- I'm Craig Melvin,
and this is
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
- It almost made me sick.
I was on the floor,
and then I kinda
got myself together.
I said, "We have
to go over there.
"I have to
go over there."
- In the muscular
military world,
she was a commander
who cared.
- I was like,
"What are you doing?"
And she says, "I'm writing
birthday cards
"to all my soldiers."
- Her husband was
a charming sergeant
and devoted dad.
- He was just as loving
and doting as Lynn was.
- No one could
believe it
when this
decorated officer
was found dead
in her own home.
- An army commander
being murdered
was unheard of.
- The first suspect,
as usual-- the husband.
But this one had
a rock-solid alibi
- I would have been
very difficult
for him to have
committed this murder.
- Did this soldier have enemies
off the battlefield?
Her brother-in-law
had a grudge.
- Rodney was going around
calling her names,
vulgar names.
- Her husband
had a girlfriend.
- Roger was seen
with a young lady,
and they were
cuddled up.
- We found out that
she was pregnant.
- Who killed the commander?
In a place where loyalty
is prized above all else,
one clue...
- That palm print
was a key part
of the case.
- ...would reveal
a breathtaking betrayal.
- [sighs] I don't
even have words.
What a monster.
**
- Hello, and welcome to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
Lynn Reister was
a dedicated army officer
with a growing family.
After years of deployments,
she was shifting to
a less demanding role
in the military.
Then she was murdered.
Investigators discovered that
Lynn had enemies close to home,
and to solve
this mystery,
they would need to untangle
some twisted family secrets.
Here's Andrea Canning
with "Deadly Devotion."
- In the hot and dangerous
Middle East,
she held her own
in the company of men,
a captain
and a commander
whose devotion
never wavered.
- She inspired people,
and that's maybe why she made
such a great commander.
She inspired her troops.
She inspired those that-
that worked for her
to want to do well.
- She was Captain
Lynn Armstrong Reister.
Army veteran Debbie Moore
was one of her best friends.
- Lynn was
very intelligent.
She knew how to bring out
the best in people.
- She had a big role
in the military.
- Very big role, yeah.
- She was in charge of
the Air Defense Artillery
in Saudi Arabia.
- When they were in Saudi,
and we had the Patriot Missiles,
she would be the one that
would make that decision
on what was coming in,
if it needed to be taken
out of the sky.
- Captain Reister earned
medals and promotions
and the loyalty of the men
and women under her command.
That loyalty
cut both ways,
according to her assistant
Megan Ayers.
- Did she take good care
of her soldiers?
- Absolutely. She, uh,
did welfare checks
where you would, you know,
she would visit with families.
She would meet with
the different wives
and things like that.
- Was she the perfect
candidate of the army?
- She was,
in my opinion.
She didn't let stress
get to her too much.
I think that she was probably
one of the best commanders
I've ever worked under.
- Lynn grew up with a brother
and two younger sisters
in the military town
of Pensacola, Florida.
While she was
away at school,
she sent her sister
some advice on tape
for her 16th birthday.
She graduated with
an officer's commission
from Norwich University
in Vermont,
one of the oldest military
colleges in the country,
and then began the globetrotting
life of a soldier.
- I met Lynn
over in Germany.
- Debbie and Lynn were both
stationed over there.
They met at a birthday party
thorough mutual friends.
- I snapped a picture
of the four of them
sitting there
at the table.
- Young woman
serving their country,
savoring life overseas,
and being surrounded
by guys in uniform,
sometimes love
entered the picture,
and it certainly
did for Lynn.
- How did Lynn
and Roger meet?
- They met over in Germany
at the K-Club.
- Is that an army club, or--
- That is an army club.
It's in Ansbach,
and we would go there
on Saturday nights,
because on Saturday nights,
they had country music.
- Sergeant Roger Reister
and Lynn hit it off at once,
and the romance blossomed.
- Lynn was
a wonderful person.
She had a smile, uh, that just,
you know, lit up the room.
- As a military wife,
when I heard that
Roger was enlisted
and Lynn was an officer,
that's a no-no in the military.
- Yeah, back then,
it wasn't as critical
as it became
a couple years later.
He was a charmer,
and she, uh,
she fell in love.
- And they got married.
Debbie liked the fact
that he was an Elvis fan.
- And I was, like, amazed.
I was like, "Really? You're
into Elvis Presley, too?"
[laughs] I was kind of
surprised by that, yeah.
