Bobby Tarr: Murder Trial, 85-Year Sentence, and Appeal

The Bobby Tarr murder case ended with a Collinsville, Illinois man serving 85 years in prison for shooting his ex-girlfriend Leslie Reeves dead and critically wounding her first date, Christopher Smith, in Smith’s Farmersville home in the early hours of Thanksgiving Day 2021. A Montgomery County jury convicted Robert “Bobby” Tarr of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder in April 2024 after roughly three hours of deliberation, and in April 2026 an Illinois appellate court affirmed both the conviction and the sentence in full.¹²

What Happened on Thanksgiving Morning 2021

Leslie Reeves, a 45-year-old mother of three and small-business owner from Troy, Illinois, drove to Farmersville on the evening of November 24, 2021, to meet Christopher Smith for a first date the two had arranged online. They spent part of the evening at the Uptown Saloon watching a friend’s band before returning to Smith’s house.³ Tarr, Reeves’ ex-boyfriend, later told investigators he had followed her there. The shooting happened sometime after 1 a.m. on Thanksgiving.⁴

Inside the home, evidence pointed to a violent struggle. A glass side door had been broken, and the refrigerator had been pulled away from the wall, apparently by Reeves trying to barricade the door. Investigators believe Smith was shot in the head while crouching to help hold the fridge in place. Reeves ran to the living room, where she was killed by a single gunshot to the head fired from six to eighteen inches away. A pizza was still burning in the oven.⁴

Smith lay on the kitchen floor for about twelve hours before help arrived. When a friend of Reeves, Nanette Stuiber, could not reach her that Thanksgiving Day, she called for a welfare check. Deputies found Smith barely conscious and Reeves dead.⁴

How Investigators Built the Case Against Tarr

Stuiber immediately named Tarr, telling deputies that Reeves had been afraid of him and was trying to cut ties. In questioning, Tarr said he had never heard of Farmersville and had been home in bed since about 6:30 p.m. the night before.⁵

His 17-year-old daughter, Shelby, contradicted him. She told detectives her father had actually left the house twice that night, returning around 9:15 p.m. distraught and sobbing, and that a gun she recognized from the home was missing the next day.⁴ License plate reader cameras caught Tarr’s vehicle near a gas station just after midnight, and a receipt placed him there hours after he claimed to have been asleep. When deputies inspected his car, it had been freshly washed and the floorboards were still soaking wet.⁵

His phone told a similar story. Extracted data showed Tarr had searched for Christopher Smith on Facebook the evening of the shooting and had looked up whether police could track his location if he used a VPN.⁴ Cell tower records placed his phone near Farmersville on the nights of November 24 and 25.²

The Gun in the Yard

About a week after the shooting, investigators intercepted a recorded jailhouse call in which Tarr asked a friend named Billy Adams to go to his property and pick up “some special aluminum brackets” he called “deck brackets.” “Yeah, get ’em and get rid of ’em,” he told Adams. Investigators read the phrase as code for the murder weapon.⁴

Adams called the sheriff instead. Deputies searched the yard and found only actual deck brackets. A few days later, Tarr’s brother phoned the sheriff and turned over a Ziploc bag he had found in the same area, containing a Springfield Hellcat 9mm pistol loaded with hollow-point ammunition. Illinois State Police confirmed it was the murder weapon and that its ammunition matched the shell casings from the scene. Reeves’ DNA was on the firearm’s guide rod, and Tarr’s fingerprint was on the bag.⁴

Tarr was arrested at his Collinsville home on November 26, 2021, and held on $3 million bond.⁵

The Trial

Tarr’s trial began April 23, 2024, in Montgomery County before Fourth Judicial Circuit Associate Judge Christopher Matoush. State’s Attorney Andrew Affrunti led the prosecution.⁶ Prosecutors argued Tarr was motivated by jealousy over Reeves’ new relationship.

