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Murder on Cape Cod: Who Shot Shirley Reine? Aired 9-10p ET
Aired September 02, 2015 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: of "360." The scene on special report, "MURDER ON CAPE COD, WHO SHOT SHIRLEY REINE?" starts now.
ANNOUNCER: The following is a CNN special report.
RANDI KAYE, CNN REPORTER: A beautiful backdrop for a brutal crime.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Falmouth Police, recorded line.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think somebody shot Shirley.
LORETTA GILFOY, SISTER OF SHIRLEY REINE: I said Shirley is f-ing dead.
KAYE: A woman executed in her own home.
WILLIAM ENRIGHT, LAWYER OF SHIRLEY REINE: The reaction was this doesn't happen on Cape Cod.
KAYE: Her husband a notorious arsonist.
RICK SMITH, FORMER FALMOUTH POLICE OFFICER: He's a psychopath, he's a very dangerous person.
KAYE: Her stepsons in a fight against her.
GILFOY: They wanted what she had. They wanted it all.
KAYE: In town, her enemies unknown.
GEORGE BRENNAN, REPORTER, CAPE COD TIMES: There was lots of talk about other potential suspects. People who owed Shirley money.
KAYE: More than a decade after the killing.
GILFOY: It didn't have to happen this way.
KAYE: The search for answers continues.
GILFOY: I'm never going to give up hope.
KAYE: Who did it? Why? Did he ever tell you he wanted you to kill Shirley?
JOHN RAMS: Yeah, absolutely. He said he wanted it to look like a mob hit.
KAYE: Murder on Cape Cod, who shot Shirley Reine?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Meet the family. Loretta! Shirley!
GILFOY: They say time heals. I don't believe in that. Sometimes it gets worse. We were look two peas in a pod. We had a blast. I miss those times. I just miss her. Yeah. I just wish it never happened. It didn't have to happen this way. It really didn't.
Good night. Sweet dreams.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Falmouth Police, recorded line.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah. Send somebody down to 657 East Falmouth Highway. I think somebody shot Shirley.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god. Hold on one second.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, man. Let me tell you. Can you hurry up?
KAYE: May 10, 2005, 51-year-old Shirley Reine of Easy Falmouth, Massachusetts is discovered by a coworker collapsed on the floor of her garage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I already called rescue because she wouldn't answer the door this morning.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Okay.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I want to see if her car was in the garage and she was laying beside the car. And I just thought that maybe she passed out last night. You know what I'm saying?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is she in the car?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. She's on the outside of the car. But there's a pool of blood here.
KAYE: Shirley has been laying on the cold cement floor covered in blood for more than eight hours.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said, "I think somebody just shot Shirley."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh geez, Shirley?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, Shirley Reine.
BRENNAN: The call came in fairly early that there had been a body found in East Falmouth.
KAYE: George Brennan is a local reporter for the "Cape Cod Times."
BRENNAN: The editor called me and said, "We want to put a couple more people on this because this could be big."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Falmouth Rescue just arrived (inaudible).
KAYE: How did you find out?
GILFOY: I got a call and it ended up being one of the workers, Michael.
KAYE: Loretta Gilfoy is Shirley's younger sister.
GILFOY: And he goes, "Are you sitting down?" I said, "Yeah." He goes, "Your sister is gone. She's gone." "You mean she's dead?" This was the house right here.
KAYE: You came here the day that she was found in the morning.
GILFOY: Yes.
KAYE: What do you remember about that day?
GILFOY: Very little. I was very numb. But I remember pulling in. And I did walk up to the garage and I saw a glimpse of her. I saw the yellow shirt that she was wearing the day before and her red jacket. And her body was up against the door.
KAYE: It must have been hard to see?
GILFOY: It was. And then I started -- I started freaking out and then I started banging on doors. And banged on Johnny's door.
KAYE: Johnny Reine, Shirley's brother-in-law and next door neighbor.
