Anatomy of Murder - Justice for Selonia (Selonia Smith Reed)

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

A wife and mother was brutally murdered. A suspect emerged quickly, but the case went unsolved for decades. Would a new DA and a new look at the file, bring the justice long denied? For episode information and photos, please visit https://anatomyofmurder.com/ Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

The first thing when you see this case is just the sheer savagery of this killing. This was a crime committed out of anger, out of aggression, out of just hatred, to desecrate someone that way. It's almost as if it wasn't enough to kill her, he needed to humiliate her. I'm Scott Weinberger investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff I'm Anasiga Nicolazzi former New York City

homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction and this is Anatomy of Murder former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of Murph. A lot has changed in law enforcement in the last 35 years. There are advancements in DNA science, digital forensics, that give investigators the ability to pinpoint suspects using their cell phones, their credit cards, and emails.

And, you know, we talk about it all the time. There's also the creation of a national database like CODIS that could make finding a wanted criminal just a few computer clicks away. But there are other things that have not changed, like the difficulty of informing a victim's family of the loss of their loved one, the frustration of a stalled case threatening to go cold, and the determination it takes to breathe new life into an unsolved murder and hopefully, finally, bring that killer to justice.

This case was probably one of the most unique in my career. It's not every day as a prosecutor that we get to handle cold cases, especially one that was 35 years old. That's Taylor Anthony, an assistant district attorney in the 21st Judicial District of Tangipahoe Parish in Louisiana. And this week, we're in his hometown of Hammond, Louisiana, located across Lake Pontchartrain and about an hour's drive north of New Orleans, to discuss the murder of 26-year-old Salonia Smith-Reed, which occurred all the way back in 1987 and was not tried until this year, 2023. Hammond, Louisiana is a town of about 20,000. It's a small college town.

Very rural, good, hardworking, blue-collar people. It's a tight college town, very rural, good, hardworking, blue collar people. It's a tight knit community and the kind of place where just everyone knows each other and each other's business. Secrets get told and gossip starts. And then before you know it, everybody knows it. And Taylor should know he was born and raised here in Hammond. After law school and a successful stint in the DA's office in New Orleans, he decided to return to the town and the people that he loved. Started my career as a prosecutor in Orleans Parish, and I kind of made a name for myself.

And I tried some really big cases in New Orleans, and I had some great mentors. And I was at a point in my life where I was ready to move home. And move back he did, and he landed in the local prosecutor's office, which at least in some ways he felt back at square one. I think a lot of people had expectations for me. I kind of needed to prove that I am what my resume says I am. So I was looking for some tough cases.

I was looking to kind of maybe earn my stripes a little bit and show my boss, hey, you did the right thing by bringing me home. The district attorney of the parish, now that's Louisiana speak for county, was a prosecutor named Scott Perilou, who was also a Hammond native himself. He was more than happy to give Taylor a challenge. And it was a case that had frustrated local law enforcement and the community for over three decades. DA Perilous said, hey, Taylor, look, I know you're looking to do something. Take a look at this file. This is a cold case from 1987, but nothing happened with it.

We had a different DA at the time in 87, different chief of police. And for whatever reason, the case went nowhere. Will you look at it? The case was the fatal beating and stabbing of 26-year-old Salonia Reed, a well-liked Hammond native, wife and mother of a five-year-old son. Taylor himself was only two years old when Salonia was murdered, but it was a case that the town had never forgotten. I'm born and raised in this area, so my family knew about this. They all were like, Taylor, yeah, we all know about

that. Everybody knows about that case. I can't believe nothing ever happened with it. And Taylor grabbed the box, pulled out the file and went through every inch of it and was excited to move forward. But he wanted his boss to know he was ready to move. I went back to work the next week and I told Mr. Perlow, I said, boss, I think that this is a prosecutable case and I'm happy to tell this story. And from there, once the ball started rolling, there was no stopping it. You know, so it's really interesting that this district attorney decided to reopen the case to see if anything could be made of it. You know, it's something that's not so uncommon to see, in particular, when you have a new district attorney coming in. It's almost like their unwritten way of saying that things are going to be different, hopefully improved, on my watch. And going through unsolved cases, I mean, what better way to show them that they

really want to make sure that justice is served for all? You know, in researching cases for AOM, anytime we run across a 30-year-old case being cleared, it's just going to pique our interest for lots of reasons. You want to know what new evidence may have been discovered and what original investigators may have potentially overlooked. But it's important to remember that at the heart of this story is a person who was a daughter, a sister, and a mother. And the quest to solve her murder is not just to clear a cold case, but to hopefully achieve justice for this victim, Salonia Reed. So let's learn more about her and who she was. Salonia comes from a family from the Hammond area.

She was 26, I believe, when she was killed. She worked at one of our local banks, and she was a teller at the bank. Everyone you talked to said she was just a very nice woman. She always presented well. She always dressed very nice. She was an active member in the church. She went to church every Sunday. She had a five-year-old son.

She was a very quiet person. She didn't go out a lot and hang out with a lot of people. She was very close with her sisters. Everyone you ask says she did everything she could for her son, and she was just a great mom and just tried to be a good citizen. Yeah, and just think about it for a moment. In a town where no one is a stranger, everyone would have known these things about Salonia.

