On Friday, a jury was unable to decide if Shaundarius Reeder would die in prison.
Reeder, 21, was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder on Thursday by the same jury. The penalty for first-degree murder is life in prison, however; the jury can decide to grant mercy, which allows for the possibility of parole after 15 years.
Jurors began deliberations around noon, after hearing from Reeder’s defense team, members of his family and witnesses called by the prosecution, including a detective who investigated a previous shooting death Reeder caused when he was 16.
Around 2:20 p.m. the jury asked what would happen if it was unable to reach a decision. Judge Susan Tucker read them a second set of jury instructions, stating they should make every effort to come to a unanimous decision and assume there would never be a more qualified 12 people to decide the matter.
Shortly before 5 p.m. the jury asked what would happen if they were unable to reach a decision Friday and if there was a time limit on their deliberations. Tucker told the jurors there was no time limit as long as they were still talking about the case and gave them the option of coming back today or Monday.
After a short discussion among themselves, the foreperson told Tucker they wanted to debate for another 45 minutes, and if they were unable to decide, they would come back Monday. At 6:15 p.m., the jury stopped discussions for the day.
Reeder’s life has been tragic, but there is hope, defense attorney Dustin Schirmer said. Jurors heard from the best friend of Reeder’s mother, whose house he frequently hung out at; as well as his father, older sister and stepmother.
All testified that Reeder started down a bad path at age 16, after an accident June 13, 2016, resulted in the death of his 16-year-old best friend, Printess Winston IV.
“That messed him up,” Schirmer said.
After Winston’s death, Reeder started using Xanax on a regular basis, Amy Jones, his mother’s best friend, testified. Reeder’s dad, Larry, said, “he stopped doing everything.” A little over a month after Reeder was released from juvenile detention for Winston’s death, his mother died and he went down “a hard path,” she said.
However, Reeder was planning to become an electrician, even filling out an application for school the week before the murder, his sister testified.
Former Fairmont detective Brian Stewart called Winston’s death a “completely avoidable accident.”
“They were playing this game called the poking game where they would draw guns on each other and poke each other and say ‘what’s up,'” Stewart testified. “(Reeder) had a gun he thought was unloaded but had a round in the chamber and as he poked, fatally shot him in the neck.”
Some of the guns found as part of that investigation were stolen, the jury learned.
Justin Wheeler, an active Fairmont officer, testified that seen days before Reeder murdered Smith, he was arrested during a traffic stop with a Glock 9mm and 16 Xanax bars on him. A bag with 326 Xanax was found in the car, which had two other occupants.
Monongalia County Prosecutor Perri DeChristopher argued that Reeder’s bad path didn’t start after he shot and killed his friend, but before because the guns were stolen – and he was already using drugs.
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