GILFOY: As I ran over there. I just opened the door and I said, "You guys didn't hear anything last night?" "Oh, no. We didn't hear a thing." I said, "You're right next door, you didn't hear anything?" "Why, what happened?" I said, "Shirley is f-ing dead."
[21:05:01] KAYE: Nearly inconceivable for Loretta who saw her sister just hours earlier.
GILFOY: Good night.
BRENNAN: Shirley Reine's final day was very typical. She went and spent some time after work with her sister. Even though the two of them worked all day together, they would often spend their evenings together as well.
KAYE: The evening of May 9th was no exception. After work, Shirley drove down the street to Loretta's house.
GILFOY: Every night at 6:00, she'd be there for dinner. And she couldn't be late.
KAYE: Only that night, Shirley was late. She arrived noticeably unsettled, disturbed that her stepson Todd had been visiting his ex- girlfriend's house, just two doors down. GILFOY: She just felt very uneasy that he was still there. I didn't think anything of it. Had dinner.
KAYE: After dinner, the two sisters watched some T.V. And then Shirley drove home. Right on schedule.
GILFOY: She left between 8:30, 8:45 like she always did.
BRENNAN: She pulled into her garage. And as she was getting out of the car, she was ambushed. She was shot twice. And left there for dead.
KAYE: One 9-millimeter shot to her chest. The second to her head.
BRENNAN: The way she was killed tells you that they knew what her routine was. They knew when she was going to arrive home. They knew how she was going to arrive home.
KAYE: And they knew not to leave any evidence behind. No sign of forced entry. No murder weapon. And not a single witness.
GILFOY: This wasn't an accident. This was intentional. It was planned very well in advance.
ENRIGHT: Whether one knew who the Reines were or who Shirley Reine was or not, the reaction was, "This doesn't happen on Cape Cod."
KAYE: William Enright was Shirley's attorney. He met with her days earlier to discuss a pending lawsuit against her.
ENRIGHT: I was horrified. We were scheduled to go to trial nine or 10 days after Shirley was murdered and we were ready to go.
KAYE: Ready to fight a lawsuit her stepsons, Todd and Melvin Reine Jr. had filed against her over the family estate.
BRENNAN: It was such a bitter lawsuit over the family property that, you know, that raised suspicions almost immediately.
GILFOY: They try to take everything from her. Ten days before she -- they go to court, she's murdered.
KAYE: Coming up. What about those who say that Shirley wasn't as innocent as some say?
KATHY CROBAR, BEST FRIEND OF SHIRLEY REINE: They're lying. They're lying. They're lying. They're lying.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:11:45] KAYE: Here in the quaint Cape Cod town of Falmouth, Massachusetts, nearly everyone knows the name Reine. Is there a certain reputation that comes along with the Reine name?
GILFOY: Yes. It's like, you don't want to mess with these people.
KAYE: Because back in the 1970s, if you did, you'd have to answer to one man, Melvin Reine.
BRENNAN: This family had sort of a grip on the town, particularly Melvin Reine, the patriarch of the family. He just had a hold on this community like you wouldn't believe.
SMITH: He was a convicted arsonist. He had a saying he would say "I smell smoke." And that indicated to you that something was going to burn.
KAYE: Even the cops were under Melvin's thumb.
BRENNAN: One of the fires that he was convicted of was setting a car on fire. That car was in the driveway of the police chief at the time. Didn't matter who you were, businessman, police, didn't matter. He'd come for you.
SMITH: I wouldn't suggest to you that all of the policemen were scared of him. I would suggest to you 75% of the department was cautious of him.
KAYE: At least 16 different times, Melvin was brought to court on various criminal charges, assault, attempted murder. And in 1968, arson. The first and only charge that ever landed him in state prison.
BRENNAN: When he came back to town after serving a sentence of just about 18 months in state prison, he came back even more emboldened.
KAYE: More emboldened and even more cunning, which earned Melvin a new nickname in town.
