Original subtitles

- There wasn't a lot that shook me as an investigator,

but this case truly broke my heart.

Yeah.

- The victims, they were tied, bound,

knife lacerations to the neck...

...severe-force strangulation.

- He would pull people over in parking lots

saying he was a model scout.

He would sweet-talk them to get out of their car.

He could take pictures of them.

He fine-tuned his craft over the years.

- All these victims came out of the woodwork.

- No remorse, no regard for human life.

- It was all-hands-on-deck.

That clock was ticking.

So the only thing that mattered was finding him.

♪

- Richmond County, Georgia,

sits right on the Savannah River.

A lot of small communities around,

and it has a good hometown feel to it.

It's sometimes called the Augusta-Aiken area,

right on the border with South Carolina

and, uh, just very well known for the Masters golf tournament

and Fort Gordon, a big Army base.

♪

- On September 5th of 2000,

the Sheriff's Department was contacted

by a superior officer at Fort Gordon

concerned about one of his soldiers

that had not shown up for work.

- Marni Glista lived off-base.

She was a 21-year-old army sergeant.

Her husband was also in the military,

and he was in Kuwait at the time

and, uh, called multiple times and could not get ahold of her.

[ Police radio chatter, sirens wail ]

- Our deputies responded to the scene

and they found Marni Glista laying on the bedroom floor.

She was nude.

Her hands were bound,

and she had something wrapped around her throat.

- She had clearly been strangulated

and she had obviously been beaten...

...but still had a pulse and some shallow breathing.

Immediately, they transported her to the hospital.

- When I got to the scene, the door was unlocked,

all her I.D., her money in her purse,

valuables are still in the residence.

It's not like it was a burglary.

- Did she know them? Did she let them in?

Did somebody make her open that door?

Either way, it was obvious

that there had been a lengthy struggle

where she had clearly fought back.

- Outside of her residence,

there were groceries still in the car.

My thoughts were somebody probably knew her,

came to the door before she even was able

to get her groceries out, having a conversation,

and then something happened inside the home.

We found a receipt from the day before.

5:00 after work, she stopped and got some groceries

less than a mile down the road.

So we had an investigator go to the supermarket.

One of the clerks remembered Marni coming through her line,

but they didn't have any video,

and they didn't remember anybody suspicious.

- The crime-scene technicians collected a lot of evidence

to work it from a DNA angle.

- But at the time, we just didn't have much to go on.

We were hoping that maybe Marni might recover

and give us something.

- September 5th, the phone call came in

that Marni had been attacked in her home

and was in critical condition.

Tears immediately flowed, fear.

It was a scary time of-- and a lot of unknowns.

- My sister Marni, she lived life

at 100 miles an hour with her hair on fire.

[ Laughter ]

- She's a graduate, alright.

- She was a very good people person.

She knew how to get what she wanted in life.

[ Voice breaking ] She was always up

for the next adventure.

♪

Wendy and I flew to Georgia.

We went into the room.

Then my parents gave us the news that...

[ Inhales deeply, exhales sharply ]

...that we're going to say goodbye.

- Her husband, Jason, had made it back from Kuwait.

He was distraught.

He was in pieces.

We were told the brain damage was irreversible.

♪

So we stayed there all night

and, um...

...we all said goodbye to her.

♪

- This was big news.

We were reporting on the shock and also the fear

that this created with the neighbors.

Who would have done this attack?

Is there somebody on the loose?

- The autopsy came back, and we learned

that she was actually sexually assaulted.

But, unfortunately, there was no DNA from the scene

that was able to assist us.

- They ultimately determined that there was a strangulation,

and she was beat so bad that she had massive brain swelling

that led to her death.

- The strangulation method, unlike stabbing, it's slow.

It's such an intimate experience.

For killers in general that are sexually driven,

those are the types of things

that could become very erotic to people

and create this powerful,

incredibly powerful base experience

enjoying the suffering of others.

- We were thinking, with the door being unlocked,

this has got to be somebody she knew,

somebody who knew that the husband was out of town.

Was somebody stalking her?

- Was there a lover? Was there a love triangle?

As an investigator, you have to very systematically

work through each one of those possible scenarios

until you start developing leads.

