Two guns found inside Texas hotel room of Fort Myers Beach murder suspect Lois Riess

Published: Updated:
Mugshot of Lois Reiss courtesy of South Padre Island Police Department.

A grandmother accused of two cold-blooded murders will stay behind bars after making her first appearance in court Saturday morning.

MORE: SWFL reacts to arrest of Lois Riess

Lois Riess went before a judge in South Padre Island, Texas where she was read her rights. She is being held without bond.

Riess is now being moved to the Cameron County Jail. She’ll be held for two days and then will be extradited back to Lee County to face charges of murder in the death of Fort Myers Beach vacationer Pamela Hutchinson.

Riess is also wanted in Minnesota for the alleged murder of her husband.

Authorities caught Riess at a restaurant on South Padre Island where sources say she was drinking with friends after being on the run for more than two weeks following Hutchinson’s death.

MORE: Fort Myers Beach murder suspect captured in Texas

A nationwide manhunt for Riess was conducted, ending when an employee at one of the establishments she visited in Texas recognized her by the color of her hair and alerted authorities.

Both the US Marshals and the Lee County Sheriff’s Office say Riess was staying at a Motel 6 on South Padre Island just before she was arrested. It’s unclear how long she’d been there.

But afterward, police searched her room and discovered two firearms inside—a .22 caliber and a 9 mm pistol.

Authorities also said the car Riess was using—which belonged to Hutchinson—was found and towed into evidence Saturday morning.

“They are processing it now, and I haven’t heard of the different components that they’ve gotten out of it yet, but we might have a list of important items later that were retrieved,” said Randy Smith, chief of the South Padre Police Department.

KGBT / LOIS RIESS IN COURT

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