Deadly First Date

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Speaker 10 This wasn't just a crime scene, was it?

Speaker 5 No, it was not.

Speaker 5 This one was bad.

Speaker 7 Two innocent people that were on their first date had their lives destroyed.

Speaker 2 For

Speaker 2 what reason?

Speaker 10 How well did Leslie Reeves know Chris Smith?

Speaker 3 First date.

Speaker 3 Chris was in a band and a singer

Speaker 3 and they had connected and he asked her out.

Speaker 12 The night before Thanksgiving, they decided just to meet up and go to the bar.

Speaker 3 He lived 65 miles away in a really small farming community.

Speaker 13 The bar that night was very busy.

Speaker 10 The place was packed wall to wall.

Speaker 13 Chris and Leslie were talking a lot, laughing, getting along with everyone around them.

Speaker 14 She texted me around 10 and she said everything's going okay. She did then text a second text that said, I feel like something's a little bit off or something.
I'm not sure.

Speaker 14 what she meant.

Speaker 10 Was that text the last time you heard from Leslie Graves?

Speaker 2 Yes, it was.

Speaker 10 Did you try texting her in the morning?

Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 10 And did she respond? No.

Speaker 14 I just started driving towards Farmersville because I had the address and called the police department in that area. Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.
This is Jeff.

Speaker 2 Hi, I'm greatly concerned about my friend. Can someone do a welfare check?

Speaker 10 What are you feeling at this point, Nana?

Speaker 14 nana a lot of anxiety because i don't know what i'm gonna walk into uh going up there to this house

Speaker 14 i pulled up in front of the address and then who came while you're sitting there while i'm sitting there uh who's this uh woman parked

Speaker 12 i said well maybe i'll roll my window down and talk to her I asked her if she was checking on Chris and she said she was checking on her friend.

Speaker 11 And that's when I went up to the door.

Speaker 12 I saw the back door was broken. And then I saw Chris laying there.

Speaker 2 And then I ran back to my car and called 911.

Speaker 16 Nobody's answering the door. And the back window shattered and there's a body and there's a foot I fell on the floor.

Speaker 16 I'm only 16. I can't deal with this.

Speaker 12 I was in shock, I think.

Speaker 17 Sheriff's office, Jeff.

Speaker 5 Yes, give me some help. I got one alive and one dead.

Speaker 12 I just remember them bringing Chris out on the stretcher to the ambulance. I remember there being a sheet over him, so it made me panic a little bit.

Speaker 7 I got a call from our command center in Springfield.

Speaker 10 So you are the lead crime scene investigator?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 10 Were you really prepared for what you faced when you walked into that house?

Speaker 7 I was not.

Speaker 10 Why would somebody do this to him?

Speaker 5 Why would they try to hurt my baby?

Speaker 18 That's all I kept thinking. He's my baby.
Someone hurt him.

Speaker 10 Going on a first date and they both end up getting shot is insane.

Speaker 19 Erin Moriarty reports fatal first date.

Speaker 10 Afternoon of Thanksgiving Day 2021, Nanette Stiber sat in her car and watched anxiously as EMTs and Montgomery County Sheriff's deputies descended on a house in the tiny village of Farmersville, Illinois.

Speaker 14 I was quite upset and kind of going crazy in the car.

Speaker 10 Nanette had been unable to reach her good friend Leslie Reeves.

Speaker 10 Nanette knew Leslie had gone to that house the night before to go on a a first date with Chris Smith, a man she had met online.

Speaker 15 She was very excited.

Speaker 14 She thought, oh, this might be

Speaker 14 a really good connection.

Speaker 10 But now Nanette was worried. She'd seen Chris get taken away in an ambulance, but there was no sign of Leslie.

Speaker 14 I kept hoping, you know, okay, bring Leslie out, please.

Speaker 10 Finally, a detective approached and asked Nanette for a photo of Leslie. She showed him her phone, and he gave her the horrible news.

Speaker 15 I'm so sorry to have to tell you this.

Speaker 14 Your friend has

Speaker 2 been murdered, you know, shot, he said.

Speaker 14 He didn't tell me where, but he did say I want you to know that she went very quickly.