So, yeah, he was
a lot of fun.
It was-- yeah.
- Roger admired Lynn's
devotion to her country
and her strength.
- You have to be
mentally strong.
With the military,
especially with the-
the women in the military,
you have to be,
you know, mentally strong
to be able to, uh, go toe-to-toe
with some of the men.
- Lynn and Roger had chosen
a soldier's life,
and that meant a marriage
full of separations.
Roger even missed the birth
of his son Triston.
- It was unbelievable.
As soon as I came back,
I stepped off the bus,
and, uh, and she held him,
and she said,
"This is your son,"
and, uh, that was a--
It was a really--
It was really a great moment.
It really was.
And I just held her
and held him at the same time.
- Was he a good dad?
- He was.
You know, he would
bring him up to visit,
and, you know,
they would play,
and he seemed very happy
being a dad.
- When Triston was 4,
the family was stationed
at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas,
and it was Lynn
who got called away.
- Lynn found out she had
to deploy to Saudi Arabia.
- Mm-hmm.
- You were going with her?
- Yes, ma'am.
- Was she okay with that?
I mean, she had to leave
Triston behind.
This is the-- This is her first
deployment without him, correct?
- Uh, to the best of
my knowledge, yes.
I remember her telling us
that it was hard,
that she was having
a hard time with it.
Uh, she was sad,
and that she just kept telling
him that she would come home.
It won't be that long?
- And it was--
How long was the deployment?
- Uh, it was about six months.
- And then she did
get home,
but her old life
was about to change.
About four months
after she got back,
Roger convinced Lynn
to let his 24-year-old brother
Rodney come live with them.
Rodney had gotten
into some trouble
while his brother
was serving his country.
Maybe Roger and Lynn
could set him straight.
- He was on probation
in Florida,
and for him to be able
to leave the state,
she had to write
this letter, you know,
saying how she would
take on that
responsibility.
Roger asked her to do that,
and so she did.
- Right about
the same time,
Lynn found out
she was pregnant again.
The tug of motherhood
was getting stronger,
so this globetrotting army
captain made a decision.
She put in for a transfer
to teach ROTC in Minnesota.
Good for her career,
good for her family,
and no travel.
Was she doing it at all
to be with Triston more?
Was that part of it?
- Yeah, that would
be part of it, yes.
She wanted to, um--
It's more relaxing.
- She was gonna
be a teacher.
It was something that she was
really looking forward to.
- Just days before
moving time,
Lynn was saying goodbye
to Fort Bliss.
Lynn was having
a going away party?
- Any time a commander
resigns a command,
the unit'll put together
and buy her a going away gift.
It's usually a plaque
or something to commemorate the
accomplishments of the unit.
- Megan didn't go,
but her husband did.
- My husband came home,
and I asked how--
how it went, you know?
Did she like the gift?
And he said, you know,
she never showed.
And that was very odd.
- Something else was odd.
Roger had been calling Lynn
at home throughout the day.
No answer.
Late that afternoon,
he came home from work
with Triston,
and it was all too clear
why Lynn hadn't
answered the phone.
- Lynn Armstrong Reister,
mother, soldier,
beloved commander,
was in her bedroom lying dead
in a pool of blood.
- Where will
investigators start?
- You had a killer on the loose.
- Yes.
Who's out there?
Who did this?
**
- Roger Reister
and his little boy Triston
had just come home
at dinnertime
to something no child
should ever have to see.
- I'm the one
that found her.
Whenever I walked into the--
I had Triston with me,
And, uh, when we--
we walked in, it was--
It was tough.
It was tough seein' that.
- Lynn, six months pregnant,
had been stabbed to death,
her throat slashed.
- My first instinct
was to grab Triston
and run out of the house,
and then I know
I was screamin' and yellin'.
I probably looked like
a madman out there,
but it was-
it was--
I didn't know
what to think.
- He immediately
called 9-1-1,
and, uh, and brought
Triston out.
Triston in his statement says,
"My daddy took me out fast,"
and, you know,
those kind of things.
- Gonzalo Chavarria
was the lead detective.
Did you think about this-this
poor, poor woman's last moments
in this house?
- I did.
I-I-- Looking
at the scene
and-and-and trying
to imagine her
maybe fighting
for her life,
or pleading
for her life,
or-or how scared
she might have been--
- Any signs of robbery
or things taken?
- No, we-we actually
did a scan,
and we could see
valuables.
