What Really Happened To Selonia Reed?

November 10, 2025

On this episode, Payton and Garrett dive into the case of a mother who left home and never came back. Years later, the truth would shatter her own family from the inside out.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. And I'm Payton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband.

And we just recorded for fifteen minutes and realized we did not hit record.

Dude, when are we going to stop doing that? Like, it's such a rookie mistake.

We just recorded. It was good. I was ready to go. I was excited. We got our ten seconds in. We got everything in, and now we have to start over.

So, we're going to speedrun this one. Ready? Yeah. Go.

First, thank you for being here. We love you guys very much.

Two, the names of the people who said hi to us these last couple of weeks. We said we were going to do it and we forgot, so now we're doing it again. We got Cindy and Zach — Cheesecake Factory. We have Kelly — Dutch Bros. Dutch Bros. What was the other one? Shauna. And we got Shauna — Cornbelly’s. Cornbelly’s.

We love you guys. If you ever come up to us and you don't want us to say your name, just tell us. We won't say it. But I love it. It is so fun. I love when you guys come up. I love meeting you. Um, yeah. Yeah. So, don't ever be scared if you see us to just even say hi.

Three. My ten seconds.

Yep.

Basically, long story short, I've been eating a bunch of gummy bears and they've been messing up my mouth — getting stuck in my teeth, giving me sores everywhere. They're big, thick, huge gummy bears. Bad gummy bears. Not going to eat them anymore. They messed me up. I ate the whole box already, so now I shouldn't have any more issues.

That was fast. That was way faster than—

Imagine if we were that efficient every time.

Very efficient.

Do you guys like that? Actually, I'm not even going to ask you guys, because I don't really want to know the answer, because some of you would be like, “Yeah, we hate when you talk at the beginning.”

I don't want to freaking hear it. Okay? I don't want to hear it.

Right. Your ten seconds — more like ten minutes.

It's not even ten seconds.

Whatever.

Oh, thanks for telling me. Didn't know that.

It was ten seconds.

Looney, didn't know that.

Anyways, we love you guys. Thank you for supporting us. You barely have haters. That's all we have. That's all I have for right now. Made that quick. Let's hop into today's case.

Our sources for this episode are cbs.com, av.com, dailymail.co.uk, byjugjustice.com, fox8live.com, tru.com, wbrz.com, haymanstar.com, and caselaw.findlaw.com.

We all have these moments from our childhood that seem a bit fuzzy. Looking back at them, it can be hard to tell what's true, what pieces are missing, and what's entirely the work of our own imaginations. But there are some moments that stick with us so vividly that we will probably remember them to our dying day. Some are fond memories — vacations, celebrations — those defining moments. And others are tragic times that shaped us or changed us forever.

Regardless, it's these experiences that we think about repeatedly. It feels like nothing can reshape them. They start to feel like hard, concrete facts — moments worthy of the history books.

So, when we grow up and someone tells us that those memories we have didn’t exactly happen how we remember them, that can mess with your head. Because it turns out our experiences — and our memories of them — are not infallible. And sometimes the truth behind those moments can come out years later only to turn your world entirely upside down.

I think this is more common than people think — at least getting a clarification on a memory, or like a Mandela effect sort of thing, in a sense.

Yeah.

Or like on a bigger scale.

Yeah. Or like your memory all of a sudden comes back, or you're doing therapy and it gets brought up. So it's like even things that weren't clear, someone corrects. I just think it's way more common.

Now, today we are dialing back the clock to the year 1987, and we are traveling to Hammond, Louisiana in the United States. It is here in Hammond that 26-year-old Salonia Reed — or Lonnie as her friends called her — is living with her husband, 27-year-old Reggie Reed.

Now, Salonia worked at a hospital for a while before becoming a teller at a local Citizens National Bank. So, she's 26, working at a bank, married. And many people seemed to love her there. They said she was polite and kind. She was always wearing a smile.

And her husband Reggie was a former Marine turned car salesman, now 27.

Now, this young married couple lived a modest, quiet life in the 80s, which was perfect for Salonia — as long as her little boy, 6-year-old Reggie Jr., was by her side.

Now, there weren't a whole lot of details about Salonia's life, but one thing all of the sources did mention was how incredibly dedicated she was to her little son. He was everything to her. The two were rarely ever apart, and one of their favorite things they loved to do together — especially on hot summer days — was wander around the mall and just window shop, which is so late 80s. Like, I'm sure the mall was just roaring at that time.

