Miles From Nowhere

Deep in the woods, a family lives in fear. What are you going to do if they come back? Of a threat from strangers.
Daddy will protect us. Daddy won't let anything bad happen to you.
So when the strangers arrive, a father takes matters into his own hands. You hear crack, crack, crack, gunfire.
The terror, the bullets. This was like shooting fish in a barrel.
Glasses exploding. Just complete chaos.

Someone is killed.

Anybody in the vehicle, look at your hands.

It was bad.

Worse than anything you would see in a movie.

Sometimes I've cried for my dad.

Was this a murder?

Every day I think of that.

All I could think of was my kids. What about my kids? It was in the dark that the fear began.
In the dark with the sounds of the black night around them,

that it grew and grew.

They terrorized our family, our friends.

Who was out there in the dark?

Here, miles and miles into primeval woods,

so far from safety, from civilized protection.

They could just come onto our property and invade our lives. But on a summer night deep in the California Sierra, the terror came out of the dark, came after them to take everything.
The terrible, desperate chase. Its awful end, and now the question, what really happened out there in the dark? Stand up! I still feel like I need to go help him.
It seems so innocent now, closed up,. Dead quiet.
Empty. In that place at the end of a hundred-yard dirt track that snakes off a lonely country road deep in the Sierra Nevada.
But that was not how it was, or was ever meant to be. No.
Before it happened, before that summer night in July of 2011, it was, well, let them tell it. It's a magical place.
It's awesome. It's fun.
Mostly at winter, we would do a snowball fight, and then we would come inside and eat and have some hot cocoa. These are the Wallen-Reed children.

Darlene is the eldest, then Georgia, and little Gregory.

Mostly they lived in Reno, Nevada.

But this?

This at the end of a two-hour drive into the woods.

This was the place they lived.

We would go on hikes, and there was like a lake that was very close. And we would fish.
And we'd fish and we'd go up there and we'd fish and swim. It was pretty much awesome.
Here they discovered a world far more magical than any city could ever be. It was their father's cabin, really.
Chad Wallen-Reed. Chad's grandparents built the cabin in the 70s when he was just a baby.
My children were definitely a daddy. We loved the place.
They've all grown up. Diapers all the way through going up there, you know, fishing, boating, you know, swimming.
Mind you, this was truly remote. Their only electricity came from a generator.
There was no cell phone service, no phone at all. Which was just fine with Chad's wife, Carrie.
It was very enjoyable to be away from the phones and traffic and, you know, work. This is where Chad taught his children how to exist in the natural world.
How to catch a fish, swim in a mountain lake, feel safe in the dark. He's an amazing father.
He loves his children so much. He's my best buddy.
He's really funny and he's really loving and he likes people to laugh a lot. The children saw the world and certainly their retreat here in the country is a safe place for them, just as it should be.
And keeping it that way was Chad's particular preoccupation. Chad worried a lot about safety, about security, which may have come in part at least from his time in the military.
He was, he said, an army ranger, one of the elite few. Though, like a lot of vets, he seemed to carry some baggage.
There's just some things I'd rather not talk about and things that I've tried to get over, I guess. Kerry didn't pry.
Let him deal with it his own way. Between himself and the Lord, he loves this country.

He fought for our freedom.

It means a lot to him.

And now, between the children and whatever was out there in the woods, were only their

parents.

The nearest sheriff's office almost an hour's drive away.

Had to be your own policeman.

That was how you felt?

Yes.

We had to protect ourselves.

There was nobody else there to protect us.

And out here, that was no idle worry.

Break-ins are not uncommon in the isolated cabins

up here in the wilderness.

And theirs?

Oh, the cabin's been broken in,

you know, numerous times.

One of the most recent ones,

somebody just pretty much ransacked the whole place.

There's something very invasive about that, too,

when somebody goes into property that's yours

and takes something of yours.

It is.

It's not just invasive, it robs you of security.

Security was why Chad gave Carrie a revolver,

taught her how to use it,

and stocked the cabin with guns, including a favorite, his AR-15, a lot like his military weapon, security, and pleasure.

What's the attraction of those?

I think it's just the fun in shooting them.

It's just being able to put the 30-round magazine and then set up a target and just go at it.

Thank you. just being able to put the 30-round magazine and then set up a target and just go at it.
Chad planted signs at the edge of his property, out by the road, stern warnings to would-be vandals and thieves. And he watched, vigilant, didn't rest easy, especially because one of those break-ins had been just that very year.
And if you did fall asleep, it was very lightly, and every noise would wake you up very easily. Then, the 4th of July weekend, 2011, the Wallen Reeds were joined by some friends who set up a little campsite on the property near the road.
Just enjoying each other's company and hanging out. But early on the Saturday morning, about 2 a.m., Chad was jolted awake.
All of a sudden I heard all this yelling and commotion and it sounded like somebody was fighting. And I looked out and I saw this spotlight being shined all over the place.
And I was like, what the heck is going on? And then I walk out and as I'm looking down, this car goes speeding away. Chad hopped in his truck, drove to the end of the driveway.
And that's when I noticed one of the solar lights had been taken. A solar light, one of several attached to metal poles marking the edge of the property.
A cheap item, but still. Why would somebody want one of those? I don't know.
When morning came, Chad inspected his friend's campsite near the bottom of the property. Were those footprints of strangers around their trailer? It put us on edge, you know, basically high alert.
The commotion, the stolen light, the footprints of people who had no business being there, the children picked up the anxiety. I remember asking my dad and mom, what are you going to do if they come back and what would happen if somebody got hurt? To witness your children scared like that and insecure, and you as a parent have failed.
You know, and that's how I felt as a father, as a person that, you know, is supposed to protect your family. And all I could do was offer words.
Honey, if they come back, Daddy will protect you. Daddy will take care of it.

The promise he intended to keep.

What happened the next night would change all their lives.

I picked up the pistol that was in my cup holder and pointed it out the window. Saturday morning, July 4th weekend, 2011.

Chad Wallenreed and his family were on edge.

Strangers had come very close, middle of the night.