- We interviewed the post commander

and the whole battalion, almost 100 people.

We were constantly talking to the family

and we talked to their friends,

but we didn't find any suspects at the time.

- There was a lot of frustration.

It was just-- There was nothing there.

- We started thinking, did we have just a random killing?

- We're looking for other cases in Richmond County

to see if there are connections.

But we didn't have any similar crimes.

- So we all talked to other counties

to see if they've had any similar incidents.

- I was the chief deputy at the Aiken County Sheriff's Office.

We were only separated from Richmond County

by the Savannah River.

We are truly next-door neighbors,

and we had a case that had some things in common.

In December of '99, we received a missing-persons report.

- 18-year-old Josh Wilson worked a long day

and had fallen asleep.

His wife, Tiffaney Wilson,

was supposed to be taking their 2-month-old

to see Santa at the Winn-Dixie and never came home.

- We went to the store.

Tiffaney Wilson's vehicle was in the parking lot.

There was no surveillance video. We interviewed the clerks.

- Tiffaney was nowhere to be found, and neither is the baby.

Where is the baby?

- While that wheel is turning,

we get a call from Richmond County.

A 2-month-old baby was recovered

at the Georgia Welcome Center along I-20,

six miles down the road.

- They found the baby in a car seat, just abandoned.

- Two days into this,

an auto-parts attendant dumping the trash

saw female clothing, uh, in a dumpster.

The dumpster was down the street from the grocery store

where her car was found.

We did have a clothing description.

We knew her size.

It was Tiffaney Wilson's clothes.

In any missing-person,

you have to treat it as a homicide

until the evidence tells you different.

- There was a lot of suspicion on Josh, her husband.

- Through several interviews, through a lot of shoe leather,

uh, w-we eliminated him completely.

- Three weeks later, at the end of December 1999,

hunters found the body of a woman deep in the woods

in, uh, rural Aiken County.

- She was totally nude.

Her hands were bound behind her back.

There was knife lacerations to the neck,

severe-force strangulation. [ Camera shutter clicks ]

She had been beaten brutally...

...and we learned from the coroner's office

she was sexually assaulted.

We knew it was Tiffaney Wilson.

The way she was tied, stabbed, and beaten so brutally,

I don't see that as somebody she knew.

I absolutely think it was a stranger.

Got absolutely no leads whatsoever.

We truly had nothing to go on...

...until Richmond County gave us a call about the Glista case.

- That's two victims who had been sexually assaulted,

had been strangulated, bound, murdered,

and very similar in age.

- And so then we started thinking

that's a possibility that these could be connected.

- And then, on October 10th...

...Richmond County gets another 911 call.

- A young woman, she's been attacked in her home

by a man who had stabbed her in the neck.

- It could have been the same person was responsible,

and now we had a victim who was alive.

[ Siren wails ]

- We know serial killers don't stop.

- This was the leading story on every TV news station in town.

The sketch was run everywhere.

- He picks up a picture. He goes,

"I think this is who you're looking for."

It was uncanny how they looked alike.

- In 1999 and 2000, we've got two girls,

Marni Glista and Tiffaney Wilson,

that are murdered in two different states.

But there were some similarities.

They were both bound,

they'd both been brutally beaten,

and they had both been sexually assaulted.

- They had, at that point, no leads.

They had no idea who had done this

or why anybody would do this.

- And then one month after Marni Glista was murdered,

the Richmond County Sheriff's Office received a 911 call.

[ Siren wails ]

- They dispatched deputies to the scene

and found Chrisilee Barton, 18 years old at the time,

with her throat slashed.

She had been raped, and she had been beaten.

- She could barely talk, and it was just chilling.

- Even though she was in dire straits,

Chrisilee Barton wanted to give us some information

about her assailant...

...but her condition was critical,

and so, first, they rushed her off to the hospital.

[ Siren wails ]

- Investigators started canvassing the neighborhoods,

and we got a lead.

A neighbor had noticed a teal green Honda Civic

leaving Chrisilee's house,

and it had a very distinct paper tag.

- When you buy a vehicle

before you have your actual license plate,

you have a paper tag.

- This car had been purchased in the last 30 days

'cause that's typically how long a paper tag's good for.

