Jeffrey Jackson

Owatonna People’s Press/The Associated Press

Lois Riess, the rural Blooming Prairie woman who sparked a national manhunt after she allegedly killed her husband, then traveled to Florida where she allegedly stalked and killed her lookalike was captured by U.S. Marshals on Thursday evening on South Padre Island, Texas.

John Kinsey of the U.S. Marshals Service in Florida reportedly told ABC News that two deputies with the Marshals Service arrested Lois Riess at about 8:25 p.m. Thursday while she was sitting by herself at a restaurant.

The arrest of Riess, 56, was confirmed in separate press releases by both the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office and the Lee County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office, and brings to an end the search that began nearly a month ago when, according to investigators in Minnesota, she shot and killed her husband, David Riess, 54,

In addition to the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, and the U.S. Marshal Service in at least four states – Minnesota, Iowa, Florida and Texas – the search drew in law enforcement from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and countless other local, state and federal agencies across the country.

“I promised all along that Lois Riess would end up in a pair of handcuffs,” said Undersheriff Carmine Marceno, in the statement by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. “Tonight, she sits in a jail cell in Texas. We are working as expeditiously as possible to bring her back to Lee County to face murder charges.”

In is unclear where Lois Riess will face murder charges first – Lee County, Florida, where she was said to have killed her second victim, Pamela Hutchinson, 59, of Bradenton, Florida, or in Dodge County, where police say she shot her husband multiple times on March 21 in their home just over the Dodge County line

Dodge County said only that it would have “more details for the public and media tomorrow.”

The capture of Riess came on the same day that the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office released a video – the first and only video released by investigators that also contained a recording of Riess’s voice in addition to images of the woman.

The surveillance video was obtained by investigators from the Kum and Go convenience store located next to Diamond Jo Casino in Northwood, Iowa. Northwood is roughly 43 miles from Blooming Prairie on Interstate 35.

According to a statement released late Thursday afternoon, investigators believe that on March 23 – two days after her husband, David Riess, 54, died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to a medical examiner – Lois Riess, 56, drove to a bank in Glenville, Minnesota, in Freeborn County, near the Iowa border. There, investigators say, Lois Riess cashed more than $10,000 in stolen and forged checks from her husband’s personal account and his business account.

She then drove to Diamond Jo Casino where she spent most of the day gambling, according to the statement.

In several previous statements, the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office has said that Lois Riess was “known to frequent casinos.”

After she left the casino, she stopped at the adjacent convenience store for a sandwich and for direction south out of the state.

“This is the only video investigators have located to date with audio of Riess speaking,” according the sheriff’s office statement. “Investigators hope that her voice on this video, in addition to other videos and images released, will help someone recognize her and report her whereabouts so she can be taken into custody before anyone else gets hurt or killed.”

Riess drove from Iowa to Florida. There she met and allegedly shot and killed Pamela Hutchinson of Bradenton, Florida, a woman who resembled Riess. Investigators believe that Riess killed Hutchinson so she could steal her identity, her credit cards and her car.

Before her capture Thursday night, Riess was last seen driving Hutchinson’s vehicle, a white Acura TL with Florida license plate Y37TAA in the vicinity of Corpus Christi, Texas. Investigators believe she may be trying to cross the Mexican border.