Strangers who stole a solar light and may have been trapping around in their property. And suddenly the cabin felt more remote.
The woods, less like home. And the children? They asked, what if they come back and come all the way up to the cabin? What if...
So what'd you say? Daddy will protect us. Daddy, you know, Daddy won't let anything bad happen to you.
It was... It was scary.
It was scary to me. Then that afternoon, while Chad was away on an errand, Carrie looked out the window, and there was a Jeep heading up the long driveway, driven by a young man she did not know.
He sat there for a while, and like he was looking around for something. I had the kids stay down, out of sight, so they wouldn't be seen.
Was he lost, looking for help? She took no chances. She reached for the gun Chad had taught her how to use.
I had my revolver and I was headed towards the door. And then whoever it was backed up and drove away.
So what did that do to your level of anxiety that weekend? Oh it was high. Ramped it up some more.
Oh yes. That evening still on edge Carrie and the kids watched a movie and fell asleep on the couch.
Chad sat outside with his visiting friends, who had set up camp on his property. We were just sitting there on the porch, kicking back, relaxing, BSing.
The story of what happened next is both complex and disputed. It was 9 or 10 p.m., said Chad, when his friends noticed a car.
And then they said it just shut off its headlights and pulled up onto the driveway. What was going on? That car the night before? The Jeep that came up the drive that very afternoon? And now strangers were out there again.
I picked up the AR that was sitting. It was sitting right there next to me.
His AR-15 Bushmaster, he fired a warning shot. And then I just remember seeing some guy running away.
But would a warning be enough? These had to be the same men who came the night before. Now here they were a second time.
These guys were bad news. I said, I'm going to try to catch up to these guys, you know, go get them, you know, catch them.
Get their license plate or get their information or something, you know, because it was apparent that this was more than just we're here to play and joke around with you. Chad jumped in his truck and gave chase, barreling up the Twisty Mountain Road at up to 50 miles an hour.
As I was coming up behind him, somebody leaned out the passenger side of the vehicle and it was shining a million power spotlight. I mean, it was just blinding.
And then next thing you know, as I'm looking up, I see these three flashes and then I hear crack, crack, crack, crack. It was a sound of, you know, gunfire.
It's sound Chad knew very well. He'd been in the Army, remember.
So what'd you do? I picked up the pistol that was in my cup holder, chambered around, and pointed it out the window. I, you know, let off a few rounds.
Did you hit anything? Not that I could tell, no. Someone in the car ahead threw solar lights out the window, then waved something.
Like a piece of plastic. Something shiny flying out, you know, or hanging out a window.
And we kept on proceeding. Back in the cabin, Terry lay tense on the couch for three kids sleeping beside her.
I was just like, in my mind, thinking, where are you? Come home. You know, is everything okay? I hope everything's okay.
Chad was still in hot pursuit. 7.6 miles they went, careening up the winding country road until the car took a quick turn onto a remote dirt road, Chad right behind.
They did some fish tails, you know, like they'd slid the car and at one point the passionate door just started to open up and I thought, you know, these guys are going to get out, they're going to, you know, they're going to come at me. The dirt road emptied into a meadow.
And the car suddenly made a 180.

And it looked like they were coming straight at you. Yeah.

Like an assault.

Looking like an assault.

Right.

Were they going to shoot him?

Ram him?

What?

In the military and in police, that's what we call an escalation of tactics.

Until somebody either backs down or the threat's neutralized. The other car kept coming.
Chad grabbed the AR-15. And it just shoved out the window and fired off.
Where were they compared to you? So they were coming this way? They were right, right beside you? Right, right. How many shots are you? I don't recall.
Just let it go. Right.
Chad watched his enemy's driver's side window blow out. Glass rained down on the meadow.
The stranger's car veered across the grass and came to rest on the dirt road. I drove over to him and he's yelling at them.
And I just remember this young voice saying, I give up, I give up, I give up, we're sorry, but you know, please don't kill me. It doesn't make you feel very good to have somebody pleading and begging for their life.
Chad's protective fury lessened for a moment. And then...
I remember him yelling, I have a three-month-old daughter. And all I could think of was my kids.
Thinking, you're yelling at me about your daughter, and look what you just did. What about my kids? Did you ever consider my kids? Who were these men in the car? What did they want? Here in the dark, miles from nowhere, what had just happened? And what was it about to.

Back home, Chad faces the reality of what's happened. I just remember this lost look on her face,

and I was just saying children and his peace.

He carried his rifle, just like the Army trained him. I was at the ready.
Hey, if they came out of that vehicle, made any movements, you know, I could see their hands and, you know, approach the vehicle. As he checked out the inside, clearing it, as they say in the military, he saw the driver had been hit.
He was hunched over the steering wheel, and then when I got into the driver's side of the vehicle, he was laid back, and his head was down. I mean, I didn't check for a pulse or anything like that, but there was a bullet wound in his neck.
Were they, some of the others were wounded also, right? At that point in time, I didn't know. Nor did Chad know any of the men in the car, who they were, why they'd approached his home.
But once he saw they no longer posed a threat, he said, he told the men he'd do what he could to find help for them. I said, I'm going to go call the sheriff.
And he drove the seven and a half miles back to his cabin.

As you're driving back, as you're now trying to figure out what the hell you've done,

what was going on in your heart, your mind, your soul?

An assessment.

Huh?

Somebody is either dead or dying.

Something very serious has happened here.

What steps do we go through?

None of that drive was occupied with the, oh my God, what the hell have I done? No. No.
When he pulled into the driveway, Chad was greeted by his friends. They had seen him race off into the night.
Now he told them what happened. And I said, I caught up to him.
You know, they shot at me. I shot back.
And I think I killed one of them. And at first, everybody was like, ah, you know, just laughing and stuff like that.
And I said, no, I think I killed one of them. Chad's wife Carrie, up in the cabin with the kids, couldn't tell what Chad was saying outside.
It felt like much longer than it actually was for him to get out of the truck and to come inside the cabin. And then he came inside.
And she's like, well, what happened? I said, you know, I took off after, and I think I killed one of them. He was so upset.
He looked as if he continued to talk, that he would just not be able to maintain any composure whatsoever. And I just remember.
I just remember her looking at me. And I couldn't tell what the look was about.
Whether, you know, it was a relief from her, or it was a, who are you?

Maybe it was some kind of like an accusation, I guess.

And, you know, I just remember just this lost look on her face.

I've never, ever seen in my entire life. And I was just saying, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. But what should he do? Chad wasn't exactly sure.
He turned to his friend, Jason. I was thinking, well, maybe I could go back and one of us could go and make a phone call and one of us could go back and help.
But Jason's like, no, going back would be a terrible idea. And he said, we need to go and call 911.
Remember, their cabin didn't have a telephone. So Carrie got dressed and then she and Chad and their friend drove the winding road down the mountain toward the main highway, perhaps nine miles down, hunting for a spot with cell phone reception.
We had to drive clear almost three-quarters of the way down to where I normally get reception, and I called out, and I'd gotten through, and right as I was talking to a lady, the call dropped, and then I had to drive down a little bit farther. We were able to make a call out there.
Hello, how can I help you? Yes, I need a report of shooting. A shooting? Yes.
Of course, you know, dispatch is like, what's your address? There's no addresses. Where are you at? I'm in Plumas County up by Antelope Lake.
He was concerned, he said, about getting help for the wounded. My mind was, how are they going to find these individuals? How are they going to get there to help them? I mean, they're out in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road.
This northern stretch of the Sierra Nevada is an up-and-down world of river gorges and mountain peaks, difficult to forge, and far from any towns or resorts. The few deputies on patrol are scattered over a vast wilderness.
And so it's not altogether surprising that one of the first lawmen to respond to Chad's 911 call turned out to be a game warden. What is surprising is who was riding with him, a photographer of all people, one of the first to reach the scene of the shooting.

And the images he captured?

It was bad.

Worse than anything you would see in a movie, I'll tell you that.

Caught on camera, the horrifying real-life scene that first responders found.

I just remember seeing this hand come up out of the grass,

and everyone was like, whoa, we got a hand. In the High Sierra, the life of a game warden is a solitary one.
Hours of driving along backcountry roads, alone.

Wardens hunt everything from bear poachers to plot farmers,

and it's spray that sometimes shoots back.

That lone justice angle attracted a reality show,

which sent a photographer named Ben Staley to the little town of Quincy.

