A Garland County Circuit Court jury took less than an hour Friday to find a local man guilty of two counts of capital murder in the 2015 shooting deaths of his wife and daughter after two days of testimony.
The seven-man, five-woman jury will reconvene Tuesday morning to hear further testimony before deciding the fate of Eric Allen Reid, 57, who now faces either the death penalty or life in prison for the Oct. 19, 2015, deaths of his wife, Laura J. Reid, 57, and daughter, Mary Ann Reid, 32, at their home at 607 Northwood Trail.
Testifying Friday morning, Reid called the shootings a "horrific accident," and said, "I pretty much don't remember what happened. I saw a flash of light and blanked out." He said he remembers flashes of "seeing Mary Ann in her Giants jersey" and "seeing red blood spray on the wall," but "I don't remember what I was doing."
He said he recalled his younger daughter, Heather Reid, "yelling and screaming at me. 'Dad, you have to stop! Dad, put down the gun!' and then seeing a gun in my hand. It was like a fog or tunnel vision, like I was watching this happen."
Asked by his attorney, Cara Boyd-Conners, if he intended to kill the victims, Reid said, "Absolutely not. I loved my wife. We spent 26 years together and made it through a lot of difficult times."
He said he also loved his daughter, Mary Reid, noting, "She had a difficult time growing up. She didn't grow up with me, but she told me some of the terrible things that happened in her life. I loved that kid. I didn't plan to kill them.
"That's the absolute truth. I have always been a man of character and truth, love and compassion. If I could take their places I would," he said.
Heather Reid had testified Thursday that in addition to tensions over family finances, there had been an ongoing dispute between her father and her sister, Mary Reid, regarding the way she was raising her son, including her not making him "eat his vegetables" and being more of a friend than a parent.
Garland County sheriff's deputies had testified that after taking Eric Reid into custody, the grandson had come outside and yelled, "I hope you rot in hell!" and Reid had responded, "You're the reason for all this!"
Asked by Boyd-Conners if he blamed his grandson for what happened, Eric Reid said he didn't. "When he said what he did, I felt hurt. It was a knee-jerk reaction to what he said and I wish I could take it back. That's a lot to lay on a teenage boy. I regretted it as soon as I said it."
In his videotaped confession to Sheriff's Sgt. Terry Threadgill, Reid had talked about being "frustrated and angry" with his daughter and wife and that he felt they were "ganging up on him" and plotting to "take everything away from him" which led him to kill them. He also described shooting both victims multiple times and referenced "use of deadly force" and "letting a woman draw me offside" and discussed his military training in the Navy.
Asked about his confession, Reid said he had been working since 6 a.m. that day on a backhoe. "It was long, hot day and I was exhausted when I got home," he said, noting after the "accident" he was put in the back of a hot police car in "painful" handcuffs and later questioned in a hot room.
"Everything in my life from day one was flashing in my head. Pieces in my mind from that night I still don't recall. I just agreed with (Threadgill)," he said, noting many of his comments were "based on what I had seen prior (to his arrest) which I connected in my head. I just agreed with the stuff he said."
Reid said they had been "doing family things together and all getting along," until about three weeks prior to the shootings, during which his wife and Mary Reid had been arguing and "everyone was basically hiding out in their bedrooms. The atmosphere in the house was no talking, no communicating. Everyone was avoiding each other."
He said he and Mary Reid had argued in the garage, but it was a normal argument with them and he walked away. He said he remembered going into the bedroom to get his clothes ready for the next day when he overheard his wife and Mary Reid talking and heard phrases like "'We're better off without him'" and "'(expletive) him!'" and then blacked out.
"I didn't do it knowingly. I wouldn't do that to any human being. I don't know how or why it happened," he said.
Reid testified he was taking medications for anxiety, but during cross-examination, Deputy Prosecutor Kara Petro pointed out there was nothing in his medical records about being diagnosed with anxiety.
In his closing remarks, Chief Deputy Prosecutor Joe Graham noted it was "undisputed" Reid shot and killed the victims and that "actions speak louder than words" as to whether their deaths were premeditated and deliberate as required to qualify as capital murder.
Graham noted Reid went into the bedroom, retrieved his .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun from its nylon holster in his nightstand, pulled the slide back in the rack to make sure it was loaded (as evidenced by a live round being found on the floor) and then went after the victims.
"That's premeditation. He decided before he did it he was going to do it," he said.
Graham noted he shot Laura Reid three times in the back "like a coward" and then shot Mary Reid as she was "running away, running for her life with him chasing her through the house." He noted that even as Heather Reid was screaming at him to stop, he shot Mary Reid at least four times, possibly six times.
"When Eric Reid left the garage to get his gun, he formed the intent to kill. The only reason Heather Reid is here today is because she didn't piss him off. He is deciding who is living and who is dying at that point and he's not in control of his actions?" he asked the jury.
Graham said Reid was not claiming any mental disease or defect and noted, "Just because you don't remember doing something doesn't excuse it. It's not a defense."
Boyd-Conners told the jury the case was about Reid's "mental state," noting, "There's no way to refute the evidence that Mary Reid and Laura Reid are gone. No way to get around that and we all hurt because of that. The issue is was it his intent to cause the death of his wife of 26 years and his oldest daughter? I don't think that was the case."
She alluded again to "the straw that broke the camel's back," describing how "several minor routine actions can cause an unexpectedly large and sudden reaction." She said it was the "cumulative effect" of all the pressures and tensions that finally "broke the camel's back."
She said Reid's actions were "a sudden impulse. He didn't think about what he was doing. He didn't have the conscious intent to cause their deaths. He blacked out or something."
Boyd-Conners stressed the fact Reid "didn't flee or try to hide. He waited for the police," and noted, "If he had thought about any of this before it happened, he would have had a lot better excuse."
She pointed out the shootings occurred 15 to 20 minutes after his wife and daughters had returned home that night, arguing, "There wasn't enough time for him to decide to slaughter his family." She said manslaughter was the more appropriate verdict because he was "under extreme emotional distress" at the time.
"He just snapped, he lost it," she said. "I think he is extremely sorry for his actions. He regrets it but had no control at the time. He's the camel and his back was broken."
In her rebuttal closing, Petro said Reid showed no signs of remorse during his statement to investigators or while testifying Friday. She also noted that after the shootings he told Heather Reid to call the police. "He didn't tell her to call an ambulance," she said.
Petro also noted there was no time limit on premeditation. "It can be any length of time. How long they were home before it happened is irrelevant," she said.
Local on 03/03/2018