It’s been decades since Reginald Reed Jr., known as Reggie, last saw his mother Selonia Reed.
Reggie Reed: After my mother was murdered, things moved fast … I couldn’t really understand, like, why would somebody kill her? Like, what did she do?
Reggie Reed: I feel like I missed out on a huge part of life that I’ll never get back.
Reggie was only 6 years old on Aug. 22, 1987. One of the last things he remembers is his mother buying him a chocolate chip cookie at the Hammond Square Mall in Louisiana. He told police his mother kissed him when she left the house later that night but the rest, he says, is a blur.
Vladimir Duthiers | “48 Hours” contributor: When you think about that … what does that feel like?
Reggie Reed: When I think about … how my mother’s life was shortened and how my experience was shortened, I feel empty …
Vladimir Duthiers: If somebody says to you who was … Selonia, what do you say?
Reggie Reed: If someone asks me who is Selonia, I would say you’re looking at her. (Emotional, takes off his glasses.) Because, based on the description, the memories and what things people have shared, when I look in the mirror, I see my mother.
Reggie’s memories are at the heart of the memoir he’s written about his mother’s murder, “The Day My Mother Never Came Home.”
Reggie Reed (reading from book): Within these pages, you will find the memories of a 6-year-old boy whose mother was murdered … A 15-year-old young man searching for his place in the world without the guidance and encouragement of his mother …
Reggie Reed: … the night my mother went out and never came home, life for me and my father basically flipped upside down.
Charles Muse, now retired, was the police officer who found Selonia’s body after taking the initial missing person’s report from her husband, Reginald Reed.
Charles Muse: Selonia’s body … was in between the bucket seats of the car with her torso over into the backseat of the car.
Lt. Barry Ward: She had 16 pinpoint-like stab wounds in her upper torso, shoulder, and neck … Her blouse had been torn off … Her pants had been removed from her. She had been sexually assaulted as well.
WHO MURDERED SELONIA REED?
Louisiana State Police Lt. Barry Ward would eventually be assigned to the case years later. He was only 16 years old when Selonia was murdered.
Hammond Police Department
Barry Ward: In 1987, I was a sophomore in Marshall County High School in Western Kentucky.
When he eventually did pick up the case file, he took note of the lack of blood in the car.
Lt. Barry Ward: It would suggest that she was murdered in another location … and then … transported to where her body was later discovered at the John’s Curb Market.
That market was about one-and-a-half miles from the Reed house on Apple Street. At the scene, Muse noticed something else about Selonia’s naked body.
Charles Muse: I did see a substance, uh, that had been placed on the body. … it was a … white liquid-type substance … on her torso and stomach area.
Police believed the white lotion may have spelled out a word, but, if there was a message, it had become illegible in the Louisiana heat.
Lt. Barry Ward: The windows were rolled up. It was August at the time … it was very hot out.
Detectives bagged any potential evidence, including the butt of a cigarette — a Winston cigarette.
POLICE CHIEF (1987 video): Take special care of that.
Police canvassed the area, but Ward says they didn’t find any eyewitnesses or a murder weapon.
Lt. Barry Ward: The following day on Monday the 24th, a neighbor … went to his mailbox and discovered a crucifix and a screwdriver …
Given the nature of Selonia’s injuries, police at first believed the screwdriver might be the murder weapon even though it had no visible blood on it. It was early in the investigation and detectives looked at all the angles, including Selonia’s job at Citizens National Bank.
Lt. Barry Ward: She was a teller in the commercial section … She was described as being polite, kind, had a nice smile.
Reggie Reed Jr.
Selonia and Reginald, who was a Marine and later a car salesman, met during their high school years. Selonia was known for being devoted to little Reggie, as everyone called him. But the night she disappeared, she left the 6-year-old at home with his father, according to what Reginald told police.
Lt. Barry Ward: He and his son, Reginald Jr., were gonna stay and play videogames while she went out to a local bar with her girlfriend.
Officer Muse interviewed that friend who denied she and Selonia had plans that night. Reginald told police he suspected Selonia had a “boyfriend” and admitted he and his wife had “personal differences.” But Ward says the police found no evidence of an affair.
Lt. Barry Ward: Based on … the research that I had conducted, her co-workers, the people that knew her, said that she just went to work and came home … that she was always seen with her little boy.
The day after her body was found, investigators searched the family home on Apple Street.
Lt. Barry Ward: The chief of police said that … when he went in … it smelled like bleach in the house.