So there were a couple of dealerships

that needed to get spoken to.

- And so, while we're doing that,

we got a call from the hospital.

♪

- Chrisilee Barton became stable enough

to have dialogue with the investigators.

She had some damage to her Esophagus and throat,

but she was able to relay information about her attacker.

- She was on her way home from work.

She pulled up at a stoplight.

- A Hispanic male in a green Honda Civic

pulled up next to her and began having conversation with her.

- She said he was just asking for directions.

- The light changes, so he motioned

for her to pull over into the parking lot next to them.

Then he started telling her that he was new to the area,

he was a modeling agent

and looking to take photographs of women.

- He's willing to pay her $200

in exchange for taking these pictures

for his modeling agency.

He seems intelligent.

He's very likable and-- and easy to talk to.

- People that are psychopaths oftentimes are--

are quite skilled and adept at social skills.

They find ways to manipulate and twist

how people see them externally

so that they can get what they want.

- Chrisilee told him to follow her home.

She had second thoughts about it,

but she ended up going home with him anyway.

She was changing into something for the photographs,

and she could hear rustling in her kitchen.

And then he came out with a knife.

- He stabbed her in the neck.

That led to him raping her, beating her.

She loses consciousness for a brief period of time.

At that point, he left her for dead and fled.

- But this woman was a fighter.

Waking up from her unconsciousness,

she crawled to the telephone

and was able to dial 911 and get help.

The Marni Glista case is fresh in everyone's minds.

They had this case of Tiffaney Wilson.

They have a new case of Chrisilee Barton.

Is this connected?

- All three had been brutally beaten and sexually assaulted.

There are similarities in terms of where these victims,

specifically Marni and Tiffaney, were last seen--

at a grocery store.

Tiffaney was stabbed in the manner

that Chrisilee Barton was stabbed.

Chrisilee and Marni both had been attacked in their home.

- We think we have a common suspect

and we could be looking for a serial killer.

♪

- We called the forensic artist to come to the hospital.

Chrisilee Barton again gave great information.

- They spent several hours together and in the end,

we were able to put this composite drawing together,

the Richmond County Sheriff's Department supervisor said,

"We're running this on the news at 6:00.

Hold on to your socks

because we're expecting a lot of phone calls."

- The sketch was run everywhere,

along with the details on the car.

- He raped, sodomized, and stabbed this young woman,

Chrisilee Barton.

- Many tips were coming in,

both in Georgia and in South Carolina,

and we were all running them down.

- And then we get this one phone call

from somebody claiming to be a family member of this suspect

that we've put on TV, and he says,

"He's married to my sister-in-law."

- Once the composite sketch of this suspect is on the news,

we get this one phone call from a family member.

He explains to me that his wife has a sister

who is married to this guy in the sketch.

- And this gentleman knew

that he recently bought a teal green Honda.

- Time was of the essence.

We couldn't send pictures via phone back then,

so I said, "I'm heading your way."

So I pull up in his driveway.

The husband says, "Come on in."

He picks up a picture. He goes,

"I think this is who you're looking for."

I looked back at the sketch of this suspect.

I mean, I had-- I had chill bumps.

It was...

...uncanny...

how they looked alike.

The family called him Ray,

but clarified that his full name was Reinaldo Rivera.

Immediately, I called our supervisor, and I said,

"I've got a picture y'all need to see,

and get it in front of Chrisilee Barton."

- Investigators went to the hospital.

Right off the bat, Chrisilee Barton,

she was able to identify him.

- Once we got a positive I.D.,

we immediately had an address for him,

which was in South Carolina just across the bridge.

It was out of our jurisdiction,

so we contacted the Aiken County Sheriff's Department.

- So from that, we and Richmond County worked hand-in-hand.

- We descended upon the residence of Reinaldo Rivera,

The green vehicle's there. It's got the paper tag.

And we're met by the wife of Reinaldo Rivera.

- The wife tells them Reinaldo sped off,

driving a white Windstar van.

So now he's in the wind.

- They had seen the news at 6:00.

He knows now, and he has left in his wife's minivan.

She was clearly in shock,

but she understood the gravity of what was going on

and wanted to help.

We put out a lookout for this vehicle.

We've got a tag number.

