RIESS PLEADS GUILTY

In an extraordinary court hearing that took place in the auditorium of a high school, accused killer Lois Riess admitted her guilt Aug. 11, bringing an end to the nearly 2½ year saga that began outside of Blooming Prairie.
Riess appeared in person with an orange jump suit and handcuffed in the front for the hearing at Kasson-Mantorville High School, a move that came about because of Dodge County’s small courtroom and concerns over COVID-19.
During the short hearing, which was tear-filled at times from both Riess and some of her family members, Riess pleaded guilty to first-degree pre-meditated murder in the death of her husband, David Riess, in March 2018.
After Riess waived her right to a pre-sentence investigation, Judge Jodi Williamson immediately sentenced her to life in prison without the chance of parole. She was remanded into the custody of Dodge County sheriff’s deputies to be taken to the Shakopee women’s prison where she will spend the rest of her life.
After an agreement between the governors of Minnesota and Florida, it was decided Riess would spend her prison sentence in Minnesota, and not Florida where she killed another person shortly after her husband in 2018.
Riess had been in Florida custody in connection with the murder of Pamela Hutchinson prior to returning to Minnesota on July 3. She had been locked up in the Steele County Detention Center in Owatonna before being taken to Shakopee after last week’s hearing.
In court Tuesday, Riess said her husband handed her a loaded firearm on March 11, 2018. They had been fighting, and Lois said David told her to go and kill herself and to “get it right this time.” Lois said she had tried to commit suicide in the past, but this time she turned the gun and fired at his heart.
Lois said once she realized David was dead, she laid down alongside him, closed his eyes and covered him in a blanket.
Several family members, including Lois’ children, gave victim impact statements at the hearing.
“I will never forgive you that you took a part of our life that we will never forget,” David’s mother said through a prepared statement read by an Olmsted County social worker. “When you killed David, you took my heart.”
Prior to the judge handing down the sentence, Riess was given the opportunity to speak. She apologized to her husband’s friends and family, saying life without her husband is her true sentence and that she should not have killed him.
“What I did was an unpardonable crime,” Riess said in court. “Solitude is forever. I feel I deserve this. I will have no reprieve.”
As she left court, Riess removed her face mask and turned to her family to mouth words to them with a hand on her heart.
 
With her head of white hair, Riess garnered national attention as the “fugitive grandma” before she was captured in April 2018 in Texas. She had been in a Florida jail prior to coming back to Minnesota last month.