Detectives looked for evidence that Selonia may have been killed there, but all they found was a freshly vacuumed carpet and the gold clasp of a necklace.
Reginald gave investigators permission to interview little Reggie, the only other person in the home the night of the murder. In police video, a detective questions Reggie as his father fidgets with a bean bag intended for his son.
POLICE OFFICER: Tell me what you remember about that night.
Reggie became his father’s alibi. The boy said he and his father played videogames and then slept together in the same sofa bed on that August night.
POLICE OFFICER: Did anybody come over? Did anybody leave?
REGGIE REED JR.: (shakes head his head “no.”)
POLICE OFFICER: Everybody stayed home that night?
REGGIE REED JR.: (nods his head “yes.”)
Louisiana State Police
When Reggie agrees that “everybody stayed home,” his father looks at him.
REGINALD REED SR.: Everybody?
POLICE OFFICER: Everybody stayed home that night?
REGINALD REED SR.: Don’t be afraid, this — you know, she talks to you.
POLICE OFFICER: Don’t — don’t — don’t be afraid.
REGINALD REED SR.: This – we just talkin’
REGGIE REED: I don’t want to talk no more.
REGINALD REED SR.: She — she wants to ask you a few more questions.
POLICE OFFICER: You alright? What’s the matter baby?
REGINALD REED SR.: He said he don’t wanna talk no more.
POLICE OFFICER: Oh, you don’t wanna talk no more?
REGINALD REED SR.: He’s just emotional.
POLICE OFFICER: Yeah.
REGINALD REED SR.: All of it.
POLICE OFFICER: OK. That’s alright. Look.
POLICE OFFICER: Didn’t I tell you before that I’m — I’m your friend?
REGGIE REED JR.: I want my daddy.
POLICE OFFICER: Oh, he’s here baby.
REGGIE REED JR.: I don’t want to talk. (cries)
POLICE OFFICER: OK, darling. I won’t talk no more. You don’t have to.
Vladimir Duthiers: I just can’t imagine what it’s like as a 6-year-old to have to sit there and —
Reggie Reed: Looking at that, it’s still hard to believe that that’s me … watching that video just brings back so … so many questions and — and pain because … I see me crying.
In the aftermath of Selonia’s murder, her family came forward with more information — some of it directed at one of Reginald’s friends, Jimmy Ray Barnes. Turns out Barnes smoked Winston cigarettes — the same brand found in Selonia’s car. And Selonia’s sister Gwen Smith said that Selonia did not like Jimmy Ray.
Gwen Smith: And apparently she knew Jimmy Ray’s voice ’cause she started screaming … “come inside. I don’t trust him.” So she was scared of him …
SELONIA REED’S RELATIVES TELL POLICE ABOUT CLOSE FRIEND OF VICTIM’S HUSBAND
In the days after Selonia Reed’s murder, there was one name police kept hearing: Jimmy Ray Barnes, a friend of Reginald Reed Sr.
Lt. Barry Ward: Jimmy Ray Barnes was an acquaintance of Reginald Reed. … He hung out with him. He worked with him.
Ward learned about a disturbing incident at a local beach where Selonia was swimming with little Reggie just days before the murder.
Lt. Barry Ward: They were on inner tubes … Jimmy flipped Selonia … over … She didn’t feel that it was a playful thing. She felt that it was, uh, deliberate and intentional. Uh, she was not a good swimmer and, uh, she said she struggled to make it to the … bank.
The next night, her sister Gwen said Selonia became frightened when a relative who was visiting Selonia spotted Jimmy Ray Barnes near her home.
Gwen Smith: And she said … Selonia … went into hysterics. … Like no, no … Don’t go out there. Don’t go out there.
Lt. Barry Ward: And within a few moments, Jimmy Ray Barnes walked around the corner of the house … Jimmy told her that he was checking on Selonia … and she ran him off.
Ward would learn that Barnes, along with Reginald, came under even more scrutiny two days after the murder. A witness came forward to say she had seen two men around John’s Curb Market on the night Selonia was murdered.
Lt. Barry Ward: She became suspicious and … later wrote down on a piece of scrap paper, the license plate. … As it turns out … that was the vehicle that Reginald Reed was known to, um, operate in. That was his car.
Hammond Police Department
Some two weeks later, police assembled a photo array and showed it to the witness.
Lt. Barry Ward: The witness identified the driver as Reginald Reed and the passenger as Jimmy Ray Barnes.
