GOLDEN — Two women vanished off metro Denver streets in a matter of months in 1989, but it took a dedicated cold-case detective to identify the alleged serial killer accused of murdering them 20 years ago.
Now, testimony is being heard in the trial of Billy Edwin Reid, who is charged with killing and dumping the bodies of the two women in remote wooded areas in Jefferson County.
Reid, 49, allegedly killed Lanell Williams, who disappeared Oct. 12, 1989, after dropping off milk at her mother’s house; and Lisa Kay Kelly, who was buried anonymously in a Golden cemetery for 16 years until cold-case investigator Cheryl Moore took on her case.
Williams’ body was found in Clear Creek Canyon on Oct. 14, 1989, with panty hose, a belt, a sock and an extension cord all wrapped around her neck, according to Rebecca Stefanski, a crime-scene investigator who testified Wednesday in Jefferson County District Court. DNA testing in 2005 linked Reid, who had previously been convicted of a sex crime, to Williams’ strangulation death, Moore said.
There were similarities between Williams’ case and that of an unidentified body discovered by sightseers on March 24, 1989, on Lookout Mountain; Moore was surprised to find that fingerprints from the body were never submitted. When she did that in 2005, Kelly’s name popped up, along with her past criminal record.
Moore looked for similar unsolved homicides in the Denver area.
Prosecutors also will present evidence during Reid’s trial about the death of Queena Sanders, whose body was found in Denver on Feb. 14, 1988, and whose background was similar to that of Kelly’s and Williams’.
Although detectives did not uncover sufficient evidence for Denver prosecutors to file murder charges in Sanders’ killing, evidence tying Reid to the crime will be used to bolster the Williams and Kelly murder cases in Jefferson County, said Pam Russell, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County district attorney’s office.
Witnesses who testified Wednesday described Williams’ last months alive. The mother of two began smoking crack, said Kenneth Sanders, the father of her two children.
Her behavior changed dramatically, Sanders and other friends testified Wednesday. He said he would go to her house, and the microwave or stereo would be gone. She was selling her possessions at pawn shops to buy crack, he said. Moore has previously said that Williams — like Reid’s other alleged victims — turned to prostitution.
Sanders recalled the last day he saw Williams: “I’ll never forget it. She said, ‘I’ll come back the next day,’ and I never saw her again,” he said.
Russell estimated the trial will last five weeks.
