In the still-dark hours of Friday, October 17, a quiet cul-de-sac in the Cedar Creek Cove subdivision of Mabank was shattered by gunfire. Just after 2:30 a.m., deputies from the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office arrived at a home on the 7000 block of Broken Bow Drive and found three people dead and two badly wounded.
The victims have since been identified. They are 51-year-old Kimberly Simpson, and 72-year-old Connie Patrick — both shot multiple times — and 57-year-old Rodney Hammonds, who suffered a gunshot wound, blunt force trauma and multiple stab wounds. Alongside them, two others — 24-year-old Colton Reid and 70-year-old Henry Hopgood — were rushed to UT Health Hospital in Tyler. Reid is reported stable, while Hopgood remains in critical condition.
As the investigation unfolded, authorities turned to a 29-year-old suspect: Christopher Kyle Reid Jr. of Hubbard. After the shooting, he fled in a maroon 2003 Dodge Caravan — but his flight ended just hours later in a dramatic crash at a busy roadside convenience stop in Ennis.
Around 5:00 a.m., the minivan barreled into the southwest entrance of a Buc-ee’s off I-45 and Creechville Road. The crash pinned a woman in her 30s from Oklahoma against a sales display near the entrance; she was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Moments later, Reid reportedly shot himself in the head and was taken to a Dallas-area hospital in critical condition.
Investigators say Reid knew the Mabank victims, though the exact nature of that relationship remains unclear. Deputies, assisted by the Texas Rangers, Ennis Police and the Henderson County District Attorney’s Office, continue to piece together what led to the grotesque sequence of events.
Neighbors near the scene still seem shaken. One resident recounted how a wounded man appeared at her door, bleeding and begging for help. “Real loud … I said, ‘I wish they’d hurry up, he’s dying,’ you could tell the blood was just coming out,” she told reporters.
At this moment, the motive is still unknown and police are not releasing further personal details. What remains is the void left behind: three lives cut short, a community rattled, and a man desperate enough to end his own life in public while the questions remain unanswered.
