"The Deal with the Devil": Mark Riebe Talks to Piers Morgan, 2017

Name: "The Deal with the Devil": Mark Riebe Talks to Piers Morgan, 2017
Uploaded: 2026-05-19
Duration: 45 min 23 s
Description: Convicted of one murder, Mark Riebe once confessed to killing 13 women, then took it all back. Piers Morgan put the confessions to him; Riebe said they were lies and walked out.

Convicted of one murder, Mark Riebe once confessed to killing 13 women, then took it all back. Piers Morgan put the confessions to him; Riebe said they were lies and walked out.

Subject: Mark Riebe
Recorded: about November 16, 2017
Runtime: 45:23

Content warning: The programme describes the abduction and strangling of a pregnant young mother, recorded confession accounts of stabbing and strangling women, the disappearance of a 14-year-old girl, and a woman found naked and stabbed to death.

The Interview

At Blackwater River Correctional Facility in Florida, Mark Riebe was interviewed by the British broadcaster Piers Morgan for the opening episode of "Serial Killer with Piers Morgan", first shown on ITV on November 16, 2017. Riebe is serving a sentence for one murder, that of Donna Callahan in 1989. In the years after his conviction he confessed to the killings of many other women, then withdrew every confession. Morgan takes him through the cases; Riebe denies them, says the confessions were lies, and finally ends the interview.

Historical Context

In August 1989 Donna Callahan, a young mother who was pregnant with her second child, was abducted from the convenience store in Gulf Breeze, Florida, where she worked, and killed. Her remains were found about seven years later in woodland near the Riebe family home. Riebe's brother, named in archive news as Alex Wells, gave a statement blaming Riebe. Riebe was convicted in 1998; the programme's archive news reports a plea agreement that spared him the death penalty. In 1999 Riebe telephoned the father of Pamela Ray, who had disappeared from a Panama City Beach motel in August 1992, and told him he had killed her; he later recanted. A search of farmland in Illinois connected to his family in 2019 found nothing.

Circumstances of the Interview

The episode combines Morgan's interview with his narration, archive news reports, archive recordings of Riebe's own confessions and of his brother's statement, and interviews with Dennis Haley, a special agent who has investigated Riebe for about 25 years, a profiler, a reporter and an investigator from the Pamela Ray case, Pamela Ray's sister Rhonda, and Donna Callahan's daughter Angie. Morgan shows Riebe photographs of the women he is suspected of killing.

What the Interview Covers

Riebe says he was present on the night Donna Callahan was killed but that his brother killed her. Of the other cases he says he either did not confess to them or confessed falsely. He claims that Haley gave him the details and that he made the confessions as part of a "deal with the devil" to obtain help for his son, and withdrew them when, he says, Haley broke the agreement. He says he thinks he told Pamela Ray's father that he had killed her, and that it troubles him that he could not take it back before the father died. Haley, in turn, explains why he believes some of Riebe's confessions contained details only the killer could have known. Riebe also talks about his four marriages and his infidelity, and says he is not a violent man.

What Makes the Recording Significant

The recording sets a man's recanted confessions against the investigator who took them, with both sides heard in the same programme. It includes extracts from the original confession recordings alongside Riebe's present-day denials.

Archival Importance

The programme preserves archive footage of the Callahan case and of a search for Pamela Ray's remains, and the testimony of relatives on both cases: Pamela Ray's sister, whose father died months after Riebe's phone call, and Donna Callahan's daughter, who was two when her mother was killed.

Important Caveats

Riebe is convicted of one murder only. His confessions to other killings have been recanted and have not led to further convictions; the programme's and the investigators' description of him as a "serial killer" is their belief, not a legal finding. Everything Riebe says about the Callahan murder, his brother's role, and a deal with Haley is his own account; Haley's account of what Riebe knew is likewise his. Sources differ on his sentence (life according to the programme and WMBB; 25 years according to the TVmaze and TVDB episode guides). The uploader's title and description ("convicted serial killer", "one of America's most notorious convicted killers") are inaccurate. Near the end of one passage Riebe says, "I did it. I didn't intend to do it, but I did do it"; it is not clear from the recording what he is referring to, and it should not be presented as a confession.

Piers Morgan: How do you do, sir?

Mark Riebe: Sir.

Piers Morgan: [unclear: "Here's a moment" (small.en) / "Please move it" (captions)]. Good to see you.

Mark Riebe: I'm, I'm hard of hearing. You got to speak real loud.

Piers Morgan: Okay. In both ears, or?

Mark Riebe: [unclear: "Both ears are bad" (captions) / "Don't hear your mouth" (small.en)].

Piers Morgan: Okay. You can hear me okay?

Mark Riebe: Yes.

Piers Morgan: Okay.

Mark Riebe: I don't know how, how you were going to do it, though.

Piers Morgan: I'm just going to go through everything that's happened to you. And I just want you to be as honest as you want to be, you know?

Mark Riebe: That's what I'd like, to get the truth out. That's what I want.