BRENNAN: He was sneaky and he came to be known as the Falmouth Fox.
KAYE: The fox got away with a lot. Maybe even murder.
BRENNAN: Melvin's first wife was Wanda Medeiros. And in 1971, she disappeared. He told police that he took her to the bus station and that she was going to visit a family member.
GILFOY: They thought he did something to her.
KAYE: Killed her. Made her disappear?
GILFOY: Make her disappear. Nobody has ever seen or heard from her since.
KAYE: A year after Wanda disappeared, a local teen named Jeffrey Flanagan was discovered in the cranberry bog across from Melvin's house, with a shotgun blast to his head.
BRENNAN: Jeff was one of the teenagers who hung out with the same crowd that hung around with Melvin Reine. And he became very friendly with this teenage girl at the time. And her name was Shirley Souza.
KAYE: Nineteen-year-old Shirley Souza was the babysitter for the Reine boys and their father, Melvin's live-in girlfriend.
Did anybody think that Melvin Reine knocked off his first wife so he could be with Shirley.
BRENNAN: Absolutely, people suspected that.
KAYE: Melvin was also suspected in the 1978 disappearance of Paul Alwardt, a young teen who had been slated to testify against Melvin in an arson case.
[21:15:06] SMITH: He had relatives that lived on the vineyard and we're going to put him over there just for a couple of days. Keep him safe, out of trouble. We watched him get on the ferry and we watched the ferry leave the dock. He didn't get off.
KAYE: He was never seen again.
Then there's John Busby, a Falmouth police officer who dared to arrest two Reine family members in 1979.
JOHN BUSBY, FORMER FALMOUTH POLICE OFFICER: August 31st, 1979, I was going in to pull a midnight shift. A vehicle pulled up alongside me and opened up with a shotgun.
KAYE: Three shots were fired. One shattering his jaw, tearing through his mouth. Impairing his speech forever.
BUSBY: Fell over into the passenger seat, saw that there was a lot of me, teeth, bone, hair, you name it, blood. There was no doubt n my mind who did it. When I was up in the emergency room in the hospital, I actually wrote in a notebook, "Mel Reine did this."
BRENNAN: He is telling his officers that Melvin Reine did this. And they don't go to Melvin's house. They don't interview Melvin Reine that night. They don't go to him and say do you have an alibi. There is technology you can test to see if someone shot a gun. They don't test him.
KAYE: And like the other unsolved cases related to Melvin, he was never charged. Busby's case went cold. And fear drove the Busby family out of Falmouth for good.
POLLY BUSBY, WIFE OF JOHN BUSBY: They had succeed in getting John Busby. Out of their little world.
KAYE: Just two and a half years later, there appear to be a breakthrough. When Melvin's son Todd then 17 got a traffic ticket. His father was furious. So furious he threatened a local cop. "You guys are going to find out how bad I am," he told the officer, "I made the call and Busby got his. You're the only one that knows that for sure now." Years later after the statute of limitations had passed on Busby's case, Melvin's brother, John Reine, told police he was in the car the night Melvin shot Busby. And he says, Shirley was too.
BUSBY: I think she knew everything Melvin ever did. Including his first wife, the two young men who were killed and everything involved.
KAYE: But Shirley's best friend, Kathy Crobar, calls those allegations "pure lies." What about those who say that Shirley wasn't as innocent as some say?
CROBAR: They're lying.
KAYE: That she was. They say that she was maybe an accomplice in some of Melvin's actions.
CROBAR: They're lying. They're lying. They're lying.
KAYE: But if they're not, then Shirley had plenty of enemies.
ENRIGHT: I think there were a lot of potential candidates who have murdered her. It would have been a matter of billions who somebody waited until ten days before the contentious civil trial to murder her. And make it look as though the boys had committed it. In fact, they may have had nothing to do with it.
KAYE: Ahead...
