Trial Verdict and Family Aftermath

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I'm your host, Anne Marie Green And today we're talking to CBS News national correspondent, Vladimir Dutier Ab the murder of Salonia Reid in Hammond, Louisiana In nineteen eighty seven, Slonia's husband, Reginald, said that she went out to a local bar with a girlfriend, and that she never came back home Reginal filed a missing persersons report the next day and gave a description of the car that she drove Well, shortly after that, a patrol officer discovered Selonia's car parked at a nearby grocery store. inside. They found her body. she had been stabbed sixteen times Sloneoney's son Reggie Junr. was only six years old at the time And for over three decades, her murder went unsolved And then in twenty twelve, twenty five years after the murder Reggie was shocked to learn that his own father was a prime suspect in the case So Vlly, thanks for joining us today. It's great to be here. Thanks Amari We want to remind everyone that if you haven't checked out this episode of forty eight Hours, head on over to the podcast feed and look right before this and you'll see the episode, go over and listen and then come on back and we're going to talk a little bit more about it All right, Bad, let's get into this. Back in nineteen eighty seven There were actually already a couple pieces of evidence pointed to Reginald Sr.. right? There was a witness, a witness that came forward spotted Reginald and spotted his friend, Jimmy Ray Barnes at the crime scene that night that she was murdered. The witness wrote down his license plate Investigators also discovered that Reginald had taken out several life insurance policies. on her leading up to the murder If you watch forty eight hours, you know life insurance policies like that's always, you know That's always a little suspect. That's a red flag. Why wasn't he charged in the very beginning It's probably one of the most confounding questions of investigation that we did. First of all, the DA from back in nineteen eighty seven has died. So we can't understand or know why he didn't charge Reginald. We do know that Lieutenant Barry Ward, who helped solve the case, admits that even with the evidence that you just cited, there was really no smoking gun in nineteen eighty seven And the lawyers who represented Reginald explained that they thought that the eyewitness who wrote down the license plate number of the car that she thought was a suspicious vehicle the night of the murder. might have been coached There was something in the way that the notes were written by this eyewitness that were suspicious according to them So there was that Also, something that we all found incredibly fascinating is when there was a photo array, a photo lineup of the potential suspects, all of the photos that were used were pictures of either Reginal Reid senr. brothers or the Barnes twins siblings And somehow this eyewitness Doubt Reginal Yeah So we don't know why in nineteen eighty seven, there were no charges bought. but again, this is all speculation because the district attorney in nineteen eighty seven has long died. You flash forward, right? And then there's new evidence that's discovered att the crime scene, police found Winston cigarettes or a cigarette in twenty twelve, Lieutenant Ward was finally able to test what he found Get a match, right? in Codus Um which is the FBI's national DNA database. There's a twist though, because The match is to Billy Ray Barnes, the twin brother of Jimmy Ray Barnes. And of course The witness identified Jimmy. So when I saw that in the hour, this is I thought this is where the twist is going to come in to tell you the truth because I knew with identical twins, I had the same DNA and that could be quite Complicated. So first of all, until and I've been a reporter now for over a decade, this was the first that I knew that identical twins shared Ientical DNA. I didn't know that. And so when I discovered that, that was sort of a moment for me, you know, had exploded moment and that became a huge complication in figuring out who was ultimately the responsible party for that Winston cigarette that was found in the car.. So then was Billy Ray Barnes ever a suspect in this case He was not. Detective Ward told us that they questioned Billy. He cooperated. He was in the photo lineup, but in the end To your question, he was never identified or classified as a suspect What is really kind of unique, I think, about this forty eight hours episode is that so much of it is told through the lens of Reggie Jr., who was a child, a small child. He was only six years old and watching him in the police video is just Heartbreaking. Myself in his shoes at six years old, I thought of my daughter who's only two, but I could imagine just like any parent could what it would be like to have an adult that you've never met before asking you questions and even though they're perfectly nice, you know, that children, even if an adult is nice, they are reticent, they cling to their parents until there's a level of comfortability U and and when you hear him start to cry for his mother For his father It just it just blew me away. It just it really was a moment where I had to pause in the interview while watching that. He is leaning on his father right to show him some sort of tenderness because that is that's a safe island. And I just found myself sort