Speaker 10 EMTs have found Chris barely conscious and unable to say anything about the shooting. They rushed him to the hospital and deputies searched the house.

Speaker 10 Later that day, crime scene investigator Josh Easton of the Illinois State Police was called to the scene and he began cataloging the mayhem inside. What do you see when you first approached the door?

Speaker 7 I noticed the side door of the house. The glass in the door has been broken out.

Speaker 5 The refrigerator was pulled away from the wall.

Speaker 7 The kitchen table was pushed. The chairs were knocked over.

Speaker 10 No weapon was found, leading investigators to suspect that a third person was involved. Eason took note of every detail, including the burnt pizza in the oven.

Speaker 7 I assume that maybe they were cooking a pizza for the night and

Speaker 5 the

Speaker 7 suspect shows up at the door. They both tried to fight him off.
And when Chris was shot, Leslie went to the living room to try to hide.

Speaker 10 How many times was she shot?

Speaker 7 She was only shot one time.

Speaker 10 In the head. In the head.
Leslie's body was in the living room, while Chris had been found in the kitchen. Easton said of the 1,800 crime scenes he had been to, this was one of the most horrific.

Speaker 5 There was blood everywhere.

Speaker 7 The cabinets, the refrigerator.

Speaker 7 The countertop. There was blood from corner to corner in the kitchen.

Speaker 10 Easton spotted two silver-colored bullet casings from a 9-millimeter gun, one in the kitchen and the other near Leslie's body.

Speaker 10 As Easton processed the scene, detectives began learning about the victims.

Speaker 10 Chris Smith was a 48-year-old divorced father.

Speaker 2 who worked for a pool contractor.

Speaker 13 Chris was a nice guy. He would hang out here frequently, was friends with most people in town.
Everybody knew him.

Speaker 10 Bartender Dina LeGrand says Chris was well known in town as the guy who grew banana trees and giant pumpkins.

Speaker 13 I remember one Halloween, he donated hundreds of pumpkins for decorations for any of the kids to paint.

Speaker 13 He gave back to his community.

Speaker 10 Did either one of you ever worry about Chris?

Speaker 18 No. No.

Speaker 10 Sharon Costanza is Chris's mother, Ashley Holcomb, his sister.

Speaker 12 Chris is a stay-home person that literally would just work in his backyard.

Speaker 10 Chris lived with a dog named Tiki, and an EMT told the family that Tiki may have helped Chris make it through the night by huddling with him for the roughly 12 hours.

Speaker 10 that Chris was bleeding before being rescued.

Speaker 18 I think Tiki protected Chris. I think she probably laid right next to him.

Speaker 10 Chris's close-knit family could not imagine anyone wanting to kill him. It was like, no way how, why, like, who, yeah, who would have done that?

Speaker 10 Investigators had the same questions about Leslie. and learned that she was a divorced mother of two children who lived in Troy about an hour south of Farmersville.

Speaker 10 Although Leslie had a master's degree in engineering, she chose instead to teach Pilates and to promote self-defense classes for women.

Speaker 10 Hi, I'm Leslie from All U Studio and I'm Leslie posted this video to her YouTube channel to advertise one of her classes.

Speaker 16 Empower yourself against aggression and assault as we teach you easy to learn self-defense techniques.

Speaker 10 Power up!

Speaker 10 Leslie tried to help women in abusive relationships, but friends say she had her own troubles.

Speaker 10 Nanette told deputies she was worried about a former boyfriend, a contractor by the name of Robert Tarr, known as Bobby.

Speaker 14 She said, I am going to completely block Bobby. From email, texts, phone calls, I have to go no contact.

Speaker 10 Later that evening, news of Leslie's murder began circulating. and reached another close friend, Amy Steinhauer.

Speaker 10 She had met Tarr, a divorced father of three, and did not have a good impression of him. But...

Speaker 16 You never see someone and think that they can kill my friend.

Speaker 10 Amy called the sheriff's office that night to give them Tar's name.

Speaker 10 By then, detectives had already set out to find Bobby Tarr. While 85 miles to the north, surgeons were fighting to try to save the life of Chris Smith.
A bullet still lodged in his brain.

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Speaker 11 I just wanted to get there. I just wanted to get there as fast as I could.