RAMS: When he approached me, he had the plan drawn out. He said, ten thousands in drawer. Sex tapes are over there under the T.V. and the safe is there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:22:14] KAYE: Two weeks after Cape Cod native Shirley Reine was gunned down pulling into her garage, police allowed her two sisters inside the house where she was killed. For the first time.
GILFOY: Just being in the house was kind of freaky.
KAYE: It is the home where Shirley Reine spent the past three decades of her life. Where she lived, where she worked.
GILFOY: Here is the office.
KAYE: And now where she died. Above the garage, the once hectic offices where Shirley ran the family business seemingly frozen in time.
What was it like working there?
GILFOY: We had fun. We really did. I mean, it was a lot of fun. Shirley was the clerk at the company. I took care of the accounts payables and accounts receivables.
KAYE: Shirley's husband, Melvin Reine, started the trash removal company Five Star Enterprises in the 1970s.
BRENNAN: It was really very much a family business. Shirley Reine worked in the business.
KAYE: And his sons took part in it?
BRENNAN: And his sons took part of it. KAYE: But over the years as the company expanded, the lucrative business that once united the Reine family quickly became the root of its unraveling.
ENRIGHT: I am told that the sons did not work their territories. There were customer complaints. There were lost customers and Melvin became very frustrated at them because they were not working the territories. Eventually, Melvin sold off the territories and he stopped speaking with his sons. So his sons, Todd and Melvin Jr. left the company and severed ties with their dad for good.
GILFOY: They actually went and worked for another ravish removal company. When they left, you could see a difference in him. You know, you kind of almost felt sorry for him.
KAYE: For the first time, the notorious Falmouth Fox appeared diminished. He had lost ties with his two sons and was also losing his mind to dementia.
GILFOY: I think he knew something was up with him. He was losing it. He was, he was doing weird things.
KAYE: After a string of bizarre incidents, a judge ordered Melvin to be evaluated, which landed him in this local mental hospital indefinitely.
[21:26:05] BRENNAN: When Melvin was institutionalized, that's when everything broke.
KAYE: How did Shirley deal with his illness?
GILFOY: It was scary for her. She had three mortgages she had to pay. She had the business she had to run.
KAYE: So she was handling everything?
GILFOY: Everything.
KAYE: Everything that her stepsons believed was rightfully theirs.
GILFOY: They wanted what she had. They wanted it all.
BRENNAN: The rift was over the money, the family business, the family property. They wanted a piece of that. And they could see that everything was going Shirley's way.
KAYE: And they were right. Just weeks before he was institutionalized, Melvin cut his sons out of his new will. And signed over his business and all of his properties to his wife, Shirley.
Does anything about the timing surprise you or make you suspicious at all?
BRENNAN: Well certainly, Todd Reine and his brother, Melvin Reine Jr. tried to make the case that the transfer of property to Shirley Reine happened much too close to when he was institutionalized. Their whole argument is he couldn't have been of right mind to sign that property over.
KAYE: But to make the argument in court and win, they needed Shirley and Melvin's financial documents to prove it. Todd Reine believed he knew just the guy who could help. His name is John Rams.
RAMS: You know, I owed Todd a favor. It just happened this guy wanted a burglary. And I told him I don't -- not a burglary type person. That's not what I do.
KAYE: But Rams does have an extensive criminal record, from assault to manslaughter. Did he ever tell you why he wanted you to burglarize Shirley Reine's home?
RAMS: He wanted the documents. He wanted the sex tapes.
KAYE: Rams said Todd wanted Shirley and Melvin's newly signed will and trust documents and several tapes rumored to exist, which allegedly show his stepmom performing sexual acts with other men.
RAMS: When he approached me, he had the plan drawn out. He said, the ten thousand is in the drawer. The sex tapes are over there under the T.V. And the safe is there. And in the safe is the documents with the will and testament.
KAYE: Did you feel like you had a choice?
RAMS: You always have a choice, ma'am.
KAYE: In December of 2002, John Rams and two accomplices carry out Todd's plan and break into Shirley's home.