I'd been in the Quincy area for a couple months,

getting into all kinds of trouble with the California game wardens. It was the 4th of Quincy.
I'd been in the Quincy area for a couple months, getting into all kinds

of trouble with the California game wardens. It was the 4th of July weekend, late on a Saturday

night. Stanley had been taping with the game warden since daybreak.
He was ready to pack it in.

Then an urgent call went out over the radio. Shots fired.
All we really knew is some bad stuff had

happened. Some people had been shooting at each other.
We're speeding to get there, to perhaps

Thank you. shots fired.
All we really knew is some bad stuff had happened. Some people had been shooting at each other.
We're speeding to get there, to perhaps break it up, perhaps stop it, perhaps save lives. You don't really know.
They didn't know, in other words, that they were responding to the 911 call from Chad Wallen-Reed after his armed confrontation with six men on a dark road running through a meadow. While racing to the scene, Staley and the warden met up with a sheriff's deputy.
Then over the radio came a new twist. Two men, possibly wounded, had been found wandering through a campground.
So we go to this campground, and sure enough, you know, we all hop out, and then there's like two guys in the middle of this campground with blood on them. One of the sheriff takes them.
They cuff them up and take them right there. And then these guys are like, look, our friends are hurt.
And they give us directions to where the incident occurred. The meadow, that is.
The dirt road where the shooting took place. A place so remote that without those directions, they might never have found it.
As they drove through the night, they listened to the chatter on the two-way. It was very chaotic.
Nobody knew exactly what was happening. Nobody knew if there was, you know, multiple people shooting at each other, if it was two people shooting at each other.
There was all these conflicting reports coming in over the radio. It's really scary.
Staley and the warden were now joined by a total of three deputies. The makeshift team convoyed to the meadow, geared up for a possible shootout.
They found a lone vehicle. Its windows blown out.
Next guy, I want you to stand up. Staley shot footage of the encounter, which later became part of the official public record.
Right away, there's two guys coming towards with their hands up. One guy's limping really bad.
He was shot through the leg. They're both bloody and cut up.
They both look really freaked out. Then Staley saw something strange poking out of the meadow floor.
I just remember seeing this hand come up out of the grass. I got one up to the right here.
One hand up. And everyone was like, whoa, we got a hand.
Stady recorded everything. The warden, the deputies, arresting the wounded men, the hand poking out of the grass, and then the young man who was connected to that hand, his right calf shredded by a bullet.
And he tourniqueted his leg, but the sheriffs and the wardens right away saw that he had it on too tight and he'd had it on too long. It was very painful, and they took it off, and he was bleeding a lot.
This badly wounded man, plus the others, made five, but there was one more. And then there was another guy in the back seat who was, I guess, the driver.
He was a lot worse off, but he was talking, he was moving his mouth. I could hear sounds.
I couldn't make any words out, you know. But it didn't look good.
The driver had been shot in the head. It was worse than anything you would see in a movie.
This was so violent and so gory. What happened here? Sorting it out fell to detectives Steve Bay and Chris Hendrickson.
It was very confusing for all the officers responding. They were all under the impression that the suspects were in the meadow, in the car, maybe armed, and officers treated them as such.
Adding to the confusion, the remote location, multiple locations. We have two gentlemen at the campground.
We have four gentlemen down at this potential crime scene. And then I have Mr.
Wallen-Reed with another detective at another spot. Officers, ambulances, helicopters coming in.
It's very chaotic, very chaotic that night. Deputies led by Sergeant Pei met Chad a few miles from the meadow, listened to his account of the chase.
And they started shining the spotlight back at me. And the next thing you know, there's all these muzzle flashes.
Do you think they were firing on you? Yeah, they were firing back at me. But while Sergeant Paye was talking to Chad, some of the other detectives were out in the meadow looking for the weapon or weapons.
Those young men must have fired at Chad. They searched the car.
They searched around the car. They looked all around the meadow.
They found nothing. But then it's a big meadow, and those are very deep and very dark woods.
Some of those young men did run. They could have dumped a gun out there somewhere.
But they didn't all run. Remember the one shot in the leg? The one whose hand they saw sticking up, who was found bleeding out in the meadow? He didn't bleed out.
He survived. His name is Justin Lewis Smythe.
Lewis. And he is about to give us his account of a July 4th weekend on a dark and lonely road in the High Sierra.
Confusion and terror, a very different story

of those shots in the dark.

The next thing I know, glass is exploding.

It's just complete chaos. It ended in an ink-black meadow in the high Sierra, barely illuminated by a pair of headlights.
Sheriff's deputies, guns drawn, approached the car, preparing for a possible shootout with gunmen. Instead, they found shooting victims, three of them severely wounded.
Somebody makes their way over towards the car and says... Who was smite, shot in the right leg, bleeding profusely.
The belt he used as a tourniquet, placed just above his knee, possibly saved his life. point it's pretty obvious to me I'm going to lose my leg.
I mean I'm not sure how long it'd gone by maybe an hour and a half. And there were other victims.
A bloody and baffling scene for the deputies. Who were these men? How did they provoke a violent confrontation with army vet Chad Wallen Reed? Chad and his family said they'd been terrorized, but that was not the story Lewis Smythe had to tell.
Lewis's version began an hour's drive away in Susanville, California, population almost 18,000, home to two state prisons, two movie theaters, and on July 4th weekend, 2011, some restless young men in search of fun. There was Lewis, of course, and his very best friend, a 20-year-old junior college student named Rory McGuire.
He was the center of attention wherever he went. All eyes were on Rory, in fact, right from the start.
That amazing shock of red hair at birth, surprising even his own mother, Carol. His name was going to be Colin, and then he came out with the red hair, and I had to look through a baby name book, and I found the name Rory, which means Red King in Irish.
And so, hence Rory Colin McGuire. And that red hair came with a personality to match.
There was only one Rory, and everyone knew who it was. He was vivacious.
He was creative. He was exciting.
He was funny. He was the life of the party.
Entrepreneurial, too. Trying to start a mobile car washing business with a friend.
Rory had all the equipment. He had printed up business cards.
He was passing out flyers. We would talk every day.
I'd tell almost every detail, laugh about little things. I told my mom I wanted a brother, and I felt like I kind of got that with Rory.
Anyway, that Friday night, July 1st, Rory and Louis were joined by four other young men in search of a party they'd heard about.

We were looking for a friend of ours' brother

who was having a gathering up by Antelope Lake.

Girls up there, somebody said.

So here's what they did.

They all squeezed into Rory's sea breeze,

drove to the lake, but couldn't find the party.

