Warning: This episode contains discussions of sexual assault and murder that some readers may find distressing.
A six-year-old made a heartbreaking statement when giving a police interview about the death of his mother, who 35 years later was discovered to have been murdered by his father.
Reginald Reed Jr.’s mother, Selonia Reed, was brutally killed in 1987, something that police would not figure out for years.
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Reed Jr. speaks about this experience in a new documentary episode of 48 Hours, a CBS news show that investigates true crime cases, in The Day My Mother Never Came Home.
Selonia was found in her vehicle in the parking lot of a petrol station having been sexually assaulted, repeatedly stabbed, and received blunt force trauma.
She was found the morning after a ‘girls' night out’, with Reed Jr. stating in his book that as best he remembers he stayed up playing Nintendo with his father, Reginald Reed Sr. until he fell asleep.
The next day police arrived and told the Reeds the news and were forced to interview Reed Jr.
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In a sneak peak of the 48 Hours episode released by CBS, the at the time six-year-old Reginald Reed Jr. breaks down into tears.
The child cries in the interview: “I want my Daddy, I want my Mommy,” in a heartbreaking moment.
Watching back the interview, which he says he watches repeatedly, Reed Jr. emotionally says: “What I see is a six-year-old boy that life had been changed, he doesn’t understand the magnitude of it yet.”
Whilst initially a suspect, his father got away with the crime until he was arrested in 2019.
In 2022, he was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to life in prison.
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Speaking to the San Antonio Report last year upon the release of a book about his life, the now 44-year-old said: “Still at times when I tell the story, I’m human, I get choked up, because it’s real. It’s real life. And it’s ongoing.”
Writing for Newsweek, Reed Jr. said of finding out it was his father who killed his mother: “The revelation of my father's involvement in such a heinous act was devastating.
“It shattered the image I had of him as a loving and honourable parent.
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“It forced me to confront the harsh reality that people we love are capable of terrible things.”
He went on to add: “I underwent a painful process of coming to terms with the duality of his character.
“The caring father I knew who was very charismatic, involved within the local community and heavily involved in the political arena was the same person capable of committing a crime that tore our family apart.”
48 Hours: The Day My Mother Never Came Home airs Saturday, April 12 on CBS and on Paramount+.
Topics: True Crime, TV and Film, TV, Documentaries, Crime, US News
Michael Slavin