Lois Riess Became Known as the Killer Grandma — Her Son Said She "Had Her Demons"

Despite the fact that she is currently serving two life sentences for the murders of two people, Lois Riess does not think she is a monster. That feeling is the very thing director Erin Lee Carr is trying to understand in her documentary I'm Not a Monster: The Lois Riess Murders. In March 2018, Riess shot and killed her husband, 54-year-old David Riess, then went on the run.

She fled her home in Blooming Prairie, Minn., and drove all the way to Florida, stopping at casinos multiple times along the way in order to gamble. Once in Florida, Lois befriended a woman named Pamela Hutchinson who looked like she could be her sister. Authorities later believed Riess killed Hutchinson in order to assume her identity. The woman known as the Killer Grandma was eventually caught. She left behind a ton of questions, mostly from her own children.

One month after Lois was arrested, her son Braden did a mini press tour where he expressed his shock over what had transpired. "She literally snapped," he told Inside Edition. "My whole family is in shock. Nobody ever suspected anything like this. It has devastated our family." The 30-year-old told the outlet he had no idea his mother was capable of killing his father. "It's a bad movie. I feel like I’m going to wake up and it's going to be back to normal, but it's not."

Braden cited his mother's gambling addiction as the reason why she killed her husband as well as a woman she barely knew. "Gambling is a terrible thing where it can suck people in and destroy lives," he explained. After Lois was caught, Braden watched surveillance videos of his mother and said he hardly recognized her. "She was a totally different person. Her demeanor — everything — the way she moved like a robot or something."

While speaking with the Austin Daily Herald, Braden said, "She had her own demons, you know, lately. Something happened in her brain that made her snap." Lois would later say the exact same thing, claiming she snapped after suffering from years of abuse at the hands of her late husband. Braden said he still loved his mother, and felt sorry for her.

Lois's other two children largely remained out of the public eye. The only time they had something to say was at their mother's sentencing hearing in August 2020. Her oldest son Bill told her he didn't care how many times she apologized. "You stole something from us," he said. Bria, Lois's daughter, was still processing the loss of her father but was trying desperately to forgive her mother.

A little over a year after Lois was sentenced, Braden passed away from a drug overdose. According to his obituary, he died on Nov. 9, 2021, at the age of 35. He had been struggling with addiction for quite some time and though he had some success in the months leading up to his death, it simply wasn't enough. His family didn't want to remember him for his disease, but rather for the "kind, intelligent, funny, ray of light that he was."

He was a thrill-seeker who loved tinkering with anything mechanical. He used to love hunting with his dad as well as spending time outdoors with his nieces and nephews. Braden loved hanging out with his brother and sister and had a special bond with both of them. Bria often referred to him as her protector. He also had a son of his own, who got his "kind heart, quick wit, and handsome smile from his dad."