I know. It's kind of sad. Like, malls just aren't what they used to be.

There are so many dead malls. Just online shopping and like… there are some outdoor malls where people go because they like to walk around, but window shopping just isn't really a huge thing anymore, I feel like. I don't know.

Low-key, if you have a mall in your city that’s not like L.A. — that has a huge grand mall — but kind of in a smaller city that’s actually very popular, leave it in the comments, because I feel like it’s all those malls that have really died.

Uh-huh.

So, we are now at August 22nd, 1987. It is a Saturday. And that afternoon, Salonia picked up her sister Gwen from work between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. and gave her a ride home.

During this ride home, Salonia asked Gwen if she wanted to come to the mall with her and Reggie Jr. a little bit later that night, but Gwen tells her sister, “Uh, I have other things to do this evening.”

Still, Salonia gets home, picks Reggie up for the mall as promised. They drive there — mother and son. They walk around for a bit, and while they don't buy much, Salonia got Reggie a chocolate chip cookie. And after that, they went home.

Reggie settled in to play some video games with his dad, and Salonia came in at one point and gave Reggie Jr. a kiss goodbye. She said she was going out for a bit with a friend.

So that night, Reggie said his dad — this is Reggie Jr. — puts him to bed because his mom is going out with a friend.

Okay.

But the following morning, when Reggie woke up, he notices that his mother still isn't home. So around 6:20 a.m., Reggie Sr., his dad, calls Salonia’s sister Gwen — the one she had picked up the previous day and dropped off — to ask if she’s seen or heard from her. And when she says, “No, I haven’t,” Reggie Sr. actually calls the police and tells them his wife had gone out with a friend the night before and she hadn't come home.

Though not even an hour later, the Reed family would get one of the worst calls of their life.

That same morning, August 23rd, someone calls the police station saying a blue Chevy Sprint has been sitting in the parking lot of a gas station on East Thomas Street in Hammond. And the caller says people have kind of gone up and checked to see what this car that's been sitting there forever is doing, and they think there is a body inside the car.

Okay.

Now, this gas station is only a mile and a half from the Reeds’ home. And when police arrive, they find it is Salonia’s car — the missing woman — and she is in the front seat. She has been stripped naked. Her earrings have been torn from her ears. She’s been bludgeoned in the head and face and stabbed multiple times in the upper body. Investigators also notice she has been sexually assaulted. And — a little graphic here — but the sexual assault involved an umbrella.

I could have gone the rest of my life without knowing that.

Sorry, it's going to be important.

Okay.

So, Salonia’s body is stuck between the two front seats of the car, and she's covered in this lotion-like substance that’s on her torso. It looks to police like the lotion might have been put there to spell out some sort of message on the torso, like with letters.

Wait, what the—

But with the southern August heat and her body sitting in a car, this message has melted — like it's just kind of melting down. They don't know what it says.

So, police canvas the area immediately, but there are no eyewitnesses. There's no murder weapon. There is, however, a cigarette butt inside the car.

Once they piece together that this is Salonia — which wasn't really hard because it was a mile and a half away from her home, it's her car, she's missing — and they learn more about her, they realize that she isn’t known to smoke. So this cigarette butt inside the car is a little strange. They bag that as one of their key pieces of evidence.

And that same day, Reggie Sr. and Jr. are brought into the station for questioning, obviously. And Reggie Sr. tells the police that he had stayed home and watched his son while Salonia went out the night before. He says she told him she was going out to a bar with a friend from work — a friend named Melinda Mike. Though Reggie Sr. said he wasn't totally sure Salonia was telling the truth, he believed that she might have been seeing someone on the side, that it is a possibility she had a boyfriend and that’s who she was going to see. And he says this because they are going through a rocky time in their marriage.

But Reggie Sr. claims that after he went to the mall with his wife and son, he never left the house at all that night. He was home the entire time playing video games with Reggie Jr. And this is something that Reggie Jr. confirms to police when they question him that day as well.

Now, I want to clarify — he is 6 years old at this time. So, definitely old enough to know what he did the night before.

Yeah.

And I feel like definitely — yeah, definitely old enough to be like, “Oh, Dad was gone,” or, “Dad left,” or, “Dad wasn’t here,” but not old enough to use context clues, if that makes sense. Where he's like, “Mom and Dad have been fighting, and then Mom…” — you know what I mean?

Uh-huh.

