True Crime Campfire - Hey Jealousy: The Murder of Latrese Curtis

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

In geometry, the triangle is the strongest shape there is—any weight you put on one gets shared out equally among the three sides. A perfect 3-way harmony. But in romance, for most of us anyway, three’s a crowd. Resentments start to smolder. Secrets start to slip. Things can get dangerous. Especially when everyone involved is living a double life they want desperately to protect. Join us for a true crime story where nobody is exactly who they seem to be. Sources:Court papers: https://casetext.com/case/state-v-reaves-41ShadowProof, Pam Spaulding: https://shadowproof.com/2009/10/04/durham-jealous-antigay-pastors-closet-door-kicked-open-during-murder-trial/WRAL coverage: https://www.wral.com/news/local/story/6106346/TV One's "Fatal Attraction," episode "A Lethal Love Affair"Investigation Discovery's "Where Murder Lies," episode "Obstacle to Affection"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. In geometry, the triangle is the strongest shape there is. Any weight you put on one gets shared out equally among the three sides. A perfect three-way harmony. But in romance, for most of us, anyway, three's a crowd, resentments start to smolder, secrets start to slip. Things can get dangerous, especially when everyone involved is living a double life they want to desperately protect. This is Hay Jealousy, the murder of Latrice Curtis. So, campers, for this one, we're in Raleigh, North Carolina, January 30th, 2008. It was just after 2 o'clock in the morning when Kimberly Parker-Dashers' phone startled her awake. She squinted at her phone.

The caller ID said it was her friend Latrice Curtis. It's weird. Latrice didn't usually call her up in the middle of the night. I'm sure it must have made Kimberly's stomach lurch a little. I mean, usually a 2 a.m. phone call means something bad happened. But she didn't hear anything much when she answered. just some strange noises, rustling movement, the sound of cars passing by, and what sounded like footsteps, walking on gravel. Later, Kimberly told investigation discovery, something inside me just told me to just remain on the phone. I was saying, Latrice, Latrice. But Latrice didn't say

anything back. So eventually, Kimberly hung up and tried to call her back, but there was no answer. So a butt dial, maybe? But something felt off. If she'd known Latrice's husband's cell number, she'd have called him, but she didn't, so she drifted back into an uneasy sleep. Hours later, morning rush hour was just gearing up on Highway 540, when a man on his way to work noticed something by the side of the road, and immediately hoped to God it wasn't what he thought it was. But when he pulled over to take a closer look, his heart sank. It was the body of a woman, sprawled out on the shoulder of the highway, covered in blood. The driver called 911.

The woman had been stabbed to death, and it was a brutal attack. And people say that a lot in these cases, because murder is always brutal, really. But when we say brutal in this case, we mean brutal, vicious. This woman had been stabbed more than 40 times. She was a black woman, but she'd lost so much blood that her skin was pale. Her killer had stabbed her in the face, the neck, the neck, shoulders and chest. The knife had severed her jugular vein and her carotid artery. It cut her vocal cords. And she'd fought back, though the pattern of defensive wounds was kind of strange.

She'd broken her fingernails, but there weren't a lot of wounds on her hands. The medical examiner would later theorize that the killer must have pinned her arms down during the attack. It was immediately clear to investigators that this was a murder driven by rage. It certainly wasn't robbery. The victim was still wearing her jewelry. No, this killer had wanted her totally obliterated, wiped off the face of the earth. And when that happens, when you see overkill to this degree, and especially when you see a lot of wounds to the face, it usually means the victim knew the killer pretty well. Identifying the victim wouldn't be too difficult in this case, because her car was parked just a little ways down the highway from where the body was. A white Nissan Centra with blood all

over the front seat. Looked like the victim had been killed there, then dumped by the side of the road. When the police ran the license plate number on the centra, it came back as belonging to a 21-year-old college student named Latrice Curtis. Latrice had been reported missing by her husband Darren just a short while before her body was discovered, and this is so awful. While the investigators were getting started at the scene, Darren Curtis actually drove by the crime scene. He was worried about Latrice he'd already called 911 to report her missing and now he's driving down 540 and sees a crime scene investigation team standing around something covered in a blue tarp and then less than a mile further down the road he sees his wife's car like can you freaking imagine god so poor Darren he pulled over of course and ran up to the first officer he saw and got the worst news of his life that his wife was under that tarp they'd only been married for nine months Darren said he'd talked to Latrice on the phone the night before.