And another thing is her neighbors would have known about her. They would know about her routine, where she went to church, where she got her hair done, whether she was a night owl. Which is why when Hammond police received a phone call from her husband that Salonia had gone out the night before

and not returned, there was immediately that feeling that something was wrong. Her husband, Reginald Reed, made a missing persons report to Hayman Police Department and said that my wife went out last night and she never came home and I don't know where she is. And that was very unlike Salonia. She did not go out. She had a five-year-old son at the time.

She wasn't some partier. She didn't go out all the time. So right away, police were kind of suspicious as to what's going on. Police responded to the Reed's home and saw that Salonia's car was not in the driveway and she had taken her purse with her. So there was no obvious signs of a crime or that she was in distress. Being out all night was out of character enough that the small Hammond police department decided to mobilize and see if they could find her. Police just start canvassing around town.

Again, Hammond's a small town. And eventually one of the Hammond police officers drove around and he just saw Salonia's car. People knew the family. He recognized the car and it was parked at the back of an abandoned car wash near a wood line. Not in front of a bar or a restaurant, not at the grocery store, but behind an abandoned car wash. Just imagine for any police officer that crime radar is going to right there be on high alert. But nothing in the patrol officer's career could have prepared him for what he discovered inside Salonia's car.

He looked in the window and in the passenger seat, that's when he saw Salonia's desecrated body. And from there, every officer on the force essentially arrived to try to figure out what had happened. The End Salonia Reed had been missing for less than 24 hours before her car was discovered behind an abandoned car wash just a few miles from her home in Hammond, Louisiana. Inside the car was Salonia, her body bloody and battered. It was immediately clear to responding police that she had been the victim of a vicious homicide. And almost immediately they began to process the area. The crime scene work was advanced for the time. Back in 1987, when the Hammond Police Department responded to the scene, they actually set up a camcorder on a tripod, and they just pressed record, and they recorded the whole scene where the body was found.

They had about four hours of coverage of everybody that touched the body, everybody that made the crime scene. They tried to log it as best they could. — And what this also means is that when Taylor Anthony watched these tapes 30 years later, it was as close to being at the crime scene as a cold case investigator could hope for. And we want to warn you that the details of Salonia's murder are graphic, including description of sexual violence and extremely troubling. They open the passenger door and her body is laying there. Her face is obviously bludgeoned.

She was stabbed about a dozen and a half times. We never found the murder weapon, but according to the coroner, it was some type of ice pick or flathead screwdriver type objects. Very long, slender, straight stabs to her neck, to her chest, in her heart, in her lungs. Salonia's body was found without any clothes on. She was completely naked. And beyond the brutal, visible injuries, she had also been sexually assaulted with an umbrella,

which was found still partially inside her body. It was almost as if it wasn't enough to kill her and stab her, that they just had to go that extra mile to just degrade her and humiliate her even. Obviously, the priority for investigators is to preserve the scene and collect any physical evidence that may help identify potential suspects.

Is there a murder weapon? Are there fingerprints or DNA left behind? But a crime scene can also tell a story far beyond what the physical evidence may be saying. Especially a crime scene as violent as this one. How a person was killed and the level of violence in a murder can speak volumes not only about the killer's motive, but also a potential relationship with the victim. The first thing when you see this case is just the sheer savagery of this killing. When I looked at these photographs of the way Sloanie was murdered and the way her body was desecrated after the fact, right out of the gate, you realize that whoever killed this woman really hated her.

This was a crime committed out of anger, out of aggression. It's almost as if it wasn't enough to kill her. You know, Scott, it's not going to take a rocket scientist here to see that the motive, at least, certainly was not going to be robbery, or at least not primarily. Yeah, when the weapon of choice is a stabbing instrument, like, in this case, an ice pick-type instrument, we've talked about the fact that in most cases, especially when there's multiple stab wounds, it's a personal rage attack and unlikely to be a motive of robbery. Now, strengthening that argument really is the wounds that are inflicted in this case, which is post-mortem, meaning after death. So once the victim is stabbed

and dies based on those stab wounds, the killer just continues to strike. And if that's not personal, I don't know what is. But here's the thing. When we say personal, it doesn't mean that the killer knew her, right? It could easily be a stranger who it is personal to that person because of something going on in their psyche, or it could be because of an actual relationship. I mean, here this attacker left Salonia intentionally to be found the way that she was, with no clothing, the umbrella, to humiliate, denigrate, to really try to annihilate this woman's dignity, even in death. This isn't just a run-of-the-mill murder,

robbery gone wrong. I mean, the way she was stabbed 18 times in the chest and neck with an ice pick and her body was desecrated, that's such a passionate anger thing to do. And there are also other signs, too, that this wasn't just a random robbery or assault by a stranger that had turned fatal. For one thing, police did not believe that she was actually killed inside her car. So when they removed the body from the car, you know, obviously they process it, they find her purse inside the car and its contents were kind of scattered a little bit. Also found in the car was a cigarette butt. But what was interesting about the inside of the car is that it was pretty evident right away that she was not killed in

that car. For someone to be stabbed a dozen and a half times with an ice pick type object, especially in the neck and chest, the car had no blood to speak of inside of it. Her body was placed in there, sitting in the passenger seat almost gently. Which begs the questions, where was Salonia actually killed? And why Salonia? Investigators in 1987 hoped that the autopsy may help answer those questions and more. So the coroner did a rape kit and swabbed her. There was no evidence of sperm or sexual assaults outside of the umbrella, which again, to me, just showed how staged this was.