Speaker 10 After learning that Chris had been shot in the head, his family rushed to the hospital in Springfield, Illinois, two hours from their home.

Speaker 11 I was on the phone to everyone I could think of because I just needed prayers from everybody.

Speaker 10 Doctors removed part of Chris's skull and some bullet fragments in his brain before putting him in a medically induced coma.

Speaker 10 His family, struggling to piece together what had happened, learned that he had been out with a woman named Leslie Reeves.

Speaker 10 Had you ever heard the name Leslie Reeves before?

Speaker 12 No. I looked her up and then I tried to reach out to her friends and then I found her best friend Nanette.

Speaker 10 Nanette told them the same thing she had told investigators. She suspected Leslie's ex-boyfriend Bobby Tarr.

Speaker 10 That night, sheriff's deputies went to Tarr's home in Collinsville, an hour south of the crime scene.

Speaker 10 Authorities say he never asked why they wanted to talk to him, and he agreed to go to the police station without a lawyer.

Speaker 22 T.A.R. Marker.

Speaker 10 Although her friend said the couple had broken up, Tar told investigators that he and Leslie were still together.

Speaker 22 Do you and Leslie have a lot of problems? I wouldn't say

Speaker 22 no worse than any average

Speaker 22 couple.

Speaker 10 It was Leslie that detectives wanted to talk about.

Speaker 22 I want you to dig down deeper and be as honest with me as you can, okay?

Speaker 22 Leslie is dead.

Speaker 22 What?

Speaker 22 Can you help me shed some light on this?

Speaker 22 How did she die?

Speaker 22 She was murdered. What happened?

Speaker 22 That's why we're here with you. You help me believe that you're not involved in this.
I'm not involved in anything.

Speaker 10 Investigators asked Tar about Farmersville, the scene of the crime.

Speaker 22 You know what Farmersville now is?

Speaker 22 Farmersville. No, I can't say that I do.
I've never been there. I've never heard of it.

Speaker 10 And they asked Tar where he had been the night before Thanksgiving.

Speaker 22 I went to a buddy of mine's house.

Speaker 22 He left and left me some money out of his shop and he'll pick it up.

Speaker 10 The friend lived a short distance from Tar's home.

Speaker 22 Remember the time he came back?

Speaker 22 Bill wasn't that long.

Speaker 22 Maybe 6.30, something like that.

Speaker 10 Investigators believe the shooting took place sometime early on Thanksgiving morning after 1 a.m. Tar said after he got back, he was home all night.

Speaker 22 You can talk to my daughter about me being home.

Speaker 10 That's exactly what they did. Detectives brought Tar's 17-year-old daughter, Shelby, to a different room at the police station.
And she told them that her father actually left home twice that night.

Speaker 24 So the first time he left was roughly 6.30. Right.

Speaker 24 And then he came home about a half hour later and I said he had to go back.

Speaker 24 And then it was 9.15-ish when he got back home.

Speaker 10 Shelby said he had been gone for more than two hours and when he got home, he was upset.

Speaker 25 He gets home. He was crying.
He was sobbing. He said he missed Leslie.

Speaker 10 Shelby said she went to sleep around 9.30 and was awakened by her father around 2.45 a.m.

Speaker 25 He started laundry.

Speaker 25 He was pacing pacing walking around, and he was like, I can't sleep.

Speaker 10 Detectives went back to Tar and told him Shelby's story did not match his. Tar then changed his story and said he had gone to his friend's house twice, but still insisted he was home by 8.

Speaker 10 As Tar sat at the police station, detectives searched his house and found his phone and a Glock pistol. Shelby had told them her father had a different gun, but they didn't find it.

Speaker 25 It's little, it's like this big. I look at my cream with the Army green.

Speaker 10 Shelby told investigators she had seen it the day before Thanksgiving in her father's sock drawer.

Speaker 25 Yesterday morning, actually, I went to Sauce.

Speaker 24 It was there. No, it's not that.
It was there yesterday and all the day.

Speaker 24 Okay.

Speaker 10 Bobby Tarr sat at the police station overnight while authorities continued to investigate.

Speaker 10 They had already learned that that his car had been captured by license plate reader cameras just after midnight, the night of the shooting.