Piers Morgan: Yeah.

Piers Morgan: I've been granted a rare interview with a serial killer. Mark Riebe confessed to murdering 13 women. He later retracted those confessions. Detectives believe he is a serial killer, even though he's only been convicted of a single murder. Is this man one of America's most prolific killers?

Dennis Haley: Mark will try to control you. He'll try to manipulate you and control your interview. He's going to paint himself out to be the victim. He's going to make himself to be the most misunderstood person in the world.

Contributor: When you tell a lie, and it's so convincing, and you have the ability to believe the lie you told, makes for a very dangerous person.

Piers Morgan: You've been obsessively trying to nail this guy for a quarter of a century now. It's become a personal thing for you, isn't it?

Dennis Haley: It comes personal to me, as these people... These people are important to me.

Piers Morgan: When I see Mark Riebe, what would you like me to say to him?

Dennis Haley: It's, it's time. It's time to give it up, Mark. It's time to bring this all to an end. [captions only: "Okay. I'll talk to you."] It's time to give their family some sort of answers. And if there's any decency in you, this is the time to do it. ### Donna Callahan

Piers Morgan: One night in August 1989, Mark Riebe and his brother, Alex, pulled into this convenience store. Behind the counter was Donna Callahan, a young mother pregnant with her second child.

Alex Wells: When she looked up and saw [unclear: "him" (small.en) / "me" (captions)], he pulled the gun out, and he grabbed her by the arm, come straight out the door. And she started crying. She asked why was we doing it, and what had she done to us. Said she was pregnant and that she had a, a little girl. She didn't want to be hurt.

Piers Morgan: This confession led to the arrest of Mark Riebe. Alex had pinned the murder on his brother.

Piers Morgan: Mark, did you kill Donna Callahan? *[03:44 to 03:56: music; no answer is heard at this point.]*

Piers Morgan: After Donna Callahan went missing, her father launched a tireless three-year campaign to find her. He petitioned the US president, and eventually a team of special agents were assigned to the case. One of them, Dennis Haley, has now been engaged in a battle of wills with Mark Riebe for almost 25 years.

Piers Morgan: So, Dennis, we are about an hour from where Donna Callahan was taken.

Dennis Haley: Yes, we are.

Piers Morgan: And it took seven years to find her body. And eventually you managed to locate what was then the remains of her body just up here, right? Just in this...

Dennis Haley: Actually, it's, it's right in this area, right here. And, uh, about 20 feet, about right in there. And then, and this used to be a clay road here. This wasn't a blacktop. And all the clay dirt ran off in here, which made the grave quite deep.

Piers Morgan: Of all the places to put a body, can you offer some rationale for why they would choose somewhere like this?

Dennis Haley: When I've talked to the profilers, they tend to believe that, that this is something every time he, he drives by, he can think about. This was convenient. It was in, it was in sight of their home. Their home's just right up the road here. Uh, it's someplace they can drive by every day and know where that body's at. He can think about that night. He can think about the thrill of the kill. It's something he can check on almost daily.

Piers Morgan: He confessed to killing 13 women. Do you believe that the bodies of the other women might be somewhere in this area, buried away in these kinds of trees?

Dennis Haley: Piers, that's what's always been so frustrating, because I do believe that. We have evidence at, at, at least four other dig sites that there was human decomposition there. Uh, and, and we know that Donna Callahan's body was never moved. I mean, it was here since 1989. So who was that at these other sites? And you, and, and Mark often talked about there being a graveyard out here with four to five bodies in it. So, I, yes, I, I, I truly believe that there's more bodies out here.

Archive News Clips: [unclear: "and two other partners at the News Herald" (captions) / "Good morning, you martyrs, I'm the news hero" (small.en)]. Bay County Sheriff's Office investigators say they're getting closer to charging someone in the murder of 18-year-old Jacquelyn Brant. Investigators say 46-year-old Mark Riebe is a person of interest in Brant's murder. Riebe is currently serving a life sentence for the 1989 murder of Donna Callahan. [unclear: "Bay County Sheriff, Beach police" (captions) / "Beach police" (small.en)], along with FDLE agents, have Mark Riebe's confession. Riebe confessed to killing Pamela Ray and burying her on this land. Investigators, along with cadaver dogs, will be... There have been reports that Riebe is also responsible for many others, but investigators won't confirm that information.

Piers Morgan: If Mark Riebe finally tells the truth about these murders, it would make him one of America's worst serial killers. ### The interview

Piers Morgan: How long have you been in prison?

Mark Riebe: 21 years. 21 years.

Piers Morgan: Because you took part in the brutal murder of a young woman called Donna Callahan.

Mark Riebe: Donna Callahan, yes.

Piers Morgan: That's why you're here?

Mark Riebe: Yes, sir.

Piers Morgan: With Special Agent Haley...

Mark Riebe: Right.

Piers Morgan: ...you confessed to him over a period of time that you killed 13 women. This is what Detective Haley has put out. He believes that you killed eight.

Mark Riebe: No, no.

