Arrest after 7 years finally gives South Side mother hope
On the day her daughter was shot to death, Nortasha Stingley says she went to the lakefront and thought about giving up and jumping in.
But God had another plan, she told herself. It would be seven years of struggling with PTSD and marching for justice with other mothers of slain children before she sawit.
Earlier this month, Stingley learned that Reginald Reed, a man from her old neighborhood of Park Manor, had been arrested and charged with killing her 19-year-old daughter, Marissa Boyd-Stingley.
“I just kept saying, thank you, Lord, thank you, Lord, after I heard the news,” Stingley said. “I know this is only the beginning, I still have to face the trial.”
But she has made it this far and now there is finally hope. “I don’t think the police would have gotten him after all this time if they didn’t think it was him.”
Her daughter was killed on June 25, 2013, just blocks from her home after a night at the lake with new friends. Boyd- Stingley and four other people were riding in a car when Reed’s black SUV pulled alongside at 73rd Street and King Drive, according to prosecutors.
Reed, alone in the sedan, began to look inside their car and two of the people asked him what hewanted. When he didn’t answer, someone said, “Right, with your cockeyed ass,” apparently referring to Reed’s misaligned left eye, prosecutors said.
Reed pulled out a gun and fired several times at the car, hitting everyone inside. Boyd-Stingley, sitting in the middle of the back seat, was the only one killed.
After the shooting, Stingley heard that the person who killed her daughter had a “cocked-eye,” and she
knew a man called “Rico” in her neighborhood who fit that description. She passed that information on to detectives, who came across Reed after a search of the neighborhood. In court documents, investigators saidReed’s left eye is misaligned.
Reed was placed in a photo lineup and the driver of the car identified him as the shooter. Detectives wanted the other three victims in the car to identify him as well, but they could not be located, according to court documents. About four years later, detectives caught up with a second victim, who viewed a lineup and identified Reed.
Another three years passed before Reed was taken into custody on Nov. 5, the same day Stingley had gone to her old neighborhood with flyers and balloons she released for her daughter.
Shewas later confronted by a woman in the neighborhood woman who told her the police had the wrong man.
“She told me he was a nice man who sometimes helped her with her children and had kids of his own and dogs he cared for daily,” Stingley said. “I told her, ‘Well … he wasn’t nice thedayhe killedmy baby.’… If it wasn’t, I would apologize and say let him go, I don’t want to harm anyone who is innocent.”
Stingley said she lost more than 40 pounds as she dealt with the grief and the trauma, and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder four years after the slaying. She’s living in the East Woodlawn area now and said she’s feeling “peaceful.”
“I am more in line with my spirituality, I’ve learned how to control myself, and my spirit is peaceful,” she said when asked how things have changed. “God is good. … He’s just good.”
Reed’s next court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 30. Stingley said she’ll bewatching.