So the six-year-old says he and his father did play video games until it was time for bed, and the two even slept together on the same sofa bed that night. And when Reggie Jr. is asked, “Okay, well, did anyone stop by or come over to the house?” he says no. And when asked if anyone left, he says no.

Now, Reggie Sr., calm and encouraging, tells his son, “Don’t be scared. You can answer any questions the detectives ask.” But eventually this interview — which is very common — becomes too much for Reggie. He starts crying. He doesn’t want to talk anymore. He doesn’t understand why he's answering so many questions. This isn’t fun.

And they notice, however, that there is something strange about Reggie Sr.’s appearance. So, the son is done talking, but they notice the dad has these scratches on his neck. And when police are like, “Hey, okay, what are those about?” Reggie Sr. tells police he got them from their family dog.

With all this to say, both father and son are being cooperative with the police. The dad even gives them permission to go back and search the home. And this is when things get a little weirder in the case, because the chief of police himself actually goes over to investigate, and he claims the house is immaculate. It has been freshly vacuumed. It smells like bleach. There's no evidence of foul play whatsoever. And the only thing they can find out of place is a small gold clasp from a necklace on the family’s floor in the house.

So, this is when police are like, “Hey, I'm not sure we're getting anything from the house. Let's start talking to other witnesses from the day she went missing.”

Now, when they speak to a security guard who was working at the mall that night, he says, “Yeah, I actually did see that mother and her son, Reggie Jr., walking around,” but he didn't see the dad at all.

And if you remember at the beginning of the story, we do know that she and the boy went to the mall — that’s what she told her sister — but we only find out the dad went when he talks to police. They go talk to the security guard. He’s like, “I didn’t see a dad with them.”

Now, Salonia’s sister Gwen also says that when she was asked to go to the mall, there was no mention of Reggie Sr. going with them, despite what he told police.

Next, they call Salonia’s coworker, Melinda Mike, to say, “Hey, she said she was going with you. Did you go out with her?”

Interesting.

And Melinda’s like, “No, I didn’t see her last night. We never had any plans to go to a bar.”

Uh-oh.

In fact, she tells police, “I'm actually in a completely different town visiting family. I'm an hour away from home.”

And when police look into the possibility that Salonia was using that as a cover to go visit some secret boyfriend — just like Reggie Sr. had suggested — they also find zero evidence that that’s the case.

They do learn, however, that Reggie Sr. had apparently called Melinda the day Salonia’s body was found and threatened her, saying, “You know you were with Salonia last night.” And when she denied it, he said, “Well, you better say she was with you.”

Okay.

So he calls the friend —

I mean, that’s insane.

—and is like, “Yeah, you’re going to tell police she was with you.” And she's like, “I'm an hour away. I'm not even home.”

But like, why would she even agree to that?

She doesn’t, because when police come—

That's insane.

When police come to interview her, she's like, “I'm an hour away. Oh, and also, her husband called me and basically threatened me to tell you guys I was with her.”

Well, that just blows the case wide open, right?

Then on the afternoon of August 24th, the day after Salonia’s body was found, police discover another clue. A neighbor of the Reeds calls in to say he had a crucifix and a screwdriver in his mailbox that day — and they’re not his. He’s like, “Someone put these in my mailbox, and my neighbor was just murdered.”

So when police take it in for evidence, they find that the screwdriver and crucifix have no blood on them, but they still wonder if this could have been the weapon that caused those stab marks on Salonia’s body.

And they also learn something about the cigarette that they found in her car: one of Reggie Sr.’s very good friends smoked the same brand as the one found. They learned this through people. And his name is Jimmy Ray Barnes.

And the only reason his name is brought up about the cigarette and the brand is because — turns out when they’re talking to Salonia’s friends — they learn that she hates this guy. She hates her husband’s friend Jimmy Ray. In fact, she is terrified of him.

Turns out just days before the murder, Salonia had had a pretty scary experience with Jimmy. They were at a local beach swimming with Reggie Jr. Salonia was in an inner tube when Jimmy swam by and flipped her tube over.

Wow.

Now, Salonia wasn’t a good swimmer and everyone knew that about her.

It’s just funny that there are people who do stuff like that. I mean, I guess to each their own, but like, I would never go up to one of Payton’s friends and just flip their tube over. Low-key, if one of your friends did that to me, you better— I’d just grab— maybe if you’re like a brother or a sister or something, I could see it. But a friend? Like no, that’s not happening. Like, it’s just not happening.

Yeah.