Within hours of discovering her body, police had already begun to canvas this small town for witnesses and any information that might help them build a timeline of Salonia's last hours alive. And honestly, at this stage, you're not only trying to find out where she was and who she was with on the day she was killed, but as investigators, you're also keeping your ears peeled for gossip and background information. Remember, this was a really tight-knit community in a very small town. People tend to know quite a bit about each other's lives, and if Salonia was in trouble or had any enemies, there's a good chance one of her friends or her

neighbors would have known about it. Think whenever you find a situation like this and you find a body like that, the first thing that detectives try to do is figure out who the last people she may have spoken to, last people she talked with, who were her friends, who was she known to associate with. And the police did all that. They talked to some of her friends at work. Her body was found in a gas station near a convenience store. So they talked to the clerk at the convenience store. Hey, who was in the area last night? Was there any suspicious looking characters? And of course, they also speak with Salonia's husband, Reginald Reed. Because as far as they can determine, he is the last person who have actually seen and spoken to Salonia before she disappeared. And immediately the story that he gives to police has issues.

And in fact, his story was suspect. They talked to Reginald, the husband, who gave the story that she went out with some friends the night before. So police went to talk to those friends, and those friends said, absolutely not. We haven't seen her in a couple weeks. We certainly had no plans to go out tonight. I don't know why the husband would say that. It's no secret that the partner of a victim

is often considered a person of interest in a murder investigation, and rightly so based on the numbers alone. The majority of women killed in the U.S. are victims of domestic violence. So it would make sense that police would want to learn more about who Salonia's husband is and what their relationship was like. And again, this is a small town, and it was not hard to get a very clear picture of Reginald Reed. Reginald is from the area. He comes from a very large family here in town. He has, I think, 18 siblings. Reginald's parents were both really well-known

and well-respected. Again, he has a lot of brothers and sisters, many of whom are active in the community and are very well-known and well-respected. But there were hints that he wasn't exactly the stand-up citizen he claimed to be. He did work in some of the chemical plants in South Louisiana, but I think in his early 20s, he may have been injured on the job and collected a workers' comp settlement. I know he had some auto accidents where he got some payouts on some auto accidents. He had a home fire where he collected insurance on a home fire.

Really, it seems like a lot of his early adulthood, Reginald was kind of benefiting from insurance payouts or workers' comp payouts and collecting money that way. So according to some people, Reginald was a little bit shady. And according to some of Salodia's sisters, he wasn't much better as a husband either. There were a lot of reports from family members and friends, just about some abuse and some problems in the marriage. On some occasions, the sister said they even noticed marks on her face or marks on her wrist. There were no official reports of physical abuse filed with the local police. But of course, we know that in no way means it didn't happen.

Sadly, the vast majority of domestic abuse cases in this country still go unreported. You know, I think Salonia kind of did what she could as a wife and as a mother to make the best of it. I think towards the end, some of the sisters said that Salonia had kind of come forward and said she just couldn't take any more of the abuse and she was looking to divorce Reginald. The tragedy of domestic abuse is how often it is ignored until it's too late.

We have seen this time and time again, that living with an abusive partner is like living with a loaded gun. And all of this background on Salonia and Reginald's marriage and his history of abuse starts to paint a picture of a man capable of violence and a prime suspect in need of an alibi. Don't forget, Reginald had claimed that his wife had gone out with friends. But when police contacted those friends, they denied having any plans with Salonia. And no one seemed surprised that Salonia's supposed night out on the town hadn't happened at all.

Everything that I've read and heard about her was that he was very controlling over her. Everybody knew that. The police knew that as well. So whenever he makes up this story that she was going out with some friends, right away everybody's just so skeptical of that because Reginald just wasn't that kind of guy. He didn't like her going out. He didn't want her to have friends. He didn't want her getting attention. And again, all those things,

when you knew who Reginald was and he knew the family, just showed more and more why his story didn't make sense. So police went back to him and pressed him harder on his alibi for the night of his wife's murder. But they were not surprised to learn his story would change. He kind of doubles down on another alibi. He says, the last time I was with Saloni was last night. We went to the mall together. Me, myself, Saloni, and our son went to the mall. We did some shopping at Sears, and then we came home. So police went to Sears, and they talked to one of the security guards.

Well, again, this being a small town, the security guard knows this whole family. The security guard is a sheriff's deputy. So they asked the sheriff's deputy, they say, was Reginald and Saloni here last night? And the deputy said, well, Saloni and the son was here. Reginald was not with them. So clearly alibi number two is falling apart. But that's not the only thing raising investigators' suspicions. They also noticed in talking to him that he had some scratch marks on his neck.

