murders-tn-serial-killer/ https://murderpedia.org/male.R/r/reid-paul-dennis.htm
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Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Speaker 1: Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and
Speaker 1: descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and
Speaker 1: we recommend you stop listening. Now. True Crime with a
Speaker 1: dash of the paranormal, the garish, the strange in the
Speaker 1: darkly comic. A podcast that's about more than just murder.
Speaker 1: It's my very own pocket dimension, home to a curated
Speaker 1: collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the unsolved, the unsettling,
Speaker 1: and the unbelievable. I cover it all just so long
Speaker 1: as it's kind of murdery. I am Zevan Odelberg, and
Speaker 1: this is kind of murdery. Hey, everybody, thank you for
Speaker 1: being there. As you know, this season's theme is American Monsters,
Speaker 1: with the occasional American outlaw thrown in. Today, I bring
Speaker 1: you a man who started as an outlaw but became
Speaker 1: an American monster, one of the most notorious killers that
Speaker 1: the music city has ever known. A man who aspired
Speaker 1: to be a country star, the next Garth Brooks, but
Speaker 1: when that dream died, he turned back to the only
Speaker 1: two jobs he'd ever known, armed robbery and fast food,
Speaker 1: but this time with a side of murder. Kind of murders.
Speaker 1: The fast food killer Paul Dennis Reed starts now Nashville, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: February sixteenth, nineteen ninety seven. The sun had yet to rise,
Speaker 1: but at Captain Dee's on the Lebanon Pike, the morning
Speaker 1: had already begun. Inside the restaurant, Steve Hampton, the manager,
Speaker 1: and his young employee, Sarah Jackson, were preparing for the
Speaker 1: Sunday rush. Steve Hampton was twenty five, a father of three,
Speaker 1: and a lifer at Captain D's. He'd been with the
Speaker 1: seafood franchise for a decade, starting at fifteen, cleaning frys
Speaker 1: and sweeping floors, slowly working his way up the chain,
Speaker 1: finally making manager, a job he took seriously. He was
Speaker 1: known around town as a dedicated worker, a man who
Speaker 1: prided himself on running a tight ship. Steve's Sunday routine
Speaker 1: was a balancing act between prepping ingredients and coordinating the staff,
Speaker 1: ensuring everything was in place before the first wave of customers.
Speaker 1: Next to Steve, Sarah Jackson was just sixteen, but already
Speaker 1: a whirlwind of ambition. She'd been with Captain D's for
Speaker 1: nine months, a job she took on despite her full schedule.
Speaker 1: Her life was loaded with activities, clubs, honor roll grades.
Speaker 1: Sarah's mother had hesitated when she asked to work at
Speaker 1: the restaurant. Mom didn't think it was necessary given everything
Speaker 1: else on Sarah's plate, but Sarah had insisted. She liked
Speaker 1: the responsibility, the extra cash. It was a part time gig,
Speaker 1: just down the street from where she lived, and that
Speaker 1: Sunday morning, she was there early, eager to start the
Speaker 1: day just like any other. But February sixteenth, nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: seven was about to become a date etched in Nashville's memory,
Speaker 1: a day when routine was shattered and darkness crept into
Speaker 1: a well lit place. No one at Captain D's knew
Speaker 1: what was coming, least of all Steve and Sarah. A tall,
Speaker 1: dark haired, muscular man entered the restaurant. Once inside, he
Speaker 1: wasted no time, demanding that Steve opened the safe. Steve complied,
Speaker 1: leading the man to the back where the safe was kept.
Speaker 1: The stranger crouched down, rifling through its contents, Grabbing every
Speaker 1: last bill and coin, he stuffed the money into a bag.
Speaker 1: Working quickly methodically. With the cash in hand, the man
Speaker 1: turned his attention back to Steve and Sarah. He marched
Speaker 1: them toward the walk in cooler. No words, just the silent,
Speaker 1: terrifying obedience of two people staring down the barrel of
Speaker 1: a gun. Once inside the deep freeze, he ordered them
Speaker 1: to lay face down on the cold floor. Then he
Speaker 1: pressed the muzzle against the back of Steve's head, no hesitation.
Speaker 1: The shot echoed through the steel walls of the cooler, once, twice,
Speaker 1: a third time, each bullet finding its mark. He turned
Speaker 1: to Sarah. She didn't have a chance. Two shots, both
Speaker 1: fired at close range into her head. The gunman moved quickly,
Speaker 1: his plan clearly thought out. He headed to the office
Speaker 1: and ripped out the surveillance tape, securing them in his grip.
Speaker 1: But then a noise from the cooler, a sound that
Speaker 1: shouldn't have been there. He spun around back to where
Speaker 1: he had left them. There was Sarah, still somehow alive,
Speaker 1: fighting to lift herself up from the blood slick floor.
