A Metro East businesswoman's killing while on a 2021 first date is the subject of Saturday's episode of "48 Hours." Leslie J. Reeves, 45, of Troy, Illinois, was shot to death on Thanksgiving Eve 2021 by an ex-boyfriend while on a date at a home in Farmersville, Illinois, about 75 miles north of St.
Louis on Interstate 55. Reeves taught self-defense classes to victims of domestic violence. The man she was dating and who lived at the home, Christopher J.
Smith, was shot in the head and barely survived. Smith, then 48, was left for dead, laying on his kitchen floor for 13 hours before he was found by a friend. Paramedic Dennis Hobson, a longtime friend of Smith’s, found Smith on the brink of death in a blood-soaked kitchen.
He found Reeves dead in the living room. With no weapon discovered in the house, investigators believed there had to have been an intruder. After several weeks in a coma, Smith regained consciousness but couldn’t remember anything about the attack or of Reeves.
“I wish to God I could remember something ...
even just a smidgen, but I remember nothing,” he told Erin Moriarty of "48 Hours." An investigation had authorities convinced Reeves’ ex-boyfriend, Robert Tarr, of Collinsville, had secretly followed her that night and broke into Smith’s home. Tarr was convicted earlier this year of the murder of Reeves, and the attempted murder of Smith.
He was sentenced to 85 years in prison. Tarr continues to deny his role as the shooter. The program airs at .