I mean, I believe in consent for everything, but it's kind of like— I shouldn't get into this. It’s kind of like the wedding videos you see where the guy starts going a little too hard at throwing cake at his new wife. You’re like, “Whoa, dude, you need to calm down a little bit.”

Anyways, off topic. Sorry. We’ll get back into it.

This is what I’m saying though. Like, physical action of any kind should have consent. I told Garrett, “Hey, just so you know, you’re not smashing cake in my face because I don’t consent to that. I don’t want that. I want none of it.” And he was like, “Yeah, me either.” So we decided not to do that. And I think the same for water.

No.

Yeah. To each their own. I’m just saying, for someone to come flip someone’s tube without them asking—

Oh, yeah. That’s not really—

It’s not okay.

No, that’s not really okay.

And everyone knows that she can’t swim. So she’s like, “This is deliberate.” Like, that was aggressive. “You know I can’t swim.” So she struggles to swim back to the banks without Jimmy offering to lend a hand. Like, he flips her, sees her struggling, doesn’t do anything.

That’s weird.

And then the following day, things get even weirder when Salonia saw Jimmy Ray Barnes lurking outside near her home. Salonia actually had a relative over at the time and began going into hysterics, telling them, “Don’t go outside. Don’t open the door. I don’t like that guy. He just flipped my tube yesterday.” And then Jimmy comes closer to the house and says he was just there to check on her.

So the relative is like, “Jimmy, off the property now. She’s not comfortable. You’re not checking on her. Like, leave.”

But this isn’t the only connection police learn of. Apparently, two days after the murder, a witness came forward to say they actually saw two men around the gas station the night of Salonia’s death. They were acting a little suspicious, so the witness wrote down the license plate number.

No way. That is something.

That’s so cool. I love when people are like, “They’re acting weird. I’m just going to take the license plate in case.” And then Salonia turns up dead in the gas station parking— what are the chances? That’s so crazy.

And take a guess. Who do you think this license plate belongs to that they took down?

Jimmy. Jimmy. Jimmy.

No.

Oh.

Reggie Senior. Her husband.

Oh, yeah. I mean, after the whole mall-lying thing, it was 100.

Yeah.

So police are like, “Hey, this witness who took down the license plate — that happens to be Reggie’s — let’s get a photo of Jimmy Ray to see if this is the other guy.”

Yep.

The other guy who was seen with him at the gas station where his wife later turned up murdered. And they're like, “Yep.” The witness says those are the two guys.

Okay.

Now, obviously there is a lot of evidence suggesting both Reggie Senior and Jimmy Ray — his friend — were somehow connected to Salonia’s murder. The problem is it's kind of circumstantial. Like, yes, you have eyewitnesses. You have the security guard who says, “No, husband wasn’t here.” You have the gas station witness who took down the license plate number, which is pretty physical, but she’s also identifying the two men. It’s not like they were caught on camera.

Yeah.

And then you have the friend who was like, “Yeah, he told me to say I was with her.” It’s all a little bit—

Yeah, I just don’t know how much more evidence you need, right? A lot of stories, not a ton of evidence.

But also remember it is 1987.

And the only thing is, Reggie Senior ultimately has an alibi. If you remember, his six-year-old son says, “We played video games until bed and we slept on the same bed until morning. No one left.”

Now, ultimately, there was no real smoking gun. Because you also have eyewitness against eyewitness, which is why over the years they don’t arrest Reggie Senior or Jimmy, and things start to slow down. Even at the Reed home, Salonia’s death starts to become a little bit of a distant memory.

Reggie Jr. says his dad never really talked about his mom with him. It was always just an elephant in the room. And it wasn’t until Reggie was a teenager, and he went to the library on his own to begin searching his mother’s murder, that he learned the details of his mother's death. He really didn’t know, and he didn’t know how she had been killed.

It seems Reggie had heard whispers over the years that his dad was a suspect, but that never really made sense to him — obviously — because he believed his dad was home with him. And it became even less believable when Reggie Jr., 17 years old, supported his dad, who was now running for mayor of the town.

Wait, so we just skipped basically ten years.

Mhm.

No one’s been arrested. He was the prime suspect. Mind-blowing that they couldn’t— from that. I guess they just were scared that if a jury didn’t find him guilty, then you let him go.

Yeah.

Oh man, that’s crazy.

So Reggie Jr. claims that during this time — his dad running for mayor — there was no mention of his dad’s involvement in his mom’s case. And in the world of politics, he’s like, “All of the skeletons are pulled out of the closet.” So if this wasn’t a big deal, the fact that it was never mentioned during this campaign really puts any of the doubts he had while once researching the case to rest. He’s like, “My dad’s a stand-up man, someone who actively works to benefit the community.”