Did the burglary go according to plan?
RAMS: Yeah, yeah. He got his thing, whatever. Boom, boom. Done. Everything done.
KAYE: What exactly did you take from Shirley Reine's home?
RAMS: We took the safe. I saw the sex tapes. I made a judgment not to grab them. I don't know it was just icky. There was no cash and the $10,000 wasn't there. He got the documents.
BRENNAN: Once Todd Reine had the documents that he was looking for in that safe, a short time later, a lawsuit was filed in Barnstable Superior Court against Shirley Reine.
KAYE: Up next.
CROBAR: They put a hit out on her and she was afraid.
KAYE: Who killed Shirley Reine?
RAMS: He wanted me to shoot Shirley. Go in her house and shoot her for him.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [21:32:34] KAYE: December, 2002, John Rams peeled out of the parking lot behind Shirley Reine's house.
RAMS: We got in the car, boom. Gone. And off we went.
KAYE: He and two accomplices had just stolen a safe from Shirley's bedroom closet. A safe with some very important financial documents inside.
GILFOY: Her legal papers, her will, her trust, power of attorneys.
KAYE: Everything.
GILFOY: Everything.
KAYE: Everything necessary for Todd and his brother to file a lawsuit against their stepmother, seeking full control of the Reine family fortune.
ENRIGHT: The breaking into Shirley's home brought to light some critical documents that were required by the plaintiffs in order to proceed with the lawsuit.
GILFOY: When she first got this lawsuit, she try to work a deal out. They wanted nothing to do with it. They wanted it all.
KAYE: No deal.
GILFOY: No deal.
KAYE: With no deal or compromise in sight, those close to her say it quickly became clear to Shirley that this fight was about far more than just money. She was in a fight for her life.
ENRIGHT: She expressed to me many times that she was afraid of them. Shirley said and I will not forget these words, "The boys will see to it that this case never goes to court."
KAYE: Soon, Shirley's fears got even worse.
CROBAR: She got a call from her lawyer. And that word had trickled done through the state police that there had been a hit put on her.
KAYE: Who actually put out that hit? Friends say Shirley was never told.
CROBAR: She was afraid. When we come out of movies, she never knew when she turned her car around if it was just going to blow up or I don't know how she lived like that.
GILFOY: I said, "Oh, cut it out. They're just pulling your leg. They're just trying to scare you." Little did I know.
[21:35:01] KAYE: Little did Loretta know that according to John Rams, a plan to kill Shirley was already being hatched.
Did Todd Reine ever tell you that he wanted to kill Shirley?
RAMS: Yeah, he said he wanted to, absolutely. He had a plan and everything. He wanted me to shoot Shirley. Go in her house and shoot her for him.
KAYE: John insists he never agreed to do it. But that Todd was determined to make it happen with or without him.
RAMS: He said he wanted it to look like a mob hit. And I'm just like listening to this guy, like...
KAYE: Did you warn authorities after talking to Todd?
RAMS: Yeah, absolutely I did.
KAYE: Two years before Shirley was killed, John says he had a secret meeting with state and federal law enforcement to warn them that Shirley's life was in grave danger.
RAMS: When it came up that yeah, Todd Reine wants to kill Shirley Reine, the first thing out of their mouth to me was, "Do you know that he's a federal witness?" I just looked at them and basically didn't say much more after that, man.
KAYE: While CNN has been unable to confirm or deny Todd's ties to federal law enforcement, he was at one time an informant for the local police department.
RAMS: He was protected by the police, like he had the police. So if you're not worried about the police, who are you worried about?
KAYE: An allegation that police have adamantly denied. But then why does the written report from John's 2003 meeting make no mention of Shirley or Todd Reine, anywhere?
BRENNAN: Rams insists that he told authorities Todd Reine wanted her dead. Why wasn't in the report? It's hard to say. But it does make you wonder. You know? What's going on here.