Barnes was given a polygraph test and police at the time said he passed. But it wasn’t long before Jimmy Ray left Hammond.
Reginald denied having anything to do with Selonia’s murder. But neighbors told police the marriage was troubled. Family members say Selonia had accused her husband of physical abuse and there was talk of divorce. The police continued investigating but prosecutors never brought the case to a grand jury.
Lt. Barry Ward: There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence in 1987 that pointed to Reginald Reed and Jimmy Ray Barnes. … as far as a — a smoking gun … it – it — it was not there at that time.
Gwen Smith: I started feeling like nothing was gonna be done about her murder, and we would not get justice.
Time passed, and Reginald continued to live in Hammond. He even ran for mayor in 1998.
He lost that race, but he and little Reggie stayed in the family home which today has fallen into disrepair.
Reggie Reed (inside his former home): So this is it.
Vladimir Duthiers: What’s it like for you to just come back here? I know you don’t like to, but what does it feel like?
Reggie Reed: I feel numb. Yeah, I feel numb … This is where it all started. You know, this is the halls I used to run. … This is the TV room. This was the TV room …
Vladimir Duthiers: When you were playing Nintendo with your father … the night that your mother was murdered, was that here?
Reggie Reed: That was in this room.
Reggie went on to attend college and later got an MBA. He moved out of Hammond and began working for a pharmaceutical company. There were no new developments on his mother’s murder until 2011 when Lt. Barry Ward of the Louisiana State Police got involved.
Lt. Barry Ward: After I started interacting with Selonia’s family, her sisters, I realized how important it was.
Gwen Smith: … before Barry Ward came into … the picture … I just felt like … nobody cared about Selonia’s case.
Lt. Barry Ward: This was just the last opportunity I felt before more witnesses passed away … that we would have a chance to find justice for this terrible crime that happened to Selonia.
Tangipahoa Parish DA’s Office
As far as Ward could determine, the crucifix and screwdriver found within days of the murder led nowhere. But the detective was drawn to several life insurance policies Reginald had taken out on Selonia that paid out more than $700,000. Some of those policies were taken out the same month that Selonia was murdered.
Ward wanted to reinterview Reggie Jr. in 2012. Reggie was 31 years old and living in Texas. Ward sent a Texas Ranger to begin the questioning.
Reggie Reed: … he told me why he was here, and it was to … discuss … my mother’s murder.
And the Ranger then told Reggie something he said he’d never heard before.
Lt. Barry Ward: He was not aware that his father was a suspect in the murder of his mother.
Reggie Reed: But I was like, where’s this coming from? Like, it’s been over three decades … You’re talking about my dad like killed my mom, like, seriously … I remember asking, “is there any new evidence that was surfaced?” … And it was nothing new.
It’s true that the insurance policies had been discovered by the original detectives, but Ward had organized them in a way that he felt was damning. The Texas Ranger asked Reggie about those policies.
Reggie Reed: He showed me a graph, a timeline … it showed each insurance policy that were taken out close to her death.
Vladimir Duthiers: Did you all of a sudden say, I need to get to the bottom of this or what?
Reggie Reed: It was eye-opening … cause I’m like, well, that doesn’t look good … I got to learn what, like what’s all this?
Reggie struggled to make sense of it all.
Reggie Reed: I did talk to my dad about it over the phone, and his response was … he — he took out policies on everyone.
Reggie said he finds it hard to square what the investigation revealed with the loving father who raised him.
Reggie Reed: I look back, I’m like, man, he really — he really did do some great stuff for me. He was a great provider.
Tangipahoa Parish DA’s Office
Ward took a deep dive into the case file and focused on that Winston cigarette butt found in Selonia’s car. He sent it out for DNA testing, something that was not widely available in 1987. There was a match in the national crime DNA database CODIS, but not to Jimmy Ray.
Barry Ward: It came back to … a man by the name of Billy Ray Barnes.
Billy Ray was Jimmy Ray’s identical twin brother, and the DNA supervisor had another surprise.
Barry Ward: He let me know that identical twins share identical DNA.
Ward decided he had to interview Jimmy Ray and it turned out that Jimmy Ray had been holding onto some key information all these years.
Barry Ward: Jimmy Ray Barnes did tell me … that Reginald Reed offered him $50,000 to, quote-unquote, knock off his wife.