She said she was on her way home from school, she'd gotten out late, and she was planning on stopping for something to eat on the way back to the apartment. At some point, Darren fell asleep, and when he woke up and she still wasn't there, he figured, okay, you know, she must have decided to stay the night at her family's house instead, because they were closer. But he still couldn't reach her. Her phone just kept going to voicemail, and that's when he started to worry and called 911. one, but he couldn't have expected a scene like this.

Latrice grew up the only girl in a house full of brothers, and she was a daddy's girl to the core. Her dad Sherman loved to take her hunting and fishing, and he taught her how to play basketball. As she got older, she was less interested in fishing and basketball and more interested in hair and makeup, but whatever she was into at any particular time, Latrice was a bright light. You can see it in pictures of her. She just glowed. Her friend Kimberly says she didn't. have a shallow, materialistic bone in her body, and she was the kind of friend who made everybody feel important and cared for. She was a good listener, which is a rare and precious gift. You could

go to her with her problems, and she'd be there. She wasn't the type to only stick around when times were good. So, unsurprisingly, Latrice was popular at school, and boys lined up to ask her out. But she was a great student, too, and not easy to distract. She was ambitious with big plans for her future, and after she graduated high school, she started college with an accounting major. Her dad told investigation discovery that he cried like a baby the day he dropped her off at the dorm. Yeah, my dad did too, although in hindsight that could have been about the tuition. No, I mean, he was sad to see his baby leave home, you know, and I was only 17. I started really young, so I'm sure it's hard for parents. Yeah, and it wasn't just her dad. Latrice cried too. As much fun as

that brand new freedom is at that age, it's also a little sad to let go of your parents. Even when everything they've said and done over the past few years has made you literally die of humiliation. It was at the university where she met Darren Curtis. He was a former National Guardsman studying accounting too, and they hit it off fast. Being the one girl and a family full of boys, Latrice's brothers were protective of her. So when she first told them about Darren, they were side-eye and the poor guy, something fierce. But it didn't take long for them to realize that Darren really cared about Latrice, and they ended up liking him a lot. Her friends liked him, too. He was a little shy before you got to know him, a thoughtful

guy, and he was respectful, both to Latrice and to them. They felt like she was safe with him, and about a year into the relationship, Latrice and Darren got married. They did it kind of non-traditionally, eloped and didn't really tell anybody about it beforehand. Latrice's friend Kimberly figured maybe they just didn't know how their families were to react since they were both still so young and in school. They probably just didn't want to have to go through the whole process of convincing everybody and explaining themselves. But they seemed happy. They got a little apartment together in Raleigh and Latrice was still taking classes at North Carolina Central University. Everything seemed good. Now this. Devastation. Everybody was shell-shocked.

Kimberly thought back to that weird phone call the night before. Had Latrice called her before the murder, or maybe right after? It was a haunting thought that she might have used the last of her strength to dial the number, then lay dying, as Kimberly called out. Latrice? Latrice!

Oh, God. Kimberly wished to the depths of her soul that she'd known what was happening, but all she really heard was the sound of cars wishing past and some rustling noises. She couldn't have known. Latrice's dad called University Security at NCCU when he couldn't get hold of her all morning,

and his heart dropped when they told him, you need to call the Wake County Sheriff's Department. He and his wife drove there in total silence. Their lives would never be the same again. The bottom had fallen out of their world. Darren Curtis, of course, was the first one detectives wanted to talk to, and he sat down for an interview right away. Knowing how LaTrice had fought for her life,

CSIs took pictures of his hands, arms, and chest, to see if he had any injuries. He didn't. He gave up his DNA and fingerprints with no face. fuss. To the investigators, the guy seemed totally heartbroken, exactly as you'd expect a husband to be. Darren said he and Latrice weren't having any marital troubles or anything. They were happy. Hadn't really been married that long. Less than a year. Still newlyweds. Darren's affect wasn't throwing up any red flags, and the officers who were talking to friends and neighbors, asking about

their marriage, were getting the same story again and again. Normal, happy couple. No loud fights, nothing to cause anybody concern. Darren didn't have an alibi. He said he'd been home all night, but he immediately gave them permission to search his apartment, and there was nothing overtly suspicious. So after a long interview, the detectives cut Darren loose,

told him not to leave town while their investigation was unfolding. They couldn't rule him out yet, but there was nothing to rule him in. The autopsy results came in not long after this, and they produced something kind of startling. At the time of her murder, Latrice had a condom,