Now, Reggie Senior didn’t win the election, but life goes on for the family. Reggie Jr. goes on to get his MBA. He moved out of Hammond altogether and got a job working for a pharmaceutical company.

And meanwhile, there was this entire secret history between Reggie Senior and Salonia that Reggie Jr. never was really aware of.

So, according to Salonia’s sister, Gwen, there had been a lot of dark days in the marriage before Salonia was found murdered. Not only was there talk of divorce between the two, but Salonia had told Gwen that her husband had been physically abusive toward her on more than one occasion.

Okay.

Now, if you remember, Reggie Senior does tell the cops that they were in a rocky state in their marriage, but Gwen is giving us a little bit more detail that Salonia’s son, Reggie Jr., never even knew about.

When Salonia was still working at the hospital, Reggie Senior would show up each payday and demand that Salonia hand him her paycheck. Sometimes Salonia would show up to work at the hospital with sunglasses on, not taking them off because she had black eyes.

And at the time, Salonia also didn’t have a car. So Reggie, her husband, was picking her up from work each day — sometimes making her wait hours after her shift had ended. He would just show up when it was convenient for him. And when Salonia’s coworkers offered to give her a ride, she would refuse because she said, “It makes my husband angry if I get a ride. He wants to be the one to take me home.”

Okay.

Another time, Reggie Senior’s sister, Claudette, was over right after Salonia gave birth to Reggie Jr., and she said Salonia was working out hard right after giving birth because she wanted to lose the baby weight. And so Claudette — her sister-in-law — is sitting there watching Salonia do sit-ups in the living room. And that’s when Reggie Senior comes in and stomps on Salonia’s stomach, saying he was just trying to help her lose weight for her “boyfriend.”

Okay, what is happening?

And Claudette sees all of this.

According to Claudette, he even had tapped the phone lines of his home and recorded every conversation Salonia was having with people so that he could listen back to every phone call she was making — and was always accusing her of having a boyfriend even though there was no evidence of it.

Gosh, dude. What is wrong?

So you have members from her family and members from his family who firsthand witnessed abuse. It’s a pretty clear sign that this was domestically abusive. Their relationship was not healthy. But there was more to it than that.

Reggie Senior was also pulling off some insurance scams that Salonia was seemingly aware of. Apparently, sometime shortly before or after she gave birth, Reggie Senior started moving a bunch of boxes out of their house and into his mother’s garage. And then he sent Salonia over to stay at his mother’s house for a few days. She didn’t seem to ask any questions, but while she was there, she learned that there had been a fire at their house.

She learned later that Reggie, her husband, had actually increased the policy on their homeowners insurance just a week before this sudden, mysterious house fire.

It seems a lot of this got past Reggie Jr., though. He’s just a kid. He’s young. He’s a little boy. Obviously, Salonia was aware enough to be like, I’m pretty sure my husband just burned our house down to collect money.

Reggie Jr. did know that his father was strict, but he said he never experienced any sort of physical abuse growing up. Still, Salonia’s family was aware, and they never really gave up their suspicions that Reggie Senior most likely killed her. So they kept pressuring the police to reopen the case over the years.

And finally, in 2011 — 24 years later — a new detective with the Louisiana State Police gets involved. His name is Lieutenant Barry Ward, and he feels this is probably the last chance to go after this case before eyewitnesses start to pass away.

So he and his team go in and collect all of the evidence and files that Hammond Police Department gathered back in the late 80s. They even track down all of the retired police officers who had worked the case. And they begin asking them questions.

And while they find that a lot of the evidence — like the crucifix and the screwdriver that were found in the neighbor’s mailbox — had gone nowhere in the case, there was one detail that stuck out like a sore thumb: the many life insurance policies Reggie Senior had gotten before his wife died.
Now, as we know now, this is a very big motive behind spousal murder. Turns out Reggie Senior had taken out two policies with State Farm and three with another company. And three of those policies were taken out less than three weeks before Salonia’s murder, totaling $421,000. And Reggie Senior was, of course, the beneficiary on each of those policies.

And what’s even more interesting is Reggie Jr. never saw a dime of this insurance money. He put himself through college using student loans. Meanwhile, Claudette — remember, this is the one who witnessed the physical abuse — she remembered her brother taking her and Salonia to a movie two years before the murder. And this movie was Jagged Edge. It’s basically about a man who murders his wife for insurance money. Claudette thinks this is where her brother got the idea to murder his wife in the first place.

