Jessica Reid biography 2022
Jessica Reid biography
Jessica Reid grew up with no dad and a very 'seldom at home mom". Due to a lack of structure and support at 17, she left school and hitched her wagon to the wrong guy, 19-year-old Greg Fester, who was a drug-addled, suicidal car thief. A Very vulnerable, naive, and smitten Jessica followed Mr. Fester into a world of drugs, crime, and a double murder in Murdock, Nebraska.
During a 3 State Crime spree in a stolen truck, Jessica and Greg pulled off the road onto a farm, looking for a house to break into. Craig suggested they both be armed, so they had procured two shotguns during their crime spree. Entering the farmhouse, Greg went upstairs, followed by Jessica; he put on the light and saw two people in their bedroom. Jessica wanted to leave, but Greg turned the gun, fired it, and hit the man in the leg. The man tried to wrestle the weapon from Greg; startled, Jessica's gun went off, but nobody knew where the shot went; the man was startled enough, so Greg got control of the gun and blew the back of his head off.
Greg saw the woman struggling for a phone, so he returned to her bedroom side and shot her in the face.
Jessica was not in the room during either slaying, and both ran out of the house soon after.
The truck was found in Louisiana later that week, and evidence tied them to the car and the murders. Jessica was wrongfully advised to plead to second-degree murder by her court-appointed and inept defense attorney. She also would have testified at Fester's trial and gotten a break on her sentence, but the district attorney dropped the ball in filing for the death penalty request. Both the prosecutor and defense attorney wanted to avoid a trial, so Jessica was wrongfully advised to plead to second-degree murder when she was only present and did not commit either of the actual homicides. (Yet receive the same sentence as Fester)
She was also Seventeen then, and you cannot sentence a juvenile to death unbeknownst to her. She would definitely have faired better at a jury trial due to her lesser culpability, no past record, and youthful appearance. The Defense attorney took the easy way out. She was also threatened with the death penalty by Wisconsin and Nebraska detectives during 8 hours of interrogation without a parent or attorney present.
last updated October 2022