Piers Morgan: I don't, I would just want to go through why he thinks you killed them. And I want to give you the chance to respond to each of these cases and explain why he's wrong. The first lady is this woman here.

Mark Riebe: I don't even know who that lady is.

Piers Morgan: This is Bonnie [unclear: "Ryther" (captions) / "Reither" (small.en)]. She was found buried after missing for a week in 1978. The reason that...

Mark Riebe: In what year?

Piers Morgan: 1978.

Mark Riebe: 1978, I was 17 years old.

Piers Morgan: Right. Special Agent Haley believes this was your first victim.

Mark Riebe: Absolutely not.

Piers Morgan: Lindsay Sams. She was a 35-year-old woman.

Mark Riebe: I don't even know who that is.

Piers Morgan: You don't dispute that, at the time, you confessed to Special Agent Haley?

Mark Riebe: I did confess to that.

Piers Morgan: You did confess to that. This is Andrea Durham. She was...

Mark Riebe: I don't know who that girl is. I did not confess to that.

Piers Morgan: You never met Andrea Durham?

Mark Riebe: No, sir.

Piers Morgan: Andrea Durham was 14.

Mark Riebe: I know, and I never confessed to that crime.

Piers Morgan: I'm just going to finish. She went missing in 1990, abducted from her home. Now, both of your stepchildren knew Andrea. They were friends.

Mark Riebe: They may have been friends, but I didn't know all my kids' friends. They didn't hang around my... She didn't hang around my house. I'll put it this way: she may have, they may have known her, but she didn't come to my house. Never been to my house.

Piers Morgan: You told Special Agent Haley...

Mark Riebe: [unclear: "I liked to drink" (small.en) / "I like to drink" (captions)]...

Piers Morgan: [unclear: "He told Special Agent Haley" (small.en) / "with Special Agent Haley" (captions)]. Well, I'm just going to go through what they claim.

Mark Riebe: No, you're back in his story. No, no, no, no. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, stop this right here.

Piers Morgan: Mark, Mark, let me explain to you.

Mark Riebe: Come on. [unclear: "I'm only" (captions)]... This was supposed to be...

Piers Morgan: I understand.

Mark Riebe: ...nothing like this. I see where you've been and got all your information.

Piers Morgan And Mark Riebe: Mark, Mark. [unclear: "Captain, that is what we, we do here" (captions only)]. Mark, Mark, Mark, let me explain, Mark. Mark, let me explain. Can I explain to you? Let me explain. Let me try again. Let me try again. I'm not judging you at all.

Mark Riebe: No, you... Yes, you are, because the way you keep saying, [unclear: "why would he have it?" (captions only)]...

Piers Morgan: No, no, all I'm doing, all I'm doing... You, you don't deny that you admitted, at one stage...

Mark Riebe: You didn't let me finish, going on, either. You could, you keep wanting to go back to this.

Piers Morgan: I understand. Let me give you the chance to respond to each of these cases.

Mark Riebe: There's no, there's no responding to that. I didn't do those cases.

Piers Morgan: [unclear: "You're not listening. You can't say it, but yes, you did." (small.en) / "I'm not, not listening. You keep saying, but yes, you did." (captions)]

Mark Riebe: Then I will show you more respect, and I will listen properly to what you're saying.

Piers Morgan: Now, let's go, go to them, 'cause I want to get to the point where I [unclear: "have to tell you how I shut this down" (small.en) / "had, I'm telling you how I shut this down" (captions)], and this offer is still good today.

Piers Morgan: This is Donna Callahan.

Mark Riebe: I know who Donna Callahan is.

Piers Morgan: She, she's the woman that you're in prison for. She's the woman that you are accused, with your brother, of killing, brutally killing. She was pregnant. She was a young mother. But when you look at that picture, what do you feel?

Mark Riebe: Sir?

Piers Morgan: When you look at her picture, what do you feel?

Mark Riebe: I don't, I don't... Well, you know, what to say? Yeah. My heart goes out to her, her daughter, her mom and dad, her family, and to her. Yeah. I just blurted it out. Yeah, you know what? I was there that night.

Piers Morgan: But, but nobody, Mark, no innocent person is going to admit to being party to the murder of a pregnant mother.

Mark Riebe: There's been a lot of people who have made mistakes, and committed, and said they committed crimes they didn't, and got out of prison.

Piers Morgan: Who, who actually killed Donna Callahan?

Mark Riebe: My brother killed Donna Callahan.

Interviewer: So, you're driving along, and, and all of a sudden, Mark climbs over the backseat, gets on top of Donna, and starts to strangle her. What did you hear?

Alex Wells: I heard her saying no, and don't do this to me, at first. And then I don't know how to describe the sound. It was like a, it sounded like, to me, it sounded like he cut her throat or something. I didn't know. It just sounded like a real [unclear: "fleshy" (captions) / "collection" (small.en)] sound. And then, when I heard that, I turned around, and [unclear: "I was like, I don't know what to say" (small.en, twice) / "I got the phone number and" (captions)].