Speaker 1: He aimed again and fired twice, two more shots, ensuring
Speaker 1: that Sarah would never get back up. With the tapes
Speaker 1: in hand, he fled the scene. He wanted nothing left behind,
Speaker 1: no traces, no clues, nothing that would point back to him,
Speaker 1: just the silence of an empty restaurant and two lives
Speaker 1: brutally callously ended. Nine thirty a m a motorist cruised
Speaker 1: by Captain D's, catching a glimpse of a man who
Speaker 1: seemed out of place. He was tall, muscular, a white male,
Speaker 1: moving with purpose, almost a jog away from the restaurant.
Speaker 1: His eyes darted away as the driver passed, avoiding any
Speaker 1: possible recognition. Seconds later, the man slipped into a parked car.
Speaker 1: The engine started and he was gone, vanishing into the
Speaker 1: morning traffic. At the same time, Michael Butterworth, another employee,
Speaker 1: arrived for his shift. He walked up to the front
Speaker 1: door and reached for the handle. It was locked, unusual
Speaker 1: for this time of day. Peering through the glass, he
Speaker 1: noticed the chairs were still up on the tables. Something
Speaker 1: wasn't right. Those chairs should have been down. The dining
Speaker 1: areas should have been prepped and ready for the customers
Speaker 1: who'd start arriving soon. Michael's stomach nodded with unease. He
Speaker 1: decided to check the back. He made his way around
Speaker 1: the building, the early morning chill biting at him. He
Speaker 1: reached the rear door and pounded on it, hoping for
Speaker 1: an answer, Hoping to hear Steve or Sarah's voice on
Speaker 1: the other side, but all he got was silence with
Speaker 1: no answer from the inside. Michael Butterworth felt a creeping
Speaker 1: sense of dread. He walked quickly to a nearby business,
Speaker 1: asked to use their phone, and started dialing into the restaurant.
Speaker 1: Each call rang unanswered, no sign of life, no explanation
Speaker 1: for the locked door, and the chairs still on the tables.
Speaker 1: Michael's mind raised. He called another employee, hoping they might
Speaker 1: have some insight, but he needed more than that. The
Speaker 1: employee's father was a police officer, and Michael thought that
Speaker 1: maybe that connection could help speed things along find out
Speaker 1: what was happening inside Captain D's. It wasn't until between
Speaker 1: eleven am and two twelve PM that the Nashville Police
Speaker 1: finally made their way into the restaurant. What they found
Speaker 1: confirmed Michael's worst fears. In the cooler, they discovered the
Speaker 1: bodies of Steve Hampton and Sarah Jackson, both executed in
Speaker 1: cold blood robbery. Homicide investigators arrived soon after to process
Speaker 1: the scene, combing through the sparse remains of what little
Speaker 1: evidence had been left behind, but it was clear the
Speaker 1: killer had been thoroughed. No fingerprints, no shell casings, no
Speaker 1: sign that would point easily to whoever had walked through
Speaker 1: the door and turned the quiet morning into a nightmare.
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, they did find something inside
Speaker 1: the restaurant, the faint outline of shoe prints on the floor.
Speaker 1: But there were no fingerprints, no obvious clues, just the
Speaker 1: barely there shoe prints. This was someone who was careful, calculated.
Speaker 1: This wasn't the work of a desperate criminal. It was
Speaker 1: something else, something more practiced. They also noted the missing cash,
Speaker 1: more than seven thousand dollars, including two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: in coins. Steve Hampton's wallet, with six hundred dollars of
Speaker 1: rent money inside, was gone too. The next day, twelve
Speaker 1: miles away on the highway, a worker picking up trash
Speaker 1: on the side of the road stumbled upon Hampton's wallet.
Speaker 1: It was a lucky find. Inside was his identification and
Speaker 1: a plasticized movie card, And on that card was a
Speaker 1: thumb print, clear and distinct, but for now a mystery.
Speaker 1: The print didn't match any in the immediate databases, so
Speaker 1: it was logged away as evidence, waiting for the day
Speaker 1: that it might find a match. While that lead cooled,
Speaker 1: the police turned their attention to Captain D's employees, the
Speaker 1: ones who worked the night shift before the shooting. The
Speaker 1: interviews brought something interesting to light. Some employees remembered a
Speaker 1: visitor at the restaurant around closing time. It was ten pm.
Speaker 1: A man had walked in and asked for a job application.
Speaker 1: He was wearing a Shonees restaurant apron, claiming he was
Speaker 1: a cook looking to switch workplaces. The night manager listened,
Speaker 1: then offf Ford's simple advice, why don't you come back
Speaker 1: first thing tomorrow and talk to the full time manager.