We've got a description of the van.

We've got-- We've got a last known direction.

I mean, there's literally tire marks through the yard.

- We just started talking to Mrs. Rivera

to gather as much information as we could about her husband.

- Reinaldo Rivera was born in 1963.

He grew up in Puerto Rico. His father was a doctor.

He ended up enlisted in the Navy and had a stellar career.

- He was a military man who had actually worked

for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, D.C.

after that, in the, uh, early 1990s,

Reinaldo went to University of South Carolina,

where he met his wife.

They married Valentine's Day 1993.

- At that time, he was elected to go to

the Naval Academy flight school in Texas

to become a Navy pilot.

When he was in flight school,

they found that he was videotaping young ladies

in sexually compromising situation,

and that he had a relationship with one of the ladies.

They got him out-- less-than-honorable discharge.

And so he left the Navy.

They decided to settle in South Carolina,

where he ended up getting a job with a dealership.

- According to Mrs. Rivera, in, uh, August of '98,

after working at two car dealerships,

he lands a very good job at Bridgestone

there in Aiken County.

- And so here you've got his wife thinking

that her husband was a local tire inspector,

a family man, a man who goes to church,

just raising two young kids and blending into society.

- In Mr. Rivera's case,

there's that "inside versus the outside" persona.

When we're dealing with psychopaths,

they oftentimes will have the skills to be a-a salesperson

because they can sell themselves,

because they want what they want,

and they know how to make that happen.

- At first, she just could not believe it, couldn't accept it.

The father of her children.

But at the same time, she knew he matched the sketch.

- She didn't want to believe that her husband could be

that kind of monster.

The police started to dig into

Reinaldo Rivera's criminal history.

They find out, while he was working in D.C.,

he had been accused of attacking a 19-year-old prostitute.

- He was arrested, but the charges was dropped

for some unknown reason.

- And more shocking than anything is, ultimately,

what got him discharged from the Navy.

He's caught having sex with a 16-year-old girl.

- Mr. Rivera's type seemed to be these young women.

Considering his age, maybe he never really progressed

to a state where he was interested

in women more his own age.

That could have been part of the excitement.

That vulnerability could have been part of his-- his drive.

- The night shift investigators come on, and all of them,

they're basically reeled in, searching for Rivera.

- It was all-hands-on-deck.

He's a flight risk at this point.

So we knew that clock was ticking.

And the only thing that mattered at that point in time

was finding him.

- We now had a suspect, Reinaldo Rivera.

He had fled in his wife's van.

Investigators start trying to analyze, "What would I do?

Where would he go?"

In conjunction with the team that's sitting on his residence

and is now working with his wife,

we set up an additional group of people

who are charged with looking for this vehicle.

- We were going almost around the clock.

We were looking and looking and looking and looking.

- And then, first thing in the morning,

one of our investigators comes on the radio and says,

he's got the vehicle in the parking lot on Highway 1.

It's unoccupied.

- The van was at the Rainbow Motel there in Clearwater.

We immediately got marked units to back him up

and go to the Rainbow hotel.

- They tracked him to the room through the, uh, hotel clerk.

- He said, "He's just checked in.

He's in room 6."

- They kicked in the door.

They find him with his wrists cut.

- They found blood everywhere with a suicide note written.

- He is bleeding out on the spot.

- We don't want him to die.

We wanted to solve these murders.

- EMS, they get the bleeding stopped.

We decided to send him on to the Medical College of Georgia.

[ Siren wails ]

- He was now in custody at the hospital.

Because of his injuries,

Reinaldo Rivera wasn't fit to be interviewed for a few days...

...but he wakes up, and he just starts talking.

- He tells them he's attacked Chrisilee Barton

right off the bat.

Then after that, he tells them

that he killed Sergeant Glista and Tiffaney Wilson.

So now we knew that these were connected.

- He would pull people over in parking lots,

wave them down for directions.

Then he would start saying he was a model scout,

that he could take pictures of them.

He'd offer them money, and he'd just sweet-talk them.

- Timing is everything.

Whatever story he was using

and what was going on in their lives,

all those contribute to how willing they were

to take these pictures.

In the case of Marni Glista, he said he pitched it like,

"Okay, well, I understand you're married.

