Nalyn Reeves warned twice in court filings that her ex-boyfriend would kill her.
Reeves, 19, was shot dead Monday in Montgomery, Ala., alongside Undrea Willis, 25, after Tarus Giles, 23, allegedly broke through a living room window and gunned them down in front of their children, police said. Both mothers were pronounced dead at the scene. Giles, the father of Reeves’ 10-month-old child, was arrested Wednesday and charged with two counts of capital murder in the presence of a child under 14, one count of capital murder of two or more people, and one count of capital murder during a burglary.
The slaying came after Reeves had spent nearly a year trying to obtain legal protection from Giles through the courts. Her first attempt came in September, when she filed for a protection-from-abuse order accusing him of beating her for two hours while she was pregnant with his child.
“Tarus physically beat me from 9 a.m.–11 a.m., blacked my eye, gave me knots, busted my nose,” she wrote in the filing.
She also detailed threats against her family and unborn baby. “Tarus has been threatening my family and I,” she wrote. “He has told people when he finds me, he will kill me.” According to the document, Giles had threatened to kill both her and the unborn child, returned with a knife, and she had fled to a neighbor’s home for safety.
Neither Reeves nor Giles appeared at the November hearing for that order, and a judge dismissed it.
The same month, Reeves tried again. She and Giles had broken up after their child’s birth, and she accused him of yanking a braid from her head during a fight. That second restraining order was dismissed in April because the paperwork was never served to Giles, court records show.
In a filing made just months before her death, Reeves wrote plainly about her fear: “I am terrified of Tarus,” she wrote. “I am afraid that he is eventually going to kill me or, worse, hurt my child.”
At the time of the killings, Giles was out on bond on a third-degree burglary charge. The women had locked the front door of the home, but Giles allegedly entered through a living room window before opening fire. Video released by the Montgomery Police Department showed him being led to a police cruiser in handcuffs following his Wednesday arrest.
He is scheduled to appear in court Friday.