So they got up to a little mischief up there by the lake, with a spotlight one of them brought, the kind that plugs into a cigarette lighter. We stopped at the top of a canyon and were shining the light down on a campsite, and a bunch of people came out yelling.
They were mad, and anyways, everybody kind of got a kick out of that. Then, one of them remembered some crazy warning signs he'd seen by the roadside, wanted to show his buddies.
They found them, trained the spotlight on them. And one of them says, Warning, you are entering ROC, the ROC.
Something to do with this, red-blooded Christians only. Others will be deadly force, it will be used.
Deadly force? Red-blooded Christians only? Were they kidding? Seemed almost like a dare. One of them hopped out of the car.
He grabs a solar light and ripped down one of the smaller of the two signs and comes running back in, and then we took off from there. Cheap light, maybe four or five bucks.
Still, why did he take the solar light, did he say? No. I think it was assumed it was just some sort of random act of vandalism that I guess young kids would do.
And then the noisy car full of young men rolled back home, and they all went to bed. The following evening was Saturday, July 2nd, and sure enough, there was a second chance.
Same lake, new party. So again, a bunch of young men piled into Rory McGuire's Chrysler Sebring.
And went and met up with two others at the Chevron gas station, where we bought, I think, a bottle of blueberry vodka and a couple 40 ounces of beer to take with us. And we get about halfway up the grade, and we approach the property again.
The Wallen-Reed property. Suddenly, Rory stopped the car, and again, one of the group jumped out and stole two more solar lights.
Ten seconds passed or so, and right as Caesar was getting into the car, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. Rory hit the gas.
Was somebody shooting at us, they asked each other? Louis, a little freaked out, looked out the back window. I turned around just to see a truck behind us.
Yeah, I could pretty much tell that that meant business. And right after that, I remember seeing a green laser traveling around in the car with us.
A green laser? A laser from a gun? We assumed yes. It's like you can't believe it.
No, they're not going to shoot us. People don't shoot other people? No, not for this.
And right after that, I hear pow, pow, pow. And then every once in a while, you hear a ding on You're sitting in the car? Yes.
They tried blinding the shooter, but their spotlight didn't seem to help. Meanwhile, this whole time we'd been trying to call 911, and there's no service, and somebody suggests we wave my white T-shirt out the window.
Let's wave this, maybe he'll stop. Exactly, yeah.
We were trying every technique we could to have him stop. And this guy just kept firing? Oh, throughout the whole rest of this trip, there's flurries of shots being taken at us.
Desperate now, rushing along the road he did not know, Rory suddenly took a wrong turn. So we were on this dirt road, still taking fire at different points in time, and he's still chasing us.
And eventually what I hear Rory say is, this road just came to an abrupt stop. And so he's trying to flip around.
Trying to get away, said Lewis. Get around the truck.
Get out of the meadow they were trapped in. The next thing I know, glass is exploding everywhere, hitting us in the head.
Was the car still moving at that point? Yes, and it's just complete chaos. At that point, that was when I got shot.
It felt like heat kind of came over my leg. When the car finally came to a stop, those who could ran.
I said, come on, Rory, let's go.

And I looked up and Rory had his face in his chest. And I'm pretty sure he said, I can't.
And right at that moment, I saw the laser light again. And at that point, the gunman approached.
Wounded, trapped They could only wait

Was the shooter And at that point, the gunman approached.

Wounded, trapped, they could only wait.

Was the shooter coming to finish the job?

He starts to circle around the car.

The whole while he's pointing the gun at us. In a remote forest meadow, in the dark, a tiny green dot probed the interior of Rory McGuire's immobilized Chrysler Sebring.
The laser sight was back, its green dot a roving bullseye. Lewis Smythe, crouched, wounded, and immobile in the backseat, watched the green dot move across his body, waited for the gunman to finish him off.
He kind of starts to circle around the car. The whole while, he's pointing the gun at us, looking like a SWAT team or something like that would come in.
When he comes up, he says, you know what I'm going to shoot at my house? I got got kids or something like that. And we said, we didn't shoot at your house.
We wouldn't do that. So the gunman points the gun right at me and I said, look, we didn't shoot at your house.
Please just call an ambulance. And he took off.
Suddenly, relief. Some of the friends had run for cover during the shooting.

Now they returned to the car.

But to what?

They were alone in the dark.

And their friend, the driver, Rory, was clearly in bad shape.

My friend has just been shot in his head.

I'm shot.

We just assume we're going to get back in the car,

we're going to get out of here and go get help.

Somehow they managed to move Rory to the backseat of the car.

But when one of them turned the key... The car wouldn't start.
It just kept getting worse and worse.

No car, no cell service, no idea exactly where they were,

no idea where help might be, no idea if they'd survived the night

or if the gunman was going to come back. Two of them volunteered to run out into the blackness for help, see if they could find a cabin or a ranch house where they might find a working landline.
The question was, would their friends still be alive when and if they got back? So I decided it's time probably to check on my leg. When I pulled my pant leg down, it sounded like somebody poured a ton of water on the ground, just splat.
My calf was basically exploded in numerous pieces. Stuck in place, easy targets if the gunman returned.
We had fear that he was going to come back and finish the job. Some of the young men decided the car was more target than refuge and hid in the tall grass of the meadow.
They didn't feel comfortable staying at the car, and I don't blame them. And now the two best friends, Lewis and Rory, were trapped in the dark.
Lewis laid down on the ground, propped his wounded leg against the car, tried to keep talking to Rory, who was lying in the back seat. Rory was shot in his head.
He could barely talk, but when he did, it was jumbled. It was horrible.
He would call out my name a lot. I told him, I guess just naively, that I feel your pain, he was able to reply something you have no idea.
My whole leg had become numb from my knee down. And then shortly after that, my left leg started going numb.
And then the rest of my extremities until eventually it reached my lips. And then it got to the point where I was like, well, maybe I'll die.

And just about then, Lewis saw headlights appear in the distance. And eventually somebody makes their way over towards the car and says...
It was the sheriff's deputies, and that's when Lewis weakly stuck his left hand up out of the meadow grass. I laid there on the ground for a while, and somebody was holding onto my leg trying to stop the bleeding, and so they were sticking their hand in my wound, and I'm surprised I could still feel pain, because my leg had gone numb so long ago, all that remained was the pain.
I can't feel my leg at all, because of the pain. So what I remember was I got loaded into a paramedic.
And at this point, it's just major relief. Rory was airlifted out to a hospital in Reno.
He was barely alive, no longer conscious. Telling the story was not easy for Lewis.
Wait a minute. Sorry, fellas.
His anxiety was not hard to understand. But what didn't make sense, how his account differed on some very key points from that of Chad Wallen-Reed, the man who confronted them.
For example, Chad accused the young men of firing first during the car chase. Next thing you know, as I'm looking up, I see these three flashes.
And then I hear crack, crack, crack, crack.

But according to Lewis, that never happened.

What's more, he said, Chad didn't seem worried they had a gun when he approached their car.

Did he at any point say, are you armed?

Or do you have a gun?

Or throw your weapon away?

Or anything like that? Nothing like that. Which is kind of confusing, seeing as he accused us of shooting at his house,

but he was pointing the gun at us like we were armed.

So he came up to the car and said, were you the one shooting at my house?

Yes.

He didn't say, shoot at me in the car?

No.

Odd.

Remember, Chad told the police the young men shot at him during the chase. Did he ever that night say, why were you shooting at me in the car or you shot at me in the car or anything like that? Nothing like that, no.
Did you have a gun? No. Did anybody in the car have a gun? No.
Did you own a gun?

No.

The police were looking for a gun, of course.

Couldn't just take somebody's word for it. But neither could they, nor could we, ignore one more big discrepancy between Lewis' story and Chad's.

Remember, in his interview, Chad said he told Lewis and his friends when he left him in the meadow that he was going to get help. I said, I'm going to go call the sheriff.
But that's not what Lewis heard. No, he said, he remembered quite clearly what their assailant said just before he got into his truck to leave.
He said, if I ever see any mother**** up here again, I'm going to kill all you guys.

Police try to figure out who's telling the truth about the confrontation.

I took off after. I was a f***ing ranger.

And they soon find Chad's account is changing.