stuck inside her. And as you might expect, it was full of DNA. Now, the startling part about this was that Darren hadn't seen his wife the night before. He'd talked to her on the phone, but he hadn't spent the night with her, and without being too gross here, it was pretty clear that the condom hadn't been in there long. The genetic material inside it seemed fresh. So had Latrice been sexually assaulted at the time of her murder? The medical examiner didn't think so. The murder was so violent, so vicious. If she'd been assaulted in a sexual way, you'd expect to see a similar level of brutality there, but there was nothing, no bruising or injuries to her genital area or anything like that. So what could they make of this? Well, one of the first things they checked on to try and verify

part of Darren's alibi was the Curtis's phone records. They immediately found the 10 p.m. phone call from Latrice to Darren, the one he'd told them about, where she said she was running late, getting home from school, planning to stop for food on the way. But they also found some of the something else intriguing. A lot of calls from Latrice's phone to the same number over and over again, including multiple calls on the night of the murder. That number belonged to a young guy named Stephen Randolph. Stephen Randolph was sort of your stereotypical Chad at NCCU, super popular and charming and a star on the basketball team. Stephen had NBA dreams and he was pretty confident he was going to be drafted soon, making millions and going down in sports history.

Stephen initially seemed reluctant to come into the police station for an interview, but his landlord slash roommate was a preacher and kind of a leader in the community, and he kind of leaned on Stephen a little bit and talked him into it. Drove him down to the station, walked him in, and Stephen sat down with detectives. He said he knew Latrice from school. They had a few classes together. They'd worked together on an assignment or two. She'd been over to his place like once.

They were just friends. Yeah. Of course, once the... the detectives mentioned the condom found inside Latrice's body, the DNA evidence inside it, just waiting for processing at the lab, and the phone records chock full of his number, Stephen caved. Okay, okay, he said we were having an affair. This would come as a surprise to almost everybody. Darren had no idea Latrice was seeing another guy, and even her friends only knew Stephen as a friend and study buddy. Apparently she'd been keeping a pretty big secret.

it. Stephen admitted he'd been with Latrice the night of the murder. She came over after class, he said, we had sex, and yeah, the condom got stuck. We were both freaked out about it. We tried for like half an hour to get it out, but we couldn't. And finally, Latrice said she'd probably have better luck in her own bathroom at home, so she left. She called him a couple times after that, Stephen said, while she was driving back to Raleigh. She was flipping out about the condom, worried she might get pregnant. The detective's ears pricked up at this. We've shared the statistic found the show before, and it's still true. The number one cause of death and pregnant women is homicide, specifically homicide by the baby's father. Obviously, the investigators knew this

as well as anybody, and they also knew that Stephen Randolph was right on the cusp of a possible NBA career. An unplanned pregnancy could be a major wrench in those plans. So what did Stephen do after Latrice left his place that night? I want to read my girlfriend's house, he told them. Wait, what? Excuse me? Your girlfriend's house. Yeah. Turns out, Latrice wasn't the only one keeping secrets. Stephen was a bit of a player. He had another girlfriend, a woman named Velma Newton. Stephen said he'd spent the rest of the night at her house, hanging out with her and some mutual friends. Huh. This wasn't the only thing that made the investigators nervous about Stephen Randolph. They'd been chatting with Robert Reeves,

Stephen's roommate slash landlord, the guy who drove him to the station for his interview. And Reeves happened to mention something that made the hairs on the back of their neck stand up. Stephen was interested in knives. He had a whole collection of knives and swords back at the house. None of this proved anything, of course, but it raised everybody's eyebrows, and it was enough to get a warrant, first for Stephen's DNA to check against the sample and the condom, and some DNA evidence they'd found in Latrice's car, and then for his car and room. The DNA, obviously, would take some time to process.

The car in the house, they could search right away. But they didn't find anything much. The knives and swords were there, but there was no obvious blood on any of them. I mean, it wasn't a huge surprise in a way. Latrice had most likely been killed in her own car. So unless Stephen was dumb enough to bring the murder weapon back home with him and put it back in its case, yeah. Still, it was frustrating.