Speaker 10 The cameras were near a gas station and investigators discovered the Tar had bought gas there just after midnight. Back at the police station, they confronted him with the gas station receipt.

Speaker 22 Sir Larry,

Speaker 22 I don't remember knowing you. You don't remember being out after midnight when you have told us you are 100% positive.

Speaker 10 The gas station is here in Troy. Yes.
And the murder occurred here in Farmersville. Correct.

Speaker 10 The gas station was near Tar's home an hour from the crime scene. Andrew Afronte is the Montgomery County state's attorney.
He has dystonia, a condition that causes muscle ticks and tremors.

Speaker 10 So why is it significant? Because

Speaker 10 so he went out and got some gas.

Speaker 17 It was significant to us because why would he lie about it?

Speaker 22 Someone got fuel. What is that proof?

Speaker 10 Investigators believed it was proof Tar was lying about his whereabouts that night. They placed him under arrest.

Speaker 22 They're under arrest for murder.

Speaker 10 Afronte says they arrested Tar immediately. because they feared Chris's life was in danger

Speaker 10 and they hadn't found the murder weapon.

Speaker 17 If he was out of custody, could he take further steps to dispose of the evidence?

Speaker 10 Just one day after Leslie Reeves was killed and Chris Smith was left fighting for his life. Investigators believe they had the man responsible in custody.
I'm Aaron Moriarty.

Speaker 26 Bobby Tarr.

Speaker 10 But in his only media interview, Bobby Tarr tells 48 Hours they got the wrong guy.

Speaker 26 There are so many things untold that will prove my innocence.

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Speaker 28 Crimes of is a weekly series that explores a new theme each season, from Crimes of the Paranormal, Unsolved Murders, and more.

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Speaker 10 Bobby Tarr, charged with the murder of Leslie Reeves and the attempted murder of Chris Smith, is nothing, if not unflappable. Did you kill Leslie Reeves? No.
Did you shoot Chris Smith?

Speaker 26 No.

Speaker 10 He kept his cool even when confronted with a litany of lies, he told investigators. You told the police you only left the house once.

Speaker 10 That wasn't true.

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 10 You told the police you had no idea where Farmersville is. That was a lie.

Speaker 10 You lied about getting gas in your car that night.

Speaker 10 When he spoke with us, Tara admitted he was at Chris Smith's house the night before Thanksgiving, placing himself at the scene of the crime.

Speaker 10 He says the night began when he met Leslie at her part-time job at this loft store.

Speaker 26 She had said she was going to go meet some friends because one of their friends was playing in a band. She asked me if I wanted to go.

Speaker 26 I said, well, you know, I would go, but I have my youngest daughter staying with me for a week.

Speaker 10 Tar says that when he declined the invitation, Leslie asked if he would follow her to Farmersville because her van was unreliable. And so he did.

Speaker 10 That makes no sense to Leslie's friend, Amy Steinhauer.

Speaker 15 She was terrified of him.

Speaker 15 Rightfully so.

Speaker 10 Just a few weeks earlier, Amy says, Leslie told her that Tar had shown up while she was on a first date with a different guy.

Speaker 10 After that incident, Leslie told Amy she was frightened by Tar and texted Amy, I could be killed by him someday if I don't cut all contact.

Speaker 10 So you're telling me now that this woman who was scared of you, who had actually texted a friend that she thought you might kill her, asked you to follow her to another man's house?

Speaker 10 Does that make any sense?

Speaker 2 No, I understand.

Speaker 26 So I don't understand that text in general.

Speaker 10 Why did she think you might kill her?

Speaker 2 I don't know.

Speaker 26 I've got no clue.

Speaker 10 Tar says Leslie lied to her friends about their relationship. He insists she asked him to follow her north to Farmersville.

Speaker 2 So I went with her up there.

Speaker 26 I think we arrived there around 7.30.

Speaker 26 I parked in front of her van, in front of his house. That's as far as I went.
I left. I never went back to Farmersville again.

Speaker 10 If he had an innocent explanation for why he was in Farmersville, why did he lie to detectives?

Speaker 26 My daughter, her and Leslie, there was a little bit of tension between both of them. I did not want her to know that I was going to meet Leslie that night.