Speaker 1: It seemed harmless at the time, just another person looking
Speaker 1: for work, But now that moment took on a different weight,
Speaker 1: a possible link in a chain of events that had
Speaker 1: ended in blood. At Nashville Police Headquarters, February twenty second,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, the detectives lined up the photos one
Speaker 1: after another for the three Captain D's employees to review.
Speaker 1: Faces stared back, but none of them were the man
Speaker 1: they'd seen that night. No match, another dead end. The
Speaker 1: police moved to Plan B. The sketch artists worked fast,
Speaker 1: pulling a face from their descriptions. A few strokes some
Speaker 1: shading and a composite took shape. It was a start.
Speaker 1: The next stop was Shoney's, where the stranger said he worked.
Speaker 1: The officers showed the sketch around, looking for any flicker
Speaker 1: of recognition. It didn't take long. Yeah, one of the
Speaker 1: workers said, pointing at the sketch, that's Paul Reid. He
Speaker 1: works here. They had a name, and now they had
Speaker 1: a target. Paul Reid had called into Shonees on the
Speaker 1: morning of the sixteenth, just hours for the murders. His
Speaker 1: excuse for not coming in was simple car trouble. He
Speaker 1: couldn't make it to work. The detective took his name
Speaker 1: and ran it through the NCIC, the National Crime Information Center.
Speaker 1: They waited for a hit, something, anything that could connect
Speaker 1: him to a previous crime, a pass defense, but the
Speaker 1: system came back clean. No warrants, no arrests, no record,
Speaker 1: nothing to hold him on, nothing to justify bringing him in,
Speaker 1: And just like that, the investigation stalled again. So who
Speaker 1: was Paul Reid? Well? Paul Dennis Reid was born in
Speaker 1: Fort Worth, Texas, in November of nineteen fifty seven. By
Speaker 1: age three, his parents divorced. His father was a drunk,
Speaker 1: violent and unpredictable. Reid's childhood started on a shaky foundation.
Speaker 1: Paul spent much of his time with his paternal grandmother,
Speaker 1: and it didn't take long for things to turn ugly.
Speaker 1: He was a nightmare, putting tax in her food, spraying
Speaker 1: her with a water hose, even barricading her inside her
Speaker 1: own room once he tried to set her on fire
Speaker 1: while she slept. The kid was only a years old
Speaker 1: and already he was a walking menace. His family had enough.
Speaker 1: They handed him over to a home for boys, hoping
Speaker 1: someone else could handle him. But the trouble didn't stop there.
Speaker 1: As a teenager, Paul bounced between his parents, but neither
Speaker 1: wanted him around. They saw the darkness in him, saw
Speaker 1: what he was becoming. At sixteen, Paul Reid crossed a
Speaker 1: bright red line that could not be ignored. He tried
Speaker 1: to sexually assault both his mother and his sister. That
Speaker 1: was the last straw. His mother kicked him out for good.
Speaker 1: Reid had nowhere to go. No one wanted him. He
Speaker 1: was just a kid with a mean streak and a
Speaker 1: dark past, a past that wasn't about to let go,
Speaker 1: a past that would become an even more terrible future.
Speaker 1: Reid had nowhere left to turn but back to his father,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't long before the trouble followed him there.
Speaker 1: He tried to sexually assault his other sister, and that
Speaker 1: was it. His father kicked him out and Reid was
Speaker 1: back on the streets. Not long after, he was caught
Speaker 1: stealing a car, his first serious arrest, charged with auto theft,
Speaker 1: he got lucky. The court handed him three years probation,
Speaker 1: a slap on the wrist, but Reid didn't take it
Speaker 1: as a warning. He took it as a challenge. He
Speaker 1: dug deeper into a life of crime. His rap sheet
Speaker 1: grew robbery's check fraud, auto theft. He was building a
Speaker 1: criminal resume, pushing his luck further every time. There was
Speaker 1: no fear, no remorse, just a man who saw the
Speaker 1: line and kept crossing it. In April nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 1: Paul Dennis Reid was finally put away, sentenced to twenty
Speaker 1: years behind bars for robbing restaurants and a hardware store.
Speaker 1: A solid conviction, the kind that was supposed to keep
Speaker 1: a man like him off the streets for a long time,
Speaker 1: but Red only served seven years, seven years before the
Speaker 1: doors opened and he walked free. Several criminal justice professionals,
Speaker 1: experts who had dealt with men like him before, raised
Speaker 1: the alarm. They warned anyone who would listen, this man
Speaker 1: was a danger to society, a ticking time bomb. He
Speaker 1: wasn't done hurting people, not by a long shot. But
Speaker 1: their warnings fell on deaf ears. The system had spoken,
Speaker 1: and Reed was back out, ready to pick up where
Speaker 1: he left off. Less than a year after his release,
Speaker 1: Reid landed a job as a truck driver in Fort Worth, Texas,
Speaker 1: but that didn't last long. He got into a brutal accident,
Speaker 1: left the truck twisted on the side of the road,
Speaker 1: But luck or whatever force seemed to be watching over
Speaker 1: him hadn't run out yet. He collected nearly two years
Speaker 1: of workers comp and a twenty five thousand dollars settlement.