I mean, it wouldn't be the first time a killer would do something so boneheaded. We see a lot, don't we? So often. That knife is super important to keep. But sometimes they're smart enough to get rid of it for sure. So they went over to talk to the girlfriend, Velma Newton. She was like, yeah, yeah, Stephen was here that night, from 10 until about 1 a.m. This was interesting because the medical examiner had put Latrice's time of death between

one and two in the morning, right on the edge. So our boy didn't have the greatest alibi. But Velma insisted Stephen wouldn't her to fly. She was clearly smitten with a guy. Well, what about Velma herself? Did she have anything to do with Latrice Curtis? his murder? Velma denied it. But there was something weird going on in the weeks leading up to the murder, she said. Velma had been getting weird phone calls, threatening. The caller, whoever it was,

was not happy about Stephen and Velma's relationship. It was stuff like Stephen better quit doing what he's doing or somebody's going to get hurt, stuff like that. This guy wanted her and Stephen to break up ASAP. It was weird. She couldn't imagine who the hell it would be, especially since she wasn't sure it was the same caller every time. It might have actually been a couple different male voices. And then it got scarier. The calls were less vague and more specific, stuff like, I'm going to break his legs and end his basketball career. And then Stevens started getting the same kind of calls too. I hope you have a gun, the caller told him. And then one night, he went outside to find the tires slashed on his car. A couple weeks later, Velma's tires got slashed too. I don't know. I don't

know if any of y'all have ever had your tires slashed but my asshole ex slashed mine after i finally dumped him smashed my back windshield too and it's an incredibly creepy feeling like just really violating it makes you feel totally exposed like somebody's turn in this big malevolent spotlight on you and it is not a nice feeling So somebody was sticking his or their noses in Stephen Randolph's business. Who? Why? The detectives were intrigued. Whoever was allegedly harassing Stephen and his girlfriend, Velma, could they also have a grudge against Latrice. None of the calls seemed to have mentioned her by name, but they had to

wonder. Could it be Latrice's husband, Darren? This case was starting to get seriously weird. And then the investigators caught an unexpected break. They got a call from a state trooper. His name was Trooper Cooper, Hand to God. I love that so much. Trooper Cooper. Trooper Cooper had been on patrol on Highway 540 on the night of the murder, and at about 115 in the morning. He was He'd happened to drive by a couple of cars parked on the side of the road. Now, one was a minivan. It had its hazard lights blinking, the windshield wipers on, the windows cracked a little bit, and the other was a white Nissan Centra.

It was a strange scene, a little bit eerie even. Late at night, two empty cars just sitting by the side of the road. It's the kind of thing a state trooper is going to stop and investigate. But just as he was starting to do that, Trooper got called away on more urgent business, so he had to jet, but he did have time to jot down the license plate numbers on both cars. The next morning, when he saw the murder on the news, he realized what he must have seen the night before, and he ran the license numbers,

and lo and behold, that white centra came back as belonging to the victim, Latrice Curtis. And the minivan? The minivan was registered to none other than Robert Reeves. Remember? Stephen Randolph's landlord-slash-roomate, the guy who drove him to his police interview, day after the murder. So what the hell was Robert Reeves's car doing parked right behind

Latrice's on the night she was stabbed to death? What was this guy's story? So Reeves was a 43-year-old local minister and motivational speaker. Everybody called him the bishop, and he was super well-liked, well-respected in the Durham community. Did he have any connection to Latrice Curtis? As far as detectives could tell, none whatsoever. But he did rent out a room to her secret lover. And when they reached out to Bishop Reeves about the car, he came into the station, agreed easily to giving them his fingerprints and DNA and sat down for an interview. Yeah, he owned that minivan, he told him. Stephen's been borrowing it lately. His car had a couple flat tires and the kid didn't have money to fix him, so I told him, yeah, he could use the minivan. Okay. So Stephen Randolph is the one

who's been driving that car lately. Yeah, Bishop said, well, that's strike two for Stephen Randolph. The detectives were curious to see what else the bishop might know about his young tenant. Did Stephen ever confide in you about his relationship with Miss Curtis, they wanted to know? Yeah, the bishop said it was getting pretty strained, I think. The girl was a lot more interested in him than he was in her. I think she was a little bit clingy. He was seeing somebody else and he didn't want to be tied down. Hmm. And now, with the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy, yeah, see where this is headed. The bishop hesitated a little, and then he said he had one more thing that they should probably know about. I found a gun under Stevens pillow, he said. And that is strike three. It was

starting to sound like habeas grievous time. The next day, Latrice's dad got a call from the lead detective. We've made an arrest, she told him. Latrice's dad felt some tiny measure of relief for the first time since this nightmare began. Who? he said. Who did it? His name is Robert Reeves, said the detective. Robert Reeves, the bishop. Latrice's family had never heard of this guy. As far as anybody knew, she'd never even met him. And everybody in Bishop Reeves' life was stunned at the news of his arrest.