I think it finally sunk in that he was going to get caught in his story. Fitness challenges for all levels.

Meal plans that are easy and delicious.

And so much more.

It's built to fit your lifestyle

and our experts will guide you

every step of the way.

Come on, let's do this.

To subscribe, download Start Today

from the App Store on your Apple device now.

Terms apply.

Cancel anytime through Apple

under profile settings.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here,

reminding you to check out

the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

I'll see you next time. device now.
Terms apply. Cancel anytime through Apple under profile settings.
Hey guys, Willie Geist here, reminding you to check out the Sunday sit-down podcast. On this week's episode, I get together with one of the hottest artists in all of music right now, Grammy winner Lainey Wilson, to talk about her path from the tiny town of Baskin, Louisiana, to country music stardom.
You can get our conversation now for free wherever you download your podcasts. There is safe to say no way on this earth a mother can be adequately prepared for the news Carol Starzer was about to receive.

It was Sunday morning, July 3rd. She had just gotten a message, call back now.
I knew something was wrong. Something was wrong.
And I called back immediately and I just couldn't believe it.

Come quickly, they said, to the hospital. All we knew was he was in critical

condition, and we needed to get there as soon as possible, and that's all they would tell us. So Carol, heart in her mouth, raced along the highway to Reno and her son, Rory.
That same Sunday morning, Chad and Carrie's children woke up to the sound of strangers rummaging through the cabin.

And like searched through our stuff and like they took all the guns. Are they your police? And I was crying when I woke up because I didn't know who they were.
Must have been terrifying. Yeah.
And then the strangers told them their parents were explaining things to the police, and... I knew my dad had it under control.
He was very smart and thoughtful. In fact, all night, Chad had been in deep conversation with detectives from the Plumas County Sheriff's Office.
I told him, I explained to him, you know, what had happened, and I was very upset. Going over again and again, what happened at the cabin, on the road, in the meadow.

Here, Chad explained what was in his mind

when those men seemed to be terrorizing his family,

how he decided he had to do something to protect his kids.

Yeah, and we would get these sons of bitches.

They're going to f***ing get their license plate or something.

And that took off after.

That's what our military training did was, you know, react.

They trained me to do that s***.

React on foot.

React on cars.

I was a ranger.

Chad told Detective Steve Paye how the man in the car ahead fired at him. How, in self-defense, he fired back.
He talked about that was his training that he had received from the military to continue to follow the threat, to neutralize the threat. Got into a zone and needed to neutralize the threat, he felt.
Got into a zone. A zone.
Like a military term. Yes.
And I served five years. I put the military.
I killed people on the other side of this world. I don't even f***ing kids at my state.
Then Detective Faye decided to take Chad on a tour to recreate the almost eight-mile chase and the shooting on location and on videotape. You come out of your driveway.

And we drove with Mr. Wallenry from his cabin in my vehicle videotaping,

and he took us right back here to the meadow here.

About here, in that stretch, is when I saw him shooting at me.

Right in here is when I fired. When he was cutting back this way, back in there.
In this corner right here? Yeah. Chad made it quite clear he used a small pistol, .380 caliber, to return fire during the chase.
He told us he knew exactly where he shot from, so I'd get out and I'd mark that area so we could go back and search that area for casings. Then the cops took Chad down that dirt road, which led into the meadow.
And there they could plainly see that other officers had already marked several shell casings in the meadow. And abruptly, Chad's story changed.
I had spent many hours with him that night, questioning him, asking him if any other firearms had been used, and he continually said no. And then at the very end of the interview and the drive, then he finally did tell us that there was another gun used.
That's what he saw on the ground, as they all did, .223 caliber casings, the kind that would come from an AR-15 assault rifle, which Chad finally admitted he used here in the meadow. And prior to that, had you shot the .223 at them at any other time? Um, no, not that I recall, no.
Okay. And then his story changed again.
He admitted he fired the AR-15 just before he got to the meadow. How about behind us when you when you shot at them coming off the dirt road? Yeah, I take that back.
That is when I shot the AR the first time. Were you moving when you did that? Yes, sir.
I think it finally sunk in that it was all going to come back to him and he was going to get caught in his story. Why the initial reluctance? Well, perhaps because the AR-15, which Chad bought legally in Nevada, was illegal in California.
Though Chad said he didn't know that. At any rate, now Chad detailed how he used the rifle again when he saw Rory's car make a sudden U-turn.
And I thought that they were going to get out. You have to engage me.
So, perhaps still in self-defense mode. He grabbed the AR and he swung it out the door and that's when it popped off the rounds at them with the AR.
Oh, okay. So when they drove past you, coming back this way, they were shooting with the air then, yes, sir.
And so there it was, Chad's story. But as Detective Pay listened, something seemed off.
Just somewhat odd, the story. And as it unfolded each time we talked to him, it somewhat changed.
Then that morning, Detective Pay heard from his colleague, Chris Hendrickson, who'd spent his night talking to those young men. Rory McGuire, now in surgery, wasn't able to talk.
But the other five, said Detective Hendrickson, he talked to them separately, told exactly the same story. How they stole the solar lights, were chased, tried to surrender, and then made a wrong turn.
Rory McGuire didn't know this area that well,

and the kids realized after they passed it

that they'd missed this turn right here

that goes down to Antelope Lake.

Why Antelope Lake?

Because, the men told Detective Hendrickson,

there were cabins there, people, safety. That's what they believed.
They believed that they would be just a few minutes from safety. But the main thing those young men told Detective Hendrickson was, they did not shoot at Chad Wallen Reed.
In fact, they assured him they didn't have a gun. Did you ask them? Did you push them on that? Oh, I pushed them.
I said, listen, if there was a gun, you need to tell us. I mean, if you had a gun and were shooting back, you would be in your right as defending yourself because you're being shot at.
They would always say, no, no, there was no gun, I guarantee you. Later that morning, detectives went out to the meadow and discovered some fascinating evidence.
For one thing, shards of broken glass, which clearly marked precisely where the car was when Chad blew out the windows. Curious, it wasn't exactly where Chad said it was.
And something else. Rory's car must have hit a rock during its rush through the meadow, just after it made the U-turn farther out in the meadow.
And it started draining the oil out of the car. And left, clear as a giant magic marker, a brownish-black trail through the long grass of the meadow.
Interesting. By now it was something like 12 hours since Chad ran off to chase those men.
He was exhausted. It had been, he said, entirely cooperative with the cops, told them everything he knew, was ready now to go home to his wife Carrie and their three kids.
So what happened next was something he did not expect. He was arrested for attempted murder and also assault with a deadly weapon.

As the 4th of July approached, Chad Wallen-Reed was booked in the local jail. Could any outcome be worse? Well, yes it could, and was about to be for everyone.
Grief and shock as a mother finally finds out

what happened to her son.

It's horrible.

The nurse immediately, her face, she looked at me.