Interviewer: Well, how long did that go on?

Alex Wells: It took a little, a while before she quit.

Archive News Clips: Mark Riebe went to trial and was convicted of this crime. He could have gotten the death penalty. With this morning's agreement, his life is spared. Riebe admitted that both he and Alex Wells kidnapped and killed Donna Callahan after robbing the convenience store where she worked in Gulf Breeze. Riebe pleaded guilty to what he had done.

Donna Callahan'S Father: I am pleased, and my daughter is pleased, Donna, who's going to rest in peace now. *[12:42 to 13:16: music.]*

Mark Riebe: Yes.

Piers Morgan: Mark, if you could just do me one favour.

Mark Riebe: Yes.

Piers Morgan: You keep tapping your foot.

Mark Riebe: Oh, I'm sorry.

Piers Morgan: Uh, it's just, it's making a bit of a noise. So if you could try and keep your feet, uh, just be helpful for the, for the recording.

Mark Riebe: Okay. ### The confessions

Piers Morgan: Mark Riebe is serving life here in Florida's Blackwater River Correctional Facility. He was just months into his sentence when he started to make a series of extraordinary confessions.

Officer Administering Oath: Raise your right hand for me. Do you solemnly swear or affirm the statement you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mark Riebe: [unclear: "Say what you got. OK."]

Piers Morgan: Over a period of four years, he told detectives gruesome details of how he killed 13 women.

Investigator: Let me ask you this point, Mark. If you have [unclear: "doubt you killed April Marie" (captions only)]... I would say there's no doubt in your mind whatsoever.

Piers Morgan: Many of these women went missing not far from this sleepy railway town in northern Florida. Mark Riebe spent his teenage years here. This is the house he lived in with his mother, sisters and brother. Donna Callahan's body was discovered in woodland just 350 yards from here.

Profiler: So we had an indirect personality assessment questionnaire completed by some family members on Mark Riebe, and one of the things we noted was he had no life goals or ambitions, and you can see him going from job to job to job. I mean, he was just a, an insignificant man who didn't really amount to much in his life, and I think he was very self-aware in terms of that.

Dennis Haley: If you're a serial killer, you like power and control. Manipulation. They're clean-looking, they're average-looking people, and they're a charmer. I'm not saying that Mark has a magnetic personality, but I have seen him do the charmer thing with, with women.

Piers Morgan: Mark, do, do you, do you like women? Do you like women?

Mark Riebe: Yes. [captions only: "I'm not a rapist,"] nothing like that. Yeah, I respect... I don't, I see nothing... They're my equal. I didn't never, when I was in a relationship, I didn't want somebody subordinate to me. I wanted somebody who was [unclear: "on my par" / "with my partner"], who lived life. I wanted somebody to enjoy life.

Piers Morgan: You've been married four times so far?

Mark Riebe: Four times.

Piers Morgan: Why do you think the marriages never really worked?

Mark Riebe: Oh, well, that's, that was easy. On the first three, it was always me. Uh, far as being faithful, that word didn't enter in the picture with me. It wasn't the ladies. They, all three of my first wives were very good ladies. Loved them to death. Afterwards; not while we was together, 'cause I was too busy. I was partying, I was drinking, you know, one big party.

Piers Morgan: And you, you cheated on all of your wives?

Mark Riebe: Always. Yeah. Always had a, another lady on the side. Yeah, that's the way it went, you know. Then my fourth wife, that one paid me back for everything that I did.

Piers Morgan: In what way? How?

Mark Riebe: By cheating. And she's the one I stayed with the longest. I stayed with her for years.

Piers Morgan: Do you respect women?

Mark Riebe: Yes, I believe I do. I'm not going to put my hands on a lady physically, you know, beat her. Didn't believe in that. No, so.

Piers Morgan: So you don't think you're a violent person?

Mark Riebe: I'm not a violent person. I don't... If I was confronted in the wrong way, yes, I could be in... I think that's anybody that defend herself. But as far as go looking to cause problems for somebody, no.

Dennis Haley: I've seen him get really angry one time, and it, because he had been drinking. He was at a, a bar up in Decatur, Illinois. I'm up there interviewing him, and, and he got really, really angry at his wife. And he, he instantly went from zero to, like, ready to kill somebody. Something just completely trivial. Yes. It shocked me that he got so angry so quick. I thought he was going to attack her that night. And the only reason I don't think he did attack her that night is because [unclear: "he" (small.en) / "she" (captions)] was in a public place.

Piers Morgan: In terms of motivation for Mark Riebe to be a serial killer, what do you think it is?

Dennis Haley: Power. Overpowering somebody. Control. I don't think it's sexually motivated. And all his victims are young women between the ages of 13 and 35, 36. I mean, it's a very specific category. And they're all small, petite, not more than 100, 110 pounds at the most.

Piers Morgan: Any of them?