Speaker 10 Tarr claims that after he lied to his daughter Shelby about seeing Leslie, he stuck to that lie at the police station because he was afraid they would tell her.

Speaker 10 And he never corrected those lies, even when detectives arrested him. Why not just say, look, between you and me, I lied to my daughter.

Speaker 10 so let me tell you the truth, but let's just not share that with her.

Speaker 2 Why wouldn't you do that? I should have done that.

Speaker 10 He's quick to point out the lack of physical evidence connecting him to the bloody crime scene. Investigators searched his white Jeddah, but did not find any shards of glass or bloodstains.

Speaker 26 Two tests by the state police were done on my car.

Speaker 26 Zero blood found in my car. There's zero DNA of mine at the crime scene.
Anything from the crime scene in my car or on me or any of my clothing or my shoes. Zero.

Speaker 10 Prosecutor Afronte has to concede that point. Was any of Tar's DNA found inside the house?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 10 Were any of his fingerprints found inside the house? No.

Speaker 10 And authorities still had not found the murder weapon. But a week after the shooting, they got a phone call from Tar's friend Billy Adams.
Adams said Tar had called him from jail.

Speaker 10 That call was recorded.

Speaker 17 What's your day look like today? Because I need 10 minutes of your time.

Speaker 10 Tar asked Adams to go to his house and look for some deck brackets.

Speaker 17 I got some special aluminum brackets

Speaker 23 that I need you to get.

Speaker 23 because

Speaker 23 they're for another job that I didn't tell dad about yet. So don't say nothing to him.

Speaker 10 Instead, Adams contacted the sheriff's office. Deputies suspected Tarr knew the phone call was being recorded and was speaking to his friend in code about something other than deck brackets.

Speaker 23 They're literally just,

Speaker 23 yeah, get them and get rid of them.

Speaker 26 They thought that was suspicious, which was why they went over and searched.

Speaker 10 Investigators were on their hands and knees in Tar's yard looking for a gun. Dan Fultz is Tar's defense attorney.

Speaker 29 They searched that area thoroughly. No gun.
You know what they did find?

Speaker 29 Deck brackets.

Speaker 10 A few days later, they got another phone call, this time from Tar's brother, asking them to come back to the house.

Speaker 10 Tar's family gave deputies a Ziploc bag they said they had found in the same yard that had been searched just days earlier. Inside, a Springfield Hellcat 9mm pistol and silver-colored ammunition.

Speaker 10 The Illinois State Police determined the gun was the murder weapon, and the ammunition matched the casings found at the crime scene.

Speaker 26 We still to this day don't know how that shit ended up there, specifically in the spot that they searched.

Speaker 10 Are you saying you were set up? Someone was framing you? Yes.

Speaker 10 But if someone was framing Tar, he or she would have to be pretty detail-oriented. The state police say Tar's fingerprint was on the Ziploc bag.

Speaker 29 He is adamant that he would not have been dumb enough that he would have carried it all the way back to his home and said, hmm, where would I put this gun on my one-acre lot?

Speaker 29 I think I'll put it next to the front door.

Speaker 10 And Tar points out neither his prints nor DNA were found on the gun itself.

Speaker 26 Nothing on the firearm, no DNA, no prints of mine on the firearm.

Speaker 17 What I think what happened is that the gun was cleaned. And Mr.
Tarr just missed a spot.

Speaker 10 That spot was Leslie's DNA, say police, found on the guide rod of the gun. Tar's explanation? The gun wasn't his.
It belonged to Leslie.

Speaker 26 I purchased the Hellcat and Leslie purchased it from me.

Speaker 10 As investigators continue to build a case against Bobby Tarr, they say he was hatching a plan to silence the only eyewitness. Did you ask a inmate to shoot Chris Smith?

Speaker 19 What do you make of Bobby Tarr's story? Chat now with the 48 Hours team on Facebook and X.

Speaker 3 Leslie accompanied me here on several occasions.

Speaker 10 If there's anyone who knew what guns Leslie Reeves owned, it's Howard Bolton, her close friend and firearm instructor.

Speaker 3 When I would hold classes, she would actually shoot with us. Leslie was becoming a very good shot.