There was-
There was no signs
that this was a burglary
or a robbery.
- With police and neighbors
converging on the scene,
the news got out quickly.
Lynn's friend Debbie Moore
couldn't believe it.
- My husband and I
were watching TV,
and he was flippin'
through the channels,
uh, with the
remote control,
and, um, the channel
flipped by,
and it was her house,
and I yelled, and I said,
you know, "Wait! Wait! Wait!
What is that?
"Isn't that Lynn's house?"
And so he flipped it back,
and 'bout that time,
uh, it came up
that, um, a woman,
um, had been found
murdered in her home.
- Did you know right away?
- I knew it was Lynn.
Yeah, 'cause I knew
the house,
and-and then they said
it was, uh, military...
and I remember I--
it almost made me sick.
Um, I was on the floor,
and then I kinda
got myself together.
I said,
"We have to go over there.
"I have to go over there."
- Roger was already talking
to detectives
and clearly shaken.
Police were sympathetic,
but they knew
he had to be
carefully scrutinized.
- What's your first
impression of Roger Reister?
- He was grasping his son.
Wouldn't let go of him,
and-and I thought that maybe,
um, I saw some, uh, fear.
He was scared
about what had occurred--
it seemed to me
at the time.
- Are you looking for anything
in Roger Reister's eyes,
or his mannerisms,
or what he's saying?
Are you immediately
sizing him up?
- Absolutely.
- Just to see
if maybe he did this.
- Absolutely.
- It actually took a while
for me to calm down
at the very beginning 'cause
my mind's all over the place,
and then once I wrapped
my mind around--
"Okay, lemme just go ahead
and give them this
"and get this knocked
out of the way.
"Then they can actually get
on with the investigation."
- Detectives wanted to know
where he was all day.
- Roger had a good alibi.
- He had a solid alibi, yes.
He-- His son was with him
all the time.
He had left his house
very early and stopped
at a convenience store
where he saw friends
and talked to them, and then
when he went-- he got to work,
uh, obviously, his coworkers,
his supervisors saw him.
Also backing up Roger's alibi
was his brother Rodney.
He told detectives he helped
Roger jumpstart his truck
early that morning, and watched
him and Triston leave.
Detective Steve Munos.
- He said that they were able
to crank up the truck, get it
going, and as he pulled away,
he-he says that he did see Roger
also pull out from the driveway.
- Later, Rodney visited
Roger at the base.
He told police his older
brother looked worried
when he called Lynn
and got no answer.
- Thursday, 9:58 am.
- 10:25 am.
- And then he leaves
work and so, we knew
that it would have been
very difficult,
um, for-for him to have
committed this murder.
- So, who did it?
As the investigation got
underway, Detective Chavarria
thought the possibilities
were endless.
- It could be anybody.
It could be a neighbor.
Uh, it could be a-a lover.
She was a captain.
She was a supervisor,
and we thought about her troops,
and her subordinates, and maybe
somebody that she might have
disciplined, or-or-or sex
offenders in the area.
- You had a wide net
you needed to throw out.
- It was a wide investigation
at the time, yes.
- You had a killer
on the loose.
- Yes, and the neighbors
were very scared, and--
who's out there.
Who did this?
- In those first few hours,
the leads would pour in,
and police had
to move fast.
Lynn Reister had inspired
loyalty in her life.
Now in death, the detectives
could not let her down.
On base,
a giant military family
is hit hard by murder,
but in Lynn's own family,
had there been signs of trouble?
- Rodney was going around,
calling her names,
vulgar names.
- He had a little bit
of animosity towards Lynn.
**
- The news of Lynn Reister's
murder spread through El Paso,
and it was devastating
to those
who served with her
at the army base.
- Did this crime send shockwaves
through Fort Bliss?
- It certainly did.
It was heart-breaking.
It was harrowing.
When it first happened,
we had no idea,
and it was scary.
- The Fort Bliss community
packed the memorial service
to say goodbye to the
captain and the baby
she was carrying,
who never got a chance.
- Tell us
about the funeral.
- The wake
was extremely difficult.
She was buried in her-her
army dress uniform,
and, um, they, uh--
in order to do
the open casket,
um, they had to cover
the throat, uh, so they used
her air defense artillery
ascot to, you know--
it connects
on the back and--
so that they would be able
to do the open casket.
["Taps" plays]
- Lynn's mother asked me
to go and buy a baby blanket.