of reading everything into his father's body language, internally yelling at the screen, saying, hug him, hold him, protect him, do something. Yeah, that's That is another mystery His father was a Marine and they're tough. They're known to be tough. A lot of the lessons that Reginald Sr imparted on Reggie Jr were based on his experience and the lessons that Reggie Sr learned in the Marine Corps according to Reggie. And remember, Reginal Sr. was also still fairly young man and you know, u you know, if you're not used to dealing with something like this, look, everybody's afraid in the face of police officers Maybe you're tense too. And so your kid is tense, but you're tense and you know that you want that you want the child to be able to answer the questions that the police officials are asking. So you'd sort of Leave them out there on that branch alone while they while they try to get answers from your kid because maybe you think that hugging the child or might be seen as somehow coaching or prodding the child to do something. So maybe I don't know. This is just me watching the video the same way you did and the same way our audience did. I'd be very curious to see what the audience says. I know that forty eight Hours has a lot of people who chat on Reddit and who chat on social media about an episode what it would be like to have you go into an interrogation room with the six year old child, your six year old child and have them be interrogated. Even the child knows nothing What would they do? how would they react? And when they start to whine and then they start to cry, what do you do in that situation? I don't know. So you fast forward to twenty twelve, right? And Reggie Jror, he's thirty one years old. He's living in Texas out of the blue Texas Rangers come to his door. and they tell him something he has never considered in his life said his father is a suspect The main suspect in his mother's murder. They're from a small town We know I mean, people talk. Reggie Jr. had never heard this at all I thought it was odd as well, Ammarie. You're in a small town. You know, this is a family that people know. People talk Reggie Jr. maintains that he never heard anyone saying His dad was involved in the murder. of his mother. and his father actually sort of In a way kind of rearranged his life. Like he moved into another school and everything, right? Yeah, he moved into a Catholic school. Now he later wondered if this was intentional. pererhaps they wanted to remove him from neeighborhood gossip regarding his mother. So we'll talk a little bit about Hammond, right? It's a town in the south About twenty two thousand residents, small town. Reginald had sixteen siblings It' a big family. B family didn't come from money. they weren't wealthy Perhaps by some standards in that small town, as an African American family, they were perhaps social mobility wise, step above some of the other folks in the community. The other thing that is sort of interesting when these questions around whether the family was quote unquote connected or not, or whether they had connections Um, when Reginald senior out life insurance policies on Salonia. he idn't get any signature from his wife, Selonia Reid. And the insurance guy objected at first, but because he knew the Reid family He let it go Right. And he later testified in court that he knew that he had messed up, that he'd made a mistake, a grave error by not getting Slonia Reids signature on those life insurance policies. Right. sort of the pros and cons of kind of a small town community, right? You love that familiarity. And then sort of on the flip side though, here you have the situation where This insurance agent probably risked his own license. I mean, because you're not supposed to do that. 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Chime is not just smarter banking, it is the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking be free today. Head to chime dot com slash forty eight hours. That is chime dot com slash forty eight hours. It only takes a few minutes to sign up The people you are told to trust, lawyers, teachers, especially doctors. But what happens when you put your life in someone's hands and they betray you? The hit podcast Doctor Death is back, and this season is unlike any other. Doctor Death The Cowboy is the story of a charming neurosurgeon who rode into western towns selling a persona of confidence and care, he wore cowboy boots in the operating room and became sought after by patients he promised to heal. Instead, he left a trail of broken bodies. This season is about a doctor who was never truly held accountable patients whose lives he ruined. a story of greed, betrayal, and a fight for justice that will leave you questioning who to trust Listen to Doror Death, the cowboy Whver you get your podcasts or binge the entire series right now only with Audible. Welcome back So Lieutenant Ward's investigation really did a lot to push the case forward But he still could not get a DA to actually charge Reginald Reid Until prorosecutor Taylor Anthony got on the case, and this is in twenty eighteen now And he actually went with Lieutenant Ward to Atlanta offer Jimmy Ray Barnes a deal to testify in court Just so people know DAs don't do that. They sit in their office, police present the evidence to them and they say thumbs up or thumbs down or like go out and get more evidence. but they don't go