Speaker 1: So what did he do with that money? Did he
Speaker 1: pay off debts or invest in a fresh start. No,
Speaker 1: Paul Dennis Reed spent it on plastic surgery, a skin
Speaker 1: peel ears pinned back, dental work to straighten his teeth.
Speaker 1: He had a new plan. He wasn't thinking about crime
Speaker 1: or escape. He was thinking about reinvention. He wanted to
Speaker 1: be a country western singer. He took music lessons, worked
Speaker 1: on his voice, and set his sights on the only
Speaker 1: place that made sense, Nashville, Tennessee, the music city. It
Speaker 1: was September nineteen ninety five when he rolled into town,
Speaker 1: dressed for the part, cowboy hat, boots, blue jeans. He
Speaker 1: had the look down, and he carried himself with the
Speaker 1: swagger of someone who knew exactly was headed. Reid started
Speaker 1: introducing himself under a new name, Justin Parks, the next
Speaker 1: Garth Brooks. He was going to make it big, or
Speaker 1: at least that's what he wanted everyone to believe. A
Speaker 1: new city, a new identity, a new ambition. But wherever
Speaker 1: you go, there you are, and the same old Paul
Speaker 1: Dennis Reid was underneath it all. Within a month of
Speaker 1: landing in Nashville, Reid found himself behind a grill, working
Speaker 1: as a cook in a local restaurant. It wasn't much,
Speaker 1: but it was something. The music career wasn't taking off
Speaker 1: like he'd planned, and his dreams of becoming Justin Parks
Speaker 1: were fading fast, so he turned back to what he
Speaker 1: knew best, armed robbery. But this time there was an
Speaker 1: important difference. He made a vow to himself. Never again
Speaker 1: would he leave any witnesses, but to read this was
Speaker 1: just another fork in a road paved with bad intentions.
Speaker 1: Fast forward now over two years to March twenty third,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, in Hermitage, Tennessee, a town of nearly
Speaker 1: forty thousand just about fifteen miles from now Nashville. Hermitage
Speaker 1: is most famous for being the home of another American monster,
Speaker 1: President Andrew Jackson, the man on the twenty dollars Bill,
Speaker 1: who had a reputation as tough as iron. Why am
Speaker 1: I calling Andrew Jackson an American monster, you ask, Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk about it for a moment. Andrew Jackson was
Speaker 1: so cantankerous, so combative that during his lifetime he issued
Speaker 1: over one hundred challenges for duels to the death. Only
Speaker 1: one ended with shots fired, the eighteen oh six duel
Speaker 1: where Jackson killed Charles Dickinson after a dispute over a
Speaker 1: horse race. During this duel, Jackson himself was shot in
Speaker 1: the chest and the bullet stayed lodged there for the
Speaker 1: next thirty nine years of his life until his death
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty five. It was part of the legend
Speaker 1: that earned him the nickname Old Hickory, a man too
Speaker 1: tough to die. As President, Jackson did more than his
Speaker 1: fair share of damage. He decimated the value and stability
Speaker 1: of the American dollar by breaking up the Central Federal Bank,
Speaker 1: which led to regional currencies and economic chaos. This only
Speaker 1: serves to sketch the faintest outline of a man driven
Speaker 1: by spite, anger, and misplaced pride. None of it is
Speaker 1: the reason why I've gone so far as to call
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson another American monster. That mantle of depravity comes
Speaker 1: from something else. Jackson was the architect behind the infamous
Speaker 1: Trail of Tears, a brutal twenty year forced relocation of
Speaker 1: over one hundred thousand Indigenous people from their ancestral homelands
Speaker 1: in the American Southeast to eastern Oklahoma. This relocation, which
Speaker 1: is far too tame a word, targeted the Cherokee, Muskogee
Speaker 1: or Creek, Seminole, Chicksaw, and Choctaw people and amounted to
Speaker 1: more than a five thousand mile forced death March. Over
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand Native people died on the Trail of Tears.
Speaker 1: That is why Andrew Jackson is an American monster, and
Speaker 1: why his face on the twenty dollars bill is at
Speaker 1: best why wildly inappropriate? But I digress back to March
Speaker 1: twenty third, nineteen ninety seven, barely a month after the
Speaker 1: walk in freezer slayings at Captain D's. At a McDonald's
Speaker 1: in Hermitage, twenty seven year old Ronald Santiago and three
Speaker 1: of his employees twenty three year old Robert Sewell, thirty
Speaker 1: year old Jose Gonzalez, and seventeen year old Andrea Brown,
Speaker 1: were wrapping up their shift. It was the end of
Speaker 1: a long day and they were ready to head home.
