First Date Ends in Deadly Ambush at Illinois Home

- First of all, we're going to treat fun for a KMS call for a gunshot win. - Get in there and map again. - A multiple gunshot victim. - This time, get you a contact corner. - 10-foot. - It was supposed to be just a casual first date. A beer, maybe a pizza at home before calling it a night. But by morning, one person would be dead, another clinging to life, and a dog, loyal and terrified would be the only soul left keeping a man from slipping away for good. On the evening before Thanksgiving in 2021, in small town Farmersville, Illinois, Christopher Smith, a 48-year-old pool contractor and fitness buff, goes on a date with Leslie Reeves, a 45-year-old fitness studio owner. The two had met online. What happens inside Chris's house later that night exposes a violent obsession, a haunting warning, and a killer's attempt to get away with murder. It's the fall of 2021, and Chris Smith is pretty content with his life. - I was a single dad. I was a small business owner. I had a general contract that made this company, and I had my daughter 50 percent of time, split custody in a nice 100-year-old farmhouse on about two acres of land in Farmersville, Illinois. Had everything I could ask for, had a pool in the backyard, had a 50-hundred-square-foot garden. I grew giant pumpkins, I grew banana trees. - He also sings in a band. - When I'm dead, I'm doing good, I'm doing fine. - But that night, everything changes. - The last thing I remember is driving home from work on 11/24, a 2021, passed my neighbor's house, looking at my dashboard on my truck, and I said at 4.45 pm in the voice of my head screaming, "Don't go out, stay home, don't go out, stay home." - Chris has a date with a beautiful woman he met online. Leslie Reeves, she's a divorced mother of two, has her masters in engineering, but had decided to leave her job as a petroleum engineer to help her local community. - Leslie was just always bubbly and happy, and if she ever didn't have a smile on her face, that wasn't for very long. - When she walked in the room, you knew she was there. She did not hide or shrink away from anybody. She was, like I said, super friendly. She loved people, and really when it came to business, her passion was helping women. - Hey everybody, it's Leslie from all you studio, your personal safety and awareness specialist here in Troy. - Leslie opened up a fitness studio. All you studio did more than help women get into shape. - Really, it was this place where women could go and get self-defense training. - To escape abusive relationships, something Leslie's friends believe Leslie may have experienced herself. - She learned to defend herself, and she felt it was important that women knew how to defend themselves as well. They just thought their wives or girlfriends were going and getting in shape for them. What they didn't know is they were also getting trained to protect themselves and be able to build their confidence and get to the point where they could have that courage to get out and know that they had a community of people supporting them and they had resources and could do it safely. - But Leslie's past still haunts her and unbeknownst to her. It's closing in. Chris Smith, of course, is also unaware of any of this. All he knows is he's supposed to meet up with Leslie for a beer. - She apparently drove from Troy Illinois and met me at the local establishment up in town called the Uptown Saloon. And then we were told that we left there about 11.35 videocam fridge and went back to my house made a pizza. And if what's just something I would religiously do anytime I went out, I was going to make a pizza. It was creature's habit. He shut up at the house, broke through the back door. - He is Leslie's ex-boyfriend, Robert Bobby Tarr. Did she ever mention Bobby Tarr to you? - She had mentioned she was getting out of a relationship with someone named Bobby and that was all I knew. - Even though Leslie helps people stand up to their domestic abusers, we know that Leslie is scared of Bobby. According to prosecutors, Bobby has been obsessively monitoring Leslie after she had tried again to cut off ties. Leslie had recently texted a friend about Bobby with the exact words I could be killed by him someday. Leslie's friends noted that just two weeks prior, he had crashed another of Leslie's dates. - About two weeks before things happened, I asked her about Bobby and she said, yeah, we broke up a while back ago and that turned out to be really crazy. And right now I'm trying to get a restraining order against him 'cause he's stalking me. She said she had gone on a date and he just randomly showed up on her date and confronted the gentleman that she was with. And she said the only way, she said, I didn't put anything on Facebook. He has to be tracking me somehow. She said, but I had somebody check out my car and they're not finding any trackers. I reset my phone. We can't