It was a little boy,
and so I went and bought
a little baby blanket,
and so, for the memorial,
when they laid
Lynn out in her uniform,
the point was there
that not just one person
had died in this attack,
but two had died.
- Four year old Triston
was there with his family
and his mother's friends,
barely comprehending
the tragic rupture
in his life.
- Do you remember
how you felt towards him?
- I do.
I just--I felt sorrow.
I-I wanted so bad to fix it
for him, and I understood
that this little, 4 and 1/2
year old boy will never know
how great his mom was.
How much she loved him.
- Does your heart just go
out to this little boy?
- Yes, absolutely,
and it still does.
- But the detectives had to
put emotion aside
and drill down
to the facts.
Roger wasn't home
at the time of the murder,
and neighbors weren't reporting
any suspicious activity,
so detectives
wanted to know
if anyone held
a grudge against Lynn.
They quickly learned that
at least one person may have--
Roger's brother, Rodney.
- Things started
to go south with Rodney
pretty quickly
after he moved in.
- Yes, there was,
um, times where he
would just lay
around all day long.
- Rodney idolized his big
brother, but he was something
of a disappointment
to Roger and Lynn.
- Well, he just--
he wasn't working.
He was basically,
you know,
just living off of us,
stuff like that.
- She would go to get milk
out of the refrigerator
for Triston and the milk would
be gone because Rodney
had drank it all and didn't
bother to replace it, and, yeah.
It was becoming, um,
not a very good relationship.
- Lynn didn't
want him to stay?
- I think Lynn was ready
to have her house back.
You know, it's very difficult
when you have
another adult living
in the home.
I think they talked,
and they ended up--
Roger ended up telling, uh,
Rodney that it was time to go--
that, "You needed to leave.
You've been here long enough.
"We've tried to help you.
You know, you're not really
"helping yourself,
so you need to go."
- Lynn and I came
to that decision together,
but it was just one
of those things
that just had to be done.
He held that against her.
Mom and his relationship
continued on, but I could tell
he had a little bit
of animosity, you know,
towards Lynn
even after that.
- A closer look at Rodney showed
a young man with a dodgy past.
He'd done time in Florida
for crimes like petty theft,
forgery, grand theft auto.
Nothing violent,
but still, he was
no fan of Lynn's.
- And then I remember
Lynn telling me that Roger
had told her that Rodney was
going around calling her names.
You know, calling her vulgar
names that he had--
she's the reason that he got
kicked out,
that she's the reason that all
these things happened and stuff.
- Did you see
that as a motive?
- I never thought that that
in of itself would have been
a motive to kill her or that
he would have been that angry
just because of that--
to-to kill her.
- So, why in the world
would Rodney want Lynn dead?
- I don't think Rodney
wanted Lynn dead.
- Here was a person that,
um, that was willing to help us
in the investigation,
and he was very cooperative
initially and throughout.
- The search
for suspects continued.
Lynn's neighborhood
turned up nothing.
Same with Fort Bliss.
Lynn had no enemies there.
- You couldn't imagine
that it could have happened.
It seemed unreal.
An army commander
being murdered was unheard of.
- But then, one name cropped up.
Rodney mentioned it to police.
- We asked him who else would
have wanted to do this to Lynn?
Um, did she have
any enemies?
And Rodney tells us
that there's this one girl.
Uh, her name is April, and this
girl has a crush on my brother,
and-and so he mentions her,
and that's important.
- Turns out, this was
way more than a crush.
Lynn's best friend uncovers
a stunning secret.
A bold confrontation
with the other woman.
- We knock on the door.
She opens it, and I said,
"My understanding
is that you're pregnant."
**
- Welcome back to "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered".
I'm Craig Melvin.
Pregnant army officer
Lynn Reister
was stabbed to death
in the home she shared
with her husband Roger
and their young son.
Roger had an airtight alibi,
but under police questioning,
Lynn's brother-in-law, Rodney,
shared a detail that would
give them a view inside
a marriage riddled with lies.
Back to Andrea Canning
with "Deadly Devotion".
- It was a lead that would
take the Lynn Reister
murder invesitigation
in a new direction.
Roger Reister's brother
had mentioned
a young woman
who had a crush on Roger.
Detectives quickly learned
this crush
was an open secret
around town.
- We went
to the Village Inn
and I walked in the door,
and there was Roger.
- It was about nine
months before the murder.
Lynn's assistant,
Megan,
had just gotten back
from Saudi Arabia.