NEW EVIDENCE HEATS UP A DECADES-OLD COLD CASE
In July 2012, Lt. Barry Ward went on the hunt for Jimmy Ray Barnes, who had become a prime suspect in the Selonia Reed murder case after his DNA was linked to the crime scene.
Ward found Jimmy Ray Barnes in the Atlanta area where he said Jimmy Ray told him he’d fled Hammond because he was afraid of Reginald Reed. Jimmy Ray Barnes said back then, he’d been shot at three times and hit once in the neck. He suspected the shooter was Reginald Sr. but had no proof.
Lt. Barry Ward: Jimmy said he was known to carry a gun. But you fast forward … 25, now 30 years … Reginald Reed was now an old man.
Barnes was ready to talk about Reed without a lawyer.
JIMMY RAY BARNES: I ain’t got nothing to hide.
Reggie Reed Jr.
Barnes told Ward that a few days before Selonia was killed, Reginald Reed asked him if he would “knock off his wife.”
LT. BARRY WARD: Reginald asked you if you would—
JIMMY RAY BARNES: Yeah.
LT. BARRY WARD: — quote, by your terms, “knock off his wife.”
JIMMY RAY BARNES: Right. Right.
LT. BARRY WARD: That mean — you took that to mean to kill her, to murder her?
JIMMY RAY BARNES: Right. Right.
LT. BARRY WARD: What was your response to that?
JIMMY RAY BARNES: Hell, no.
LT. BARRY WARD: Did he discuss any money with you?
JIMMY RAY BARNES: Yeah, he has. He discussed money.
Ward pressed Barnes to tell him how much money.
LT. BARRY WARD: More than $5,000?
JIMMY RAY BARNES: Yeah.
BARRY WARD: More than $10,000?
JIMMY RAY BARNES: Yeah.
BARRY WARD: More than $50,000?
JIMMY RAY BARNES: $50,000.
BARRY WARD: He offered you $50,000?
JIMMY RAY BARNES: Yeah.
BARRY WARD: … is that a guess or is that the amount he offered?
JIMMY RAY BARNES: That was the amount he offered.
But Barnes told Ward that he would not repeat the story in court.
JIMMY RAY BARNES: … I don’t trust the law no more.
Ward confronted Barnes about that polygraph test from the original case file. Barnes allegedly had passed that polygraph, but Ward suspected Jimmy Ray secretly had asked his identical twin Billy Ray to take that test.
LT. BARRY WARD: I talked to Billy … and he said he took that polygraph test … And if Billy looked like you and was questioned over a murder that you took part in and he doesn’t know anything about it, he’s probably going to pass that polygraph test. Would that be fair to say?
JIMMY RAY BARNES: I don’t know. I’m not going to answer that cause I — I know I’m the one who took the polygraph test.
Ward believed he had a solid case to finally bring charges. He had Jimmy Ray’s DNA connected to the crime scene and his videotaped statement about Reginald offering him $50,000 to kill Selonia. But, Ward said, prosecutors always wanted more.
Lt. Barry Ward: I would get phone calls through the years from … prosecutors … who had asked me to reinterview family members … find out additional information, test more evidence … it was busy work.
Then, in 2018, a newly hired prosecutor, Taylor Anthony, got assigned the case.
Vladimir Duthiers: Why reopen a 35-year-old case? What was the trigger?
Taylor Anthony: Well, why reopen it? It’s an interesting question … this was a case to me right away when I looked at it … that there was a story to be told.
Anthony was impressed by all the investigative work done by Ward, so he reached out, but Ward told Anthony he was too busy and that he felt he’d been let down by other prosecutors.
Lt. Barry Ward: My initial response was to just get this guy off the phone.
Taylor Anthony: He said, look, I’ve already poured hundreds of man hours into that case … and y’all, didn’t do anything and … He said … You’re wasting your time, kid … have a nice life, basically.
But Anthony was undeterred and promised Ward that, this time, things would be different.
Lt. Barry Ward: I think he saw what I saw … I think that made all the difference in the world …
Like Ward, Anthony was sure Jimmy Ray Barnes knew a lot more, so he and Ward took a road trip to Atlanta.
Lt. Barry Ward: And we were able to locate Jimmy. He was staying in a camper at his employer’s place.
Lt. Barry Ward: We pulled up early in the morning when the sun was coming up and he was coming out of this camper … putting a belt in his pants. … And he said, uh, hey, “who y’all looking for?” … I said, “you, Jimmy.” And he goes, “Oh, you, again.”