Speaker 1: Santiago went to the side door, turned the key, and
Speaker 1: unlocked it. One by one, they started to make their
Speaker 1: way out. No one knew what was waiting for them.
Speaker 1: Just beyond the door, a man with a gun stepped
Speaker 1: out of the shadows, catching them by surprise. He moved fast,
Speaker 1: pushing them back inside, hurting them into a small office
Speaker 1: at the rear of the McDonald's. The gunman kept his
Speaker 1: weapon trained on them as he emptied the safe, taking
Speaker 1: whatever cash he could find. But he wasn't finished. He
Speaker 1: marched all four employees into a dry storage room. That's
Speaker 1: where he decided to end it. He started executing them
Speaker 1: one by one, but when he got to Jose Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: something went wrong. The gun jammed it misfired. Gonzalez saw
Speaker 1: his chance. He lunged at the gunman, fighting for his life,
Speaker 1: but the attacker was quick and ruthless. He grabbed a
Speaker 1: knife and started stabbing seventeen times. He drove the blade
Speaker 1: into Gonzalez, and when Jose finally went down, he did
Speaker 1: the only thing he could think of. He played dead.
Speaker 1: The gunman, satisfied his work was done, fled the scene.
Speaker 1: Knowing the attacker was finally gone. Gonzalez dragged himself to
Speaker 1: a phone and managed to call nine one one. When
Speaker 1: first responders arrived, they found Ronald Santiago and Robert Sewell
Speaker 1: already dead. Gonzalez was still alive, but barely. He wasn't responsive,
Speaker 1: but he was breathing. Paramedics rushed him to the hospital,
Speaker 1: where surgeons worked through the night to keep him from
Speaker 1: slipping away. Andrea Brown, the youngest, was also rushed to
Speaker 1: the er, but it was too late. The doctors pronounced
Speaker 1: her brain dead. The following morning, she was taken off
Speaker 1: life support. One survivor, three dead. A new crime scene
Speaker 1: painted with the same casual brutality, the same cold blooded precision,
Speaker 1: and the same sense that whoever was behind this wasn't
Speaker 1: done yet. Meanwhile, detectives combed through the McDonald searching for
Speaker 1: anything the killer might have missed. They knew they were
Speaker 1: dealing with a sophisticated criminal, no fingerprints, no obvious mistakes,
Speaker 1: but this time they did find something. Six Remington twenty
Speaker 1: five caliber automatic casings scattered across the floor. The cash
Speaker 1: register had been emptied of twenty three hundred dollars, mostly
Speaker 1: in coins. It was a familiar scene, the same kind
Speaker 1: of robbery, the same cold blooded executions. The mo was
Speaker 1: almost a mirror image of what had gone down at
Speaker 1: Captain D's just five weeks earlier. By the spring of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, five Nashville food workers had been gunned
Speaker 1: down in two separate armed robberies, exactly five weeks apart.
Speaker 1: But this time there was a big difference. This time
Speaker 1: there was a witness, Jose Gonzalez, who had fought for
Speaker 1: his life, had survived, and was under twenty four hour
Speaker 1: surveillance at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Gonzalez was in bad shape.
Speaker 1: Knife wounds covered his body and he could barely speak
Speaker 1: when the detectives came in, but he was determined to help.
Speaker 1: He communicated however, He could signs, symbols, nodding, and eventually
Speaker 1: in hushed whispers. Piece by piece, he gave the cops
Speaker 1: the best description he could of the man who had
Speaker 1: terrorized them that night. With Gonzalez's help, detectives worked with
Speaker 1: a sketch artist to create a composite a white male,
Speaker 1: dark hair, a mustache, wearing a baseball cap. They laid
Speaker 1: it next to the earlier sketch, the one generated from
Speaker 1: the Captain D's employees a month back. The two images
Speaker 1: didn't line up perfectly, different details, different faces, but there
Speaker 1: was enough to make them pause to see the pattern
Speaker 1: forming between the two crimes. The investigators knew they were
Speaker 1: looking at something more than just coincidence. Despite the mismatch,
Speaker 1: law enforcement went public with the sketches just days later.
Speaker 1: They knew the crimes were too similar to ignore. Two robberies,
Speaker 1: two executions, just five weeks apart. It was time to
Speaker 1: connect the dots before the killer could strike again. April
Speaker 1: twenty five, nineteen ninety seven, Clarksville, Tennessee. Angela Holmes, twenty
Speaker 1: one years old, night manager at the local Baskin Robbins
Speaker 1: was wrapping up her shift. She had a lot to
Speaker 1: get home to, a husband and a young daughter beside her.