Speaker 10 Bolton says Leslie had organized a class called Girls with Guns not long before she was murdered.

Speaker 3 We put the girls through their paces. They would move and fire.
They would go forward and fire. They would come back and fire.
And Leslie did very, very well at that.

Speaker 10 Bobby Tarr insisted to us that Leslie owned the Hellcat that was used to kill her. But Howard says he never saw her use it.

Speaker 3 Leslie never brought a Springfield, let alone a Hellcat, to class.

Speaker 10 So then, how did Leslie's DNA get on the guide rod of the murder weapon? Howard believes that Leslie's DNA could only be on that guide rod if the gun was fired at her at close range.

Speaker 3 So when he shot her, wherever it was he shot her would have contaminated that part of the gun.

Speaker 10 In fact, Howard says Leslie owned a different gun. Her friends say they wish she had taken it with her the night she was killed.

Speaker 3 Had Leslie taken the gun with her, I assure you the outcome would have been different.

Speaker 10 Tar declared his innocence, but the case against him could hinge on what Chris Smith, the only survivor, remembers. Would he be able to identify him? That was the question as Chris remained in a coma.

Speaker 11 We were talking to him, singing to him, and I was always holding his hand.

Speaker 10 While Chris Smith lay helpless, authorities say Tar was plotting to silence him forever.

Speaker 10 A grand jury indicted Tar on two counts of solicitation of murder. Those charges are based on allegations by an inmate who says Tar paid him $10,000 to shoot and kill the lead detective and Chris.

Speaker 19 Did you

Speaker 10 ask a inmate to shoot Chris Smith? No, ma'am. And to kill Detective Roach?

Speaker 26 No, ma'am.

Speaker 10 Tar says the alleged plot was a lie concocted by a former cellmate. Tar says he loaned that cellmate $10,000 for his bond and that it had nothing to do with Chris Smith.

Speaker 10 Were you worried he was going to testify and point to you as the shooter? No.

Speaker 26 I was not worried one iota.

Speaker 10 The truth was that no one knew what Chris Smith remembered. The first time he regained consciousness was in early January 2022, about two months after the shooting.

Speaker 24 They're like Eggfu Young.

Speaker 10 Eggfu Young? Chris's voice was so weak in those early days.

Speaker 17 It's already done over there.

Speaker 10 That his old friend Mark Reardon, a talk show host in St. Louis, 522-97-1-FM Talk Mac barely recognized Chris on the phone.

Speaker 30 I could not believe that I was hearing from this guy. And I cried.
He cried.

Speaker 30 Just talking about that moment really brings me chills because I just thought he was never going to be someone that was in my life ever again.

Speaker 10 What did Chris tell you?

Speaker 30 Well, when Chris came out of this, I was pretty sensitive to ask him about what had happened that night because I think I was a little afraid of even having those conversations.

Speaker 30 So most of the conversations that we had were really focused on, hey, How are you? Are you going to be okay?

Speaker 10 After intense physical therapy, he's made incredible strides. He's much stronger than when he awoke from a coma, but he discovered there are gaps in his memory.

Speaker 10 What does he remember from that terrible night?

Speaker 9 I wish to God I could remember something. I mean, even just a smidgen of something, but I remember nothing.

Speaker 10 He remembers nothing of the shooting. or Leslie Reeves.

Speaker 9 I said, who the heck's Leslie? I don't know Leslie.

Speaker 10 You had no idea.

Speaker 9 No, nothing.

Speaker 5 Nothing. Nothing.

Speaker 10 Is Chris the same person who used to come on your show before he was shot?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 30 I think at the core, he's still the same guy that I knew. He's still the smart ass.
He's still the guy that's going to talk about how good he is and how good he was and how much he could lift weights.

Speaker 10 Chris works out at the gym most mornings, trying to regain muscle so that someday he'll be able to walk without assistance.

Speaker 10 Strength and turn.

Speaker 10 He's even back to being the lead singer in his rock and roll band.

Speaker 18 I don't know how he did make it.

Speaker 11 I don't understand how he did.

Speaker 2 He's a miracle.

Speaker 10 But Chris is aware his life is very different from what it once was.