Okay.

Claudette also said that after Salonia died, Reggie Senior encouraged her to increase her own husband’s insurance policy. And when she refused, he got someone to draft up the paperwork for her anyway.

What?

Which then you’re probably like — is he going to kill my—

Yeah, that’s insane.

So now Reggie Jr. claims that while he knew his father had come across some money after his mother’s death, he had no idea that it had been multiple policies, hundreds of thousands of dollars. As far as he was concerned, his father still had nothing to do with his mother’s murder.

Even in 2012, a year after the investigation had been reopened, when police came knocking on the now 31-year-old Reggie’s door, Reggie got his first official confirmation that his dad really was the primary suspect in his mother’s murder.

So, as you can imagine, Reggie Jr. is shocked by this. He’s like, “My mother’s been dead for decades. Why are you knocking on my door now blaming my dad?” He asks the police, “Is there new evidence?” And that’s when the police show him all the files on the insurance policies — how his dad took them out so close to the time of his mother’s death, how this was all overlooked the first time around.

They also tell Reggie they are sending some of the old evidence — particularly that cigarette butt found inside Salonia’s car, which is pretty hard evidence — off to the DNA labs to be tested with new technology.

But in the meantime, this is a lot for Reggie Jr. to process. He’s thinking, How can this man that I love — my father, who raised me, supported me — be the person who killed my mother when I was six years old? He was home with me when this happened. He’s like, “No. Cops, you don’t understand. He was home with me.”

So he decides to confront his dad with this information. He’s like, “Hey, Dad, they came. This is what they’ve told me. They are definitely looking into you again.” And Reggie Senior says, “That’s not evidence, son. I take insurance policies out on everyone.”

But if you remember, Reggie Jr. grew up to be pretty smart. So he starts doing his own investigation — trying to get access to his mother’s case files, witness statements, forensic reports, investigative notes — anything that could help him really come to his own conclusion.

And in due time, his perception of what he believed all those years ago — when he truly believed his dad had been with him all night — starts to unravel.

Especially when police actually do get a read off that cigarette. They run those new results through the National Crime Database, CODIS. They get a hit. It is a Barnes — but it is not Jimmy Ray Barnes. So not the guy that everyone had said, “Oh, this is who we’re worried helped do it.”

It actually appears to be a match to Billy Ray Barnes, his brother.

However, they are identical twins. Identical twins have nearly identical DNA. So they’re thinking this was probably a match because Billy is in the system and Jimmy isn’t.

That’s crazy.

Like CODIS probably brought Billy up because it’s so close.

Correct.

You know how they always say it’s a 1.00% chance? Well, this is the actual example of that happening. Jimmy isn’t in the system.

But here’s what’s interesting: back during the initial investigation, Jimmy was polygraphed — and he passed. But now, Lieutenant Ward has a theory. Maybe Billy had taken the polygraph for Jimmy.

Okay.

Like maybe he sent his brother in to take it for him.

Why? This is going to be crazy if it’s true.

So he’s like, “Whatever. I’m cracking down on Jimmy, Billy, and Reggie Senior. We are finding the truth once and for all.”

And when they find Jimmy, he’s living in Atlanta, Georgia now. He’s in a camper on his boss’s property. When Ward questions him, he says, “I fled Louisiana years ago because I was terrified of Reggie Senior.”

So now he’s turning on his friend, even though they’re both suspects.

He claims he had been shot at three separate times by someone he couldn’t see. Once he was even hit in the neck. And he thinks it was Reggie Senior trying to get him to leave.

So he got the heck out of Dodge, and he'd been laying low, and he agreed to tell the police more. He said, “Yeah, Reggie Senior did ask me back in the day — years and years ago — if he could quote ‘knock off his wife.’” He said, “We did eventually agree on a price — $50,000 — but there was just one problem.”

Jimmy was refusing to testify to any of this in court. He’s like, “I’m not doing it.”

So they come back, and they’re like, “Hey, we’re going to offer you immunity if you testify.” And Jimmy’s like, “I don’t think you guys are.” He rejects this get-out-of-jail-free card. It's almost like he didn’t believe the system would stick to it.

I mean, I'll be honest — there are times they haven’t.

Yeah, they do promise things and then…

So I don’t 100% blame him for saying no. I don’t know if he’s guilty or not yet with what’s going on. But he doesn’t trust police.