Lynn was still there
with a week and a half to go.
- Roger was sitting
in a booth
with several other-other
people-- I didn't know
any of them--
uh, as well as a-a young lady,
and they were cuddled up,
and Roger had a look
of sheer terror on his face
when he saw me walk in,
and realized who I was, 'cause,
you know, we knew each other.
He stopped and he gave me a hug,
and, "I didn't know
"you were back."
Uh, well I am.
- The young woman's
name was April.
She was 19 years old.
What exactly was
going on between
Roger and
this young lady?
They looked like a couple?
- They did.
- Megan decided it wasn't
her place to tell Lynn.
But over in
Saudi Arabia,
Lynn knew
something was up.
Roger never seemed
to answer the phone.
And word had traveled
halfway around the world
that Roger had been having
parties at their home,
drinking with people
as young as eighteen,
acting like a
teenager himself.
Lynn left him
this voicemail
before she got
her flight home to Texas:
- Lynn rarely gave up
on people she loved.
When she got home
from Saudi Arabia,
she wanted to patch things up
with Roger.
- You're talking about
somebody who was in a marriage
that she wanted
to keep together.
And she fought
hard to-to
keep it together.
- One night,
Lynn decided to surprise him
at his favorite country bar.
But the surprise
was on her.
Roger was there, surrounded by
his new gang of young friends.
- She came over to me
and started talking to me
and asking me questions
about Roger,
if I saw him over there,
and if I'd seen him before,
and-and I told her
that, yeah, I'd saw--
I'd seen him there
one other time.
She goes, [gasps]
"Well do you know
"who these people are?"
- And April was in
the bar that night?
- Yes.
- And how was
he acting around April?
They were out
dancing on the floor,
doing flips and-and
turns and yeah,
things that he never danced
with-with Lynn.
- But he's doing this
in front of Lynn?
- Oh, yes.
Oh, yes.
She was so angry.
And what made it worse
is he was so disrespectful.
I mean, she was
trying to talk to him
and he just--
every time she'd s-
she'd start walking
towards him,
he'd walk away.
- Sounds like Lynn was
trying to be the grownup.
- Yes.
- And Roger had reverted
a little bit.
- Oh, yeah.
- Back to sort of
the good old days?
- Oh yeah, yeah.
- Detectives learned
that night at the country bar
ended badly.
A messy, drunken
argument broke out
between Roger and Lynn,
and Roger moved
into the barracks.
After that, Lynn asked Debbie
for some help.
- I was kind of playing
detective for her.
And so I went up there,
I remember sitting
and watching
outside the barracks,
and, um, April ended up
coming up there,
and-and hanging out
at the barracks.
- This wasn't just a crush,
this was a full-on affair.
And then it got worse.
Lynn heard a rumor
that April was pregnant
with Roger's baby.
- And so, I told her,
I said, "You know, I know
where April lives."
I said, "Lynn, why don't
we go over there?
"So why we-Why we just
go talk with April?"
- That's gutsy.
- Yeah, well,
we were older.
We were-- And she, you know,
w-- I knew Lynn would be--
Lynn wasn't gonna lose it.
I mean, Lynn,
she was a command--
- So what's it like
when you knock
on the door, and--
- Well, we knock on the door,
she opens it,
she's a little bit
surprised, and Lynn--
like I said,
Lynn was very nice.
We sat down, and we started
talking to her, um,
about her relationship,
and she tried to say that,
you know, yes, that she had,
but it was over now,
that, you know, Lynn was back,
and-and I finally said,
I said, "Well-- but
my understand is
"you're pregnant."
- April denied
she was pregnant,
insisting the affair
was over.
- So you both left April's,
not really
knowing for sure if she was
or wasn't pregnant?
- If it-- yeah--
th-then, of course,
later we found out that
she was actually pregnant.
- And telling people
the father was Roger.
A lot of women would've cashed
in the marriage at this point.
But not Lynn.
She let Roger come home.
Does Lynn still wanna make
things work with Roger,
despite--
- She does.
- --this bombshell?
- She does.
- Why?
- I think probably
because of Triston.
I think that it was
important to Lynn that
her family stayed together,
and that Triston
be raised with,
you know,
mother and father,
and that she would
work it out.
- And they were
working on things.
- She was, yes.
- Marriage counseling?
- They did try
marriage counseling, yes.
- They had moved
back in together.
- Yes.