Speaker 1: Sixteen year old Michelle Mace, a high school student working
Speaker 1: part time, was finishing up as well. Angela escorted the
Speaker 1: last customer out and locked the front door behind them.
Speaker 1: As she turned the key, she noticed a red car
Speaker 1: slowing down then pulling into the parking lot. Something about
Speaker 1: it caught her eye, but she brushed it off. Just
Speaker 1: another car in the lot, she might have thought. Moments later,
Speaker 1: Michelle's brother, Craig Mace, arrived to pick her up from work.
Speaker 1: He parked and waited. Fifteen minutes passed, no sign of Michelle,
Speaker 1: no phone call, just silence. Craig started to get worried.
Speaker 1: He made a few phone calls to the shop, no answer.
Speaker 1: His unease grew. He got out of his car, walked
Speaker 1: up to the Baskin Robbins and found the front door locked.
Speaker 1: But something didn't sit right with him. He forced the
Speaker 1: door open and pushed his way inside, looking for his sister.
Speaker 1: As Craig stepped into the Baskin Robbins, all the lights
Speaker 1: were off. The place was dark. Too quiet. He started
Speaker 1: calling out, shouting names, shouting for Michelle or Angela, but
Speaker 1: no one answered. No sign of Michelle, no sign of Angela,
Speaker 1: just an empty ice cream parlor. Panic setting in. Craig
Speaker 1: ran back outside and called nine to one one police
Speaker 1: arrived on the scene quickly. They swept through the place
Speaker 1: looking for anything that could explain the sudden disappearance. In
Speaker 1: the back office, they found the floor safe, open its
Speaker 1: top sitting on a desk. The cash was gone, around
Speaker 1: twelve hundred dollars missing. Angela and Michelle's purses were there,
Speaker 1: but only with a small amount of money inside, like
Speaker 1: they'd been left behind in a hurry. The surveillance tape
Speaker 1: was gone too. It was the same pattern for the
Speaker 1: third time, a robbery, cash stolen, the surveillance tape taken.
Speaker 1: But this time crime scene technicians found something they could use.
Speaker 1: There were shoe prints on the floor, clean ones, and
Speaker 1: better yet, three identifiable latent fingerprints. There was no question
Speaker 1: there'd been foul play and time was running out. Within
Speaker 1: an hour or two, the police were scouring the metropolitan
Speaker 1: area searching for any trace of the two young women,
Speaker 1: hoping they could find them before it was too late.
Speaker 1: April twenty fourth, nineteen ninety seven, Dunbar Cave State Park.
Speaker 1: A man out for a morning walk with his dog, routine,
Speaker 1: nothing out of the ordinary until the dog starts pulling
Speaker 1: hard toward the lake, barking. The man follows it, and
Speaker 1: that's when he sees it, a body floating face down
Speaker 1: in the water. Investigators arrived quickly, moving with a grim efficiency,
Speaker 1: they pulled the body from the lake, a woman. Her
Speaker 1: hands were tied behind her back with a basket Robin's apron,
Speaker 1: a clear connection linking the body right back to the
Speaker 1: ice cream parlor. They began searching the woods nearby, fanning
Speaker 1: out looking for more. It didn't take long. About one
Speaker 1: hundred feet away they found the second body, Michelle Mace
Speaker 1: in the woods, Angela Holmes in the water. Both viciously murdered,
Speaker 1: and their deaths had been anything but quick. Multiple stab wounds,
Speaker 1: their throats slashed. They were left there like discarded tread,
Speaker 1: a final act of cruelty from a killer who had
Speaker 1: no intention ever of leaving them alive. Whoever this was,
Speaker 1: it was clear that his pattern was escalating. The police
Speaker 1: pressed on with their investigation, piecing together what they could
Speaker 1: about the killer. At the same time, they shifted tactics,
Speaker 1: upping their surveillance and patrols around local restaurants. They weren't
Speaker 1: just watching, they were waiting. Undercover officers slipped into rolls
Speaker 1: as fast food employees, blending in behind the counters, keeping
Speaker 1: a sharp eye on the doors. Each one was armed,
Speaker 1: ready to confront the killer if he made his move again.
Speaker 1: They were setting a trap, hoping to draw him out,
Speaker 1: but the killer didn't take the bait. Weeks went by
Speaker 1: and nothing happened. The city waited, tents and on edge,
Speaker 1: wondering when and where the fast food killer might strike next. Joelton, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: June first, nineteen ninety seven. Mitchell Roberts, a forty five
Speaker 1: year old manager at a Shawnee's restaurant in Nashville, was
Speaker 1: at home with his family. His son was fooling around
Speaker 1: with a home video camera, capturing those small moments that
Speaker 1: make up everyday life. Then there was a knock at
Speaker 1: the door an unexpected visitor. It was Paul Reid, a
Speaker 1: former employee, standing there on the porch. Reed had been
Speaker 1: fired on February twenty seventh, just eleven days after the
Speaker 1: Captain D's murders. Now he was back, pleading, practically begging
Speaker 1: for his old job. Mitchell listened, then gave him the
Speaker 1: answer that Reed didn't want to hear. I can't hire
Speaker 1: you back, he said, turning to walk read back to
Speaker 1: his car. But Reed wasn't taking no for an answer.