And when he was questioned about the scratch marks, he told the police at the time that they were from the family dog. He was disciplining the dog and the dog jumped up and scratched him on the neck. So he has no alibi. He's apparently being deceitful to police. He has what could be defensive wounds on his neck. I mean, what else? This is beginning to feel like a circumstantial case for murder is being built. Police are becoming more and more focused on Reginald Reed by the minute, but they are still missing a very important part of the puzzle, motive.

So the police start doing some digging and that's when they learn something very interesting about the family's insurance policies. And they found that approximately two weeks before Salonia was killed, Reginald took out over a half a million dollars, and this is in 1987, over a half a million dollars of life insurance on Salonia,

not only without her knowledge, but he was also allowed by the agent to forge Salonia's signature on those documents. $500,000. A half a million dollars payable to Reginald Reed on the death of his wife, Salonia, and potentially 500,000 reasons to commit murder. A history of violence, a shaky alibi, and a forged life insurance policy

made Reginald Reed the prime suspect in the murder of Salonia Reed, his 26-year-old wife and mother of his young son. And remember that line he gave about the scratches on his neck that looked an awful lot like a defensive wound? Not even the insurance company was buying that. Whenever Reginald tried to cash in on Salonia's life insurance policy, State Farm, who carried the policy, was very skeptical of the circumstances of her death, and they did not want to pay out. So they did a deposition of Reginald. In that deposition, the attorney asked him about those scratch marks on

his neck, and he said they were from playing a game of basketball. So he tells the police they're from the family dog. He tells the the police they're from the family dog. He tells the insurance company they're from basketball. He gives this made-up story about the mall and an alibi. He gives this made-up story about who she was with the night before. So right away, all of his story just crumbles. Eventually, Reginald decided to end any more conversations and wanted his attorney present, and he just completely stopped cooperating at all.

And that's his right, but the circumstantial evidence was beginning to pile up. Yet there was also more work to be done. And it also comes back to what can be proven in court. And with no murder weapon, no eyewitness, no physical evidence tying Reginald to the crime scene, this was not going to be a slam dunk case. Now, as you can imagine, in this small town, the news of Salonia's murder was front page news. It's all anyone could talk about and speculation was running wild. But this media attention also provides police with a major break in the case in the form of a new eyewitness. A woman came forward and said, I was at the gas station the night

before the car was found. I was pumping gas and over by the car wash, I saw two suspicious black males and they were walking back and forth from a parked car to the wood line, back and forth, back and forth. And they had gloves on. And it was so suspicious that I went into the store and paid for my gas. And she told the clerk that there's two men by the car wash. Just be careful. She thought that they were going to rob the store. So what she did is she drove very slowly on her way out and she got a good look at these two guys and she jotted down the license plate of that car. So when she wakes up and sees in the paper there's this murder right there at the gas station she was at the night before, she's like,

oh my god, I wonder if the two guys and the car had anything to do with this murder. Well, she gives this information to the police after the murder. She gives them the license plate and the license plate to that car was registered to Reginald Reed's mother. So she saw two men on the license plate, and the license plate to that car was registered to Reginald Reed's mother. So she saw two men on the night of the murder in Reginald's mother's car in front of the same abandoned car wash where Salonia's body was found. The answer to the who is almost starting to appear obvious. So they start looking at who Reginald associates with, and they found he has a friend named Jimmy Ray Barnes. And they show this woman lineups with Reginald and Jimmy Ray Barnes, and she identifies them as the men in the car going back and forth between the car and the

wood line where her body was found. So Scott, you have these identifications, plus with the various pieces of evidence that we've talked about. You know, for an investigator, what would typically happen next? I mean, personally, I'm not ready. I need a little bit more than just this one statement and a potential defense wound on your person of interest. So who was in his circle of friends? Who would be willing to break ranks with Reginald and be that chink in the armor, so to speak? Now, it may not pan out, but that is a place that I'd be starting.

So at that point, the police have all his alibis shot down. They have a woman who puts him on the scene with his friend, and they have all this life insurance stuff. But this is where the case takes a really strange turn. And to this day, detectives and the prosecutors that were involved in the original investigation cannot fully explain what happened. Well, I guess as weeks and months kind of went on, that's what the police had. Now, this is where there's a part of the story that I don't know the answer to. And I guess we'll never get it because what I was told by the chief of police of Hammond at the time, he presented the case to the district attorney at the time.

For whatever reason, the district attorney in 1987 did not think that would prove Reginald's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Or maybe he saw something in the police work that he feared could jeopardize the prosecution or even potentially get any resulting conviction thrown out. Or maybe it had nothing to do with any of these things at all. We'll never know. He died maybe eight or ten years ago before I moved over here. So I can't ask him why he decided not to present it to the grand jury, why he decided not to seek an indictment. So I do think we need to talk about the elephant in the room here, about why perhaps in this time, in the 80s,

this case was never brought to a jury to make a decision on Reginald Reed's guilt or innocence. I mean, what was your first thoughts when you went through that? I think it's that clearly something went wrong. So if you ask the police, they blame the then DA. I've talked to some of the old assistant DAs from them, and they don't really have an answer either. They, of course, all knew about it. It was the biggest case in the office. They all talked about it. I guess they kind of blamed the police.