- Police heard that after Roger
reconciled with Lynn,
her car was vandalized.
April was never charged,
but at the time,
Lynn and Roger told police
they thought she did it.
So this is very complex.
- Very.
- This April situation.
Police had to put
this woman scorn
on the list of
possible suspects.
- Roger had pushed April aside
to a point where sh--
where he was telling everybody,
"Oh, that's not--"
Do-- You know, denying
that was his baby
that April was carrying.
- You wanna get a woman angry.
- Yes.
- That's a pretty good way
to do it.
- Absolutely.
- But as detectives
were sorting through
this tangled love triangle,
they got news of a break
in the case.
The forensic lab
came back with something:
a trace of the killer
on Lynn Reister's arm.
A telltale palm print.
Whose could it be?
- Does everyone's jaws drop?
- Yes.
**
- A troubled marriage.
A doomed affair.
A pregnant mistress.
Detectives did the math,
and suddenly,
April and Roger
were each looking like
possible suspects.
But then, results came in
on a clue found
at the crime scene:
a bloodied palm print
on Lynn Reister's arm.
Did Roger give his palm print?
- Roger gave his palm print.
- Was he a match?
- He was not a match.
- Did April give her palm print?
- Yes.
- Was she a match?
- She was not a match.
- At that, they checked
the prints of someone else,
someone Lynn Reister
had once tried to help:
her brother-in-law,
Rodney.
- He's a match.
Those prints belong to him,
and they're in blood,
on Lynn's arm.
- This is the smoking gun.
- It is.
- Rodney was brought back
to police headquarters
by detective Steve Munos.
- He was still a person,
like, nothing phased him
out here. Here I am.
I-- whatever you want from me,
I-- you wanna talk to me?
I'll give you
whatever you need.
- When Rodney sat down
with Detective Shavaria,
he was confronted
with the print evidence,
and he denied everything.
- As we talked to him
and broke down
those denials, he, uh,
he became very emotional.
Rodney cried
a bunch of times
during the interview,
and he revealed that,
uh, that he had, in fact,
killed Lynn.
- Case closed?
- Not even close.
We had to answer the question of
why did Rodney kill her?
Why did Rodney
get involved
in something
so heinous and s-
so horrible,
so violent.
- Detectives continued
to press.
They never thought the spat
between Rodney and Lynn
was a good motive
for murder.
There had to be
something else.
Rodney finally broke down.
He admitted there was.
- He did it because
Roger asked him to do it.
- He said big brother Roger
was behind it all.
- What-- Does everyone's
jaws drop?
- Yes.
- At this statement?
- Absolutely.
- Roger was arrested
and charged with murder.
- There was such--
this big shock
with his friends,
and their mutual friends,
'cause they-they thought
"No, no."
Because he looked like
this perfect husband,
perfect father.
- According to Rodney,
Roger suggested,
then begged,
then bullied him
into killing Lynn.
He offered money.
He'd pay off Rodney's bills,
and then some.
But mostly,
he offered love.
- Then Roger's feeding all
these things into his head
about she wants
to move,
she wants to take me away
from my friends, you're you.
I love you,
she wants to separate us.
Rodney told police his brother
had no shortage of reasons
for wanting Lynn dead.
Prosecutor John Gibson.
- Roger wanted the life
insurance policy,
he wanted custody
of his young son,
he knew that if his,
uh, affair with April,
uh, became apparent that he face
consequences in the military
to include prosecution
in military, uh, jail,
uh, he wa-- he didn't
wanna move, uh,
and to follow Lynn in
her career to Minnesota.
He wanted to stay,
and he wanted to party,
uh, back here
in El Paso.
- And Rodney said Roger
didn't just talk about
why he wanted
his wife killed.
He says Roger talked
about how and when.
- He describes
Roger preparing
the weapon,
preparing extra clothes
for Rodney
to change.
- Rodney said the plan
was for Roger to
call him that morning
to say his battery was dead.
Was that the signal?
- That was the signal.
And-And that's
where Rodney tells us
"When we-- When I
went to the house,
"I knew that was the day
I was gonna have to kill Lynn."
- The prosecutor threw the book
at both brothers.
- Uh, so, decision was made,
uh, to go ahead and pursue
capital murder charges
against both Roger
and Rodney Reister.
- And that could mean
the death penalty?
- It could mean
the death penalty.
- But as the day of
Roger's trial got closer,
Rodney's misguided loyalty
got the better of him.