KAYE: We asked the DEA who said the threat against Shirley isn't in the report because John never discussed it. But John's attorney who was also present at that meeting confirmed to us he most certainly did.
RAMS: It could have been avoided. It really could have. That life could have been saved.
KAYE: By May 9th, 2005, it was too late.
RAMS: I tried. I gave them two years in advance, they still didn't do anything.
KAYE: After Shirley's death, police launched a murder investigation. But instead, wound up solving the burglary case.
BRENNAN: During the murder investigation, they came across information that led them to Todd Reine as the ringleader of the theft of that safe.
KAYE: While his brother, Melvin Jr. was never implicated in the burglary, Todd, John Rams, and an accomplice were all convicted of the theft and sent to prison in September 2007, which allowed investigators a unique opportunity to build Shirley's murder case while their two main suspects were locked up.
BRENNAN: They definitely were trying to get John Rams to flip. They went to John Rams several times trying to get him to talk.
KAYE: And talk he did. Between 2005 and 2011, John Rams willingly spoke to police at least seven times.
BRENNAN: He said, "I didn't do it, but Todd Reine wanted her dead."
KAYE: Despite his repeated denials in December of 2011, John received the stunning news that he, not Todd, was being charged for the murder of Shirley Reine.
RAMS: I gave you everything. I took lie detector tests. I told you what happened two years before any of this went down. I did every thing I could. And now this, I still got this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's the way it will have to happen. I mean, the Commonwealth as you know will pursue a theory that Todd hired you to do this just like he hired you to steal the safe.
KAYE: If John knew what happened to Shirley Reine, this was his last chance to say so.
RAMS: I was never, ever even in the room with this woman ever. How could -- you know what I mean? How does this happen?
KAYE: Coming up.
TIMOTHY FLAHERTY, LAWYER OF JOHN RAMS JR.: There was no fiber, fingerprint, DNA, trace, ballistics, foot impressions evidence against John Rams, none whatsoever.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:43:29] KAYE: December, 2011. After a six-year investigation, John Rams Jr. was arraigned for the 2005 murder of Shirley Reine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Rams, did you kill Shirley Reine?
RAMS: No.
KAYE: The latest chapter in a sordid family drama that plays out like a Hollywood script. The Reine family once run by a notorious arsonist. Later divided over the family fortune. And then, destroyed by the murder of one of their own. The DA said this man pulled the trigger.
GILFOY: They always told me that they believed that Rams did it. Did he do it? I'm not 100% convinced. Was he asked to do it? I believe he was. KAYE: By whom?
GILFOY: By Todd.
KAYE: Todd Reine, Shirley's stepson. Something John Rams himself has said over and over.
BRENNAN: John Rams repeatedly told investigators that Todd Reine wanted Shirley dead and that he was willing to pay someone to do it. That he was willing to pay him to do it.
KAYE: The question is, did he follow through with it.
RAMS: Never once did I say, "Yeah, I will solidly do this for you." Never once did I ever tell him "Yes, I would do this."
[21:45:00] KAYE: The district attorney's office wasn't buying John's story and they were betting the jury wouldn't either.
BRENNAN: The prosecution's theory in this case was pretty clear, that John Rams have been hired to do this job and Todd Reine had hired him to do it.
KAYE: But the forensics told a very different story.
FLAHERTY: There was no fiber, fingerprint, DNA, trace, ballistics, foot impression evidence against John Rams, none whatsoever.
KAYE: The one fingerprint that was discovered at the scene didn't point to John either.
FLAHERTY: John Rams was excluded as a possible source of this latent print.
KAYE: The strongest evidence against him came from witness testimony by jail house informants, including one former cellmate who testified that John confessed I killed her with a gun supplied by Todd Reine.
BRENNAN: All the prosecution had was a collection of informants and people who weren't very credible.
FLAHERTY: I thought it was full of misrepresentation. And outward deceit and lies actually.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Rams, any comment today?