find anything on my phone. But she said he's gotta be tracking me somehow. - We know that Bobby that night was curious what Leslie was up to. Later text messages revealed in court which show that he texted a close friend saying, I don't feel like she would drive that far for a party or go out with a girlfriend. I think it's for a dude. But Chris remembers very little from that night, a night that would change his life forever. They said there's some eyes that happen, it's that. He shut up at the house, broke to the back door and I like wedge myself up alongside him whatever. And that she pushed her to his friturators like sit like right next to that back door. So she split the friturator so it's the door, me, the fridge, and then her. And apparently he fired to the very, very top but wouldn't door right in two. It's believed the bullet goes through the door and right into Chris's head. He collapses in the kitchen. Bobby enters the house. Leslie immediately tries to get away. - She runs into Chris's living room toward a Christmas tree, presumably to find cover. - But Bobby pulls out a gun and shoots her in the head. Killing her instantly. She collapses right next to the Christmas tree. Chris meanwhile is clinging to life. Bobby leaves him for dead on the kitchen floor. The next morning, Chris's mom, Sharon Costanza, is expecting a phone call from her son. It's Thanksgiving morning after all. - Every holiday he would either call me or text me that morning early. I didn't get anything from him. You know, as a day went on, I kept saying to my husband, sorry, something's wrong. It's a mom. It was like a my stomach. I felt something and Paul kept texting him, calling him. I kept calling texting. I said, this is not right. Something is not right. - And I laid there for 13 to 14 hours till they found me 11 a.m. Thanksgiving morning. - That morning, one of Chris's neighbors is walking by his house and sees something disturbing as she looks through the large front glass door. Chris is lying on the floor, not moving. She walks around to the back door, which has been busted open. She then sees the violent scene and calls 9-1-1. - 9-1-1, what's the address of your emergency? - The back window is saddered and there's a body and there's blood on the stove and there's a foot I saw on the floor. - I'm only 16. I can't feel a sense. - Okay. - Can he take a deep breath for me? Okay, stay on the line. - Denny Hobson, he was the empty chief and the ambulance department there in Farmer Jail. Great front of mine. And he's one that found me the next day. And he said he looked at the back door. I was lying there in the fetal position. Tiki was cobbled up next to me. - Tiki is Chris's dog. She's a beagle, terrier, mix. And some people believe that because of her, Chris survived. Tiki's warm body, lying next to him, may have kept Chris warm as his body temperature began to plummet. - Do you believe that Tiki may have helped you survive this? - So I was dead for some time. They don't know how long my body temperature's like down to 72. - They think that her body warmth is what kept, maybe kept you alive. - They think it could help, but yeah. - The dog that Chris says is always getting loose in the neighborhood, chasing squirrels. Didn't go anywhere for those 14 hours, even with the door. I'm not sure. Why open. Many times that whole town was looking for my dog, even though we could see we were just gonna catch her, but that that day she did not run away anywhere. No, it stayed right by you. Oh, yeah. And then also apparently there's like claw marks my chest. She was trying to wake me up. Oh, yeah. She was a little angel. Furry angel. Chris's friend, the EMT springs into action. He initially couldn't find a pulse. He said he's streamed my name three times, and I took a gas breath, and I uttered, I'm effing freezing. And then that was it. I don't remember any of this. I'm going to dissolve told. I got to call from our dispatch center. They said that they had a homicide, suspected homicide in Montgomery County. They advised me while I'm there that there's one deceased in the living room area. And then a male had been transported with a gunshot wound to the head, and he was not expected to make it. Master Sergeant Joshua Easton with the Illinois State Police was one of the first law enforcement officers to respond to the gruesome scene. The amount of blood in the kitchen was overwhelming. It was a bad scene. It was on the floor, on the table, on the counter, on the cabinets. It was everywhere. That pizza, Chris and Leslie had been making, was burned to a crisp in the oven. It was related to me that one of the responding officers had turned off the stove, but it was still, it was still on when they got there. I mean, the house could have burned down with Chris lying there on the kitchen floor. Yeah. While EMS rushes Chris to the hospital, law enforcement is beginning their investigation to track down the perpetrator. Could