I knew. Here's why people move to the High Sierra.
To get away from the city, its constant pressures, its regular explosions of violent crime. Or at least, that's how it was for Plumas County District Attorney David Hollister, who moved to his new job in the county seat of little Quincy, California, after years of prosecuting the worst that Oakland had to offer.
He came for the quiet, the family values. And now, here he was fielding calls from the local sheriff's office about an extremely violent act, which the shooter himself freely admitted to.
We're small enough where any type of homicide that occurs, I get called right away. So, how much did you have to do with the decision to charge him? Everything.
And from what the detectives told him, what happened seemed pretty clear to D.A. Hollister.
He chased those boys 7.6 miles, and he shot to kill. And so, before Sunday, July 3rd, was half gone, Chad Wallen-Reed was booked and strip-searched and locked up in the Plumas County Jail.
The charge? Attempted murder. What was that like when they took him? It's very, very hard for them to take my husband away.
Didn't expect it? No. I, as far as, you know, I never expected for us to be apart in such a manner.
I never envisioned being away from my husband. Back in the woods at Chad's cabin, the detectives who arrested him prowled the property, still decorated in Fourth of July, Bunting, looking for evidence.
The AR-15 was in sight on the gun rack. There was also a closet inside the cabinet that contained large amounts of ammunition for various guns, shotguns.
And out on the edge of Chad's property, out near the road, the detectives found that unusual no trespassing sign. You are entering the ROC, the sign said, which meant the Republic of Chad.
This is a restricted area. Only red-blooded, patriotic Christian Americans are authorized for access.
The use of deadly force is authorized for use on those found in noncompliance. The young men in the car thought it was some kind of joke.
It didn't seem that way now.

At the very same time, still July 3rd,

the driver of the shot-up car, Rory McGuire,

was in a Reno hospital.

His mother, Carol Starzer, by his bedside in the ICU as he lay with a bullet in his brain.

It was horrible.

I didn't know what critical condition meant,

so I really didn't know what critical meant. Probably going to make it.
And the nurse immediately, her face, she looked at me. I knew.
But it was weird, said Carol, when she saw Rory lying there unconscious. And he actually looked perfect.
I was very shocked, except for the plate that they placed over his head where the bullet went in. I just remember him as looking like he was asleep.
Besides, you can't probably get out of your head. Every day I think of that.
I think of that every single day.

Rory's father, Carol's ex-husband Dave McGuire, came too, tried, not successfully, to hold back his soaring rage. A soldier did this.
I put myself in that same scenario, and if I needed to, I would defend myself. But once it's over, it's my responsibility to render aid.

This is not a battle zone.

This is some hig town in California.

Around the same time at the jail in Quincy, an hour and a half away,

Chad placed a telephone call to his father. The call, of course, was recorded.
I just got freaked out by my kids, and people screwed around, and I just lost it. Just went into a little bit of his own.
So then he got out of control. But as the hours stretched through the night into July 4th, Chad began to see more and more clearly that he was not to blame.
Those men shot at him, and he never set out to hurt anyone. I can honestly sit there and say, I didn't get in my vehicle.
I didn't sit there at the moment I had the AR-15 saying, I'm going to pick this weapon and I'm going to go down there and I'm going to kill these guys. Heck no.
No way. There ain't, no way.
In fact, thought Chad, it was really he and his family who were the victims here. If they had never shot at me, there'd be no reason for a gun.
There would have been no reason for me to fire, to shoot, to use the firearm.

You know, my mind frame, these people are trying to kill me.

Carrie visited her husband in jail to tell him that she was in his corner

and would always be, no matter what.

Do you wish that he just kind of stopped along the way somewhere

and said, I'll just let them go and come back? No. Because you wouldn't have this problem now.
Yeah, I guess to a point, as far as a problem being that my husband's not at home, but we would still be in fear that these people would come back to terrorize us more. He was protecting us.
He was making sure that we were safe. And then, as the long holiday weekend wound down, it got even worse for all of them.
Rory McGuire died. He hemorrhaged a couple hours after we got there, and that was the end.

He was gone. He was brain dead at that point.
How do you get used to a thing like that happening to you? I still feel like he's in the meadow. In the car in the meadow, I still feel like I need to go help him.
It changes life forever. Forever.
It'll never be the same. And a few hours later, the loving husband, doting father, Army Ranger, Chad Wallen-Reed, was now an accused...
Murder. They took me back down to the booking area.
You're being charged with first-degree murder. What did that feel like? I can't describe it.
When you look at the word murder, and it describes it, heinous, premeditated, malicious, aforethought. That's pretty grotesque.

Bail was set at a million dollars,

money Chad and his family did not have.

But out there, out in the wider world,

a new issue was emerging called Stand Your Ground.

And also, a certain attorney discovered,

there were some tiny specks of evidence of the crime scene that just might set Chad free.

And was there something else that might prove Chad fired in self-defense? They found the three .380 casings that were not from Chad's gun. For most of two years, often twice a week, Carrie Wallen-Reed drove back and forth through the High Sierra to visit her husband in the Plumas County lockup.
Not easy, any of it. Horrible.
It's just the worst. Being without my husband and the children being without their father, it's just, it's unimaginable.
And the children? Stayed home and worried, mostly.

Sometimes I've been frightened and cried for my dad. And when he's sick, I cry hard because I don't know if he might die from, if he's sick or if he'll be okay.
At the very same time, Rory McGuire's mother, Carol, cried for a son, a future, an expectation, gone forever. What do you think is the appropriate thing that should happen to this man? Never step foot out of sight of prison ever again.
Not be able to see, not have conjugal visits with his wife, not be able to see his children go through birthdays and marriages, because I now am cut short of all of that with my son. And in little Quincy, stuck in his cell, Chad had all the time in the world to think about what he did.
Starts this trickle effect of, well, if you never had a gun, listen to it, it would never happen. But then something just grabs me inside and say, they were wrong.
They scared your family. Chad found himself fuming about the first-degree murder charge against him, felt his alleged victims were the ones in the wrong.
Did they deserve to be stopped? Absolutely. They don't deserve the right to do that to people.
Fuming is possibly all Chad might have done, except a prominent defense attorney named John Olson heard about Chad's predicament and sought the way, he believed, to set him free.

The sort of stand-your-ground idea?

Yeah, yeah.

California doesn't have a stand-your-ground law per se like some states do,

but there is a state jury instruction that says a person under threat has a right to stand his or her ground and even pursue an assailant.