So I think there was some finger pointing going on as to why nothing happened with it then. Meanwhile, the prime suspect in Salonia's homicide remained free, and her case remained unsolved. Everybody in town said he did it. Everybody in town felt like they knew he did it. Reginald stayed in town and just kind of embraced the gossip. But at some point in the mid-90s, I was told that he even ran for mayor of Hammond.

They started calling Reginald the O.J. Simpson of Hammond. It's almost as if he embraced that and just wore it like a badge. I'm Reginald Reed. What are you going to do about it? Y'all didn't do anything about it in 1987. Now it's 1991. Now it's 1996. Now it's 2004.

And if you look at it from his perspective, he's probably right. I mean, every year goes by. It's another year. He's not getting indicted for murdering his wife. You know, Anastika, in a small town like this, where the victim and the main suspect obviously are known by so many people, everyone likely has an opinion. The family of Salonia and of Reginald Reed still live in that town. Probably the question comes up is, who do you trust? Whose side are you on? It's got to be

very difficult for the victim's family to really walk in within the same steps as Reginald continued to do at that very moment, not knowing whether he was completely innocent or if he was the person who took Salonia's life. the larger community, that if it seemed at least from their perspective that they knew who did it, because that certainly was the talk of the town, and I'm sure various pieces of evidence filtered through, well, then it's also people just throwing their hands up, you know? And we all can talk about that depending on where you live and the time, that there are things that happen that there's sometimes that don't instill confidence, right, and trust in our system, which is, as we all know, like one of those things that truly pains me. Because while I think there are problems, I think that now sets apart so many men and women that do work very hard in the right way. But it's just, it's so far reaching. Like you said, Scott, whether it is the family themselves to the community at large, just really problematic overall. I was told by one of the sisters that their father, I don't think,

was ever able to really move on with his life after Salonia was murdered. I think it just kind of crushed him and ruined him. And I think if you talk to them, I think there was a point in time where their dad probably wanted to seek justice for himself. Cold cases frustrate families. And I'm sure Salonia Reed's family was going just through that. As sad as it sounds, I think it then just is as simple as a day became a week, a week became a month, a month became a year, 10 years go by, and nothing really happened

with it until Louisiana State Police formed kind of a task force and they assigned trooper, now Lieutenant Barry Ward, to the case in 2012, and he breathed and brought new life back into the case. For decades, the family of Salonia Smith-Reed had suffered through not only the tragic loss of someone they loved, but also this frustration and pain of seeing her murder go unsolved and her killer unpunished. She does have some surviving siblings or sisters who have always, always, always

championed her cause. They always wanted justice for Slonia. And it is a testament to their love and dedication that this case was reopened in 2012, 25 years after the murder. Hammond Police Department, I think, was kind of doing an inventory of some cold cases that they had. They do a lot of great things, but they're limited on their resources. So they reached out to the Louisiana State Police and said, hey, can we have a detective come down to look at a couple cases? So Lieutenant Barry Ward gets the case from State Police. And kind of the first thing he did in 2012 was he made kind of a master list of a who's who, who was around then, who was still alive 25 years later, who is still in the area, who do I need to find, who can I re-interview? Luckily, most of the people and all of the major players anyway, were still around.

But even more importantly, he had some new technology at his disposal. So once he did that, he took all the physical evidence, the items that were recovered from the car, the purse, her clothing, the umbrella, the cigarette butt. He took all of that evidence that was in the cold case file and he submitted it to the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab for DNA testing. So, Scott, let's just talk about the difference in what they had to work with back when this homicide occurred in 1987. DNA profiling was in its infancy in the 80s. In fact, the first time DNA evidence was ever presented in a courtroom was in 1987 in Orlando, Florida, for a sexual assault case. And then, of course, it would be several years later that digital forensics would improve to the point where it could be useful, especially when you're developing timelines.

And we talk about that all the time of suspects through surveillance and cell phone data searches. We also have to mention the fact that, you know, this is in 87 and the preservation of evidence that was collected from the victim in this case could really pay dividends. Now, here we are 25 years later. So science does do amazing things. And here was an opportunity in Salonia's case. And it's not just the initial collection. It's preserving it for all those years. I cannot even tell you all like how many times we have these really old cases and we're going back to the files and it's like, okay, great. We're starting to see things. But does that evidence even exist anymore? You know, we had this huge warehouse that used to keep a lot of property in New York City. And there was a flood and we literally lost just, I mean, thousands of pieces of evidence or just the passage of time that things get mismanaged and moved. So the fact that they still had it, well, that to me was a definite,

like worthy of a high five right there. So he used state police's new technology and ran this evidence. And when he ran the cigarette butt, he was able to get a DNA hit for a man named Billy Ray Barnes. Now, if you remember, I told you that one of the people that was identified on scene was Jimmy Ray Barnes. Jimmy has a twin brother named Billy, and Billy's DNA was in the Louisiana CODIS database. You know, as a reminder, CODIS stands for Combined DNA Index System, and it is a nationwide database created in 1998 that the DNA profiles of anyone that has been convicted of a scenes and you have the DNA of various other people and all of this together, you know, now law enforcement can upload their DNA samples that are collected from their crime scene and see if that system can match the evidence to someone that is within that system. And that's exactly what happened here.

Billy Ray Barnes, the twin brother of Jimmy Ray, was in this database and his DNA hits on this cigarette butt. And they weren't just twins. They were identical twins, which means they have almost identical DNA profiles.

