EXCLUSIVE: Ex-wife sheds light on suspected serial killer's past
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Along the rolling hills of Oklahoma, a young William Reece met a girl named Judy Flaming in the late 1970s. Their relationship was doomed from the start.
"We were riding around town. We were young," Flaming said. "We pulled into a parking lot and he said, 'If you don't go out with me, I'll put a gun to my head.' He was kidding -- at least I thought he was then."
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Flaming said Reece grew up in a mobile home on East Virginia Street in Anadarko with his mother, Pat Miely.
"He was a mama's boy," Flaming said. "He could murder somebody and she would probably hide it."
Flaming said Reece had to go to a boy's home when he was a teenager because of bad behavior.
He joined the Oklahoma National Guard, and she married him in 1979 in a small church in Gracemont. However, her marriage was not a happy time.
"I was pregnant," Flaming said, "My dad didn't want me to marry him."
Flaming was married and divorced twice to Reece. In all, they weren't married more than three years. They had two children together. Flaming said Reece cheated on her with her best friend.
After they divorced, the violence and death threats began.
"He felt like he owned me," Flaming said.
Flaming said Reece forced her and the kids to attend Thanksgiving dinner at a relative's home in a nearby town. Reece got angry.
"He threw me down on the ground, got a shotgun and put it to my face," Flaming said. "His mom stopped him. I don't know what he would have done."
In another moment of terror, Reece visited Flaming and the children -- who were younger than two years old at the time -- and drove them to the store to buy diapers. They got into an argument.
"He said, 'If you don't do such-and-such, I'm gonna kill us all in the car,'" Flaming said.
Flaming said Reece then drove down the country roads as fast as he could, with the 2-month-old baby and one-year-old child in the backseat. She was terrified. She said he finally just stopped on his own.
She said one time, Reece beat her up so badly that the whole side of her face turned black and blue. Flaming said she never thought Reece could be capable of murder.
"I never thought he would hurt anyone else but me," Flaming said.
She hopes Reece gets the death penalty.