Speaker 1: He pulled a gun, then reached into his pocket and
Speaker 1: brought out a pair of handcuffs. You're coming with me,
Speaker 1: he ordered, his voice low and cold. Mitchell didn't hesitate.
Speaker 1: He bolted back toward the front door. Reid was right
Speaker 1: on his heels, this time with a knife in his hand.
Speaker 1: Mitchell made it to the porch, turned and fought back.
Speaker 1: He shoved Reid hard, slamming the door in his face.
Speaker 1: Get a gun, he shouted to his wife, even though
Speaker 1: he didn't own one. It was a bluff, a desperate gamble,
Speaker 1: but it worked. Reed panics, turned on his heel and
Speaker 1: sprinted back to his car. Moments later he was gone,
Speaker 1: tires screeching as he sped off into the night. Mitchell
Speaker 1: had escaped, but it was a close call and a
Speaker 1: sign that Paul Reid was far from finished. Minutes later,
Speaker 1: Mitchell sat in his living room recounting the wild events
Speaker 1: to law enforcement. When the phone rang, the room went silent.
Speaker 1: Mitchell answered, and who wasn't well? It was Paul Reid.
Speaker 1: He was calling to apologize. At the officer's request, Mitchell
Speaker 1: played along, coaxing Reed to come back to the house.
Speaker 1: Reid took the bait. When he arrived, officers were waiting.
Speaker 1: They moved in quickly, taking him down and into custody.
Speaker 1: Sheriff's deputies escorted Reed back to the station, booked him
Speaker 1: and began the questioning. Reid tried to play it smart,
Speaker 1: gave them a false birth date, a stall tactic, but
Speaker 1: it meant there were no hits in the NCIC database
Speaker 1: for now. His criminal passed stayed hidden. He was booked
Speaker 1: into Cheatham County Jail for assault, but with charges like that,
Speaker 1: he could be out on bail in no time. Mitchell
Speaker 1: wasn't having it. He believed Reid was the fast food
Speaker 1: killer and pressed the authorities to file more series his
Speaker 1: charges to make sure that Reid stayed locked up. The
Speaker 1: police agreed. They hit Reed with a charge of attempted
Speaker 1: kidnapping and aggravated assault. That bought them time kept Reid
Speaker 1: from walking out that night. Now they had him in custody,
Speaker 1: and the investigation was about to kick into high gear.
Speaker 1: They had one chance to tie him to the murders
Speaker 1: and stop him before he struck again. Officers moved quickly,
Speaker 1: reaching out to Jose Gonzalez, the lone survivor of the
Speaker 1: McDonald's attack. They handed him a stack of over three
Speaker 1: hundred photos, looking for a face that would break the
Speaker 1: case wide open. Gonzalez studied each one carefully, deliberately. Then
Speaker 1: he stopped and pointed to a single picture Paul Reid,
Speaker 1: the man who had attacked him. With Gonzalez's ID, police
Speaker 1: doubled back to the fingerprint from Steve Hampton's movie Car
Speaker 1: Tot Captain D's. This time no question a match. Paul Reid.
Speaker 1: He'd been in there the day of the murders. There
Speaker 1: was no escaping it now. Investigators got a warrant and
Speaker 1: searched Reed's apartment. Inside they found four one gallon jugs
Speaker 1: stuffed with more than a one thousand dollars in coins,
Speaker 1: a suspicious stash for a guy without a steady job.