Speaker 9 So I'm half the man I used to be, but I'm trying to get it back as hard as I can.

Speaker 9 And then my left leg is partially paralyzed from my hip to my knee, then from my knee to my toes, completely paralyzed.

Speaker 9 So if there's any neurosurgeons out there, any researchers out there, please get a hold of me. I'll be your guinea pig.
Just make me normal and give my life back, please.

Speaker 10 It's tough, isn't it, Chris?

Speaker 9 It tough doesn't even describe it.

Speaker 2 It doesn't even describe it.

Speaker 10 Chris is resigned to living with part of that hollow point bullet in his brain. Doctors say it's in a spot that makes it too dangerous to remove.
So that's where you got shot?

Speaker 2 Yep, right here.

Speaker 9 Yep, you still feel it in my skull.

Speaker 2 Right there.

Speaker 10 After decades on his own, Chris had to move back into his mother's house.

Speaker 11 I thank my blessings daily that he's here with us.

Speaker 11 I just wish that this guy didn't take everything away from him.

Speaker 10 Chris visits with his loyal dog, Tiki, but no longer lives with her. And he'd love to see his 12-year-old daughter more often, but he can't drive.
And he's living in St.

Speaker 10 Louis, almost two hours away from his daughter and ex-wife.

Speaker 29 I miss her.

Speaker 19 She was my little peanut pot. I mean, we did everything together.

Speaker 10 The trial of Robert Tarr was set for April 2024, but Chris would not be there. He told the prosecutor he was too angry to attend.
You didn't think you'd be able to just sit there.

Speaker 9 Oh, no, no way. I know myself.
There's no way. No.

Speaker 10 But Chris's alleged shooter, Bobby Tarr, will be there. And he said he was eager to tell the jury jury that he's not a violent man.
But on this one night early morning, did you snap?

Speaker 2 No,

Speaker 26 that's not my nature. I don't lose it, snap.

Speaker 19 Follow along with Chris's remarkable story at 48hours.com.

Speaker 10 When Bobby Tarr went on trial in April 2024, prosecutors told the jury that he killed Leslie Reeves rather than allow her to live the life she wanted, a life without him.

Speaker 17 Mr. Tarr couldn't deal with the fact that Leslie was seeing somebody else and he had to go and take care of it.

Speaker 10 Andrew Afronte says Tarr secretly followed Leslie to Farmersville early that evening. And shortly afterwards, his phone began showing some interesting activity.

Speaker 17 He had actually searched Chris Smith on his phone, had tried to find his Facebook profile.

Speaker 10 Tar headed home and texted his friend Billy Adams. I don't feel like she would drive that far for a party or go out with a girlfriend.
I think it's for a dude.

Speaker 10 He also searched whether police could track his phone if he was using a VPN, a virtual private network.

Speaker 17 He was researching to determine whether or not that would mask where his location was while he was using the phone.

Speaker 10 Authorities say around midnight, Tar left home stopping at that gas station. And then, according to Afronte, surveillance videos and cell tower records show that Tar drove back to Farmersville.

Speaker 10 You believe he intended to kill both Chris and Leslie?

Speaker 17 I 100% believe that he went up there with the intent to do serious harm to both of them.

Speaker 10 With one victim dead and the other with no memory, it's difficult to say with certainty what happened.

Speaker 10 But the prosecution argued that sometime after 1 a.m., Bobby Tarr tried to enter through the back door of Chrismus' house. Leslie and Chris tried to keep him out.

Speaker 7 There was some kind of altercation or struggle.

Speaker 7 And that's when the glass was broken.

Speaker 10 Crime scene investigator Josh Easton told the jury what he had observed inside the kitchen.

Speaker 2 The refrigerator was pulled away from the wall where it appeared it normally was.

Speaker 10 Prosecutors believe Leslie was trying to use the refrigerator to block the door. And based on where Chris was shot in his head, they think he was crouching down to help Leslie.

Speaker 17 I think that while Chris was crouched down trying to hold the door shut, Bobby shot through the door and shot Chris.

Speaker 10 With Chris incapacitated, Afronte says Leslie hid in the living room. Tar tracked her down, shot, and killed her.