Though as the officers are leaving, he does stop them and say, “I want you boys to know that I am the key to all of this. And if you think you can indict me for murder, then just do it.”

I have no idea why he’s tattling on himself right here.

And why wouldn’t you just take the deal you just got?

Yeah.

Like, is he guilty? Is he trying to call their bluff? Like he’s like, “Hey, arrest me. If you have it, arrest me.” I don’t know.

But police aren’t bluffing. They have DNA.

A couple of weeks later, they had second-degree murder and conspiracy indictments for Jimmy and Reggie Senior. Their first stop was Reggie Senior’s house, armed with an arrest warrant.

On June 21st, 2019, more than 30 years after Salonia’s death, Reggie Reed was finally in handcuffs.

Still considering his father’s innocence, Reggie Jr. puts up $250,000 for his father’s bail.

Jimmy Ray Barnes is also arrested and charged. Now he's realizing the investigators weren’t bluffing, and he's like, “Never mind. I’ll talk. I’ll talk. Let me get out of this.”

So as he’s awaiting trial, police go to him with a proposition. They will lessen the charges from second-degree murder to accessory after the fact. This isn’t immunity like they first offered — probably like five years. They’re like, “You will get a much lighter sentence. Just tell us everything that happened that night, and you have to be willing to testify against your old friend Reggie Senior, who was your accomplice.”

And here’s what Jimmy says.

Jimmy had actually met Salonia first at the bank she worked at about a year or so before the murder. She then introduced him to her husband, Reggie Senior, who hired him to do some work on their house. They became friends. And after knowing Jimmy for about six months, Reggie went to him and said he needed help. He wanted someone to take care of his wife, and he was willing to pay 50 grand to make it happen.

Now, Jimmy thinks he’s joking at first, but Reggie Senior is like, “I'm going to tell you the detailed plan.”

He said that on August 22nd, he agreed to meet Reggie Senior at a parking area outside the gas station. Seems he may have even been driving Reggie’s car because of the eyewitnesses who got the license plate.

Meanwhile, Reggie shows up in Salonia’s blue car with Salonia in the passenger seat.

Okay.

She has blood and tears on her face, according to Jimmy, but she wasn’t moving. He said Reggie asked him to get in and help him move the body, but Jimmy panicked and refused.

So Jimmy’s like, “I didn’t have anything to do with it. I just knew that he killed her.”

Instead, he said they left Salonia right there in the parking lot. Reggie Senior gets into Jimmy’s car — and that's presumably Reggie’s car — and they then drive Reggie home.

He insisted, I had nothing to do with the actual murder. I was just guilty of being there, driving the car for him, and seeing her dead body.

In fact, he said that later that night, Reggie Senior was the one who returned to the crime scene, stripped Salonia naked, and covered her in that lotion, hoping it would look more like a sex crime.

Got it.

So he actually goes back — not to spell this out for you — he goes back to the crime scene and sexually assaults his wife.

Yeah, I know. It’s disgusting.

To try and stage it—

Who’s passed— who’s dead by now.

It’s been 30 years, and he’s still not in prison. Like absolute trash. Trash.

A dead body.

Yeah.

Okay.

This left a few plot holes in the story. Like how did Jimmy’s cigarette get in the car if he never actually got in the car, helped move the body, refused to help?

Yeah.

How is that cigarette in her car?

And a fellow inmate later testified that Jimmy admitted to him that he and his brother Billy were paid to kill Salonia after she was caught having an affair.

So now it's already that Jimmy had used a hammer, Billy had used an ice pick, before leaving her body in the car.

But investigators still think: We believe Reggie Senior had a hand in the killing. That Salonia had come home the night after Reggie Jr. passed out on the couch — which is why Reggie Jr. would remember his mom leaving, but she really did come home.

Yeah.

And that Reggie Senior killed her after she came home, in their bedroom. The son was sleeping in the living room, thinking his dad was still asleep next to him. He then placed her in the car, met up with Jimmy at the gas station, where he then helped Reggie cover the crime.

This is what police think happened.

So you can only imagine how Reggie Jr. feels when he hears this theory. He remembers saying goodbye to his mother that night and her never coming home. Now he's like, “Did I just sleep? Was I asleep in the room next door as my father — who I thought was asleep next to me and using me as an alibi — was actually killing my mother?”

That would turn someone's entire reality upside down.

Yeah, that would mess with you. That would really mess with your mind.

That would be hard to grasp.