He refused to testify
against his older brother.
- You know, I think Rodney
had a degree of lol-- loyalty
and love for his brother,
uh, such that, um, you know,
he couldn't get up on the stand
and testify against him.
- So a jury would not hear
from the younger brother
or see his confession.
The prosecution was forced
to drop the murder charge
against Roger.
But that was not
the end of the case.
Remember that pack
of young people
Roger was running with?
- Many of them were
high school kids, uh,
in that area,
and many of the people
were junior, uh, in rank,
other soldiers
at the-at the base.
So, uh, Roger surrounded himself
with people he knew
would look up to him.
- But they turned on him
after Lynn was killed.
One by one,
six members of Roger's circle
told police
they knew Roger
wanted his wife dead
because he had talked
to them about it.
Two of them
even told police
Roger had tried to
hire them for the murder.
- You know, Roger Reister
basically told anybody
who would listen that
he wanted his wife dead.
- So the prosecutor
charged Roger
with solicitation for murder
and put him on trial for that.
One of Roger's minions,
a young soldier
named Patrick Muller
was a key witness.
- He was granted immunity
and gave a statement
explaining that he had too
had in fact been, uh,
solicited by, uh, Roger
to kill Lynn Reister.
- Muller said he went
to the house one night
but chickened out when
he spotted a neighbor.
Another young man testified
how Roger had tried to hire him.
- Roger's former mistress
April, now cleared
of any suspicion, testified
that Roger talked to her
about tampering with
Lynn's brakes.
Lynn's friend Debbie doesn't
understand why one of these
young people didn't
blow the whistle
before Lynn was killed.
- I was so angry because
I thought why didn't
one of them mention
that to me?
Why wouldn't that comment
not be told to me?
'Cause I think if one of them
had told me that
and I would have went back
to Lynn with that right away.
- With all those witnesses,
the prosecution thought
they had a strong case,
but Roger Reister had plenty
to say about those witnesses
and about his brother Rodney.
- Did you ask your brother
Rodney to kill Lynn?
- I love my wife.
We were trying to do--
build a future together.
- Roger tells his story.
Will the jury believe him?
When "Dateline: Secrets
Uncovered" continues.
- To take your wi-- your wi--
your wife,
the mother of your child,
and the fact that she was
carrying his unborn child--
I don't even have the words
of-of how sick--
what a monster.
- Roger Resiter didn't look
like a monster
when he went on trial
for criminal solicitation,
but lots of witnesses said
he talked about killing his wife
to anyone
who would listen.
Well now, 12 jurors were
listening, and it took them
all of three hours
to find him guilty.
When you hear guilty.
- My legs went out from
underneath me.
My lawyers actually
had my arms.
- Roger was sentenced
to life in prison.
He spoke to us from behind
glass at a Texas state prison.
The prosecutor said in
his closing statements,
"Who is he
crying for?"
Referring to you, he said,
"He's crying for himself."
- No, I was cry-crying for
my wife, my unborn child
is what I was
crying for.
It-it had nothing
to do with me.
- Why should
we believe you?
- 'Cause I didn't do it.
'Cause I love my wife.
- He told us he may have been
a terrible husband,
but he never wanted
Lynn dead.
- Was life easier without her
in that picture?
- No, absolutely not.
That's why we actually
got back together.
We separated and-and, you know,
I was like, okay well,
I'll move back in the barracks,
but that's why we got back
together because, uh, life
wasn't easier without her.
Life was better
with her.
Always has.
- But remember, the prosecution
said there was a long list
of motives.
All right, let's run through
the motives of why
the prosecution said you wanted
your wife dead.
First was that you wanted
the $250,000 life insurance
policy.
- Oh no, that-- it doesn't
make much sense
because, uh, Lynn was making
more money than, uh, I was.
So, you know, $250,000--
all soldiers have
that same amount
on them, so.
- You wanted sole custody
of Triston.
- No, Lynn and I would
all been-- it would have
definitely been joint custody.
It's something that, uh,
we talked about whenever
we briefly separated.
- You didn't want to go
to a military prison
for committing adultery.
- No, that-- it's been
a very long time
since anybody was,
uh, convicted of a felony
for, uh, adultery
in the military.
- He says he still doesn't
understand why all his
old friends turned on him,
but he doesn't have
a good explanation for why
they all would have lied.
You had a lot of people
saying that you wanted
to have your wife
killed.
