THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 27, 1995 TAG: 9501270611
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 193 lines
Donald Reynolds had survived close calls before. He had been lucky.
In February 1993, he wrestled a knife away from a would-be robber and suffered only a slashed leather jacket. When the man then pulled a gun, Reynolds grabbed the weapon. During the struggle, he was able to spray the attacker with pepper gas, which, his family said, probably saved his life. The attacker ran for cover.
That summer, someone threw a cinder block at his cab and broke his arm.
But Reynolds was not able to protect himself in the early morning hours of April 26, as he drove two youthful fares to their destination in the 800 block of Smith Street. He was no match for the four or five bullets one of them fired from the back seat of his cab.
Reynolds, 43, died on the operating table.
``He was one of the few cab drivers who would go to the projects at night,'' said his oldest sister, Barbara Halstead of Chesapeake. ``Most of them didn't. He knew there was a dollar or two to be made there, and he had to support his (four) children.''
He began driving a cab when other career plans fell apart. During a divorce, he had lost the marketing research business he'd run for about 10 years. He tried to make a living selling life-call devices, then water purifiers. About two years before he died, Reynolds took a job as a cab driver, like his father in Portsmouth during the '50s and '60s.
``My advice was, `Get out of it,' '' said his brother Marvin Reynolds, who lives in Gloucester. `` `Find something else.' I told him it's a whole different atmosphere than when Daddy drove a cab.''
The family worried about his working the streets on the 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift.
``He used to tell some hair-raising stories,'' said another brother, Bill Reynolds of Chesapeake. ``But he would tell the stories in a light-hearted manner. He seemed to take it in stride.''
On the afternoon of April 25, Reynolds headed out on his route, which included the mean streets of Roberts Village and Young Terrace.
Reginald Evans, then 15, said he and Howard Chapman, 18, were hatching a plan in neighborhoods where Reynolds was looking for fares. Chapman needed money to pay a debt.
In a statement to police on April 27, Evans told of that plan:
``So, me and Tink, me and Howard Chapman got together and he was like, `Man, let me use the gun. May-May man.' Like for what, man? I like, `Yeah, you trying to get Zthis . . . money, ain't you?' He was like, `Yeah, I've got to do something, man. . . '
``I said, `Naw, man, pay that (guy's) money, man.' He said, `Right, man.' He said, `Let me use the gun, man. . . .' I said, `Right.'
``So, we got to walking. So he said, um, `There go somebody right there.' Like, who, man? He was like, `That (guy) and that girl.' Like, man, `I don't care, man.' I said, `Are you going to do it?' He said, `Yeah.'
``So, I give him the gun, right. All right. Naw, man, you can do better than that. So, he gave me the gun back. We got to talking and stuff, went to . stuff and, um, I said, `Let's go over my aunt's house, man.' He said, `All right.' ''
They headed out to get a cab. That's when their paths crossed Reynolds'.
``. . . Before we got in the cab, he was like, `Let's get the cab driver. Let's get the cab driver,' '' Evans told police. ``I was like, `Man, I don't care, man.' So we got in the cab. . .
``He was like, the cab driver Mr. Donald Reynolds, was like, `What is the address?' And we said, 832 instead of 826 cause it was a couple of house down.''
As Reynolds drove, he passed a paramedic on a call. The two held eye contact a few seconds longer than usual. The paramedic may have mistaken Reynolds for Reynolds'brother, Bill, a friend of the paramedic. Perhaps Reynolds already sensed trouble. Family members say they will never know for sure. But they do know that the paramedic's was probably the last friendly face Reynolds ever saw.
Evans sat in the back seat of the cab, he said, Chapman in the front.
``So, he pulled around there. Then . . . Tink, Howard Chapman was like, `Go ahead, man. . . ' My hand was shaking and my heart was beating real fast, in the shoulder like, like sticking from the side of the chest. So, I shot him in the shoulder, right. Tink said, `Give it up . . . Give it up. You know the mother f---- routine. . . Empty your goddamn pocket. . .'
``The dude grabbed the walkie-talkie and say `1947, I have been shot,' and the cab company was like `10-4' So, Tink was like. . . , `Bust him again, May-May.' So I shot him again. The dude still wouldn't give the money up. . . I said, come on man. Tink-Tink started grabbing his pockets, right. Tink-Tink looked again and said, `Man, give me the gun.' I said, `Naw.' I shot him again. `Cause if I would have give him the gun, pooh, capital murder. . . If I would have gave Tink-Tink the gun. Tink-Tink would have just bust him in his brains. . . I kept shooting him. . .
``Tink-Tink jumped out. Tink-Tink was opening - naw, I was trying to get out first. Tink-Tink was running, right. Tink-Tink, `Man, I can't get out. . . ' ''
The cab had lurched up on the curb and come to rest in the grass. There was blood and shattered glass in the street. Pictures of Reynolds' children were strewn on the ground, said a sister, Carol Reynolds of Virginia Beach.