Chad Wallen-Reed said Attorney Olson is just the sort of person for whom that defense was intended. He's not a gangbanger.
He doesn't have a criminal record. He has a good clean military record.
Chad began looking forward to a trial, turned down a deal from the DA. There's a story to be told.
There's things that need to come out. I think that a trial will be a rather awakening.
But first, they had to choose a jury, which would be a fight in Pretty Little Quincy, a place composed of gun-owning country folk and liberal big city transplants. There were a lot of letters to the editor of the local paper, and I think they were pretty evenly divided between people saying that the state ought to reimburse Chad the cost of his ammunition, and people saying, you know, I moved up here from the Bay Area to get away from all this, and people shouldn't have guns, and they shouldn't shoot guns.
When the trial began this past summer, Olson seemed satisfied with the jury he got could go either way, but... My desire is to walk him out of that courtroom, take him by the elbow and lead him out of the courtroom, turn him over to his family.
Here's how Olson presented his stand-your-ground defense in his opening to the jury. He shot him because he was fired now and he was in fear of himself.
Olson told the jury his client was a protective family man doing what he felt he had to do as a father after those menacing visits to his house. After this Friday night incident they were afraid and I think it sets the tone for his state of mind.
He wanted to protect those two sweet little girls. Yes.
And you want to show the jury the sweet little girls he wanted to protect. Sure.
Fair enough, huh? And some in the jury wept as 12-year-old Darlin repeated the story she told us about the night the men came to their property. I remember asking my dad and mom, what are you going to do if they come back, and what would happen if somebody got hurt? What'd they say? They said that everything was going to be okay, and that my dad is here to protect us.
He can protect us. Then Carrie, Chad's devoted wife, took the stand, determined to protect her husband, just as she believed he protected her that night.
What was the effect of this incident on you and your husband? It scared us tremendously. And that's the reason Chad chased those men, said Carrie.
He was no monster. What was his mental or emotional state when you were carrying on? Distraught.
Have you ever seen anything before? No. Was he crying? He was.
The whole case, of course, would boil down to whether Chad was fired upon and shot back in self-defense. Olsen said the evidence backed Chad up.
I think it pretty well proved that there was a gun in the victim's car and that they fired at Chad. The young men in that car? Not exactly Boy Scouts, said Olson.
Well, the police asked these people if they had guns. And they said no, we wouldn't carry guns.
We would never carry guns. And one of them, we have a Facebook page displaying both a gun and a knife.
And they must have had a gun that night, said Olson, because on the route of the chase, investigators found three shell casings, casings that did not match any of Chad's guns. The interesting thing, though, is you said they shot at me three times, and they found the three .380 casings that were together that were not from Chad's gun corresponding with the three shots.
And there was another truly stunning clue collected on the night of the shooting, said Olson. According to his forensic expert, there was gun residue inside the young man's car and even on some of their hands.
Somebody shot out of that car. Because? Because of the gunshot residue in the car, the lack of bullet strikes on that side of the car, and the gunshot residue on the hand of the person who was riding shotgun, if you will.

And why did Chad keep shooting at the car after it made a U-turn?

Very good reason, said his attorney.

If they turned around and were coming back out of there, those two cars would be on the

same track with the car coming right at him.

And he's been fired on already, coming back towards him.

He thinks they're firing on him again. Chad declined to take the stand in his own defense.
So the jury didn't get to hear him say he did the right thing, did what he had to do when he squeezed the trigger. Is it possible you were wrong, Bill? No.
So, a case for self-defense any jury would have to take seriously. And thus, Prosecutor David Hollister's big challenge, time to bring out a little ammunition, a literal trail of evidence through the grass, a sticky, brownish-black mess that told a fascinating story.
Rory's best friend

comes face to face with the man who shot him. When I looked at it my heart kind of jumped.
It was late past midnight when they broke into the farmhouse. Never in a million years would you think that you'd see your parents house taped off by that yellow tape tape? Wrong.
And they said, do you remember being killed? They left behind a wall of blood and a clue that took a case of double murder on a long, strange trip. She looked at me and she said, I'm screwed.
Murder in the Moonlight, a new podcast from Dateline. Listen to all episodes now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Now they had the final answer.

Or... Dateline.
Listen to all episodes now, wherever you get your podcasts. Now they had the final answer.
Or did they? Nothing has more suspense than a Dateline mystery. And no one wants to wait to find out what happens next.
That's why everyone needs Dateline Premium, where listening is always ad-free. You get the whole story and nothing but the story.
Or do you? Yes, actually, you do. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or DatelinePremium.com.
Every morning, we choose how to begin our day. This is today.
I think about the people at home. They tune in because they are curious.

They care about their world, and they care about each other.

There's always something new to learn, whether a news event or a new recipe.

And when we step through the morning together, it makes the rest of the day better.

We come here to make the most of today.

We are family.

We are today.

Watch The Today Show with Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin weekdays at 7 a.m. on NBC.
The old Plumas County Courthouse, solid and lovely in the autumn sun, has pride of place here on Main Street in Quincy, California. Inside, up on the top floor, is an overworked DA's office, all too accustomed to the limited funding abilities of a small county.
A fact of life David Hollister had to consider very carefully as he prepared to prosecute Chad Wallen-Reed for first-degree murder. We'd better do this case right, and we'd better do it once, because that's about our only shot at it.
We've pretty much burned our budget for trials for the year. Trouble was, this was a difficult case from the start.
The defendant, after all, was not just a family man, the father of three adorable children. He was, as he told the detective's, ex-military, once an army ranger.
You don't get to be one of those without good judgment and real character. And on top of that, there was that wild card jury, people who needed to be persuaded that Chad showed bad judgment and very poor character.
Ladies and gentlemen, the jury, the evidence is going to show the defendant was not in imminent danger when he fired those shots. He was angry and he was mad in trying to get away.
To set the scene, so to speak, Prosecutor Hollister showed the jury the video shot by that reality show cameraman, now part of the public record. This was graphic stuff.
Right there in living color, the bloodied bodies of injured and apparently terrified young men, the officers trying to attend to their medical needs. How important was that video? It gave the jury a true understanding of the horror that happened that night.
I mean, you've got Louis Smythe with his leg propped up and the tourniquet there, and you've got Rory McGuire in the back seat with a horrible head injury. I mean, that's something I can't capture in words.
Louis Smythe, the young man you met earlier, was a key witness for the state. Remember, that bullet from Chad's AR-15 shredded Lewis's leg.
He was frankly lucky to keep the leg and survive the night. Did you see the defendant

sitting over there in the courtroom? I only looked at him once or twice. My heart kind of jumped and

I knew it was him. Lewis has been a nervous wreck since all this happened, he told us.
And in court,

he was no less nervous, as he told the jury, about seeing the green laser gun sight, about the

I'm not sure what you're doing. Lewis has been a nervous wreck since all this happened, he told us.
And in court, he was no less nervous, as he told the jury, about seeing the green laser gun sight, about the flurries of shots fired by the defendant, about the young men's efforts to end the car chase. First of all, they fled.
They drove as fast as they could. They threw out the solar lights.
They held a white T-shirt out the window. If you want to look at a textbook definition for doing everything you can in your power to withdraw, to say no more, we're done.
They did it. And yet, said the prosecutor, Chad kept right on shooting.
He told the detectives, you know, I think that might have been a white flag. I don't think there's any question.
Those kids did everything they could to give up. But here's the thing.
If the young man fired at Chad first, as the defense went to a lot of trouble to prove, then maybe Chad's reaction was reasonable. But did they fire a gun? Did they even have one? Remember those three non-Chad shell casings found on the road that the defense made such a big fuss about? Couldn't have been from the young man, said the prosecutor.
And how did he know? Simple law of speed versus gravity. You're telling me these kids are fleeing at 50 miles an hour.
You're telling me that they fired three shots. The casings are a foot and a half apart at 50 miles an hour.
That's outrageous. That's crazy.
But remember, the defense forensic expert was clear there was gunshot residue in the young men's car and on some of their hands, proving they must have fired a gun, must have. To which David Hollister replied, nonsense.
That defense expert must not have been privy to all the evidence. The gunshot residue really wasn't gunshot residue.
It was elements that could make up gunshot residue. Anytime a car is hit with that many high velocity rounds from an AR-15, you're going to expect to see lead.
Ah, yes, but expert versus expert? Matter of opinion? How would a jury know? What the state needed was something that would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Chad was lying about what happened out there in the night. And? Seemed like maybe they had just exactly that.
Remember Chad's insistence that the car came straight at him through the meadow as if for a final showdown? And it looked like they were coming straight at you. Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Look like an assault. Right.
Looked like they were attacking. Right.
It was just, my frame of mind was that these people were coming back to shoot at me. I had swerved my vehicle out of the way of their vehicle.
I mean, they were coming straight back at me. We were nose to nose.
But, as the prosecutor told the jury, evidence found in the meadow told a very different story. The detectives took us there to show us.
Remember how the young man's car hit a rock, cracked open the oil pan? The dripping oil left a distinctive trail. And then we could see the oil that had been laid down by Rory McGuire's car.
Using that trail of oil, the prosecutor had an animation created, which showed the car was not heading toward Chad's truck, but instead was heading around it, away from Chad. And where Detective Hendrickson is standing is about where they traveled past, and then he started shooting at their car.
How do they know where the car was when it was hit? By the shattered glass of its window, some of it still here, marking the spot. And the glass told a story, too, they said, about the true intentions of Chad Wallen-Reed.
His shot placement was very, very well placed. It was head height, shooting at the windows of the vehicle.
One went low

