Kriti Mehrotra
It was March 2018 when the entire world turned upside down for the Witte-Riess family as Lois Riess was arrested for the homicide of her husband, David Riess. The truth is, as explored in HBO’s ‘I Am Not a Monster,’ things were never easy for Lois, but the steps she eventually took hurt not just her but also her family in more ways than she could have ever imagined. However, it also taught her valuable lessons, lessons that we can only hope stay with her when we aren’t.
Lois Riess Hails From a Family With a Troubled Background
While it’s undeniable that Lois is the fourth of five children of Donna and William Witte, her upbringing in Rochester, Minnesota, was a lot different than anyone else. After all, per her own accounts, her mother was a hoarder who had also already long been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and disobeyed them, whereas her father was a professional engineer who preferred to stay away from home instead of facing their issues head-on. As if that’s not enough, she has since also claimed that he and his mother didn’t share a bed for years, and then he often slept on the couch with a million things already on top of it because he’d forgotten.
Nevertheless, per Lois, he never once fed to serve her siblings or the way they were raised because she always believed things were different for them, too. While her eldest brother Bob was actually in a wheelchair following an accident when younger, her two sisters struggled with mental health issues too. In fact, her eldest sister Kimberly “Kim” Rae Sanches developed bipolar disorder and schizophrenia by the time she was 14, and they fell the way home. They even went as far as to stock their fridge with Lois and her siblings’ favorite things.
Nevertheless, despite Lois allegedly being the sole caretaker of all her loved ones, she always felt as if they never cared about everything she did for them, no matter what transpired. Lois began embezzling money from her siblings, especially Kim, following their inheritance because it was the easy thing to do for her. Little did anyone know she was not only using significant hunts and to herself, but she also came to care for her own siblings, which hurt even more as she had grown to care for them in her own unique way, which no one could have imagined or seen coming.
Unfortunately, Lois Riess’ Has Lost a Majority of Her Family
While Lois had lost her mother, Donna Witte, and father, William “Bill” Witte, back when she was just a young woman, things were a lot different when she lost her siblings, whom she was close to. Kimberly “Kim” Rae Sanchez actually passed away on March 16, 2023, after battling health issues her entire life. She survived two kidney transplants, one when she was just a child after having received her father’s kidney and another in 2002 when the other started failing, and their sister Cindee came forward to offer one. As for Cynthia “Cindee” Grund, who struggled with violence for the majority of her adult life, she sadly passed away around 2020 from natural causes.
Robert “Bob” Witte sadly died around the late 2010s after having struggled with some health issues, too, leaving behind a family of his own. Therefore, the only surviving immediate family member of Lois Riess is her brother Butch Witte, who, from what we can tell, continues to reside in Rochester, Minnesota, with a family of his own. It’s actually unclear precisely what he’s up to these days since he prefers to lead a life well away from the limelight, especially following all the family loss and scrutiny they have been through. However, it’s also undeniable that despite hailing from a dysfunctional family with issues almost every step of the way, they were a tight-knit group that did their best to genuinely care for one another. Nevertheless, we still have to mention that while Butch appears to be alive and well, he was not mentioned by name in any of his siblings’ obituaries, and Lois hasn’t ever spoken much about him either.
Read More: Where Are Lois and David Riess’ Kids Now?