``I ran all the way in the house. . . . '' Evans said. ``I ran upstairs, took my clothes off, taking a shower and everything.
``Tink-Tink came in the house. He was talking to my sister downstairs and my Aunt Kim came in the house after I took my shower. . . . She was like, `What happened?' I was like, `I don't know, man. . . ' I laid on the bed. . . I said, `Kim, man, I shot them. I shot them, man.'
``Then she just looked at me and started crying and everything, then I looked out the window, right. . . I saw all kinds of detectives out there, right. And Tink-Tink came upstairs. Tink was like, `Look at they dumb ass. They out there.' This is exactly how he talk. `They out there, searching for some damn shells and don't know shells come out no goddamn revolver. Like they stupid as hell.' He started laughing. . .
``It's all right like I say Reginald Evans pulled the trigger on Mr. Donald Reynolds. . . I ain't want to, man. I swear for God man. God strike me dead I ain't want to kill the man. . . I meant to shoot him to scare him so he would give the money up. . . I mean, I was so panicky, right, cause I - I ain't never did it before, sir. . .
``I tried to help Howard get the money. . . How else was he gonna get the money? So, I helped him. Still came out with nothing. . . I just meant to shoot him and scare him. I ain't mean to kill him. . . ''
Reynolds' two teenage children found out about their father's death in the morning when an acquaintance called to extend condolences after hearing about the shooting on the radio news.
``I didn't believe him,'' Reynolds' daughter, Bhavani, 17, said. ``I was like, `What are you talking about?' ''
She dropped the phone and ran to her father's room. It was empty. She told the caller he wasn't dead - that she was sure he just hadn't gotten home yet.
Chapman was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted robbery on Jan. 9. He could get a life sentence for the murder conviction.
Evans' trial is scheduled for Feb. 6. Norfolk prosecutors considered the crime so brutal they first sought the death penalty, even though they knew they would have an uphill battle because Evans was 15 at the time of the offense.
Circuit Court Judge Charles E. Poston ruled that Evans could not be considered for the death penalty because of his age.
In his first statement to police, Evans said he was in the back seat of the taxi, but that Chapman was the trigger man. Police could tell from autopsy reports that the bullets were fired from the back seat. They challenged the statement, and Evans gave a new version, which he now says was coerced.
He alleges that Norfolk Police Investigator Shaun Squyres grabbed him, threw him against the wall and told him that he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison. Squyres denies any intimidation.
Judge Poston ruled that Evans' statement was voluntary and can be used as evidence at trial.
The accused trigger man was a year younger than Reynolds' daughter Bhavani at the time of the shooting.
``If he's going to do an adult thing, if he's going to shoot someone five times, he should be tried as an adult,'' she said. ``If he's going to take a life, he should pay with his own life.''
Her brother, Levi, 19, disagrees. ``He should live his life in prison,'' he said. ``He would suffer every day.''
Bhavani said she would like to tell the gunman how much it hurts to be without her father, and ask him some questions.
``How could you take someone's life like that?'' she said, her voice shaking in anger. ``How could you take it so brutally? How could you be so evil?''
Two months after Reynolds died, Levi graduated from Western Branch High School. Last summer, when Levi's wind-chime project won sixth place in a national competition, he couldn't tell his father.
``The worst part is him not being there,'' his son said.
Details of the crime torment Donald Reynolds' two brothers and four sisters.
There are constant reminders of the violence - when they see a Yellow Cab or a red rose like the ones they carried to his casket. They think of him when they drive by Hardee's, because of the wrappers found at the scene - his final meal, they suppose.
Reynolds was the kind of driver who once spent his own time tracking down a customer who had left a watch in his cab. He didn't turn down the fares some drivers might have avoided because the trips were so short that they weren't worth the time. One customer showed up at Reynolds' memorial visitation to tell the family how nice he had been to her.
Reynolds had a dry sense of humor and a passion for gourmet cooking - such dishes as spaghetti squash. He was the family member who didn't like to hunt, who instead got out his metal detector. It was a tool that helped him unearth buttons from uniforms dating to the Revolution, coins from the 1700s, a cannon ball, a silver wrap-around cross that Levi wears on his left hand, and a sapphire and diamond tennis bracelet that Reynolds' sister, Connie Grimes of Portsmouth, wears around her wrist.
He was the one who hated violence, they said.
``The hardest thing is knowing he'll never be back,'' Bhavani said through tears.
``He's always gone. He can never give me away at my marriage. He'll never find out what we turned out to be. It never goes away. It's forever changed. Those two boys took that.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
D. KEVIN ELLIOTT/Staff
The details of Donald Reynolds' death torment his family. From left
are (front row): his sister-in-law, Ann; son and daughter, Levi and
Bhavani; (back row) his siblings Bill, Carol and Marvin Reynolds,
Barbara Halstead and Connie Grimes.
KEYWORDS: MURDER SHOOTING by CNB