into the rear passenger door, which then went into Justin Smythe's leg, but most of the shot placement was all high, head height. In other words, Chad wasn't shooting to disable the car, said the prosecutor.
The evidence suggested he was shooting to kill the occupants, even as they were trying to get away.

Was the defendant in imminent fear of death or great bodily injury so that he immediately had to use deadly force? Unequivocally, the answer is no. So what attitude in your mind did he have when he took off after those kids?

The last words he said before he got in the truck was,

I'm going to go get those sons of bitches.

And I think he meant it.

The prosecutor felt confident.

But in a town divided over guns and self-protection,

who could be sure what the jury would decide?

This is exactly the kind of case that leads to hung juries. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And that's a fear.
In that case, Chad could walk, since little Quincy couldn't afford to try him again. And then, just as the trial came to its end, a long-sought bit of information finally landed in D.A.
Hollister's mailbox. Oh, my.

I was shocked. I don't think there's any other way to put it.

The twist no one saw coming.

It was very clear the defendant had lied about something you just don't lie about. It's not often that a gift drops in a person's lap, manna from heaven, exactly when it's most needed, which, in this case, just as the trial was wrapping up, was a carefully sealed official-looking package addressed to Plumas County DA David Hollister.
Candidly, I give credit to the detectives. He'd asked them to track down Chad Wallen-Reed's military records just to confirm his background.
It was something that we simply felt like we had to follow through on. Remember, throughout Chad's interview with police, he talked again and again about his Army career.
That's what the military training did was, you know, react. Implying that what he did in that meadow he had first done under enemy fire, overseas.
And I served five years in the fucking military. I killed people on the other side of this world.
I don't need to f***ing get the kids in my state. Maybe even that he'd been having some sort of flashback.
I know I'd been out for 10 years, but f***ing you know, I was a f***ing ranger. It took nine months.
Many of them had snarled in military red tape. But now here were the records.
And what they revealed was nothing short of shocking. In here was confirmation that Chad was in the Army all right.
But that's about all that was true. He was not a ranger.
He had not fulfilled his commitment. He had not served overseas.
He had not been in combat overseas. He had not killed people on the other side of the world.
He had not done any of those things. In fact, the Army asked Chad to leave, discharged him for forging sick leave papers and bringing a personal firearm into the barracks, and this was perhaps the worst,

wearing a combat infantry badge and a ranger tab,

and other such badges,

when all of those things,

which the jury had been made to believe about Chad's military service

based on his own statements to police,

were all lies.

It was very clear the defendant had lied

about something you just don't lie about. Sure.
And if he's going to lie about that? Absolutely. His talk about I only fired three shots, I used the pistol, all these other lies added up.
A liar, said Hollister, who shot those young men out of anger, pure and simple. You don't get to chase a person down and kill them.

That's not self-defense.

But defense attorneys stuck to the heart of their case.

It was, said John Olson's partner in his closing argument,

a clear case of self-defense.

He was placed in reasonable fear of imminent danger or death by the actions of the occupants of the Maguire here

on the road when they were shooting at him.

Thank you. reasonable fear of imminent danger or death by the actions of the occupants of the Maguire here on the road when they were shooting at him.
And then when they turned in the meadow and came back at him. Self-defense or murder? To wait for a jury's decision is a kind of agony for both sides.
Rory Maguire's dad still struggling with an inexpressible anger. The justice system can't give him what I feel he has coming.
No amount of jail time will fix it. Those sweet, sad, innocent little kids.
Like that he is always funny and he's always loving.

He protects us a lot.

Okay.

And you miss him.

Yeah.

That part is pretty obvious.

Before the jury even got the case, Chad's wife Carrie told us she already knew what the outcome would be. I mean, in your heart of hearts, do you think the jury will say not guilty? I know that the Lord has told me that Chad will be home.
But then, any other thought? Can I imagine him being away from us? No. No.
It hurts. That thought, those words hurt my heart.
Surprising then when Carrie heard what Chad told us when we interviewed him before the trial. What do you think? Are you going to be acquitted? No.
No? I'll end up spending the rest of my life in prison. You believe that?

Absolutely.

Why?

I think that...

I don't...

My faith in the legal system has seriously been shaken.

I think the majority of people have a negative opinion about me.

Of course, no one could know the way the jury would go, especially in a town divided by Quincy. You're holding your breath the whole time, whether it's your first trial or your 50th.
They didn't have to hold their breath very long, less than a day. We, the jury, in the above entitled cause, find the defendant, Gregory Chadd, Wallen Reed,

guilty of a felony to wit murder,

first degree of Rory Choir.

Guilty of first degree murder.

In the gallery, Rory's mom began sobbing.

Two years of pent-up heartbreak.

I knew we couldn't fix what had happened, but maybe we'd give her just a little sense of justice. I'll never have a friend like that again, or somebody I consider a brother.
That's a sweet picture. Lewis told us it's his duty now to keep Rory's memory alive for himself and for Carol, who's in his life now for good.
I love Carol, and I think she loves me back. There's always a place for me in her home, and we can't stop talking about them.
She's happy that I was a front row seat to Rory's life, and I'm able to tell her about it. At his sentencing hearing, Chad addressed Rory's family.
I know there are no words that I can offer. They will give you relief from the pain you experience every moment of every day.
And now his sentence, 84 years to life. Their little cabin, that piece of paradise, is empty now, sold to pay legal bills.
We have fond memories. We do.
And now there's no good memories to be had. But we can hold on to the ones that we have.
And 7.6 miles away, out in the mountains, snow has begun to blanket the meadow, hiding the only remnants of what happened. A few shards of glass and a little rock to mark the spot where a young man with so much potential was wasted.
Part of me feels that Rory is fine. Why do you say Rory's fine? He's not in the meadow, and he's not in that hospital bed, and he's not on that road trying to get away from the shooter.
He's not afraid anymore. So, he's fine.
A true crime story never really ends. Even when a case is closed, the journey for those left behind is just beginning.
Since our Dateline story aired, Tracy has harnessed her outrage into a mission. I had no other option.
I had to do something. Catch up with families, friends, and investigators on our bonus series,

After the Verdict. Ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with strength and courage.
It does just change your life, but speaking up for these issues helps me keep going.

To listen to After the Verdict, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts,

Spotify, or at datelinepremium.com.