Dennis Haley: They're all small, small ladies. Even all his wives were that way. ### Pamela Ray

Piers Morgan: Pamela Ray fitted Mark Riebe's victim profile perfectly. In the spring of 1999, one year into his life sentence, Riebe made an astonishing phone call. He spoke to Pamela Ray's father, who was still searching for his daughter almost seven years after she'd gone missing. Riebe told him that he had killed her.

Piers Morgan: Front Beach Road wasn't anything like this on that early morning in August when Pamela Ray pulled up to this motel parking lot and tried to check in.

Reporter: I went out there to begin with thinking, "Oh, we're going to cover a news story about a lady who took a walk on the beach. She's going to return. She, you know, by the end of the night, by 10 o'clock, we'll find out what really happened." And we didn't. And that's when I realized, when I went out there, this isn't just a story about a missing person.

Piers Morgan: Pamela Ray had taken her two children on holiday. Leaving them asleep in her car, she went to check into a motel that once stood on this site.

Investigator: This is Pamela Ray's vehicle as she had parked it 25 years ago. We know that a police officer with the Panama City Beach Police Department saw Pamela Ray, and she was talking to an unknown individual that was standing between the motel office and this pool fence. After that time, we have no visual of her ever again.

Mark Riebe: I slipped my knife out of my pocket, popped it open real quick, and I grabbed her. She made, [unclear: "what's it called, a real loud scream, and she made a noise" (small.en) / "I wouldn't know what you call a loud scream, but she made a little" (captions)]. I told her to shut up, [unclear: "and she made another sound, and I killed her right then and there" (small.en) / "or if she made another sound I'd kill her right there and there" (captions)].

Investigator: Around 8:30 the following morning, the office, motel, calls in reference to the two children being in the car, crying. The daughter was very, very young and cheerful, and that's why I knew she didn't understand what had just taken place with her mom. And her son, you know, of course he started, uh, crying, you know, "Please come home, Mama. Bring my mom home."

Investigator: [unclear: "Why don't you try to think of something" (captions) / "If you want to try to think of something" (small.en)]. Tell us something that we can, that we can go back with that leaves no doubt in anyone's mind that this, that this happened.

Mark Riebe: [unclear: "All that I can think of is seeing who keeps that key in the book" (captions) / "The whole thing happened, they killed a single key that I picked up" (small.en)].

Investigator: Where did that key come from?

Mark Riebe: Out of her hand.

Piers Morgan: Could he be a complete fantasist? Could he be making the whole thing up?

Dennis Haley: I don't think so. I, I, I struggled with that at one time. I thought, could this all be a bunch of crock of crap, as we say. Um, but, uh, no, there's, there's just, there's just too many details about certain murders. He had information that only the killer would have had.

Piers Morgan: Give me some examples of the detail of killings where only the killer could have known that information.

Dennis Haley: Jackie [unclear: "Brant" (captions) / "Brandt" (small.en)], this girl right here. She went missing in April 1986 out of Panama City Beach, Florida. When she went missing, nobody really even reported her missing. I get Riebe out of prison, and I take him over to Panama City. He takes me to a, a, a bar over there called the Playground. That was the place she used to frequent. How would he know that? From the Playground, he says that he met her there, in the bar. They came out in the parking lot. They smoked a joint together, and he got mad at her, and he strangled her to death and killed her inside his car. And then he drove from there, and he went to get rid of her body. He then takes it up the road, and he was within 100 feet of where he dumped the body. How would he know that? And [captions: expletive bleeped] this wasn't even listed as a homicide. I just... I don't believe in coincidence. I believe that he killed her, and, uh, and, uh, it's just sad that we don't have the evidence to support that.

Archive News Clips: Riebe confessed to killing Pamela Ray and burying her on this land. Investigators, along with cadaver dogs, will be spending at least a week combing through the thick brush and woods for Pam's remains, or any evidence that could link Riebe to her.

Piers Morgan: Pamela Ray's disappearance has been continually investigated since 1992. Her children, who were 5 and 12 years old at the time, may never have the comfort of knowing what happened to their mother. Her sister, Rhonda, has helped look after them for much of their lives.

Piers Morgan: Pamela was your older sister?

Rhonda: She was my oldest sister.

Piers Morgan: Five years older than you?

Rhonda: Five years older. She loved me. We used to do everything together. Everything. With our children. Wherever she went, I was there.

Piers Morgan: Your father died believing that Mark Riebe had killed your sister.

Rhonda: He told me that Mark had confessed to him. And at that time, you know, I thought, very well, sure he could have done it.

Piers Morgan: But if it's the case that he lied to your father about killing your sister, what kind of person could do that?

Rhonda: The worst of the worst. I don't even understand how you could do something like that to another person.

Piers Morgan: Your father sadly died a few months later, as it turned out.

Rhonda: He fell out of his bed, had a heart attack, and he was dead, just like that.

Piers Morgan: Do you think that the, the strain of what happened to Pamela contributed to his death?

Rhonda: Absolutely. I absolutely do.

Piers Morgan: Do you think he, he may have died of a broken heart?

