When the Man You Call Dad Becomes the Monster Who Killed Your Mother
The memories of that fateful August night in 1987 are hazy for Reginald “Reggie” Reed, Jr. He remembers his mother leaving him with his father so she could go out with a friend. He remembers playing video games with his dad before heading to bed. But when he woke up the next morning, his mother was gone.
He was just six years old. Trying to recall that night feels like “trying to capture a shadow.”
What he didn’t know then—what he couldn’t even fathom—was that his mother, 26-year-old Selonia Reed, had been brutally murdered. Her body was discovered in her car, and the details were nightmarish: she had been beaten, stabbed over a dozen times, and sexually assaulted with an umbrella. The identity of the killer remained a mystery for years. And though whispers followed his father, Reginald Reed Sr., young Reggie knew better than to ask questions.
It wasn’t until he was a teenager that he finally uncovered the gruesome truth while searching public records at a library. The primary suspect? His own father.
For years, Reggie pushed aside the murmurs. Even when his father ran for mayor, even when old rumors resurfaced, he refused to believe his dad could be capable of such horror. But in 2019, everything changed. The case was reopened. DNA from a cigarette butt at the crime scene linked a man named Jimmy Ray Barnes to Selonia’s murder. Under pressure, Barnes confessed—and implicated Reggie’s father in a murder-for-hire plot, allegedly offering Barnes $50,000 to help make his wife disappear.
In January 2023, after nearly four decades, Reginald Reed Sr. was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. The father Reggie had loved, respected, and defended for so long was officially named his mother’s killer.
The Man I Thought I Knew
In his memoir, The Day My Mother Never Came Home, Reggie grapples with the seismic shift in his reality. The man who raised him—strict, disciplined, but present—was now the same man convicted of orchestrating his mother’s death.
“It was harder in some ways to lose my father,” he admits. “Even though that feels wrong.”
Speaking to A&E True Crime, Reggie explains the impossible task of reconciling the father he knew with the man painted as a cold-blooded murderer in court.
“After my mother was murdered, my dad stepped in and guided me until adulthood. He wasn’t warm and fuzzy. He had a military background, so he was strict. But he gave me structure and discipline,” Reggie says. “Fast forward to this revelation that he was involved—I say ‘involved’ because everything presented in court was circumstantial. It’s hard for me to see my father committing that brutality.”
Critics have questioned why he still engages with his father in prison. But for Reggie, the bond isn’t so easily severed.
“I don’t see my dad committing that crime,” he insists. “Although he was strict, I don’t see him being capable of that kind of savagery.”
Buried Secrets and Unanswered Questions
Not everyone shares Reggie’s doubts. His mother’s sister, Gwen, and even his father’s own sister, Claudette, have publicly stated that Reginald Reed Sr. was abusive—both to Selonia and to his own family.
Reggie, however, doesn’t remember his father as violent.
“Most kids looked forward to summer,” he recalls. “I dreaded it. My dad would make me read for hours at a time. He was tough, but I wouldn’t say I was abused. I got spanked, sure, but not in a way that felt out of control.”
When asked if his father was home the night of the murder, Reggie hesitates.
“I was six,” he says. “Who can say? The evidence doesn’t look good… but I need to know more.”
One thing is certain: his father never spoke about Selonia after her death. The silence was deafening. And yet, every year, he took Reggie to repaint her gravesite.
“Was that his way of atoning?” Reggie wonders. “I don’t know.”
A Mayor, A Murder, and a Mystery
Reggie was just 17 when his father ran for mayor of Hammond, Louisiana. Looking back, he finds it surreal that no one brought up the murder allegations during the campaign.
“Nowadays, politicians can’t escape their past,” he muses. “But my dad? Not a peep. It blows my mind.”
Another twist? The revelation that his father had taken out multiple life insurance policies on Selonia in the year leading up to her murder—totaling $750,000. One policy, chillingly, had been purchased just weeks before her death.
“I was supposed to receive a trust fund when I turned 18,” Reggie reveals. “But I never saw a dime. I put myself through college, took out loans, made it happen on my own.”
Innocent or Guilty?
Even now, with his father behind bars, Reggie struggles with the truth. When they speak, his father maintains his innocence.
“Early on, there was another potential suspect,” Reggie says. “My dad thinks my mom was having an affair with him. Jimmy [Barnes] testified about what happened that night. Based on his details, my mother was killed somewhere else and then placed in the car. Who killed her? Where? I believe there’s something deeper.”
For now, the case is closed. But for Reggie Reed, the search for answers is far from over.