They'd never seen the slightest hint of violence out of the guy. He was a beloved member of the community. But the bishop was keeping some big secrets. And when he finally went on trial in September of 2009, it all came spilling out. The star witnessed at the trial was Stephen Randolph, Latrice's secret lover, and Bishop Reeves's tenant. Stephen met Robert Reeves at a car wash one afternoon, and they got to talking. Stephen was in college. He was looking for a job at the time, and he didn't have a real stable place to live, and Bishop Reeves asked if he wanted to come look at a room for rent in the house he shared

with his sister. Seemed like a good deal at the time. Reeves offered him $300 a month rent, which was less than he didn't paying, and it was a nice house. Stephen moved in, happy to have his housing situation sorted out. But as we all know, we can't have nice things. And not long after Stephen moved in with the bishop, there was an unexpected little development. They were sitting and chat in one evening, about a month before Latrice Curtis's murder, when the bishop suddenly said, are you a freak? You know, sexually?

Not a thing you'd expect a beloved local preacher to ask. ask you out of the blue. I mean, it's not like it was totally out of left field, I guess. Stephen just had Latrice over, and the bishop saw her leaving, and I guess assumed they'd just had sex. You ever thought about working for an escort service, Reeves asked him. You could make a lot of money, good-looking guy like you. I could help you get started. Weird. Awkward. But, hey, Stephen was young and hot and broke, and this was intriguing. No, he'd never thought about it before, he said, but what would it involve? I'm sure Stephen was probably imagining wealthy older ladies, taking him out for fancy dinners, buying him video games and slipping him $100 bills,

all in exchange for a little companionship and maybe a little something, something in the bedroom. He wouldn't be the first broke college student to consider giving it a try. He told Reeves he wouldn't be totally averse to the idea. All right then, Reeve said, let's see what you're working with. Stephen looked at him. You mean like, yeah, Reeves said, drop your pants. Let's see. Stephen was a little uncomfortable, but it made sense. I mean, if Bishop was going to help him get into the escort biz, I guess he needed to inspect the merchandise. So Stephen dropped trow. And that's when the conversation took what you might call a turn. Reeves reached out and started trying to like fondle and rub up on Stephen.

Stephen, being a straight dude, was definitely not interested in any of this, and he jerked away and pulled his pants back up. Yeah, but Bishop didn't seem phased. He started telling Stephen this story about how he was at a house party one time, and the lights were out, and he started getting a blowjob from some girl, and then in the middle of it, the lights came on, and it turned out to be a guy. Great story. I'm not gay or by or anything, Stephen said, trying to shut this conversation down.

I'm getting a blowjob from another guy doesn't make you gay, the bishop said. You can just pretend it's a girl doing it. It feels exactly the same. Now, at this point, two things were crystal clear to Stephen. One, that when this guy said escort, he meant four dudes. And two, that the bishop wanted to, you know, perform certain sexual acts on him. As you can imagine, Stephen was skewed out by the this whole line of conversation, and he got the hell out of there as fast as he could. And after pacing around outside for a little while, he went back in the house and laid it out

for the bishop. Look, dude, I'm not interested. Nothing's going to happen between you and me. I'm straight. Okay? The bishop said he understood and he apologized, and for the moment, it seemed like he was going to drop it. But, of course, he didn't.

After that initial conversation, Bishop tried a few more times to talk Stephen into letting him give him oral sex. He even offered to let him stay in the house rent free if he'd agree to it now and then. Stephen was freaked out, so freaked out that he actually borrowed a gun from his cousin and started sleeping with it under his pillow, just in case Mr. Reeves got any bad ideas. And I think he started looking for other housing options at that point too, but he just hadn't found any yet by the time all this started. He was just trying to give the bishop a wide berth in the meantime, stay away as much as possible. And whether Stephen made any connection in his own mind between the bishop's sexual advances toward him and the threatening calls and slash