RAMS: Unlike the Commonwealth's witnesses, I won't like and make up a story to save myself.
KAYE: Two people who never gave their stories, Shirley's two stepsons.
BRENNAN: Todd Reine and Melvin Reine Jr. were both on the witness list. And the prosecution wanted to question them on the stand. But they both pleaded the fifth. KAYE: Shirley's husband, Melvin Sr. never took the stand either. Still institutionalized with dementia, he was unable to even attend his wife's trial. But his son Todd did. And John Ram's attorney, Timothy Flaherty made sure jurors knew it.
BRENNAN: There had to be a question in their mind. So you believe Todd Reine as the person who paid John Rams to do this and yet he is sitting in this courtroom, how is that?
FLAHERTY: That was maybe the most compelling argument I made during the trial of (inaudible) first to John rams, where is Todd Reine. He's sitting up in the gallery, not at counsel table. Why isn't he charged? His the man with a motive, he's the man with the opportunity means. Why not charge him?
KAYE: Why didn't they ever charge Reine?
BRENNAN: It's a better question for Michael O'Keefe.
KAYE: Cape Cod District Attorney Michael O'Keefe declined our request for an interview.
ENRIGHT: I believe that if law enforcement had enough information to charge either one of the Reines, or both of them, law enforcement would do so. And the reason they weren't charged was there wasn't enough evidence.
KAYE: Even if detectives thought that Todd Reine was the mastermind and asked John Rams to kill Shirley, why do you think he was never charged?
GILFOY: I don't know. I don't know. That's what kills me. I don't know.
RAMS: They never even questioned. He never even got questioned.
KAYE: Todd was never questioned. Not because police didn't try, but because he and his brother Melvin refused to talk.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell folks how long this journey has been for you to see justice here?
GILFOY: Nine years.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What would you say to Mr. Rams if you could? Talk to him?
GILFOY: Do the right thing. Just do the right thing.
KAYE: In April of 2014, after less than two weeks of testimony, the prosecution rested and the defense made the bold choice not to call a single witness.
FLAHERTY: I felt very strong about simply making my final argument to the jury and asking them to acquit John Rams based upon the record evidence. KAYE: It was time for the jury to decide. When we come back -- did you kill Shirley Reine? The verdict.
BRENNAN: No one expected when the case went to the jury that it would come back that quickly.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:53:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Rams, what do you have to say?
RAMS: Thank you for the jury's decision and America is wonderful.
KAYE: After two weeks of trial and less than two hours of deliberation, John Rams Jr. heard the two words he'd been looking for, not guilty!
What did you think when you heard those two words?
RAMS: I get to go home.
KAYE: The cloud of suspicion that had followed John Rams ever since Shirley Reine's death in 2005 had finally lifted.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you're an innocent man.
RAMS: Absolutely.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, walking out here, your life start over again, what happens?
RAMS: Starts over, right? Starts over.
KAYE: But starting over was exactly what Shirley's loved ones had feared most.
CROBAR: It was heartbreaking. Here we go again.
GILFOY: She looked stressed out.
CROBAR: Yeah.
GILFOY: That was very devastating. I was hoping at least if he got something, I could, you know, some closure. Some justice.
KAYE: If you could say anything to John Rams, what would you say?
GILFOY: If he did it, please, say that he did it. You're not going to get in trouble for it now.
KAYE: Do you think the jury got it right?
BRENNAN: The jury, in this case, got it right. There was no way based on the evidence that was presented to come back with conviction/
MICHAEL O'KEEFE, DISTRICT ATTORYNEY, CAPE & ISLANDS DISTRICT: We respect the verdict of the jury, certainly. It was a difficult case. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you still believe that the prosecution had a strong case, even though the jury did not?
O'KEEFE: I never thought we had a strong case.
KAYE: A difficult case. And some say the wrong defendant.
GILFOY: He got off, you know why he got off? Because that whole trial was about Todd Reine. That's all the jury heard, was Reine, Reine Todd, Todd, Todd, Todd to the whole thing.