But this time the new prosecutor had with him an agreement, approved by a judge, giving Barnes complete immunity if he testified to everything he knew about Selonia’s murder.
Vladimir Duthiers: So to the layperson, you offered him a deal?
Taylor Anthony: So, I offered him what I would say would be the golden ticket.
But Barnes rejected the offer.
Taylor Anthony: He did not trust me. He did not believe me. He did not want to talk to us.
Ward and Anthony were about to drive back to Louisiana when Barnes said something that took them by surprise.
Taylor Anthony: … as Barry and I were … getting back in the car, Jimmy Ray Barnes came over to us and he said, I want you boys to know that I’m the key to it all. And he said … if you think you can indict me for murder, then do it.
Anthony was quick to take him up on that challenge.
Lt. Barry Ward: A couple of weeks later … a grand jury in Tangipahoa Parish returned second-degree murder indictments for both Reginald Reed and Jimmy Ray Barnes. … immediately … we went to Reginald’s home … I knocked on the door, identified who I was and that I had an arrest warrant for him for the murder of his wife … He … really had no emotion.
Louisiana State Police
The date was June 21, 2019, more than 30 years after Selonia’s murder.
Gwen Smith: … when Reginald was arrested … it was like, it was like a burden just got my chest, like a burden was lifted off.
Reggie Reed: I got a call … that my father was indicted for second-degree murder and conspiracy, along with a co-defendant for my mother’s murder.
Reggie Reed Jr.
Reggie Jr. put up his father’s $250,000 bail bond.
Reggie Reed: … my dad being my rock for so many years, I felt the need to try to help him.
Vladimir Duthiers: Now that you are both adults … did you ever ask him those questions that you have that you’re questioning even now as we sit here?
Reggie Reed: Yeah. I asked him — I asked him. And he — he — he maintains his innocence.
Sitting in another Hammond jail cell was Jimmy Ray Barnes. He now had a lawyer and asked to speak with Det. Barry Ward and Taylor Anthony.
Taylor Anthony: So, Barry and I went and met with him again. … And in exchange for him telling us everything he knew … he was offered a deal to plead to accessory after the fact to murder and was given a five-year prison sentence.
The homicide trial of Reginald Reed Sr. was scheduled for November 2022 and Jimmy Ray Barnes had agreed to testify. Reggie hoped to hear never-before-revealed details of what had happened to his mother.
Reggie Reed: I want to know what happened.
WHY WAS SELONIA REED MURDERED?
In November 2022, the murder trial of Reginald Reed Sr. began in Amite, Louisiana. He was represented by the mother and daughter defense team of Vanessa Williams and LaToia Williams-Simon.
Vladimir Duthiers: What makes you think … that he did not murder Selonia?
LaToia Williams-Simon: Their entire case is circumstantial.
Williams-Simon says the state’s case was weak: there was no murder weapon, no fingerprints or DNA tying Reed to Selonia’s homicide.
LaToia Williams-Simon: I was confused as to how they were really gonna prove their case. … There’s no direct evidence.
Hammond Police Department
But prosecutor Taylor Anthony believed his prosecution would deliver justice to Selonia.
Taylor Anthony: The reason I became a prosecutor is to fight for people like this … I see a woman … whose body has been desecrated, violated, mutilated, and nobody spoke up for her and fought for her. And there is a quote that I love, and it goes … “The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is the duty of the living to do so for them.” … And that’s my job.
Anthony told jurors about the $700,000 from the insurance policies on Selonia’s life.
Vladimir Duthiers: So, what was your theory once you put all these pieces together?
Taylor Anthony: My theory was that … Selonia and Reginald were in a marriage that was about to come to an end … there was a history of abuse and that Selonia was tired of it and she was ready to leave Reginald. … I think … he was angry and he saw an opportunity for some money. … I think that’s why he killed this woman.
Vladimir Duthiers: The case that they’re presenting, which is this man takes out all these life insurance policies on a young, healthy 26-year-old woman … what is his rationale for having done that?
Vanessa Williams: But they’re missing the biggest part of it.
Vladimir Duthiers: Which is?
Vanessa Williams: It wasn’t just on her. It was on himself. It was on the child. … It was family policies. So, it’s not like he just went and took out policies on Selonia only.
Prosecutor Anthony was frank with jurors, telling them that the state would not produce a murder weapon or the exact location where Selonia was stabbed. He focused on what the prosecution did have, including that white lotion found on Selonia’s body.