Rhonda: Yeah. I know he did. ... It breaks my heart.

Piers Morgan: Now, Pamela Ray was 36 years old, and she...

Mark Riebe: I know the story.

Piers Morgan: She was brut... Do you know what happened to her?

Mark Riebe: No, I do not know what happened to her.

Piers Morgan: Do you know she was abducted, murdered?

Mark Riebe: She was abducted.

Piers Morgan: You confessed to killing her.

Mark Riebe: I did. I said I did. Yes, sir.

Piers Morgan: When you made the confession, a confession you've now retracted, you gave them no information along with the confession?

Mark Riebe: Yeah, I told them, I think I stabbed, I think I stabbed her. That's what I told them. I think I stabbed her. I think I said that. I'm not sure. That's what I told them.

Piers Morgan: How?

Mark Riebe: I'm not sure.

Piers Morgan: But you also, and this is unique in this case, you also spoke on the telephone to Pamela Ray's father. Do you remember that conversation?

Mark Riebe: Mr.... I remember talking to that man.

Piers Morgan: What do you remember telling him?

Mark Riebe: I don't remember exactly what I told him. Yeah, [unclear: "I told him I was responsible" (small.en) / "I don't think I told him I was responsible" (captions)]. Yeah, and that was it.

Piers Morgan: You told him you killed his daughter?

Mark Riebe: I think I [unclear: "did" (small.en) / "said it" (captions)]. And, and I, what really bothered me was I never got the chance to tell that man that I wasn't the one responsible.

Piers Morgan: He, he died soon after.

Mark Riebe: Yes, he did. I have to live with this stuff.

Piers Morgan: Right.

Mark Riebe: It's not easy.

Piers Morgan: You know, I don't want to be unfair on you, Mark, but at the same time, I, I do want to try and understand the mentality of a man who would tell a grieving father who's lost his daughter...

Mark Riebe: If I could tell these people, to make them understand that it wasn't done out of malice towards the man...

Piers Morgan: Mark, how much more malicious could you have been than to tell a grieving father that you killed his daughter?

Mark Riebe: I wasn't thinking about that at the time. That wasn't... I put their feelings aside. Yeah, that's it.

Piers Morgan: When you heard that he'd died, did you feel... What did you feel? Did you feel anything?

Mark Riebe: [unclear: "He died because of me" (small.en) / "Died because of me" (captions)]? I don't feel like he died before... I don't know how well [unclear: "the man" / "I had the man"] died, but no.

Piers Morgan: But he died believing that you had told him.

Mark Riebe: And I, I just told you. No, I never... That's what a thing that really eats at me. I never got the chance to tell this man the truth.

Piers Morgan: Here's what I don't understand, Mark. I want you to explain to me. In 1998, you confessed to Special Agent Haley [small.en only: "that you killed 13 women"]. Why?

Mark Riebe: He led me into, gave me the information for these confessions, because he wanted to make his career off of me.

Piers Morgan: So an investigating agent gives you all this information, and now he, now he says you gave it to him?

Mark Riebe: I, I've been saying it for a while.

Piers Morgan: But why would...

Mark Riebe: I was trying to get some help for my son at the time. Okay. I call it the deal with the devil.

Mark Riebe: I found this place. I stopped the truck, I get her out. Her knees up under my left arm, right arm around her waist, and her head sort of laid back against my shoulder. Something like a romantic carry.

Piers Morgan: The confession you have just heard is a lie. That's what Mark Riebe is now telling me. He made a deal, he says, with Special Agent Dennis Haley. In return for Haley protecting his son from what he felt was a threatening situation, Riebe would admit to multiple murders. Haley broke this agreement, according to Riebe, so in return, he withdrew all his confessions.

Piers Morgan: You see why I'm asking... You see why I would be skeptical?

Mark Riebe: I'm asking you to believe me. [captions only: "I don't care."]

Piers Morgan: I'm looking at a man, I'm looking at a man that has admitted to me telling a special agent and his colleague that you killed, that you killed...

Mark Riebe: Let me finish. My... Let me finish.

Piers Morgan: Let me finish. I'm... It's not about what I believe.

Mark Riebe: I had, you maintain that. I could not come out of that character.

Piers Morgan: But you, you were prepared to admit you were one of the worst killers. Ki... killing all these women in the most heinous way. You were prepared to admit that just to try and help yourself.

Mark Riebe: [captions only: "With me?"] They could have put me on death row at the time. I told them, if that's what they wanted to do, I would go that route. I would maintain that thing until the end.

Piers Morgan: What doesn't stack up to me, in your position, is if you admit, you confess to all these murders to Special Agent Haley, why he would then feel the need to invent...

Mark Riebe: Because he put that in there, that I didn't do this.

Piers Morgan: He says you gave him...

Mark Riebe: He wanted to make his career. He wanted his limelight.

Piers Morgan: He doesn't need to make a career out of you. He's just a special agent investigating crime all day, every day.

Mark Riebe: He told me what I had to do.