you go at contact corner? Me and Chris. We were down there pretty quick after it happened. Illinois State's attorney, Angela Fronty, races to the scene. Early on, identified Mr. Tarr is a suspect. How did you identify him so quickly? One of her, one of Leslie's friends, arrived on scene and provided us with his information and indicated that he had that he was an ex that he was concerned about her safety in regards to him. And so that's how we identified him right off the bat. A Fronty says they interview Bobby Tarr about his whereabouts the night of the shooting. Basically, he went with this story that he didn't know where Farmer'sville was. Never been there. Didn't know who Chris Smith was. Meanwhile, the news of what happened begins to reach Leslie's family and friends. I got a phone call and my friend Jenny said, did you hear about Leslie? So what about Leslie? She said she's been, she was shot and killed yesterday. And I just told her I said, Bobby founder to who? So Bobby, I said, Bobby founder. He's he's been stalking her. She knew what he was capable of and she had been trying to stop it before it happened. I was shocked because, you know, you think she's been trained and she knows how to do all these things and, you know, this still happened. It's, it's really sad. Leslie is gone, but Chris is fighting for his life at the hospital. His mother and sister rushed to be by his side. My daughter left work too. She came and we all were like in the waiting room. We're trying to figure out who did this. You know, we're trying to be detectives getting on her phone, going on Facebook, just looking trying to figure all this out. I can't imagine what this is like. You see your son lying there knowing that someone shot him and not knowing who did it. No, and I couldn't help him. I couldn't fix it. That was the worst thing that I couldn't fix it for him. But police are on to Bobby tar. Parts of his story aren't adding up. It went down to where he lived, located him, brought him in for an interview. At the hospital, Chris is on the brink of death. The bullet is lodged in his brain. He's in a coma. At one time they said he's probably not going to make it. He's not going to talk. He won't walk. He'll be like a vegetable. I didn't know what to do. We would go to churches and just pray and like candles. But whether or not he makes it a fruity and a team of law enforcement officers have a job to do. I want you to dig that deep here because it's also up here you can have it. The lesbian is dead. You want? Can you help me shed some light on this? How did she die? She was mother. What happened? That's why we're here with you. You helped me believe that you're not involved in this. I'm not involved in anything. Police ask Bobby where he had been that night. I went to my house. He left and left me some money out of his shop. I remember when I came back. There wasn't that long. Maybe six or three years. You can talk to my daughter about me being home. So that's what they do. They speak with his 17-year-old daughter. She tells them her father had left the house twice that night. The first time he left was roughly six thirty and then he came one by half hour later and I said he had to go back. Right. And then it was nine fifteen-ish when he got back home. He was crying. He was sobbing. He said this was me. He started the laundry. He was pacing around and he was like, "I can't see." But Tar is sticking by his story that he didn't leave his house after 8 p.m. We had knowledge that his car was on some license plate readers in a particular area. We went to where that was where and there's a gas station there. And sure enough, on the gas station video, he was on video purchasing gas for his car. Shortly at a time where he said he had left his house. Don't remember them yet. You don't remember being out after midnight. When you have told us you are one hundred percent positive. It's when they're killed. When does that prove? He thought that he could just explain everything away to police. When he met with him and that they would just talk away, nothing would happen. The daughter told police her father had a small gun. But when they searched his house, it was nowhere to be found. She says it's usually in his sock drawer. At this point, investigators have heard enough to move forward. Back at the hospital, Chris's mom and sister are trying to coax Chris out of his coma. Open your eyes, buddy. Come on, Chris. Sharon and Chris's sister, Ashley, visit the house to see if it holds any clues about what led up to the shooting. The floor was completely covered in blood. It was everywhere all over the walls. I mean, just so I guess when he stood up, it just went all over. He must have been trying to get up to help himself is what I'm thinking. Because the chairs were knocked over everything and there was no fight. There was no struggle. Just Chris against death. But on January 12, 2022, Chris conquers death. 