KAYE: Despite our own attempts to interview Todd and his brother Melvin, they refused. Neither had ever spoken publicly about their stepmother's murder.
[21:55:06] BRENNAN: I've tried many times to ask Todd to talk about the murder of Shirley Reine and he just won't do it. I mean, the best I've ever gotten out of him is sort of a wry smile.
KAYE: What that smile may meant, if anything, we may never know.
GILFOY: They got the wrong guy at the beginning. I think they should arrested Todd. Todd told people he wanted her dead.
KAYE: And Shirley told a long list of people she feared that Todd and his brother just might do it.
ENRIGHT: She definitely was living in fear.
KAYE: Her attorney, her accountant, her hairdresser and her best friend. Shirley warned them all.
CROBAR: If anything happens to me, make sure that everyone knows the boys did it.
BRENNAN: What I can say is that since Shirley Reine's death, Todd Reine and Melvin Reine, Jr., got what they wanted. In terms of the lawsuit, Melvin Reine, Jr. lives in the house where the murder happened. Todd Reine lives on the property.
KAYE: Would you say there are any other suspect besides Shirley's sons.
BRENNAN: There was lots of talk about other potential suspects. People who owed Shirley money and didn't want to have to pay it back.
ENRIGHT: I believe that there were other people out there who had a motive. I don't know what Shirley was doing with those sex tapes. Could she have been using them to try and extract money from some people with whom she had relations? I don't know, but it's a possibility.
KAYE: But more than a decade later, John Rams is the only suspect ever charged in Shirley's murder and he's more adamant than ever that he had nothing to do with it.
Did you kill Shirley Reine?
RAMS: No, ma'am. Absolutely not.
KAYE: With people who are going to watch this special, they're going to say why should I believe this guy? He was -- he has a history, he's got a criminal history.
RAMS: Absolutely.
KAYE: Convicted manslaughter.
RAMS: Absolutely.
KAYE: Why would I believe this guy?
RAMS: Because the conviction in my voice. The way I articulate my words.
GILFOY: He doesn't mean nothing to me. Whether he did it or didn't do it. I don't want him. And I've always said that from day one. I don't want him. I want the ones that are responsible. Everybody that's responsible.
KAYE: And investigators say they haven't given up on finding them.
FLAHERTY: I would not be one bit surprised if there was a subsequent prosecution for the homicide of Shirley Reine.
ENRIGHT: Will it happen? I think it just takes one set of lips to solve this crime. That set of lips is out there somewhere in the community.
KAYE: A community with a complicated history with the Reine family and the scars to prove it.
When the name Reine is spoken around, the town of Falmouth and East Falmouth these days, what do people think?
BRENNAN: These days it's more about mystery. People are wondering how are there so many unsolved crimes that revolve around this family and most particularly, will there ever be a resolution to who killed Shirley Reine. Who was it?
KAYE: A question Shirley's husband, man with many secrets of his own never lived to see answered. He died while still institutionalized in November, 2013.
It's so hard not knowing.
GILFOY: It is. You'll never get closure. People tell you all the time. You need to move on. How can you move on?
KAYE: What do you miss most about her over the years?
GILFOY: I miss the most the laughs. That's what I miss the most.
KAYE: I mean, you come back here now 10 years later, how did that feel.
GILFOY: It feels surreal. Some days, it feels like this just happened 30 years ago and then other days it feels like just yesterday.
KAYE: And you wish you had answers for her 10 years later.
GILFOY: I do, I do. And it's like I'm not going to give -- I'm never going to give up hope.
KAYE: Hope that one day, her sister's name will finally be removed from the list of Reine family mysteries.
So you believe your sister was innocent until the end?
GILFOY: Nobody's innocent. You're not innocent, I'm not innocent. But she did not deserve that. Nobody does. Nobody has the right to end somebody else's life. I'm sorry. It just doesn't work that way.
