PIERRE - The family of a slain Pierre woman filed a $5.3
million wrongful-death lawsuit on Wednesday against the convicted
killer, Brad Reay.
Reay, 48, was given a life sentence for killing his wife last
year. Prosecutors said Reay murdered his wife after learning she
was having an affair with a co-worker and had planned to leave
him.
The body of Tami Burns Reay, 41, was found near Lake Oahe
north of Pierre. She had been stabbed several times.
Her husband first attempted to pin the murder on his wife's
lover by writing an anonymous jailhouse letter that attempted to
implicate him. Failing that, he then claimed that the couple's
12-year-old daughter, Haylee, was the killer.
Reay said at his trial that Haylee had killed her mother in
the middle of the night. Reay testified that he awoke to find the
girl clutching a bloody knife, standing at her mother's bedside.
His daughter has no memory of the massacre, he said, telling jurors
that his only crime was trying to cover it up for her.
The jury did not believe Reay's story, spending just three
hours to reach a guilty verdict after a three-week trial.
Brett Koenecke, a lawyer for Tami Reay's family, listed the
plaintiffs in the wrongful death lawsuit as Donald and Bonnie
Burns, who are the slain woman's parents; her sisters Holly Givens
and Raquel Pendergast, and daughter Haylee.
Koenecke said the dead woman's estate and family members
should be paid $4 million in general damages and $1 million in
punitive damages. The lawsuit also seeks special damages of
$300,000 to support the upbringing of Haylee, who was 12 at the
time her mother was murdered.
The girl lives in Lander, Wyo., with her grandparents,
Koenecke said Wednesday. Tami Reay's parents were appointed as her
daughter's legal guardians in May, the family lawyer said.
Brad Reay, who was found guilty of first-degree murder, is
appealing his conviction.