49 days after being shot in the head, Chris wakes up. Why are the two of them? She's hooked up to me. I go to feel my head, which is just pounding, killing me. I felt my head, my head, and my skull. I'm not feeling less tense on my body, freaking out screaming. I exploded at the top of my lungs, so the nurse came rushing in and told me what happened. And like I said, I said to him, I don't know, Leslie. The only Leslie I ever knew was in fifth grade in my mind. So I'm wearing them in a half-full bed. Flivered the acid from the other disbelief, scared to death. I'm pretty sure the nurse gave me some happy juice to calm me down because the next thing I know, I'm gonna wake up again in some morning of January 13th. Chris begins his very long road to recovery. He's paralyzed on his left side and the doctor tells him he will never walk again. I start following my head up. And then I said, you know what? He just told the wrong person he can't do something. Can you blink? Chris, blink again. You hear mommy blink. Can you look at me? Look at mom. - It has to learn how to do everything all over again. Eat, read, write. - Okay. I see the C in the H and R over the island. In the S, good. - And talk. - My diaphragm was paralyzed. So I could barely even get words out at first. - You're gonna tell her there. - Move your other light source, look at my flight. - Oh my God, no. - Oh, I see it moving. You're gonna be walking. I know you are. - You are amazing. - Can you get this other eye over here? - Oh, there. - There you go. - That sounds good. - Everything we could do, we tried to do for him, to get him, to get back to how he was. - Along the way, Chris learns that no matter how hard he works, a piece of this nightmare will have to stay with him forever. The bullet's still in your hair, Chris. - That's so loud. - Yep, it didn't come out. - The bullet is still in your head. - Right here, you know, I'm a right eye. - And they're not removing the bullet because I'm sure it's in a limited place. - No, they could have done it. They would have done that, you know, that morning they back up in the St. John's up Springfield, no, no. I had to get occasional castings, CT scans, to make sure it doesn't shift. - How does that make you feel knowing that this evidence, this remnant of this horrible thing, it's permanently stuck in your bones? - Well, I'm not too happy about it, 'cause I mean, I can never, you know, ride a bike again, a motorcycle, do stuff like that. I'm unable to, because it'd be too much to jeopardize. I feel like I've been living in the movie for the last three years, or a bad nightmare, waiting to wake up from it, but I just don't count myself out. You can never count yourself out, no matter who you are in life. I mean. In the years that followed that horrific first date, the press is relentless at getting his life back on track. - I have no choice. I mean, it's like 12 people said it. I have no choice but to heal up 100%. I made a promise to my daughter, I'm gonna run until you get one, play soccer. So I'm not breaking. Go to the gym, Monday through Friday, five days a week as much as I can. I've had five brain surgeries and seven surgeries told on my head. - He's unstoppable. Doctors did not think he would be where he is today, not one doctor did. - That's why when Chris no longer needed a wheelchair, guess who he made sure to visit first. The doctor who once told him, he'd never walk again. - I walked into his office with a cane, and we both hugged and cried. And he said, "Make me promise, Chris." You teach your story out the world. Can you make other doctors like me realize never to give up on cases like you? So that's what I've been doing. - Tell me about singing. You're back to singing. This is important to you. - So I only have one left job muscle. Somehow I still manage it. - Fairly it's my 50th birthday. I lost a year of leisure as I got shot in the head with him the wrong story short. But anyways, let's be support for some of those Dr. (bleep) - And Chris' triumphs have even transcended the physical. He's rebuilt his personal life in a major way. - I just asked for she buried me, guys. (crowd cheering) That's (bleep) I asked for her to try six months, seven, eight months of years, something like that. (crowd cheering) Michelle, she's an angel. She's great. I can't say enough about her. She's been by my side and she's my rod. - Tell me about Tiki now. Where is she? - He lives about eight minutes from us right now. She's with the foster mom. I was unable to keep her. She wasn't least trained. She didn't pull me over. And apparently she doesn't like big booms or gunshots now on TV. That little dog fainted home back also. But once she came over here two weekends ago, she got her car, I stood up on the wheelchair and she doth up with me and I fall over and she looked at me. She was pretty happy. - In 2024, Robert Bobby Tar goes on trial for the murder of Leslie Reeds and the attempted murder