On Saturday, a young woman was one of three shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend after dropping off their son at his apartment in Milwaukee.
According to police, Arieuna Nichole Reed, 23, was shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend Larvell Huddleston, 26. Reed’s family says though the couple were not together, they were actively co-parenting their two-year-old, Egypt.
Huddleston shot Reed from his second-floor apartment balcony following a domestic dispute. The second victim, a white male, 31, who lived at the complex, was shot and killed when he tried to provide aid to Reed. A third person, a black male, age 36, suffered a shot to the leg but survived.
Once police officers arrived on scene to respond to shots fired at the apartment complex, Huddleston shot at officers from his second-floor balcony. No police were injured.
During the standoff with law enforcement, Huddleston streamed live on Facebook. The disturbing Facebook live stream was initially deleted from the platform, but a screen recording from another user has since resurfaced. In the eight minute-long recording, Huddleston can be seen pacing through the apartment with the weapon and requesting that police safely retrieve his son. Reed’s body can also be seen briefly.
Huddleston flashed the attire that he wanted to be buried in and could be heard praying for forgiveness off camera. He mentioned his struggles with mental health, stating, “Me mentally, I’ve been through too much… I’m not straight. I’m not crazy, but it’s a lot of s–t I can’t take.”
Before the recording ends, he tells the police which apartment he’s in and requests they retrieve his son because he’s going to kill himself. He closes out the recording with one last clarification, stating “N—-s going to think this over a b—h. It’s not.”
Heavy reported that Huddleston spoke publicly online about his mental health prior to the incident. In a Facebook post from September 2020, he wrote “I suffer from Paranoia and PTSD so no I’m not normal I love people I’m actually a people’s person but I don’t f–k people my environment most definitely played a major part of why I move the way I do.”
Reed’s family is completely shocked by the ordeal. The victim’s father, Aaron Reed, said he knew his daughter’s killer for at least four years and the event on Saturday is not something the family saw coming. Mr. Reed described Huddleston as being a “perfect gentleman.”
“I actually had a Bible study with him,” Mr. Reed told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “If he [Huddleston] did have any issues, we never saw them.”
According to the 2019 “When Men Murder Women” study by the Violence Policy Center, of Black victims who knew their offenders, 60 percent were wives, common-law wives, ex-wives, or girlfriends of the offenders. And, 93 percent of the homicides of Black women were intra-racial, meaning they were committed by a Black man against a Black woman
Reed was a medical assistant studying to become a registered nurse. She was also establishing a vending machine business on the side. Her TikTok account is filled with viral dances and scrapbooking.
Reed’s family launched a GoFundMe to help with funeral costs and raising Egypt.