Of course, that's like everybody's worst nightmare as an attorney, right? You're like, oh, there's this DNA. It could be one of two people. So the DNA pulled from a cigarette butt at the murder scene matches two men. But only one of the men could be placed in Hammond, Louisiana, back on August 23rd, 1987. Lieutenant Barry Ward was able to say, all right, well, Billy Ray Barnes has this twin brother, Jimmy Ray,

who was identified as a friend of Reginald and on scene that night. And now I have his DNA inside the car. So from there, the next step was to find where Jimmy Ray Barnes is in 2012. Jimmy Ray Barnes had been interviewed by police back in 1987 after the eyewitness identified him as one of the two men seen near the crime scene on the night of Salonia's murder. They went and talked to him and he basically said, yeah, I know Salonia, I know Reginald. I would do some handyman work at their house and Reginald would pay me. He said Salonia was a very nice lady to him

and said he had nothing to do with the murder and had no idea why he would be identified. But when pressed in interviews, he just wouldn't say anything and he gave very little information. But armed with a DNA match to the cigarette butt found at the crime scene, detectives believe they now had a lot more leverage to hopefully get the truth from Jimmy Ray. So now it's 2012 and Lieutenant Ward says he needed to find Jimmy Ray Barnes. 25 years had passed and Jimmy Barnes was no longer living in the area. so barry uses some i guess state and federal databases and he finds out that jimmy ray barns

is on probation outside of atlanta georgia so he finds jimmy ray's probation or parole officer and sets up an interview with him and says hey look i'm with state police i'm here to talk to you about the murder of solonia reed 25 years later What do you remember about it? As you can expect, Jimmy Ray was very skeptical at first. You know, he gets out of nowhere 25 years later, a guy in a suit shows up and says, I want to talk to you about a murder in Louisiana. He didn't want to say much. But what he did say, Detective Ward,

was the thing that really sent this investigation into the next gear. Because he said, yes, I know her. I know what happened to her. And he said that on the days before she was killed, Reginald Reed came up to him and solicited him for $50,000 to help kill and dispose of his wife's body.

He said, I didn't take you up on that offer, but Reginald told me he wanted to kill his wife, that she wanted a divorce, and he wasn't going to have it, and that he was going to get insurance money. And if you help me kill my wife and get rid of her body, I'll give you $50,000. And that $50,000 would come from the $500,000 of insurance money Reed expected to receive after the death of his wife. But Jimmy Ray denied that he had actually gone through with it.

He gave recorded interviews and he was very steadfast in that and he never shied away from it and said, hey, you can have my DNA. I'll tell you everything I need to know. I can identify whoever you need me to identify. I didn't kill her, but Reginald solicited me for help to do so. So detectives get Jimmy Ray in an interview room and lay out all of the evidence they have against him. The eyewitnesses that they ID'd at the scene, his DNA on a cigarette butt in Salonia's car. But Jimmy Ray continues to deny his involvement. He initially denied being at the gas station altogether.

He was confronted with a cigarette butt. His explanation for his cigarette being there was that he was paid by Salonia to wash her car, and that's why his cigarette was in the car. And the reason he didn't come forward before, according to him, he was scared for his life. He told police that after Salonia was killed, that there were several attempts made on his life, where Jimmy Ray said that someone tried to kill him on three separate occasions, the last of which he still bears the scar to this day. Jimmy Ray Barnes to this day has a literal hole

in the back of his neck where he says he was sitting outside of one of our roads fishing and a car pulled up and he said he looked and he said it was Reginald and Reginald shot him in the back of the neck. He told us that he got patched up at a hospital and this is in 1987 or 1988 and he told his mama that Reginald Reed was trying to kill him

and on that day he left Louisiana and went to Atlanta and remained there out of fear of Reggie and that's where he stayed until police found him in 2012. So 25 years after Salonia's murder, investigators again present their case to the Chantabahoa Parish DA. And again, the decision is made not to prosecute. In fact, it would take another 10 years before there's a new DA and a new prosecutor in town, Taylor Anthony. And this time around, they are determined to bring Salonia's killer to justice. So once I took the file home and looked at it, immediately to me,

I knew that Jimmy Ray Barnes had more to the story. For him to be solicited $50,000 to help kill the wife and to be shot in back of the neck in Felita, Georgia, I just felt that Jimmy Ray Barnes knew more than what he was telling us. I did not feel that he killed Salonia, but I do think that he knows what happened and maybe helped move the body. So Taylor, along with the investigator, they head back to Atlanta to track down Jimmy Ray Barnes, who has no fixed address, but is rumored to be living in a camper on someone's property just outside town. And I'll never forget it until my last day on earth. We got to this property and we're walking up to this little pop-up camper. Someone opens

the door and it's Jimmy Ray Barnes. He's standing there shirtless, buttoning up his pants. And he looked at Barry and I, and he said something like, I reckon you boys are from Louisiana. He said, let me get my shirt on. I will talk to y'all. So at this point, investigators still don't know just how involved Jimmy Ray was in Saloni's murder. Did he help kill her? Did he help move her body? Or was he telling the truth and was just solicited by Reginald Reed to help, but didn't want to go through with it? And if true, why would Reed look to Jimmy Ray Barnes as a partner for help?

