The Marshall Junction Wildlife Area Murders

On the afternoon of September 9, 1986, a deputy sheriff found the bodies of three men at the Marshall Junction Wildlife Area Shooting Range near the intersection of Interstate 70 and Highway 65 in southern Saline County, Missouri. He called for backup, and the arriving reinforcements soon discovered a fourth body a short distance from the other three. 

All four men had been shot multiple times with a high-powered rifle. They were identified as Donald Vanderlinden, 64, John Burford, 57, James Watson 54, and Christopher Griffith, 38. Authorities theorized that the motive for the murders was robbery, since a fairly large sum of money the men were carrying was missing. Officers thought that Vanderlinden and Burford, who were brothers-in-law, had been target practicing when they were killed and that Watson, a Missouri conservation agent, and Griffith, who was accompanying Watson, interrupted the crime and were shot dead when Watson came to check on the wildlife area. Investigators believed that Griffith, whose body was the one found some distance from the others, had tried to flee after his companion was shot but was brought down by gunfire.

After a week-long investigation, Donald E. Reese, 43, a local truck driver, was arrested on suspicion, and he broke down and confessed to the heinous crime on September 17, a couple of days after his arrest. He was then charged with four counts of first-degree murder and multiple counts of robbery. 

Although Reese led police to the murder weapon and over $2,000 that he'd stashed several miles away from the crime scene, he refuted the theory that robbery was the actual motive. Instead, he claimed that he had talked to Vanderlinden and Burford when they first arrived at the firing range and that, after they moved away from him, his finger was resting on the trigger of his rifle and accidentally went off, striking one of the men. He then shot the second man, who was armed, because he was afraid that the other man was going to shoot him. Almost immediately after the first two shootings, Watson and Griffith arrived. Watson got out of his car and briefly engaged Reese in conversation. He then started edging back toward his car, causing Reese to suspect he'd seen the bodies of the two dead men. Reese then opened fire on him and shot Griffith as he tried to escape in order to leave no witnesses. 

Reese's friends could scarcely believe the charges against him. One friend, David Sitzes, said he knew Reese was having marital problems (his wife had recently left him) and that he was depressed and suicidal, but he said he could not believe that Reese, whom he described as a "kind-hearted" person who never said a bad word about anybody, could be guilty of the murders.

Reese was tried for the murders of Watson and Griffith in Jefferson County on a change of venue in March of 1988. The main piece of evidence against him was the confession he'd signed shortly after his arrest. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. The Missouri Supreme Court upheld the conviction and the sentence in July of 1990, and Reese was finally executed by lethal injection at the Potosi Correctional Center in August of 1997.