Taylor Anthony: … later police were able to find a bottle of lotion in the Reed household that matched that type of lotion that was on her body.
The prosecutor also showed jurors a photograph of some scratches on Reginald Reed Sr.’s neck taken on the day Selonia’s body was found.
Taylor Anthony: They wanted to take photographs of his neck, and he was very hesitant …
Anthony said Reed told police two different stories about how he got those scratches but after forensic testing, it was determined that none of Reginald’s DNA was found under Selonia’s fingernails.
LaToia Williams-Simon: They believe that the killer is Mr. Reginald Reed. So, anything that goes to contradict that they’re gonna completely block out.
Williams-Simon pointed to Jimmy Ray Barnes’ long criminal record of arrests.
LaToia Williams-Simon: It couldn’t be introduced at trial.
Vladimir Duthiers: Because?
LaToia Williams-Simon: And the reason why his criminal rap sheet couldn’t be introduced at trial is because these aren’t convictions …
But Williams-Simon says Jimmy Ray’s arrests were for violent crimes.
LaToia Williams-Simon: False imprisonment and aggravated assault, aggravated battery with a dangerous weapon, murder … These are things that the jury had a right to know, but because of the law, they didn’t find out.
Jimmy Ray Barnes ultimately took the stand as part of his plea agreement. There were no cameras in the courtroom. In a recording taken from Barnes’ police interview conducted by Ward before the trial, he told the same story as when he testified:
On the night of the murder, Barnes said he promised to meet Reginald Reed Sr. in the parking area outside John’s Curb Market where Selonia’s body had been found.
Louisiana State Police
JIMMY RAY BARNES (recorded interview): When I got there, he was getting out of the little blue car. The little blue car was parked there.
Barnes said Reginald Sr. asked for his help in moving Selonia’s body.
JIMMY RAY BARNES (recorded interview): I said no, I wasn’t, I wasn’t getting involved in that. He wanted me to move the body, and I didn’t want to move, and I didn’t move the body.
Barnes says that Selonia was fully clothed when he saw her, and sitting in the passenger seat.
JIMMY RAY BARNES (recorded interview): I did see the body in there. And uh, I panicked …
Taylor Anthony: My understanding after the fact is that Jimmy Ray Barnes talked to Reggie [Sr.] and said, “where is the money? You told me $50,000.” … he says he never got a penny of it.
Prosecutor Anthony contends that, after the men drove away, Reginald Reed Sr. returned and “staged” the crime scene, stripping off Selonia’s clothes, covering her with that white lotion, and leaving other evidence to make it appear as a sex crime.
Vladimir Duthiers: And what does your dad say to that?
Reggie Reed: He says it’s completely BS. He says … it’s no way. We were at home playing Nintendo.
Williams-Simon had her own theory of what happened that night.
LaToia Williams-Simon: All of the information that we’ve received about Jimmy Ray Barnes is that … he was borderline obsessed with Selonia … I believe that maybe he encountered her, tried to make a pass at her that was … rejected, and that’s where you see that anger, that rage, that hatred.
Sitting through the trial, Reggie admitted that the relentless focus on his mother’s murder was upsetting, especially as he watched that crime scene video which he had never seen before.
Reggie Reed: … and it really struck a chord … by just seeing my mother there, um, (crying) lifeless, and just alone, and dead.
Reginald Reed Sr. never took the stand and after less than a week of testimony, the case went to the jury. Reggie Jr. braced for the verdict.
AFTER THE VERDICT, REGGIE REED JR. STILL CRIES OUT FOR HIS FATHER
Taylor Anthony: … as a prosecutor, when the jury deliberates … it’s painstaking. You’re just … waiting and waiting and waiting.
Some of Reginald Reed’s brothers and sisters — Kennedy Reed, Belinda Reed Cox, and Claude Reed — were waiting as well.
Vladimir Duthiers: Claude, you don’t believe your brother murdered Selonia.
Claude Reed: No, I don’t. I don’t believe Reggie (Sr.) did that.
Belinda Reed Cox: My brother’s not a murderer. He’s not.
But on Nov. 18, 2022, Reginald Reed Sr. was found guilty of second-degree murder after the jury deliberated for just over three hours.
Reggie Reed: … when he was found guilty, I feel like he died without dying (crying). … And I saw myself as that same 6-year-old crying out for my dad as I did in that [1987 police interview] video.
Reggie Reed: And I just want it to end.