of Chris Smith. Prosecutors reveal a disturbing discovery. Bobby's father made shortly after the killings. The gun and the magazine and the bullets were located in a ziplock bag that was located on his property. Bobby's father found it in Bobby's yard next to a wheelbarrow around some leaves. - The bullets match the ones found at the crime scene. But the gun has no fingerprints on it, no blood either. - Our dearie was is that he had cleaned it as best he could. - But on deeper inspection of the weapon. There's a spring underneath the barrel with a rod. That's what brings the slide back after it's fired. So on that rod in there was her DNA. He forgot to take it all the way apart and clean that one little area underneath the slide. So that's where they found the DNA. It was deep inside the gun that we found it. - Still Tar denies everything. An extraction on his phone at him, you know, looking for the address, looking at Chris Smith in the area when it happened. There's just all kinds of things. Like he had searched on his phone wait that night, touch early morning. Can the police track me if I have a VPN? How do you use a VPN? Can the police track my phone if it's all? - Okay, so Bobby Tar says that you guys have the wrong man. I don't have any doubt that it was Robert Tar. - When his name came up in the news articles and talking to the journalist that I was talking with, it didn't surprise me that it was him. - It takes the jury only three hours to find Bobby Tar guilty of murder and attempted murder. The decision comes down on Tar's 51st birthday. He's sentenced to 85 years in prison. Chris speaks at the sentencing with Tar present in the courtroom. - What was your overall message to him? - That he stole my life, that he had piece of shit. I've had my life taken from me without dying. My life was murdered from me and my little girl. There's not little anymore. She was nine. She just turned 13 in January. I've lost that many years with my little girl. He took my family's life. I had to take care of him for a year and a half while I was recovering. He disrupted so many lives. He wouldn't even look at me in the eyes. - And Tar isn't out of the woods yet. He's about to go on trial again. But this time for allegedly trying while in prison to hire a hitman to kill not only Chris, but one of the lead deputies who investigated the case. - So he currently has pending still charges for solicitation of murder. - Bobby Tar will most likely spend the rest of his life in prison. But he's alive. Leslie's friends wish they could say the same for her. - Given how wonderful she was, that's what we want to keep alive is that and to be able to help more people see because if more women know about this story and it gives them the courage to leave and get out and do it in a way that is safe, then that's what we want. - I mean, she did nothing wrong. She was trying to get away from a monster. But that monster decided to hunt her down and anybody associated with her. I just, I don't know that anything could have stopped. Bobby from doing what he did. - She left behind a legacy of women that I believe will continue standing up and fighting against what he stood for. - Chris is going to keep on living life the best way he can. His family and friends recently organized a fundraiser to support additional stem cell transplants, the only treatment that has helped him regain any movement in his body. - Oh my God, it's awesome. - Oh my God, it's great. - Take nothing for granted. I mean, most of us only get one time and dessert. I was lucky to get a second lease on life. The only reason I could think I'm still here is to help stroke survivors with domestic violence and have gone shed injuries. But, you know, I mean, just here to inspire, motivate, give hope and resource and faith. - He put it all in a new book, "My Fatal First Date." It made the Amazon bestseller list after just weeks of being on the market. - It's a true life story, it's survival. You know, a heartbreak and triumph. - What do you want people to get when they read this book? - Just understand that we're unstoppable. Our power of the human spirit is unstoppable. Love life, love your loved ones. Don't ever take anything for granted. I mean, anything. - Chris Smith lived to tell his story. How a first date turned into a nightmare. How man's best friend may have saved his life and how he's found a path forward. Leslie Reeves never got that chance, but her legacy lives on in the lives she touched, the people she inspired, and in the justice that was finally served. Robert Bobby Tarr thought he could cover his tracks, but the evidence caught up with him. As for Chris, he's rebuilding his life that was nearly stolen, one step, one song, and one story at a time. I don't feel like dying time soon. I've already done it once. I've got another 50 years left to me, and I want to stick that out. I'm Kristen Thorne for Law and Crime Investigates. [BLANK_AUDIO]