Now, Jimmy Ray Barnes, he's born and raised in South Louisiana. He's an African-American man with a seventh grade education. He can barely read, barely write. He's abused drugs pretty much his entire life. The best way I could describe Jim Ray Barnes to someone is that if you wanted to commit a murder and you needed a fall guy, Jim Ray Barnes is the guy you want with you because he has no money, no family, no education. He's the perfect fall guy. And I believe that's why Reginald got him involved. And now with an eyewitness and DNA placing him

at the scene of the crime, things are not looking good for Barnes. But Taylor had a hunch that he is not the mastermind behind this murder. So he approaches Jim Ray Barnes with one of the most powerful weapons a prosecutor can wield. Basically, I gave Jim Ray Barnes immunity signed by my DA and our attorney general. And it basically was an immunity letter saying, hey, you tell me everything you know, and I cannot use it against you. You will be absolved of any criminal liability, but you just have to cooperate and answer truthfully. I gave him basically the golden ticket to get out of jail. You know, we have talked about this before.

People who are in some shape or form involved in a homicide getting an immunity deal, we liken it to shaking hands with the devil. But there are certain reasons why prosecutors extend those opportunities. And these immunity deals, which we most often called cooperation deals, are just that. It is in exchange for a reduced plea or sentence. It is because we, in exchange, get their hopefully truthful testimony and their cooperation. When I say hopefully, because if we find out that anything they're not saying is true, well, then all bets are off and they have to agree to be in it with us till the end, which means also in court. Because sometimes you're missing that piece. In so many

cases, there is nothing, no matter how many pieces of evidence you have, you're never really going to get the full story or the substantial missing pieces without someone on the inside. So definitely not palatable, certainly for prosecutors in many of these cases, most often sometimes needed or that's why they're done. I think the phrase I was once told is that you have to give a deal to a demon to get to the devil. You never feel good about it, but sometimes you just have to give this guy that I know was involved in some way. I have to get him on board to cooperate. And as we've both seen, you know, immunity deals don't always work out as planned. And Jimmy Ray Barnes was proving to be a harder nut to crack than anyone had expected. He was very skeptical and he did not want to really talk to me too much,

and he did not believe that my letter of immunity was real. He had a friend there with him that said, no, Jimmy, this isn't real. You don't need to be scared of these guys. They're not coming after you. They just want to know the truth, what you know. But he did not want to hear it. He declined my offer of immunity, and he basically said,

I won't use his language out of respect for your program, but he basically said, F you, if you think you can indict me for murder, then do it. And I said, that was not the right thing to say, Mr. Barnes. And we went back to the vehicle. And as we're getting in the truck, he pulled me aside. He told Barry and I, he said, I want you boys to know that I'm the key to everything in this case. And I said, okay. And we got back in the truck, and we came home to Louisiana, and I convened a grand jury and presented all the evidence we had,

the DNA, the statements, the identifications. And the grand jury indicted Reginald Reed and Jimmie Ray Barnes for the murder of Salonia Reed. After 35 years, two people were now finally charged with Salonia's murder. They were indicted on one count of second-degree murder. In Louisiana, second-degree murder is the killing of a human being when you have the specific intent to kill. And they were indicted for conspiracy to commit murder.

Incredibly, Reginald Reed was still living in the same home that he shared with the woman he was accused of murdering. So police knew exactly where to find him. And he didn't seem surprised when police showed up at his door to arrest him. I would like to think that he probably knew it was coming. Jimmy Ray Barnes was arrested by local police in Georgia. And Louisiana State Police sent a plane to Atlanta and picked him up and he was flown and extradited back home. And he's probably second guessing his decision to turn down that cooperation deal. But then he seemed to have a change of heart.

I get a call from Jimmy Ray's attorney and he said, Jimmy Ray's ready to talk to you. Barry and I go talk to him again. And that's when Jimmy Ray gives us a little more of the story. And he says, look, here's what happened. He says, I maintain I did not kill her. He says, Reginald called me and had been planning to murder his wife and offered $50,000 for me to help him and help dispose of the body and help cover up the crime. He said, Reginald's instructions were to me that I need you to go get my mother's car. I will call you when the time is right at night and I need you to come pick me up from the car wash. Jamie Ray Barnes says, when I got to the car wash, Salonia's vehicle was there. Reginald got out of the driver's seat.

He had gloves on. He got some stuff out of the trunk. He swapped vehicles into the mother's car that I delivered him. Salonia's body was already in the passenger seat. She was dead. Her face had been bashed in. He says, Reginald got in the seat and told me to drive and get out of there.

And he says, I drove Reginald away from the scene. So it's all starting to line up at this point. And, you know, Scott, it's really coming back to that conversation we were having earlier about, you know, it's still such a wonder how this case was not solved long before it was. And, you know, it's still such a wonder how this case was not solved long before it was. And, you know, it really goes to, though, that hindsight, Monday morning quarterbacking, whatever question marks we all have, who knows whether it was the time

that you spoke of or something specific about the case. It definitely seems like it fell through the cracks for too long. Some prosecutors, some police chiefs are more conservative than others. You know, there's a saying that wanting the evidence to be served up in a very large plate is not always possible. And there are some people who do take chances. There are some people who are more forward leaning in their prosecution stance. So, again, you said it right. No Monday morning quarterbacking, but it's what happened here.

