DODGE COUNTY, Minn. — It was as unlikely a story as one could imagine, which made the saga of Lois Riess so compelling, and so tragic.
Riess, a grandmother from Dodge County in southeastern Minnesota, was the subject of a nationwide manhunt in the spring of 2018 after authorities said she first killed her husband, then fled to Florida where Riess murdered Pam Hutchinson, a woman she met at a bar in Fort Myers Beach.
Investigators finally caught up with Riess in Texas, and arrested her. She has since pleaded guilty to murder charges in both cases, and is imprisoned for the rest of her life in Minnesota.
On a new two-hour Dateline NBC that airs on KARE 11 Friday at 8 p.m., correspondent Dennis Murphy conducts the first sit-down interview with a woman named Bernie Mathis, who Riess befriended in Texas just days after killing Hutchinson in Florida.
Mathis tells Murphy she did not recognize Riess and was unaware she was wanted for two murders when they met. "We hit it off like we were going to be best friends," Mathis explains.
After learning of Riess' arrest and how she had befriended Hutchinson in the same way, Mathis was shocked. "My heart just went in my throat," she told Murphy. "I really just dodged a bullet."
In the 2-hour special Dateline talks with those who knew Lois Riess, family members of Pam Hutchinson and members of law enforcement who tracked down the woman dubbed "the killer grandma."
Lois Riess is currently held at the Minnesota women's correctional facility in Shakopee, serving a life sentence with no chance at parole.
