Lieutenant Barry Ward

After I started interacting with Celonia's family, her sisters, I realized how important it was.

This was just the last opportunity I felt before more witnesses passed away that we would have a chance to find justice for this terrible crime that happened to Salonia.

He was not aware that his father was a suspect in the murder of his mother.

He let me know that identical twins share identical DNA.

Jimmy Ray Barnes did tell me that Reginald Reed offered him $50,000 to quote unquote knock off his wife.

Jimmy said he was known to carry a gun, but you fast forward 25, now 30 years, Reginald Reed was now an old man.

Reginald asked you if you would, quote, by your term, knock off his wife. And that means, you took that to mean to kill her, to murder her.

What was your response to that? Hell no. Did he discuss any money with you?

More than $5,000?

More than $10,000?

He offered you $50,000? Yeah. Is that a guess, or is that the amount he offered you?

I talked to Billy, and he said he took that polygraph test. And if Billy looked like you and was questioned over a murder that you took part in and he doesn't know anything about it, he's probably gonna pass that polygraph test. Would that be fair to say?

I would get phone calls through the years from prosecutors who had asked me to re-interview family members, find out additional information, test more evidence.

My initial response was to just get this guy off the phone.

I think he saw what I saw. I think that made all the difference in the world.

We were able to locate Jimmy. He was staying in the camper at his employer's place. We pulled up early in the morning when the sun was coming up, and he was coming out of this camper, putting a belt in his pants. And he said, hey, who y'all looking for? I said, you, Jimmy. And he goes, oh, you again.

A couple of weeks later, grand jury in Tenswell Parish returned second-degree murder indictments for both Reginald Reed and Jimmy Ray Barnes. Immediately, we went to Reginald's home. I knocked on the door, identified who I was, and that I had an arrest warrant for him for the murder of his wife. He really had no emotion.

She had 16 pinpoint-like stab wounds in her upper torso, shoulder, and neck. Her blouse had been torn off. Her pants had been removed from her. She had been sexually assaulted as well.

In 1987, I was a sophomore in Marshall County High School in Western Kentucky.

It would suggest that she was murdered in another location and then transported to where her body was later discovered at the John's Curb Market.

The windows were rolled up. It was August at the time. It was very hot out.

The following day, on Monday the 24th, a neighbor went to his mailbox and discovered a crucifix and a screwdriver.

She was a teller in the commercial section. She was described as being polite, kind, had a nice smile.

She's wearing blue guys we know.

He and his son, Reginald Jr., were going to stay and play video games while she went out to a local bar with her girlfriend.

Based on the research that I had conducted, her co-workers, the people that knew her, said that she just went to work and came home, that she was always seen with her little boy.

The chief of police said that when he went in, it smelled like bleach in the house.

Jimmy Ray Barnes was an acquaintance of Reginald Reed. He hung out with him. He worked with him.

They were on inner tubes. Jimmy flipped Salonia over. She didn't feel that it was a playful thing. She felt that it was deliberate and intentional. She was not a good swimmer, and she said she struggled to make it to the bank.

And within a few moments, Jimmy Ray Barnes walked around the corner of the house. Jimmy told her that he was checking on Salonia, and she ran him off.

She became suspicious and later wrote down on a piece of scrap paper the license plate. As it turns out, that was the vehicle that Reginald Reed was known to operate in. That was his car.

The witness identified the driver as Reginald Reed and the passenger as Jimmy Ray Barnes.

There's a lot of circumstantial evidence in 1987 that pointed to Reginald Reed and Jimmy Ray Barnes. As far as a smoking gun, it was not there at that time.