Wouldn't it be nice to send, like,

this boudoir session to your husband?"

- He tells them everything about Tiffaney Wilson.

- He said he approached Tiffaney Wilson

and asked for directions, and then he told her,

"I'm a model scout. I'll pay you to model."

A-And that was his hook.

- Saying he wasn't going to take pictures of them in the nude

created more of a sense of safety.

It's a safe sale. It's a good sale.

It's what you want, and you're gonna be happy.

- When we're dealing with psychopaths

who lack a sense of guilt,

oftentimes malignant, narcissistic psychopaths,

they often learn that, "I can mask,

I can be someone else,

and each time I do that,

it makes it easier for me to get what I want."

- Once Rivera got her in the van,

even with a baby, she was done.

- After Rivera strangled Tiffaney Wilson,

he drove down a dirt road,

and he dumped the body there in the woods.

- That was the most disgusting part to me.

He left her out there just like trash,

just dumping her body,

throwing some leaves and tree limbs over her.

- He panicked with the baby,

but he knew somebody would find it quickly

at the Georgia Welcome Center.

- He spoke like it was matter of fact.

Reinaldo Rivera mentioned that, once he started,

there was no coming back from it and that he couldn't stop.

He had to submit to the urges.

- So when Mr. Rivera says he couldn't control his behavior,

what did he do?

He planned. He thought ahead.

He was able to manipulate, understand social functioning.

He knew exactly what he was doing,

and there's clearly evidence that he had situations

that he had gotten away with in the past.

- He is implying that there's more than two murders

of Marni Glista and Tiffaney Wilson

that he's responsible for.

Investigators are going,

"Well, wait a minute. What are you talking about?"

- It was a surprise to all of us.

- Reinaldo Rivera had killed women

that they didn't even know about?

- Reinaldo Rivera's wife,

she was doing everything she could to assist us

once she found out that he was a serial killer.

- She told Reinaldo, "Tell the truth.

Tell them what really happened."

And that's why he treated his hospital bed

like a confessional.

- Because of that, we get this shocking development.

- Reinaldo Rivera said that up until July of 1999,

he had not killed anyone.

He had only raped women.

He said, "Not only did I attack Chrisilee Barton,

not only am I responsible for the murder

of Marni Glista and Tiffaney Wilson,"

but he confessed to killing two women

no one even knew about.

- Rivera, he told us that his first victim

was Melissa Dingess, 17 years old.

- He approached her in the parking lot

behind Graniteville Café.

- He was able to get Melissa in his van,

where she was sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

- He said, "I'll tell you exactly where the body was"...

...and within minutes,

they were able to find that body.

- They located the body of Melissa Dingess

along I-20 in Aiken County.

- And then you have Tabitha Bosdell, 17 years old.

She goes missing.

- Reinaldo Rivera admitted

that he's driving around in Columbia County,

and he picks Tabitha.

- She was approached in a parking lot,

and he gave her the whole model-scout routine.

- Once he got to Tabitha in his minivan...

...he raped her and killed her.

- And he ended up drawing a map,

which led our investigators directly to her remains.

- Tabitha Bosdell and Melissa Dingess

were both missing-persons cases that had not made headlines,

and so it really wasn't until Reinaldo Rivera was caught

the investigators finally learned he was the man

responsible for what had happened to them.

In fact, Reinaldo Rivera

was happy to tell investigators after he was caught

what his method was and who he liked.

- Mr. Rivera would go after young women

who had issues with finances

that were, essentially, vulnerable.

Mr. Rivera's ritual may have involved this desire

to feel that he was the hero

at some point prior to the victimization

in terms of rape and murder,

the desire to feel desired, attractive to them.

Or it could have simply been the fact

that they were easier targets.

- And then he spoke about how he knew he was a sex addict

and that he couldn't control these sexual urges.

- He can control the plan, the manipulation,

can control so much, but not the impulse to kill?

- In the end, because of the confessions,

we got charges on him for abduction and rape,

a violent, aggravated assault, and murder

across three different counties.

He was admitted to the Richmond County jail.

- I remember the day I found out that they caught him.

I was elated...

...because our family could get the closure they needed.