The case was largely circumstantial. No DNA or fingerprints belonging to Tarr were found inside Smith’s home, and Smith could not testify because he had no memory of the crime.⁴ Instead the state relied on Shelby Tarr’s account of her father’s movements, the cell data placing him near the scene, his internet searches, the license plate and surveillance footage, the forensic match on the recovered pistol, and the string of lies he told investigators.¹

Tarr did not testify. After deliberating under three hours, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder and found he had discharged a firearm during both offenses, triggering mandatory sentencing enhancements.¹

The 85-Year Sentence

On July 1, 2024, Judge Matoush sentenced Tarr to 85 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections: 25 years for Reeves’ murder plus a 25-year firearm enhancement, and 10 years for the attempted murder of Smith plus a 25-year firearm enhancement, all running consecutively.⁷ He must serve 85 percent of that term before becoming eligible for release.³

Chris Smith gave a victim impact statement describing what the shooting had done to him: six brain surgeries, two metal plates in his skull, three months in a coma, two massive strokes, and permanent paralysis on his left side. He could no longer work, care for his child, or live independently. “It is like the defendant killed me without killing me,” he told the court.²

Tarr used his statement to maintain his innocence, calling himself “wrongfully convicted” and pointing to what he described as “issues of doubt.” Judge Matoush said Tarr showed “absolutely zero remorse” and rejected as “incredible” his attempt to blame his daughter Shelby for the inconsistencies. The judge cited the hollow-point ammunition, the execution-style close-range shot to Reeves’ head, and Tarr’s digital trail as evidence the violence was deliberate and premeditated.²

The Dismissed Murder-for-Hire Charges

While awaiting trial, Tarr was indicted by a Montgomery County grand jury on two counts of solicitation of murder for hire. Prosecutors alleged he had tried to pay a fellow inmate to kill Christopher Smith and the lead sheriff’s deputy on the case.⁸ Those charges were later dismissed. Reporting on the case does not explain why.⁴

The Appeal and Its Rejection

Tarr appealed the 85-year sentence to the Appellate Court of Illinois, Fifth District, arguing on three grounds that it was excessive: that the trial court had improperly counted bodily harm as an aggravating factor when harm was already inherent in the offenses, that it had failed to consider his rehabilitation potential, and that it had punished him for maintaining his innocence.

On April 6, 2026, the appellate court rejected each argument and affirmed the sentence. The panel found the trial judge had properly considered “the nature and circumstances of the offense as a whole,” had in fact addressed the goal of restoring Tarr to useful citizenship, and had weighed his lack of remorse rather than penalizing him for claiming innocence.²

Where Chris Smith Is Now

Doctors originally told Smith’s family there was no hope, and the family considered removing life support.⁹ Surgeons removed part of his skull along with bullet fragments, though a piece of the hollow-point round remains permanently lodged in his brain because it is too dangerous to remove.⁴ He was in a medically induced coma for about two months, suffered three strokes during his hospitalization, and has since gone through years of physical and occupational therapy and a stem cell transplant.

Smith still has no memory of the shooting or of meeting Leslie Reeves, and he remains partially paralyzed on his left side. In April 2025, he published a memoir titled My Fatal First Date about the attack and his recovery. He has become engaged, purchased a home, and spoken publicly about his goals of walking without a cane, running again, and playing guitar.⁹

1
Belleville News-Democrat. Robert “Bobby” Tarr Found Guilty
2
Illinois Courts. People v. Tarr, No. 5-24-0918
3
The Intelligencer. Leslie Reeves Murder: 5 Things CBS 48 Hours
4
CBS News. An Illinois Couple’s First Date Ended in Horror
5
Oxygen. Robert Bobby J. Tarr Accused of Killing Leslie Reeves
6
The Journal-News. Tarr Murder Trial Begins at Montgomery County Courthouse
7
State Journal-Register. An Illinois Man Will Spend 85 Years in Prison for Murder
8
State Journal-Register. Collinsville Man Faces Murder-for-Hire Charges in Montgomery County
9
First Alert 4. St. Charles County Man Who Survived Attempted Murder to Release Motivational Book