tires. I'm not sure. I wouldn't be surprised, though. Remember how in one of those threatening phone calls, the caller said, I hope you have a gun? Well, when Stephen went and checked for the gun he'd borrowed from his cousin later that day, he found it was missing. And later, he found out that the bishop had confiscated it. That's how he put it. I confiscated it. Like, I don't want you having this in my house. Frickin creepy. And Stephen Randolph was by no means the only young guy Bishop Reeves had worked this particular M.O. On. Two other guys took the stand at the trial and told their stories, and they sounded an awful lot like Stevens. One guy had been working in a kiosk at the mall when Reeves sidled up and started a conversation. Offered to drive the guy home since he didn't have a car. And on the drive, Reeves started up with the witness called guy talk, sex talk, about women at first, but then it took the same turn as the conversation with Stephen. Hey, want to escort for me? You can stay with me for free. Yaddy yada. Yikes. Like, dude, I just met you. What the fuck? Like, this poor guy. All he wanted was a ride home from, like, frickin' sunglasses hut or whatever. And suddenly he finds himself in a scene from an after-school special about stranger danger.

Now, this guy actually did end up moving into Reeves' house, just like Stephen. I mean, rent-free is a tough deal to turn down. And I think Reeves actually held back on the whole, like, I want to have sex with you myself. thing until the guy had already moved in. But this guy made it clear he wasn't interested in escorting or being involved with Reeves in a sexual way. And after he realized that this guy wasn't going to play ball, Reeves fricking rent, because of course he did. Ended up calling the cops on the guy. Another young man testified that he showed up at Reeves's house to install a security system and Reeves started him on all this escort talk while he was working. Then Reeves asked him how big his dick was, and if he'd ever gotten a blowjob from a guy before. And this is an exact quote from

the court papers on this case, except I'm taking out the witness's name. The witness became uncomfortable and said he had to leave. Defendant, that's Reeves, shook his hand, gripped his wrist, and began pulling him into the house toward the bathroom. Defendant offered the witness money and said, just close your eyes and you won't know. Just let me do what I got to do and I'll give you some money for it and you can go. Yikes. witness pulled away and basically fled from the house, leaving all his equipment behind. That's how scared he was. He, like, left the wiring and the paperwork and everything. Ugh. So, obviously, this dude had a history of being, like, the final boss of sex pests.

Yeah. And it tended to revolve around young men half his age in vulnerable financial or housing situations. He'd come to them as the Pentecostal bishop, eager to help them get back on their feet, and then he'd spring the trap. Gross. Now, I doubt we have to say this, but we're going to say it anyway. Rees being a predatory skis bag has nothing to do with his sexual orientation. Okay. Of course. God knows we've seen more than our share of heterosexual skis bags on our show. So just wanted to remind everybody of that in case somebody got the wrong idea. Okay. In fact, most of the skis bags we've seen on our show have been heterosexual skis bags.

Every now and again, yeah, you're going to get yourself. everybody can be a skis bag. Everybody, regardless of gender orientation, can be a fucking skis bag, all right? Unfortunately. Yep. And it's important to remember that sexual abuse, sexual coercion, all that stuff happens to men too, not just women. It happens to people of all genders.

And it's interesting, if you can call it that, men don't tend to grow up hearing the same kinds of warnings women do to be on high alert for this stuff at all times. Like, it's exhausting. It's all the time. So men can actually be extra susceptible when it does happen. Like it can take them a little longer to recognize that they're in danger or being groomed or whatever because it's just not on their radar like it is ours. For example, in Stephen's conversation, I know every woman listening heard the word escort and said, oh no, leave, run. Yeah.

Like men don't necessarily have that same little gut punch. Right, right. So other than his secret life, what evidence did the prosecution have against Bishop Robert Reeves? A shit done, in fact. Obviously, it raised the investigator suspicions that the state trooper had seen his minivan parked behind Latrice's car on the night of the murder right around the time the crime happened. He tried to explain that away saying, oh, Stephen's been driving my car lately. But according to Velma Newton and several of her friends, Stephen was at her house most of that night. Not only that, but when the bishop came in for his interview, detectives noticed his hands and arms were covered in scratches and cuts, and he had some abrasions on one leg.

Stephen didn't have any injuries. Next, the detectives busted the bishop's alibi. He claimed he was at church at the time of the murder, but his own sister blew that out of the water. And then there was the DNA, mixed with Latrice's own, all over the steering wheel of her car. Rees' defense tried to create some reasonable doubt on that, saying it could have been transfer DNA since LaTrice had just been at Reeves' house with

Stephen, but there was far too much DNA for that to be the case. And then there was the fun phone. That's what the investigators called Bishop Reeves' extra cell phone, the one he used for play. The number on the fun phone matched the one that had made all those threatening phone calls to Stephen and Velma in the weeks leading up to the murder. And they were able to ping the phone to the locations where their tires were slashed too. Wow.

