Bloody Lies: A CSI Scandal in the Heartland

12. Diary

diAry 89 12 diary A half-dozen Wisconsin police officers swarmed A. J. Wilson’s house in Horicon on the afternoon of June 6, 2006, seeking access to a black cellular phone in Jessica Reid’s bedroom and other potential clues. As the officers milled through the house, a. J. led them to a package hidden in a dining room china hutch. Behind a portrait of a. J. Wilson’s father, Dodge county Det. Michael reissmann found a small camel-brand cigarette box with the words, “To Greg,” scribbled in black marker. inside, the box contained a folded two-page letter addressed to Greg Fester. an excerpt read: “and this bullet well it’s the only thing left. and i loved it, but that’s something we will talk about one day. But its here also bcuz that was something i did for you, me and for you to love me as much as i love you. love always, Jessica, XOXO.”1 The empty box of camel smokes also contained a red .12-gauge spent shotgun shell casing—identical to the kind recovered from the Stocks’ farmhouse. astonishingly, the shotgun slug and Jessica’s weird love letter for Fester were not even the biggest evidence finds that afternoon. in reid’s bedroom, Wisconsin police came across a diary, but this was no ordinary teenage girl’s journal. On page 13, reid wrote: “i killed a man. He was older. i loved it. i wish i could do it all the time. if Greg doesn’t watch it, i am going to just leave one day and go do it myself. He’s not communicating with me very well for some reason anymore. I know who I am kind of now. I just have to get there first. i miss the south. it’s cold up here.”2· · · 89 90 bloody lies inside this camel-brand cigarette box, police in southcentral Wisconsin made a chilling discovery. a shotgun shell was hidden inside the box, a souvenir from the Stock slayings, plus a folded letter, in which Jessica reid wrote that she saved the shotgun shell as a token of her love for Gregory Fester. (Author’s collection) That evening back at the Dodge county jail, Fester took full responsibility for firing the final shot into the back of the farmer’s head. He blamed Reid for shooting the lady. But Lambert and Schenck were not satisfied. They assured him that other people in Nebraska were already in custody, so it was in his best interest to cooperate to gain leniency at sentencing. Just as they had done with reid the previous day, lambert and Schenck pushed Fester to implicate others in Nebraska. They provided him with a total of four police mug shots to study, including a photo of Nick Sampson’s buddy, Tom Todd. Fester agreed to identify a pair of purported accomplices, just as the Nebraska investigators wanted him to do. But he thoroughly confused the cops by rejecting the mug shots of Matt livers and Nick Sampson. instead, Fester gravitated to the photos of Will Sampson and Tom Todd. Of course, Fester couldn’t identify the names of any of the people in the mug shots because he really had no clue who they were. Trying his best to fool and please diAry 91 the gullible Nebraska investigators, Fester meekly referred to the photo of Will Sampson as the “brown-bearded guy.” He wanted to go along with the investigators’ newly adopted conspiracy theory. Fester’s second police interview in as many days deviated greatly from his first. The previous day, he had steadfastly maintained that only he and Jessica were present at the tan farmhouse. in the second interview, Fester claimed he remembered the downtown business district of Murdock buzzing with lots of lights and energy. Hot cars. Sexy blondes. Blaring bass from car stereos. Black gangster dudes. Fester’s story about seeing black gangsters wandering around downtown Murdock on easter Sunday should have raised a red flag that his story was preposterous. Murdock was about as all-white as any small town in Nebraska. Furthermore, cass county authorities would have known from previous interviews with locals that downtown Murdock was practically a ghost town on easter Sunday night. The Bulldogs Bar & Grill closed by 9 p.m. because business was slow in the little town of 270. instead, Fester tried telling lambert and Schenck that...