For more than 20 years, Reginald Reed Jr., known as Reggie, lived with the unanswered question of who killed his mother, Selonia Reed. He was just 6 years old when Selonia, a 26-year-old bank teller, was found dead inside her car in Hammond, Louisiana.
Among Reggie’s clearest memories from that day is a small, ordinary moment: his mother buying him a chocolate chip cookie at Hammond Square Mall. He also remembers her kissing him goodbye. After that, the details fade.
“48 Hours” and contributor Vladimir Duthiers revisit the case and the long search for answers in “The Day My Mother Never Came Home,” now streaming on Paramount+.
Selonia’s body was discovered on a sweltering day in August 1987 inside her blue Chevy Sprint, parked roughly a mile and a half from the Reed family’s home. Investigators said she had been beaten, stabbed repeatedly and found naked. Police also said the evidence indicated she had been sexually assaulted.
Her husband, Reginald Reed Sr., had reported her missing about an hour before the discovery. He told investigators that on the morning of Aug. 23, 1987, Selonia had said the previous night she was going out with a girlfriend. That friend later told police she and Selonia had made “no plans” to go out, but Reginald maintained his account.
As detectives dug deeper, they learned Selonia had confided in relatives that Reginald had been physically abusive and that she had discussed seeking a divorce. He soon drew investigators’ attention as a suspect, though Reggie, still a young child, knew nothing about those suspicions at the time.
Louisiana State Police
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With his father’s permission, police interviewed Reggie, recording the conversation as Reginald sat beside him. The boy supported his father’s version of events, telling a detective that he and his father had spent the evening playing video games and later slept in the same sofa bed. In practice, Reggie became part of his father’s alibi. Years afterward, watching the footage, Reggie was overcome as he saw his 6-year-old self crying for his “mommy” and “daddy.”
“I just can’t imagine what it’s like as a 6-year-old to have to sit there,” Duthiers said.
“Looking at that, it’s still hard to believe that that’s me,” said Reggie. “Watching that video just brings back so … so many questions and — and pain because … I see me crying.”
Reggie wrote a memoir about his experiences titled, “The Day My Mother Never Came Home.”
Reggie had no idea that his father was the prime suspect in the case until 25 years later in 2012 when a Texas Ranger showed up at his home. By then, Reggie was 31, had graduated college and was working for a pharmaceutical company near San Antonio.
“I was like, where’s this coming from?” Reggie told “48 Hours.” “I remember asking, is there any new evidence that was surfaced?”
But over the next few years, the new lead investigator in the case, Lt. Barry Ward of the Louisiana State Police, was able to come up with new evidence. Eventually, it was enough that Reginald and an alleged accomplice were indicted for second-degree murder.
The accomplice, a friend of Reginald named Jimmy Ray Barnes, agreed to testify against Reginald in exchange for a five-year prison sentence. In November 2022, Reginald Reed Sr. was found guilty of second-degree murder for killing Selonia Reed and was later sentenced to life in prison.
Ward told Reggie that police believe Reginald likely murdered Selonia in their bedroom while Reggie slept. Detectives believe he then placed her body in her car and drove to the spot where it was found. Reginald’s co-conspirator Jimmy Ray Barnes testified at trial that he met Reginald at the crime scene and saw Reginald in that car next to Selonia’s body.
To this day, Reggie continues to question his father’s guilt.
“I want justice, but I didn’t think justice was gonna come at the price of my dad going to prison for life,” Reggie told Duthiers who asked: “Do you believe that your father murdered your mother?”
“I don’t know … another question — do I think my dad had some involvement? Maybe. I don’t know though. I don’t know. So that’s where I’m just, it’s like a tug-of-war game.”
Reggie said he struggles to square what the state claims with the father he knew. Reggie appreciates that his father was loving to him, put him through private school and raised him to be the man he is today.
“Just knowing the type of father he is,” Reggie said. “I can’t just turn a page and just look at my father as a complete monster.”
