Cindy Reese

On the night of February 18, 2015 Michael Reese was found shot to death in his home in Morris Alabama. His wife, Cindy, told investigators that after work the couple had first gone to her mother's home, then to church before picking up food on the way home. However, instead of eating Cindy Reese had went to the grocery store and came home but when she walked in and saw the home in disarray she grabbed a phone and went outside and called 911. She claimed she had never seen her husband's body laying by the back door. In the same respect investigators also say Cindy never asked if Michael was alive or even what his condition was. Prosecutors would later say that was because Cindy already knew.

By the following month not only was Cindy Reese arrested and charged in the murder of her husband, but so was Jeffrey Brown, a pastor at a local church, and Cindy's lover. Brown would be the first to talk and make himself a deal. He would eventually plead guilty to manslaughter charges and agree to testify against Cindy in exchange for a twenty year sentence. It is likely that it was not just Cindy Reese's behavior on the night of her husband's death that had caught the eye of the investigators. Soon after Michael Reese was murdered Jeffrey Brown had moved into the home. A cell phone analyst determined that between the mornings of February 18^th and 19^th Cindy had called Brown eleven times and Brown had called her seven.

Cindy Reese would go on trial in November of 2016. Brown would testify that he and Cindy had began seeing each other in 2013 while he was the pastor at a local Baptist Church and Cindy was the Minister of Music. Brown was also married at the time but by the time of Michael's murder he was going through a divorce. Brown would claim that the affair had never become physical but Cindy Reese would claim differently. This became a case of picking at each of their statements and determining which made more sense. When it came to this issue it made more sense that the relationship had been physical considering the fact that the two had a joint bank account and Cindy's name was on both the title of Brown's vehicle and the lease to his apartment. In general people do not have these sorts of things in platonic relationships. It sounds like more than likely Brown wanted to save face seeing as he was a minister and all.

Brown would say that Cindy had often discussed poisoning or killing her husband, something she and her defense team would deny. Brown claim he had even attempted to recruit two different men to do the deed for Cindy after she “urged” him to do so but they had both declined. Brown would claim that he was allegedly on the phone with Cindy when she killed her husband and that although she had not exactly told him what she had done she then told him to meet her at a nearby gas station.

Prosecutors allege that Cindy convinced her husband to open the back door to let their dog out when she shot him in the back of the head. She then left the home with some jewelry and the .38 caliber gun she had used and met Brown at the gas station. They would say while there she gave the jewelry and the gun to Brown for him to get rid of them. She then went to the grocery store and returned home to ransack her home to make it look like a robbery. It seems apparent that someone must have seen the couple at the station or there was more than Brown's word that they had been there because the defense seemed to agree they met at the gas station but they differ on the reason. The defense claims that Brown had Cindy meet him there to give him gas money, which they claim she did.

The defense would argue that Brown was the perpetrator and that Cindy had nothing to do with anything. They would not go as far as to say that Cindy had broken up with him because it was obvious after the murder that she had not, but that she had refused to leave her husband for Brown. They would call Brown “the ultimate manipulator” and say that he was “completely obsessed” with Cindy Reese. They would claim that cell phone records showed that Brown's phone pinged off towers closest to the Reese home for nearly an hour before the murder. They would argue that Brown was in the home hiding an waiting for the couple to return and that Cindy had left almost immediately after returning home to go to the grocery store. The pointed out that Brown no only knew there was a .38 caliber gun in the home but he had been the previous owner of the Reese's dog so there would have been no fear there.

It is not clear exactly who the jury would come to believe was the actual shooter but it was apparent that they at least believed that Cindy Reese was not the innocent person she proclaimed to be. On December 2, 2016 they would find her guilty in the murder of her husband. The following month she would be sentenced to life in prison which is forty years in Alabama.

As I always at least attempt to do I went to the Department of Corrections in the state to determine any kind of status on those involved. I found both Cindy Reese and Jeffrey Brown are still in the system obviously. Brown has the year of 2023 in which his is “parole consideration date” but a minimum release date of October 29, 2036 so I am a bit confused. However I am not as confused as I was with Cindy. Under “custody” Brown is listed as being in a medium security prison while Cindy's says “On-The-Way.” I attempted to see what that meant and even went back a few days later to see if it had changed but it had not. It is possible that she could have been transferred for an appeal or even another case and just has not made it back to her “home” prison just yet. The site does show her minimum release year as 2057, with no parole consideration date.

I cannot tell you whether Jeffrey Brown or Cindy Reese pulled the trigger to murder Michael Reese but I do not believe it would have been done without them both knowing. Jeffrey Brown had it too easy already it seems. It was alleged that Cindy gave him money and helped him pay his bills, and if she is right they were having sex along the way too. Considering they had apparently kept things under wraps and his career as a minister was not at risk why would he want to change that? This is why I think the defense theory that he did it on his own because Cindy would not leave Michael holds very little water. Then again, he moved into her home just after the murder so scandals be damned it seems as I am sure the congregation at their church became fast aware. It seems more likely that Cindy did pull the trigger, just as the prosecution said, using a gun from within the home and then giving it to Brown to get rid of. The defense did say he was “obsessed” with her so he would have likely done anything she wanted, maybe even kill her husband. Regardless there is little doubt that they both had discussed the murder of Michael and possibly even planned it, but it is almost certain they both attempted to cover it up.