- And we're so thankful to Chrisilee

that she survived and was able to do that composite sketch.

- I didn't think the sketch was gonna do any good.

I didn't think I was gonna have him down to the "T" like I did.

- Chrisilee Barton, in our circle,

was definitely the hero in this case.

♪

- The moment the composite sketch of Reinaldo Rivera

went on the news,

we got close to 40, 45 phone calls

of people who said, "He tried to pick me up."

- All these victims came out of the woodwork, basically saying,

"Hey, this man approached me."

- People wanted to tell their story,

women that were thanking God they had escaped his grasp.

- In spring of '99, I was an 18-year-old high-school senior.

On a normal Friday afternoon in Augusta,

I was in the parking lot of a shopping center,

and that's when I crossed paths with a serial killer.

- After Reinaldo Rivera was arrested,

the police department were being overwhelmed

with reports of this creepy Hispanic, uh, guy

in different vehicles harassing young women.

- I was tasked to interview some of the women that he approached,

and pretty much all of them that we interviewed

told us stories that are similar.

- I went to Old Navy after school

about 15, 20 minutes away from my home.

Came out to the parking lot.

A car pulled up alongside of me,

and a clean-cut Hispanic guy asked,

"How do you get to Washington Road?"

I gave him directions, and then he said,

"I'm a professional photographer.

Have you ever thought about being a model?"

- He gave her the whole model-scout routine,

trying to sweet-talk this one particular girl.

- He said some flattering-type things,

but I just thought, "This is just kind of weird."

But, thankfully, it was like,

"No, I've got to get out of here."

I got in my car, and I drove off.

Fast-forward a year-and-a-half.

I looked at the newspaper.

Before I even read the headline, saw the man's picture.

That's the guy that approached me.

You realize one "yes" or one "no"

can change the trajectory of your life

and your family's life.

'Cause I'm a mom now, and I realize

[breathing shakily]

how it would have, you know--

[chuckles] I'm sorry--

Um, how it would have affected my-- my mom

and my family,

um, and how it affected the other women's parents

and their family, you know?

♪

- The Marni Glista and Tabitha Bosdell cases

go to trial in Richmond County, Georgia, in January 5, 2004.

- My mom, Gloria, and my Aunt Bonnie, my mom's sister,

attended the whole entire trial to see justice served for Marni

as well as the other young ladies.

- After three weeks and five hours of deliberation,

the Richmond County jury found Reinaldo Rivera guilty.

- I felt sadness, being in that courtroom,

but when he was found guilty on all charges,

I felt a sense of relief.

- When he was sentenced in 2004,

Reinaldo Rivera got up on the stand at one point.

He actually treated it like a confessional.

Reinaldo Rivera told the jury,

"If you let me out, I'm gonna keep doing this,

so you should give me the death penalty."

- His attention to detail to the horrendous crime,

he'd almost be lighthearted about it.

- Almost, like, bragging about

how he fine-tuned his craft over the years.

- Reinaldo Rivera had no remorse,

no regard for human life.

- He was sentenced to death.

There were so many people who wanted Reinaldo Rivera

to pay for his actions,

and so the fact that he wanted to be sentenced to death

made it easier for the jury in this case, I think,

to return that verdict.

♪

♪

- A loss is never a good thing,

especially a loss in the prime of their lives.

As law-enforcement officers,

the one thing we like to do is try and give families closure.

And in this case, I hope the closure that we gave

helps a little bit with the hurt.

- [ Crying ] Reinaldo Rivera took away

our bright, shining star of a sister.

We miss her so much.

[ Laughter ]

Since Marni's passing,

our family has made it a point to remember her fondly.

Our parents made a garden in tribute to Marni.

I often wonder...

what she would be doing,

how many children she would have,

how successful she would be.

That was taken from us.

- Wendy and I, we talk about Marni all the time.

We keep the memory of not just Marni alive,

but all the other girls that suffered.

So if I had one thing to share--

victims are taken away from us.

That doesn't mean we never get them.

They're still with us.

- Surprise! [ Chuckles ]

- Marni adds to our life

in the memories that we get back when we talk about her.

She lives with us in our hearts, in our family,

and, some days, I believe she's the protector now.

Truly feel like she watches over us.

♪