Post Mortem | When Selonia Reed Never Came Home

48 Hours - CBS News

A 1987 murder case in Hammond, Louisiana, remains unsolved until DNA evidence links Jimmy Ray Barnes' twin brother to the crime. Decades later, Reginald Reed is convicted of second-degree murder, but questions linger abo

Key takeaways

• DNA from identical twins complicated suspect identification

Transcript preview

Welcome back to 48 hours post-mortem. I'm your host Anne Marie Green. And today we're talking to CBS News National Correspondent, Vladimir Dutier, about the murder of Salonia Reed in Hammond, Louisiana. In 1987, Salonia'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 person's report the next day and gave a description of the car that she drove. Well, shortly after that, a patrol officer discovered Salonia's car parked at a nearby grocery store. Inside, they found her body. She had been stabbed 16 times. Saloni's son, Reggie Jr. was only six years old at the time, and for over three decades, her murder went unsolved. And then in 2012, 25 years after the murder, the murder, was a prime suspect in the case. So Vlad, thanks for joining us today. It's great to be here. Thanks, Anne-Marie. We want to remind everyone that if you haven't checked out this episode of 48 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, Vlad, let's get into this. Back in 1987, there already a couple pieces of evidence that pointed to Reginald senior, 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 48 hours, you know, life insurance policies like 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 this investigation that we did first of all the DA from back in 1987 has died so we can't understand or know why he didn't charge Reginald we did first of all the DA from back in 1987 has died so we can't understand or know why he didn't charge Reginal but we do know that lieutenant berry ward who helped solve the case admits that even with the evidence that you just cited there was really no smoking gun back in 1987 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 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 and also something that we all found incredibly fascinating is when there was a photo array photo lineup of the potential suspects all of the photos that were used were pictures of either Reginald Reed seniors brothers or the Barnes twins siblings and somehow this eyewitness picked out Reginal Reed seniors brothers or the Barnes twins siblings and somehow this eyewitness picked out Reginald. why 1987 there were no charges brought but again this was all speculation because the district attorney in 1987 has long died. You flash forward right and then there's there's new evidence that's discovered at the crime scene police found Winston cigarettes or a cigarette in 2012 lieutenant ward was finally able to test what he found and they get a match right in Kodas which is the FBI's National DNA database. There is 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, I thought this is where the twist is going to come in to tell you the truth because I knew with identical twins I have the same DNA and that could be quite complicated. So first of all, until I had a reporter now, I had a for over a decade. This was the first that I knew that identical twins shared identical DNA. I didn't know that. And so when I discovered that, that was sort of a moment for me, you know, a head 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. Ray Barnes ever suspect in this case? No, 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 48 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. him in the police video is just heartbreaking. I put myself in his shoes at six years old. I thought of my daughter who's only two, but I could