If this murder happened today, Reginald Reed would be arrested tomorrow because he did not do a good job of covering his tracks. He did not make a good alibi. He had defensive wounds. There was eyewitnesses that put him on scene. You know, there's cigarette DNA. Again, I don't want to make it sound so simple,

but I guess in 1987, they just did things a little differently than they do now. But if this murder happened today, there's no doubt in my mind, by the weekend, he'd be in jail. So now it's Taylor's job to convince a jury about what occurred 35 years ago, which even with an abundance of evidence, is never easy. And I just stood in front of this jury and just saying, you know, it's been 35 years, and this is the last thing that anyone will hear about it, and I'm going to tell you everything you want to hear. And then it's the waiting game while the jury deliberates.

Excruciating because there's no such thing as just a slam dunk. Those are 12 people from all walks of life and different upbringings. As Taylor said, it only takes one to throw a wrench into the entire thing. These men and women of the jury with their different backgrounds, their different perspectives, in the end, in this case, based on the evidence presented, justice prevailed. The jury found Reginald Reed guilty of second-degree murder. Reginald had zero reaction. I think he knew that his time had come.

He was remanded to the Department of Corrections. And again, I think he knew it was coming. I think he was able to enjoy 35 years on the streets. He was able to enjoy most of his adult life without consequence. And there's also someone we haven't spoke about, was their son. He was just five when his mother was killed and 40 when he watched his father be convicted of her murder. His whole life, he had no idea that his dad was a suspect.

The trial last year was very emotional for him. You know, he had to see his father go to jail for killing his mother. Whenever his whole life, he was to see his father go to jail for killing his mother. Whenever his whole life, he was told that someone was already in jail for killing her. And adding insult to injury was that insurance policy that Reed had purchased in case of his wife's death, a death that we now know was already being planned. The attorneys for State Farm Recredential. Ultimately, they agreed to a structured settlement and they made a payout to the son, Reginald Jr. And I talked to the attorney who

testified in our trial for State Farm at the time, who said, really, the only reason State Farm stopped fighting it was because the money was going to the child and not Reginald. And once they decided to give the money to the child, they felt better about it and they put it in a trust for the child. Now, again, I'm skipping forward a little bit, but we later learned that the child, upon his 18th birthday, was forced by his dad to go sign some documents at the bank and he never saw a penny of that money. And in fact, the son had no idea that his mother had left him over a half a million dollars. He never saw a penny of it. Reginald Reed received a mandatory life sentence. And in Louisiana, life means life. There's no parole, no probation.

So outside of a pardon from the governor, which is extremely rare, Reed will be spending the rest of his life in a Louisiana state prison. It's a just and fitting end to a long and painful case, but even Taylor recognizes that the conviction is still bittersweet. I tell people a lot of times in criminal court, there is no winner. Whether we get in a conviction or an acquittal, nobody really wins. Because think of your typical homicide trial. Even if you convict the killer,

and a jury returns a verdict, and he's convicted, and he goes to jail, and he spends the remainder of his life in jail, that defendant, that murderer still leaves behind maybe a wife, kids, mother, father, all kind of people in his life who did not ask for him to go to jail. And he's let them down, so they lose. Then on the other side of the courtroom, when we represent, you know, we have victims' families. And even though we've gotten this conviction, it's never going to bring that person back to them. And hopefully my job can give them some sort of closure.

But at the end of the day, no one ever wins in that courtroom. There were two facts about this case that just leave me with more questions. Taylor believes that Salonia was killed in her home, and for whatever reason, police did have a warrant back in 1987 to search that home. It was signed by a judge, but police waited three days to execute it. And by the time they did, it was clear that the home had been cleaned up.

The smell of bleach was wafting through the air. The carpet had vacuum lines in one specific section in the home. And they also found a necklace with a broken clasp on the floor. These are the signs of a crime and a cleanup. But none of it was used in furtherance of an investigation and prosecution for decades. And this was the very house the defendant was still living in when he was arrested for his wife's murder. And then the story of Salonia's son first finding out about the fact that his father was a suspect in his mother's death. Because since he was a child, he was told that the man

had been arrested and was already in jail for the murder. And that's what he grew a child, he was told that the man had been arrested and was already in jail for the murder. And that's what he grew up believing, only to learn that his father was then suspected and then eventually connected and convicted. So there are truly two distinct tragedies here. The one about that little boy who's now a man, who grew up without his mom, and with this father he had no idea about the sadism he was capable of. The inner turmoil he has had to face after learning 35 years later what his father did to his mom

is yet another piece to this brutal story. We hope he has had support to process those facts and to help heal. And as for Salonia, she died at the hands of a vicious man who viewed her as nothing more than his property to abuse and discard as he chose. But Salonia, we will remember you as a caring, compassionate person that all who knew you speak of, and of a woman who loved her family, her son, very much. And even as she was abused, she cared for her little boy with kindness and with love.

Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Forseti Media. Ashley Flowers is executive producer. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?