William Don Reese was a 32-year-old deputy with the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department who was killed on February 15, 1971, during what became known as the Trinity River Massacre. Reese, together with Deputy Samuel Infante and Deputy Arthur Robertson of the Ellis County Sheriff’s Department, had been backing up Robertson at the home of a burglary suspect when two men abducted the deputies. The three were taken to the Trinity River and shot execution-style. A fourth Ellis County deputy escaped and called for help, and a fifth deputy was shot in the chest but survived.

Two suspects, 24-year-old Rene Adolpho Guzman and 33-year-old Leonardo Ramos Lopez, were arrested four days later and ultimately convicted; the case prompted changes in Dallas’s parole process for capital murder convictions. Reese’s funeral was held at the First Baptist Church of Rockwall and he was buried at Rockwall Memorial Cemetery.

Did anyone in the Rockwall or Dallas law enforcement community have contact with Reese or the other deputies around February 1971 and can add details about that night?