He's having a really hard time about whether to support his dad at this point, who’s awaiting trial. He has kind of been — no offense — but he’s kind of been brainwashed for the last 20 years. And it makes it harder. There is no murder weapon that they found. There are no fingerprints. They searched the house where apparently this crime took place, in the theory the prosecution is putting forward. They found nothing of note aside from a necklace clasp and a faint smell of bleach.

The only thing they did have was an answer to that white lotion that was found on Salonia’s body. Apparently, police were able to find that exact brand and type of lotion back at the Reeds’ home.

So, when the trial begins in November of 2022, it’s all circumstantial. This is actually one of the critical pieces of evidence: that the lotion found in the car where she was found murdered was also found back at the house — which is why they can now say they believe the murder happened back at the house. And they also use the other circumstantial evidence I've told you.

Obviously, the defense is like, “Hey, there was no DNA under her fingernails.” So the defense is like, “Jimmy did it alone. Jimmy did it alone. You guys have the wrong guy. Or they were both involved.” This is all trying to get basically figured out at trial.

But on November 18th, 2022 — 40 years after the crime — Reggie Senior is found guilty of second-degree murder.

Forty years.

How old is he at this point? Seventy? Eighty?

Gotta be old. I mean, if he was 27 at the time.

Yeah. So he's 77 years old. Oh, sorry — 67 years old. My bad.

He’s sentenced to life in prison for his wife’s murder.

And Jimmy Ray Barnes was given a five-year sentence for his cooperation. He was actually released a little bit earlier.

Yeah, five years.

In January of 2024, however, he was back in Hammond attending his twin brother Billy Ray’s funeral — Billy Ray, who they thought was the DNA. And while he's there, back at this place where he was at least somewhat involved, Jimmy Ray dies in a car accident while attending his twin brother’s funeral.

That's crazy.

In the place that he ran away from.

Uh-huh.

As for Reggie Jr., he says he still doesn't know where he stands. He’s like, “I’m not sure my dad got a fair trial.” Every day he goes back and forth. He doesn’t have any answers.

Oh, that would be so hard.

He’s like, “But I just can’t see him as a monster that killed my mother.”

Yeah.

In fact, he wrote a memoir about this entire experience called ‘The Day My Mother Never Came Home.’ And I'm sure Reggie still questions what he remembers from that night — whether his memories are accurate, manufactured, twisted, or molded. How can you not question the past when the present throws you curveballs like this?

But there's one thing Reggie doesn’t seem to question — his own future. So while Reggie Senior is filing appeals, Reggie Jr. is focusing on his own family: a wife, a son, and a little girl he had, who he named Salonia after his mother.

That's nice.

And that is the case of Salonia Reed.

But I think something about this case that just goes to show is how nuanced all of this is. And again, I’ve said it a hundred times — how many victims there are when one person is murdered. The kids of these cases, the family members of these cases… it is not black and white for them.

Yeah. I think it’s really hard because I think it’s a lot easier for us, as an outside perspective, to look at this case and be like, “Oh, Reggie did it.” It’s just a lot more difficult when you're someone involved — when there’s emotion involved, when there are relationships involved. That’s when things become so much more difficult. So it’s just hard. That’s a really… it’s a really difficult one.

And I will say, like, I think the reason this case is hard to fathom is because there still isn’t a clear story of what happened. Like, you have the prosecution’s theory, but there's no physical evidence. You don’t even know what the murder weapon is. You don’t know if the murder happened in the car or if it happened back at the house. Like, there’s just so much.

I don’t like that.

I don’t like that there’s so much that we don’t know for sure.

I think Reggie did it. Yes. Could I say 100% certain he did? Don’t know. I really don’t know.

It would be so— I mean, and they tell juries all the time, “Listen, you don’t need to actually know anything. You just need to know if he did it.”

Yeah. “You don’t need the details. You just need to tell us if he’s guilty.”

I think we've come to the point where sometimes things just aren’t going to make sense.

See, I'm like, I need the details.

And I just don't know if we’ll always have them because it's easy to lie. It’s easy to hide things. It’s easier than we think it is.

I think juries go, “All the circumstantial evidence points to him, and that is enough for us. Without a reasonable doubt — he did it.” Even though we don’t have the physical evidence or the clear story.

All right, you guys. That is our episode for today. Please keep the surviving family members of this case in your thoughts today. Remember that this is real and truly, truly does affect them every single day. Have grace because you aren’t in their shoes.

And we will see you next time with another episode.

I love it.

And I hate it.

Goodbye.

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