Profiler: If Mark Riebe is claiming that he was confessing to a number of crimes in order to protect his son, I, my advice would be to view it the way his family members would view it, in that he claims to be the protector father, very engaged with his children, when in fact their perception of him is he has nothing to do with them. He is not engaged with them. He is an absentee father, um, and didn't really care about them. And that's their words, not ours.

Piers Morgan: I'm struggling to get much in the way of truth from Mark Riebe, but at least the victims' families can now judge for themselves.

Piers Morgan: For Dennis Haley, trying to bring them closure has been his life's work.

Dennis Haley: We have a, we have a subject confessing to several abductions and murders. It's hard to judge, because at times I, I sit here, and I'll be honest with you, I believe him. But then nothing checks out.

Colleague Of Dennis Haley: Dennis has worked on a lot of these death cases for 20 years, if not more. He thinks, dreams, sleeps, eats these cases, because he cares a lot about the victim and their families. They become so important to him that makes him even more so wanting to solve the case, and so he never gives up. ### Rhonda Taylor

Piers Morgan: Riebe insists he was given all the details in his confessions by Dennis Haley. But in the case of Rhonda Taylor, a 23-year-old brutally stabbed to death in 1990, this could not have been possible. Riebe talks about an African-American man being present in the car when he killed Rhonda. This detail could not have been known by detectives until years later, when DNA testing became widely used and evidence from the car was examined.

Dennis Haley: Mark describes killing Rhonda with, with two black guys there. We have blood in, in Rhonda's car that comes back to a black male. Um, I mean, how would he have known that? He had information that only the killer would have had.

Piers Morgan: This is Rhonda Taylor. She was found naked and stabbed to death at the back of the car.

Mark Riebe: [unclear: "That's one of the ones Dennis..." (captions) / "That's one of the woman's dinners" (small.en)]

Piers Morgan: You told the police at the time that you believed that she had had sex with an African-American man. And DNA was found which confirmed she had had sex with an African-American man.

Mark Riebe: I'm never a rapist. I'm not a rapist.

Piers Morgan: No, not you, but somebody else, another man, an African-American, had sex with her that night.

Mark Riebe: No, sir.

Piers Morgan: You never told police that?

Mark Riebe: No, sir.

Piers Morgan: Why would you confess to killing Rhonda Taylor if you didn't kill her?

Mark Riebe: I told you why I confessed. I felt I had to. This was one of the cases he led me to.

Piers Morgan: You also confessed to your sister that you killed her.

Mark Riebe: Who?

Piers Morgan: You also told your sister.

Mark Riebe: I told my... When, when this started, and I had to go to role, I couldn't tell one thing and then be telling somebody else something.

Piers Morgan: But why would you tell your own sister that you had killed a young woman?

Mark Riebe: Because they'd come to the prison and asked me about it. I had... Dennis had me... I was already doing it. We're trying to get my son's thing. I can't, I had to do it. I felt like I had to tell them.

Piers Morgan: So you, you had to maintain the lie.

Mark Riebe: I maintained the lie, basically. That's, that's the problem.

Piers Morgan: Even to your own family?

Mark Riebe: To anybody. Even my kids. You don't think that hurt? That killed me.

Piers Morgan: You, you, you told your children that you...

Mark Riebe: My children were sitting there in the [unclear: "BP" (both texts)] when it was said.

Piers Morgan: When you were [unclear: "missing" (both texts); probably "admitting"] killing these women?

Mark Riebe: Yes. My, my mom and my sister was talking about it. They're always talking about it.

Piers Morgan: So your mother and your sister and your children all heard you confess to killing 13 women.

Mark Riebe: Well, they were not all just confession, but they would ask me, you know. They didn't ask me details like that. They said, "Did you say you did that?" Yeah.

Piers Morgan: I mean, how did your family react to hearing you say that you were a serial killer?

Mark Riebe: It wasn't good. I really don't have a lot of contact with any of them.

Piers Morgan: But here's what I would say to you, Mark. You weren't just hurting your family when you made these confessions. You were obviously causing enormous, well, you were causing enormous hurt to the families of women like Rhonda Taylor.

Mark Riebe: I, I, yes, I thought about them families, but I had put my son before them families.

Piers Morgan: What do you, what do you say to the family of Rhonda Taylor, who... Sorry. What would you say to the family of Rhonda Taylor?

Mark Riebe: Sorry. I, I made those confessions.

Mark Riebe: My last wife, ex-wife, she made comment about what I had done prior to these other people. And brought up her, precisely, Rhonda Taylor, for one. And, uh, she asked me how could I do something like that, you know. I told her I did, I did nothing I was proud of. I couldn't... It was, it's hard to live with. It tears you up a little bit every day. [unclear: "Like I said" (small.en) / "But, Mark said" (captions)], I'm not asking for no pity from nobody. What I did, I'm not proud of what I did. I did it. I didn't intend to do it, but I did do it.

Piers Morgan: This potential serial killer, Mark Riebe, by not telling the truth, has really caused so much more hurt to so many people like yourself.

