SILVER SPRING, Md. — A family celebration days before Christmas was cut short by tragedy, when a husband and father was killed in downtown Silver Spring. Months later, police and the man's family are still searching for answers.
Charles Joseph Reynolds, known as Joe, had just finished dinner with his wife and daughters and was dropping some leftovers off in the car when he was shot in the stairwell of the Wayne Avenue Parking Garage on Dec. 21, 2022. His death is one of only two murders from 2022 that Montgomery County Police have yet to solve.
In a press conference Tuesday, Chief Marcus jones said his detectives have been left stumped on a motive or suspects involved. He is asking anyone who may have been in the busy area of downtown Silver Spring to come forward.
Reynolds' wife, Karis Hastings, also spoke at Tuesday's press conference. She remembers her husband as a loving person that she described as a computer nerd, who was active in the community and their church.
She remembered the day it happened, holding back tears. While the family went to get ice cream, her sister decided against it, and went back to the garage, where she found her brother-in-law bleeding to death and called 911. The whole thing happened in just minutes.
"We literally, in a six-minute timeframe, went from celebrating and being together, getting ready for Christmas, to then just the unimaginable," Hastings said.
She said she hopes talking about her husband's death will trigger someone's memory.
"We'd really like to see someone come forward," Hastings said. "Nothing is going to bring him back, but finding the person who did this would at least make the community feel a bit safer again."
Hastings said since the shooting, it's been hard to return to downtown Silver Spring. It's a place where it never occurred to her family to feel unsafe.
"Gun violence in this country has made every place unsafe," Hastings' sister, Mary Beth, said. "Silver Spring is not a unique place, it's not a uniquely dangerous place. What we really need to do is address the fact that people have guns who should not have guns."
What gives Hastings strength, even as the investigation continues, is remembering the little things.
"Every time I walk the dog, I think about how we used to walk the dog together," she said. "We used to play pickleball when the weather was nice."
Reynolds was an electrical engineer with three daughters, who retired from the federal government and went to work for MIT's Lincoln Laboratory in national security, according to an online obituary.
Hastings said the decision to come forward and talk about what happened on that December night was not an easy one, but it's something she felt she had to do.
"You know that obviously there are people out there who know what happened, and it's worth the chance to try to have somebody come forward," she said.
Montgomery County Police Chief Marcus Jones said since the shooting, they have received very few tips from the community.
There are cameras in the garage, but not in the stairwell. And despite all the time police have spent reviewing the video, they’ve yet to spot the killer. They’ve found witnesses who heard the shot. But no one who saw the shooter running away on foot or speeding away in a car.
"We're really at our wits' end when it comes to this particular incident," Jones said. "It doesn't make sense to us."
Jones explained that there was no evidence of a robbery or any other obvious motive.
"We have to try to figure out what was the motive of this horrific crime, because it doesn't make sense," the chief said.
Detectives are convinced someone saw something that will break this case. They are begging for tips through Montgomery County Crime Solvers at 1-866-411-TIPS.
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