Speaker 17 I strongly believe that he walked in and executed her.

Speaker 10 Defense Attorney Dan Fultz disputes all of that.

Speaker 29 There is simply no evidence that that's what happened. There's no evidence that Leslie pushed the refrigerator.
There's no fingerprints and blood on the refrigerator of Leslie's.

Speaker 10 Fult says evidence of a fight in the kitchen tells a different story.

Speaker 29 The amount of blood in that kitchen was astonishing.

Speaker 10 From looking at that crime scene, do you believe that Christopher Smith had to fight his

Speaker 10 assailant in the kitchen?

Speaker 29 It would appear to me that there was some significant struggle in that kitchen between him and someone else.

Speaker 10 And he says the assailant could not have been Bobby Tarr because he would have been covered in blood.

Speaker 29 They did not identify a single piece of DNA in his car. They didn't identify a bloody fingerprint.
They did not identify anything tying him to that crime scene.

Speaker 10 But prosecutors argued the house wasn't bloody when Tarr left. They said Chris bled heavily in the 12 hours it took for help to arrive.

Speaker 10 And while the prosecution did not have a lot of forensic evidence linking Tar to the crime scene, Afronte says his phone activity, his lies to investigators, and the evidence found on the Hellcat all prove his guilt.

Speaker 17 When you put all that together, that's when you get the clear picture of what happened.

Speaker 10 When it was the defense's turn, Tar says he wanted to tell his story to the jury, but he chose not to testify.

Speaker 10 why didn't you just decide you were going to talk to the jury and tell this story if in fact you have a story to tell i should have i very well should have

Speaker 10 we made a strategic decision because it may have opened the door for a whole lot of other more damaging evidence to be used uh to cross-examine him The defense didn't put on any witnesses and counted on the jury to find reasonable doubt in the lack of physical evidence.

Speaker 10 After three hours, the jury found Bobby Tarr guilty of first-degree murder and attempted murder.

Speaker 11 Everyone clapped, and Bobby just sat there shaking his head.

Speaker 10 Two months later, Tarr was back in court for sentencing. And this time, so was Chris.
To tell the judge how the shooting impacted him and his family, cameras were not allowed in the courtroom.

Speaker 9 Lost my house.

Speaker 5 Lost my truck.

Speaker 9 I've literally lost my life without being killed.

Speaker 10 Tarr also spoke and denied shooting Leslie and Chris. The judge sentenced him to 85 years.

Speaker 15 I hope the rest of his time on this earth is hell.

Speaker 10 Leslie Reeves' friends are focused on keeping her memory alive.

Speaker 3 She was a light of a lot of people's lives. She was always smiling.

Speaker 3 She was a very good mother, lived for her kids, and was an advocate and champion of women, women's rights, and especially women that were abused.

Speaker 14 If it can happen to her, it could happen to anyone, so we all need to be careful.

Speaker 10 Chris Smith says he never expected he'd be a victim of domestic violence and cautions other men to take a hard look at their behavior.

Speaker 9 If guys, you feel like that, you want to hurt a woman, get help.

Speaker 10 While Chris mourns his old life, he's writing a book about his experiences and says he's working to make what he calls poor man's margaritas out of the lemons and limes he's been handed.

Speaker 9 I've got a do-over.

Speaker 5 Good Lord, give me a do-over.

Speaker 9 Not many people get a second chance life.

Speaker 10 Chris has found love with Michelle Albrecht.

Speaker 9 She's an angel, loving me and accepting me the way that I am.

Speaker 10 He proposed to her on stage. I was after she married me, guys.

Speaker 10 What's the most important lesson out of all of this?

Speaker 9 Don't ever give up on anything.

Speaker 2 Ever.

Speaker 9 No matter how bad things are.

Speaker 2 Don't ever give up.

Speaker 19 Leslie's two children are being raised by their father. Bobby Tarr is still awaiting trial on solicitation of murder charges.

Speaker 6 As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman.
But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder?

Speaker 6 Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 10 I'm Aaron Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most.

Speaker 10 Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove: the trouble case against Crosley Green, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 20 It's why he partners with Granger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Speaker 20 Also, that he can help students, staff, and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-GRANGER, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.
Granger for the ones who get it done.