Rhonda: Mm-hmm.

Piers Morgan: By just not telling the truth. And, you know, the police believe he's guilty.

Rhonda: Right.

Piers Morgan: He just refuses to come clean about exactly what he did. What, what do you think of that refusal, to be honest?

Rhonda: To me, if you never admit it, never regret it, [unclear: "nary" / "never"], never sorry, never ask forgiveness, then you're really worse off than we are. ### Closing

Piers Morgan: This is the scene of the only murder Mark Riebe has been convicted of. Almost 30 years ago, Donna Callahan was working here. She was a young mother expecting her second child.

Piers Morgan: What is so horrifying to me about all this is the utterly random nature of these killings. This woman, Donna Callahan, was minding her own business, just working hard, late at night. She could have been anybody.

Dennis Haley: They're random victims, but they're also victims of convenience. They tried to make it that they had come in back to rob the store, but no, he came back just to get her. They never got in the cash register, they never took any money, they never took one thing out of the store but her.

Piers Morgan: Has Mark Riebe ever shown a shred of remorse for anything?

Dennis Haley: Not to me, he hasn't. He's, to me, he's never shown... He, he claims he feels bad about it, but he, you don't see it, and you don't really see him, you don't see the emotions. You know, he, he'll say that, but there's no emotions there.

Piers Morgan: You've been working on this serial killer for 25 years. Are you any nearer to really understanding him than you were at the start?

Dennis Haley: I don't... In one way, I don't want to understand him. I don't want to be that... Um, no, I don't believe I ever will understand why somebody wants to kill someone.

Piers Morgan: Special Agent Haley's position about this is that in the eight cases that I went through in detail...

Mark Riebe: [unclear: "You keep going with Special Agent Haley" (small.en) / "with Special Agent Haley" (captions)].

Piers Morgan: Well, I've got to explain to you...

Mark Riebe: [unclear: "Well, you, I've done explained to you, but"] you mentioned him too, so...

Piers Morgan: No, it's not just me mentioning him.

Mark Riebe: You keep bringing him up.

Piers Morgan: You keep talking about him as well. Here's what I want to say to you. He believes, in the eight cases...

Mark Riebe: [unclear: "I don't care what the agency believes" (captions, partial) / "I wouldn't care what you didn't say with beliefs" (small.en)]. He don't believe that. He knows I didn't do it.

Piers Morgan: I understand your position, but you keep mentioning him too, and I'm just saying, he believes of the 13 confessions that you made, which would have made you one of the worst serial killers in the history of the United States of America. You were placing yourself up with Ted Bundy and the others, right?

Mark Riebe: I didn't care where I was placing myself at that time. My main objective and main goal was my son.

Piers Morgan: You see, Mark, I don't believe you. I don't believe you.

Mark Riebe: I don't care.

Piers Morgan: I think you are a serial killer.

Mark Riebe: Well, you're wrong.

Piers Morgan: I think you did kill these women.

Mark Riebe: No, sir.

Piers Morgan: I think these families, these women, they need...

Mark Riebe: This is over. That's it.

Piers Morgan: ...justice.

Mark Riebe: Captain, we're done.

Piers Morgan: Why, why can't you answer these questions?

Mark Riebe: I answered your question. Huh? You want to get this over [unclear: "with" / "off"]?

Piers Morgan: Why, why are you running away? Why are you running away?

Mark Riebe: I answered your question.

Piers Morgan: Why don't you sit here like a man and answer these questions?

Mark Riebe: There was something about this at the beginning of this.

Piers Morgan: Why, why don't you sit here like a man?

Mark Riebe: [unclear: "Sitting here, nothing" (small.en) / "here and nothing" (captions)]. I know I'm not a 110-pound woman that you can kill. [unclear: "I'm done" (small.en) / "Captain, I'm done. Huh?" (captions)]

Piers Morgan: You did kill them, didn't you? You killed them all.

Piers Morgan: We may never know whether Mark Riebe did kill the women Special Agent Haley and others suspect him of. For the victims' families, the not knowing is like an extra dagger in their hearts. And in the end, their loved ones may have died for no other reason than simply the thrill of the kill.

Archive News Clips: The case is now closed. In court this morning, Mark Riebe pleaded guilty to the murder of Donna Callahan.

Piers Morgan: Donna Callahan's daughter, Angie, regularly visits her mother. She was two at the time of the murder. She has no memories of her.

Angie: Why me? Why my mother? Why that night? Why did it have to happen? What did my mother do so wrong to deserve something so cruel? They took everything from us. When we go to visit Donna, we go to a gravesite. They sit in prison, get letters, phone calls. They get visits, if [unclear: "they say be" / "say be"]. Not us. Not us. We don't get phone calls. We don't get letters. We go to a gravesite and talk to a headstone.

Angie: That I wish she was here to see me grow as a person, and to see things that I have accomplished. *[44:30 to end: music and credits; no speech in the captions. small.en text in this stretch is treated as machine repetition; see Variant readings.]* ---