The prosecution's theory was this. Latrice left the house on that night of January 29th at around 10 p.m. And for whatever reason, the bishop followed her. It's possible he'd been stalking her for a while already, the way he'd done with Stephen and his other girlfriend, Valman Newton. The prosecutor thinks that Latrice, still worried about the condom stuck inside her, must have pulled over on the side of the highway to try and get it out. It was late at night, probably not many people out on the road,

and she may have worried that if she tried getting the condom, out at home, Darren would figure out something was wrong in question her or find the condom in the garbage or something. So she pulled over and at some point the bishop pulled up behind her in his minivan, put his hazard lights on, approached the car. We don't know exactly what happened at this point, whether he knocked on her window and offered to help or what. Right, but what we do know is that at some point he pulled out a knife and stabbed this poor girl to death in the front seat of her car. And then he transported her body about a half mile down the road and dumped her, like you would, a bag of trash. All we assume, out of burning hot jealousy over Stephen Randolph,

did he plan the murder before that night, or was it a crime of opportunity? We can't be sure. If Velma had been the one to leave the house that night instead of Latrice, would he have followed her instead? Would she have been the one on the side of the road? We don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised. This man clearly had an obsession with his tenant, Stephen Randolph, and both of these women, LaTrice and Velma, were in his way. The crazy part is he was never going to have a romantic or sexual relationship with Stephen. Stephen told him that. But apparently, the bishop could not wrap his head around that. In his mind, these women were the roadblock, not the fact that Stephen was straight and half his age and not remotely interested in him.

Oh no, Latrice was the problem. So he stabbed her to death. just like Jesus would do, I guess. Right, Bishop Reeves? Way to follow your calling, man. I think it's safe to say that Reeves is one of those clergymen who pick the job because it's a target-rich environment, not because they truly want to do good. But it just goes to show you how compartmentalized this man's life was. He had his public life as a man of God and a motivational speaker and a community leader, and then he had his secret life, trying to get young men into bed. The prosecutors had a mountain of evidence on this guy, and it didn't take the jury long to convict him. On October 9th, 2009, he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. I'm sure it left a smoking crater in his church community, and it most definitely left one in the lives of the people who love Latrice. One of Latrice's brothers told the show Fatal Attraction that Darren was a changed person after he lost his wife.

Just less trusting, less open. murder tends to do that. It poisons everything it touches. And Latrice's family and friends have been without her now for almost 16 years. Her friend Kimberly said she thinks sometimes about what Latrice would have been like as a mom and in her chosen career. She could have had a teenage kid by now. She'd probably be a successful accountant. And Kimberly says what really makes her furious years later is how Latrice should have never been involved in this situation in the first place. As far as we know, she'd never spoken a word. to Robert Reeves. He wasn't even on her radar. She wasn't a threat to him in any way. That was all just a fiction, cooked up in the mind of a man who, like almost everybody else in this case, was living a double life. So many secrets, he probably had trouble keeping them all straight. And the really sad part is, he must not have even been that into Stephen Randolph, because at the end of the day, when the spotlight started to turn towards him, he took the first chance he could to try and pin the murder on Stephen. Oh, he has a gun, he collects knives and swords, he didn't want to be tied down.

like so many of the other cases we've covered, this one just feels so senseless. But there is one small, small grace in this story. I think there's a pretty good chance that if he hadn't been caught for this murder, Robert Reeves would have escalated. I think we'd have seen worse and worse from him, and his position in the church as a trusted authority

could have made it a lot easier for him to get there. At least now we've got him where he can't hurt anybody ever again. So that was a wilder. one, right campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Miriam, Cat with the Sea, Chris, Micah, Cat with a K, Haley, Cassidy, and Cassonia. What a pretty name. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back.

And if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out. Patrons of our show get every episode ad-free, at least a day early, sometimes more, plus tons of extra content, like patrons-only episodes and hilarious post-show discussions. And once you hit the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker at $5, a rat enamel pin while supplies last at 10, virtual events with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come join us at patreon.com slash true crime campfire. For great TCCC merch, visit the True Crime Campfire store at Spreadshirt.com.

And check out our website at Truecrimecampfirepod.com. Thank you.