- And you'd think I'd come
up with a really good reason
for it for all those people
and, uh, I haven't.
Obviously, you know,
maybe some of them
had their
individual motives.
- But six-six people.
- I-I know.
- That's a lot of people all
lying and ganging up on you.
- I-I don't know what
their reasons are,
but you'd be surprised
what people would say.
- The year after Roger's trial,
his brother Rodney was
convicted of murder
and sentenced to life.
Roger still says
Rodney acted alone.
- One of the things that's
hard to wrap your head around
is that Rodney had
this love for you.
He looked up to you,
and for Rodney to turn on you
and say that my brother asked me
to kill his wife
and I did it
out of love for him.
Why in the world
would he make that up?
- Maybe to save
his own life.
I heard that they were
trying to give him
the death penalty
and the only thing
that he could have done
to even save his own life
was to say something
like that.
Maybe get a little bit
of sympathy as for as why.
- But this is a man
who loved you.
- Well, if he loved me,
he wouldn't have killed my wife.
- You do seem though, like,
you're playing the part
of victim a little bit by
saying this person made this up.
This person made this up.
Poor me.
You know, I-- all these people
are lying.
- Well I'm-I'm an innocent man
sitting in jail, so yeah.
I-I do kind of feel
like a victim, yes.
- He says that he's the victim
in this, that all these people
lied and now he's behind
bars because of the lies.
- All these people lied?
Hm, I don't even know
what to say to that.
Um..
- Debbie says Lynn's
profound loyalty may have been
her undoing and that Lynn
would want other people
to learn from that.
- Sometimes you don't
keep fighting to keep
that marriage together,
that maybe there is a time
that it's better just to say,
you know, it's over
and walk away.
- Even now, this case can bring
Detective Chavarria to tears.
Can you explain it--
why you have this emotion?
Can you put it into words?
- It's hard.
It's hard.
Um, she was pregnant
and of course
you have Tristan,
and Tristan
lost everything.
- What hits you
the hardest?
- She was trying to keep
her family together.
And, um.
I don't think she knew what
kind of man she was married to.
- Do you think about
your wife's last moments
and your unborn child's
last moments?
- Oh, no.
- How horrific they were?
- Uh, no, I-I try not to think
about that at all.
It's not how you really want
to do your time in here.
- Lynn stated in her will
that Tristan should go
to her mother
if anything happened.
Roger agreed to send Tristan to
one of Lynn's sisters instead.
- I know he's
in a good home.
That's probably one
of the good things that,
uh, I did before I got locked up
was make sure that he went
to that family
in particular.
- He doesn't know anyone--
anything about me.
- We spoke to Tristan
when he was 19 years old.
He said he had a good group
of friends,
but it had been
a difficult road.
- He very clearly doesn't know
anything I've gone through,
you know, and he obviously
doesn't understand
that most of what
I've gone through
is because
of his decision.
- Yeah, he keeps saying
that you had this great
upbringing and, you know,
that-that gives him peace
essentially, but your life
was not so easy.
- It wasn't.
It was a very difficult place
to grow up in.
Just in general,
the-the very fact that I lost
my parents is-is one thing
that's traumatizing,
but then to go live with my Aunt
was in fact a stranger to me
as a kid is-is just--
it was a lot.
- Still, his difficult life
has pointed him
in an interesting
direction.
- You want to be a crime scene
investigator.
- Yes, I do.
- And is this 100%
from your own experience
or is there
something else?
- Uh, believe it or not,
I've-I've always been
really interested in-in like
anatomy and how things work,
but I've also wanted to have
a bunch of questions answered
about my on life
about, you know,
the situation with my parents
mainly, and that curiosity
kind of bled over
to other situations.
Me and my Mom.
- Tristan treasures
the baby book his Mother
made for him.
- I get bigger and better.
- Aw.
But he loves listening
to that audio tape she made
for her sister's
16th birthday.
- It's cool hearing her.
- I sometimes wonder
if she would be happy
with how my life is going
or my decisions,
or, um, if she'd be
proud of me or whatnot.
- You've overcome the odds.
You're in college.
You're making something
of your life.
- It's not over yet.
- How could--
- I've got a long way
to go.
- How could she not
be proud of that?
- I'm sure she is.
I just.
I just wish I knew
for sure.
- I miss you so much.
I miss all of you,
and, uh, I hope you guys
miss me a little bit.
- And that's all
for this edition
of "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Craig Melvin.
Thank you for watching.