'Dateline' to feature Army captain's slaying

The NBC News show "Dateline" on Friday will feature the case of a pregnant Army captain killed in her West El Paso home in 2001.

The slaying of Capt. Lynn Armstrong Reister, 30, is the topic of a show titled "Deadly Devotion" that will premiere on national television. The show will air at 9 p.m. Friday on Channel 9-KTSM.

An NBC News release said that the crime is featured because of the twists and turns of the case.

The body of Reister, who was six months pregnant, was found May 24, 2001, by her husband, Army Sgt. Roger Reister. She had been stabbed to death inside their home in the 800 block of Arredondo Drive, according to El Paso Times archives.

She was stationed at Fort Bliss and was a member of the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade.

Roger Reister, then 27, was later arrested and convicted of soliciting his younger brother, Rodney Reister, then 25, and two Fort Bliss soldiers, Patrick "Mo" Muller and Brian "Red" Broxterman, to kill his wife.

Muller and Broxterman were not prosecuted and testified in the case.

Roger Reister was convicted of criminal solicitation and given four life sentences. Rodney Reister, who was a civilian, was convicted of murder in the killing of Lynn Reister and sentenced to life in prison.

In September 2001, Muller testified that Roger Reister began talking about killing his wife in summer 2000, when she was deployed to Saudi Arabia, according to Times archives.

Muller testified that Roger Reister was angry because he thought his wife of five years was having an affair overseas and was worried that she might get custody of their 4-year-old son in a contested divorce.

An Army captain and a friend of Lynn Reister testified that Lynn Reister was not having an affair while in Saudi Arabia.

Broxterman testified that Roger Reister had approached him at Fort Bliss and told him that he would pay money to have his wife killed, Times archives show. Broxterman testified that he didn't take Roger Reister seriously.

During the trial, a 20-year-old recent Franklin High School graduate testified that she was having an affair with Roger Reister and that she gave birth to his son about a month after Lynn Reister was found murdered.

An autopsy report showed that Lynn Reister had fought for her life and that she had six "defense wounds" to her hands and that she had been stabbed another six times around the head and neck, according to Times archives.

The Lynn Reister case is the second El Paso crime featured on "Dateline" in less than a year. In October, the news program featured the case of Daniel Villegas, an El Pasoan who claims he was wrongly convicted in a double homicide in 1993.

Daniel Borunda may be reached at 546-6102; dborunda@elpasotimes.com; @BorundaDaniel on Twitter.