Reggie tried to recapture the moment his father was found guilty in his book.
Reggie Reed(reading from book): My father grabbed me up into a big hug. … I wanted to stay there forever … he pulled back for a moment, looked me in the eyes and kissed me on the forehead. … We embraced once more, and then, they took him away from me.
Taylor Anthony: I wanted to … tell him, I’m sorry … for the loss of your mother. I’m sorry for your father going to prison … I can’t even imagine the grieving process that he’s got to be going through.
Reggie says sitting through the trial was excruciating. But when it was over, he still wanted answers.
Reggie Reed: This is my parents’ room.
Vladimir Duthiers: Lieutenant Ward has told you that one of his theories is that your mother may have been killed in this room.
Reggie Reed: In this room … I just go back thinking of the manner in the way, which she was killed. If she was killed here, how is that possible that they couldn’t find anything?
In light of Lt. Ward’s information, Reggie now wonders if his father killed his mother while he was asleep in the next room.
Reggie Reed: … Where was I? … did you leave the house after I fell asleep …?
Questions Reggie cannot answer because he simply does not remember.
On Jan. 30, 2023, everyone piled back into the same courtroom where Reginald was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He did not offer any kind of explanation or statement and said nothing.
Reggie Reed: You know I want justice, but I didn’t think justice was gonna come at the price of my dad going to prison for life.
Vladimir Duthiers: So, my question is, do you believe that your father murdered your mother?
Reggie Reed: I don’t know.
Reggie Reed: Another question, do I think my dad had some involvement? … Maybe. I don’t know though. I don’t know. … So that’s where I’m just, it’s like a tug-of-war game.
Reggie Reed: … just knowing the type of father he is … I can’t just turn a page and just look at my father as a complete monster …
Selonia’s sister Gwen Smith always believed Reginald was Selonia’s killer. Although she and Reggie Jr. are estranged, she still worries about him.
Gwen Smith: I just kind of felt bad for him, you know, because … his mom was taken away from him when he was a little boy.
Vladimir Duthiers: What do you want people to know about this case … if you could sum it up for me.
Kennedy Reed: I know one thing; my brother did not commit this murder …
For Ward, who worked on the Selonia Reed case for a decade, the conviction was just, and he appreciates that Jimmy Ray Barnes agreed to testify.
Lt. Barry Ward: Jimmy Ray Barnes was the key.
Barnes served his sentence for being an accessory after the fact to murder. He was freed from prison and, shortly after, on Jan. 27, 2024, he was killed in a car accident. He was in Hammond to attend the funeral of his identical twin.
Charles Muse: There are several cases throughout my career that stick out to me. And this is probably the — the main one.
Charles Muse, the Hammond police officer who found Selonia’s body, is pleased he got to see the outcome of the case.
Charles Muse: I mean her death, you know, didn’t just go in vain. … I find some peace in that.
Reggie Reed Jr.
Vladimir Duthiers: You say that you wish you would’ve gotten to know her better, but then you realize too, you must, that she’s living through you that she’s here because you’re here.
Reggie Reed: Absolutely … And I think about that she’s in a place where she’s consistently … watching over me.
As for Reggie’s father, he calls Reggie from a Louisiana state prison once or twice a week.
A “48 Hours” producer was present during a recent call.
Charlotte Fuller | “48 Hours”: Do you think you got a fair trial?
Reginald Reed Sr.: No, of course not. Of course not. Wasn’t no evidence.
Charlotte Fuller: What do you got to tell us about your son?
Reginald Reed Sr.: Oh, remarkable … I thank the Lord for him every day that he was able to understand some — something that was going on, but that I would never leave him …
Reggie Reed Jr.
These days, Reggie has his own family. His son Lathan is nearly the age he was when Selonia was killed, and they often play games just as Reggie did with his father. And in January 2024, Reggie and his wife Paula were blessed with a baby girl.
Reggie Reed: When our daughter was born, we both agreed there’s no other name that we should name her except Selonia … you know give that name an opportunity to live life and be recognized in a positive way.
Vladimir Duthiers: Wow, that’s beautiful.
Reginald Reed Sr. has filed an appeal.
Produced by Paul La Rosa and Marie Hegwood. Charlotte Fuller is the field producer. Sara Ely Hulse is the development producer. Richard Barber and Diana DeCilio are the editors. Anthony Venditti is the content research manager. Nancy Bautista is the associate producer. Anthony Batson is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