out. How unusual was this? I thought it was incredibly unusual for the prosecutor to go on a road trip like the one Anthony and Ward took to Atlanta. You know, the case would not have been solved They hadn't had this sense of purpose, this sense of mission Taylor Anthony, the way that he spoke about it to me, the way he spoke about justice for Salonia, he struck me as somebody who was on a mission and ultimately he wanted this young mother to have hidden a sense of justice. And he talked about how this was also for Reggie Jr.. That's how he feels Taylor Anthony. But yeah, it also speaks to the fact that Taylor Anthony was able to get Ward to agree with his sense of purpose and his sense of mission to take the trip M. They do not get Jimie Ray Barnes to agree though They can't convince him. Yeah. He ended up refusing to testify. He was scared. He talked about, you know, instances where he felt his life had been threatened by Reginald Reed, Sr. And for those reasons, he was afraid of testifying. So he said at the time and after Jimmy Ray was ultimately arrested, he cut a plea deal with assistant district attorney Anthony. That was actually ultimately, it turned out to be worse And then the deal that they originally offered him in this new deal, Jimmy Ray was sentced to five years prison in exchange for testifying against Reginal Reid Mm ye. I mean, when When they come knoc in the first time around, that's probably the best deal that you're going to going to get Reginald Reed's trial murder trial begins november fourteenth, twenty twenty two. It is more than thirty years after Slonia's murder He was defended by a mother daughter team, Vanessa Williams, very memorable name and Latoya Williams Simon. I don't think I've ever seen a mother daughter defense duo before. What were they like? incredible duo, these two women. I told them I told producers, these women need their own reality show. The mother to law school with her daughter. Like, can you imagine Em With her daughter? Y I don't remember how old she was but she would take classes with her young daughter there. Okay, I Okay at first I thought they went to law school at the same time. but she's got a little kid doing her little kid homework and she's doing her law school homework. Exactly. Exactly right, exactly right. They were just so interesting and and captivating and charismatic as defense attorneys. Also incredibly buttoned up. They came with reams and reams and reams of documents that they were willing to spend hours with me going through if I wanted to. Did you get the sense from them that they felt this is a bad case, like a poor case against him or This guy didn't do it He's being railroaded. I don't know whether they believe or don't believe that Reginald Reid committed this crime. I just know that they passionately, fervently believe that the state did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Reginal Reid killed Salononey. What they said over and over again is every time the prosecution put something out there for the jury to absorb there was evidence that they uncovered that would lead It' normal person to have some reasonable doubt So they say there was a lot of evidence that they just couldn't present that the jury didn't hear. Like what So Vanessa and Matoya explained to me how completely not credible Jimy Ray Barnes was. that Barnes had been arrested for a number of violent crimes. In fact, some of the crimes that he had been arrested for and that he had served time for were assault battery with deadly weapons Right. So something that the jury did hear about though, from Taylor Anthony, the prosecutor was about the life insurance policy. seven hundred thousand dollars. He said seven hundred thousand dollars worth of freezons to kill this woman. There you go. So that's a lot of money today. It was a lot more money You know, thirty years ago. So what happened with that money So we do know that with the money that Reginald Reid Sr received, he was able to open up a nightclub. He bought a car He was able to send Reggie Junror to private school The insurance company set up a trust fund for Reginald Jr., two hundred forty eight thousand dollars that he could access when he turned eighteen. He says he never got the money. Reginald He never got the money. N got the money. He says he paid his own way collllege according to Detective Ward Reggie says that the day that he turned eighteen, his father woke him up gotot him out of bed You made him sign some papers or asked him to sign some papers We don't know what those are. Reggie doesn't remember. But he never got the money Vanessa and Latoya Williams told me he took out insurance policies on everybody He took out a life insurance policy on Reginald Jr.. They say that he took out life insurance policies on family members I still think if you're a juror and you're hearing that, you would think it's suspicious. And I think that What was fascinating to me is when I asked Reggie Jr. Questions that I'm asking you Where's that money? Why do you take out a life insurance policy on you Have you asked him? Yeah. And what does he say? And he sort of hemms and hals as to what his father answers His dad is convicted, right? A jury finds Reginald Reed guilty On november eighteenth, twenty twenty two, he's guilty of second degree murder. And here's the thing that he remains connected to his father, but he is not connected to his mother's family