Speaker 1: And they found something else, even more damning, a pair
Speaker 1: of white sneakers stained with traces of human blood. Forensics
Speaker 1: ran the test and got a hit the blood belonged
Speaker 1: to the two Baskin Robbins employees. They turned to Reed's car,
Speaker 1: next a red Ford escort, and in the back seat,
Speaker 1: on the floor mats, they found fibers. Fibers that matched
Speaker 1: the clothing of Michelle Mace and Angela Holmes. Every piece
Speaker 1: of evidence added weight to the case against him. The
Speaker 1: picture was becoming clearer by the minute, and at all
Speaker 1: pointed to Paul Reid. Detectives sat down with Paul Reid
Speaker 1: for an eight hour interrogation. They knew they had the
Speaker 1: right man, an ex con tied to the murders of
Speaker 1: seven fast food workers during a two months free but
Speaker 1: Reid wasn't giving an inch. He denied everything flat out,
Speaker 1: claimed he had nothing to do with any of the killings.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter. The evidence was stacked against him. They
Speaker 1: were charging him with all seven murders and taking him
Speaker 1: to trial. Prosecutors spent the next year in half tightening
Speaker 1: their case, making sure that every piece fit perfectly. They
Speaker 1: knew they had one shot to put Paul Dennis Reid,
Speaker 1: the fast food killer, away for good. By April of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, Reid found himself in court. Over the
Speaker 1: next thirteen months, Paul Reid was charged in three separate
Speaker 1: capital murder trials, the first for the Captain D's murders,
Speaker 1: the second for the Baskin Robbins slayings, and the last
Speaker 1: for the triple homicide of MacDonald's. In every trial, the
Speaker 1: prosecution aimed for one thing, the death penalty. They wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure Paul Reid never walked free or alive again.
Speaker 1: The prosecution laid out their case piece by piece, aiming
Speaker 1: to show that Paul Reid was the killer. Witnesses testified,
Speaker 1: painting a picture of Reed's actions and his desperate financial situation.
Speaker 1: Red was deep in debt, yet suddenly he had large
Speaker 1: amounts of cash on hand. The prosecutor asked a simple question,
Speaker 1: if he had the money, why didn't he pay off
Speaker 1: his debts. The answer seemed clear, because that cash came
Speaker 1: from somewhere recentere criminal. Then came Jose Gonzalez, the lone
Speaker 1: survivor from the McDonald's attack. When he took the stand,
Speaker 1: his testimony was powerful, direct. It was the final nail
Speaker 1: in Reed's metaphorical coffin. The jury heard Gonzalez's story and
Speaker 1: saw what he had lived through. Reed himself never took
Speaker 1: the witness stand, not in any of the three trials.
Speaker 1: He stayed silent. His defense team had their own strategy.
Speaker 1: They argued that Reed's brain was broken, damaged by years
Speaker 1: of head injuries. They brought in brain scans, expert testimony
Speaker 1: from doctors who diagnosed Reed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia and
Speaker 1: a nosa noosia, symptoms of psychosis that left him unaware
Speaker 1: he was even sick. The defense argued that Reed was
Speaker 1: mentally unfit, that his actions were the result of these
Speaker 1: deficits and traumas, not a deliberate choice. They claimed he
Speaker 1: wasn't culpable, that his damaged mind couldn't form intent. But
Speaker 1: the problem with that defense was simple. If Reed were
Speaker 1: so mentally broken, so incapacitated, then how could he planned
Speaker 1: these crimes with such precision? The jury wasn't buying it.
Speaker 1: Reed was convicted on seven counts of murder and one
Speaker 1: count of attempted murder, and he was sentenced to death.
Speaker 1: For years, he fought his convictions, filing appeal after appeal,
Speaker 1: But then in March of two thousand and three, there
Speaker 1: was a shift. Reid, still refusing to admit his guilt,
Speaker 1: wrote a letter announcing he wanted to drop all of
Speaker 1: his appeals against his death sentence. The families of his
Speaker 1: victims came out to the prison expecting closure, justice, but
Speaker 1: at the last minute, almost literally, Reid backed out. He
Speaker 1: changed his mind, clung to life a little longer. Ten
Speaker 1: years passed, and then on November one, twenty thirteen, at
Speaker 1: five fifty five pm in Nashville, Tennessee, Paul Dennis Reid,
Speaker 1: the Fast Food Killer, died not by lethal injection, but
Speaker 1: from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia. From the very start,
Speaker 1: Paul Dennis Reid was a problem, even as a child,
Speaker 1: a serious violent problem, and he grew into a man
Speaker 1: who was nothing but trouble, selfish, narcissistic, motivated by greed,
Speaker 1: but driven by something darker. He didn't just rob he
Speaker 1: enjoyed it, reveled in taking lives as if something inside
Speaker 1: him needed that violence. In the end, the Fast Food
Speaker 1: Killer earned seven death sentences, the most ever handed down
Speaker 1: to a single person in the state of Tennessee. And
Speaker 1: even if he'd had just two fewer lives than a
Speaker 1: cat and could have actually been executed seven times, even
Speaker 1: that would not be enough to fully measure the harm
Speaker 1: that Paul Reid caused. Instead, for the families of his
Speaker 1: victims and others whose lives Paul read destroyed, the fast
Speaker 1: food killer's end was frustratingly normal. His executioner nothing more
Speaker 1: than November pneumonia. I'm Zevan Odelberg and this has been
Speaker 1: kind of murdery. If you liked to show he subscribed,
Speaker 1: you can tell your friends. You can find us on
Speaker 1: social media at Kinamurdery or email at Kinomurdery at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com.
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