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The woman known to her film co-stars as Wyn Reed played a convincing on-screen killer — and turned out to be one in real life too.
“This is a horror movie, oh yes, a horror movie with all its requisite darkness,” Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison says in the “Killer Role” episode of Dateline: Unforgettable. “Its setting, its spine-chilling story, its disturbing characters, but really where does performance end and reality begin?”
The actress, whose real name was Aisling “Tucker” Moore-Reed, had the lead role of the thriller as Valerie, a tour guide stranded in an isolated mountain lodge with her coworkers. The film’s cast was blown away by her impressive acting abilities.
“She could easily pull out an emotion the entire film,” production manager and lead composer Kenneth Vibert told Dateline of the woman going by the stage name Wyn Reed.
But what they didn’t know was that Moore-Reed, whose case was also covered in an episode of the show Snapped, was hiding a dark secret. While filming the movie, she was out on bond after shooting her uncle Shane Moore to death on July 26, 2016.
Moore-Reed used her time out of jail to star in an Oregon-based movie that had her once again pulling the trigger in a disturbing parallel that shook the cast to its core when they discovered her true identity and past just after filming wrapped.
“When I watch the movie now, like, I feel like someone’s messing with me,” said Matthew Spickard, who served as co-creator, executive producer and an actor in the movie. “It’s like a sick joke in a way that I don’t get.”
What was Aisling “Tucker” Moore-Reed’s early life like?
Moore-Reed had been a natural performer since the time she was a child, often encouraged by her mom, Kelly Moore.
“She was always sort of ahead of the curve on everything,” Moore-Reed’s dad, Daniel Reed, recalled. “Kelly would make these fantastic little costumes for Tucker — Peter Pan and a fairy angel, and she was — you know, she liked it. She got a lot of attention, she liked the costumes and she liked parading around.”
The fantasies may have also distracted Moore-Reed from her tense home life, which Dan described as being “kind of like a war zone psychologically and emotionally.”
By February of 2000, Moore-Reed’s feuding parents decided to part ways and after a contentious divorce battle, Moore-Reed and her two siblings moved with Kelly, an attorney, to Oregon to be closer to their grandparents.
A family conflict arises
While Kelly, who co-wrote the true crime book Deadly Medicine with Dan, opted to be a stay-at-home mom, Moore-Reed’s grandparents provided money for the family’s living expenses and bought them a Victorian home in Ashland, Oregon.
Kelly didn’t work for years, and continued to need money for her living expenses. So, Moore-Reed’s grandmother, Lore Moore, began to take out loans and borrow against her sprawling ranch, estimated to be worth more than $1 million, to provide for the family.
Each time she did, it diminished the value of the eventual inheritance from the property — which was a problem for Kelly’s brother, Shane Moore.
“It was just money going out, constantly going out,” Ryan Moore, Kelly and Shane’s brother, told Dateline.
As it stood, Shane and Kelly were set to inherit the ranch 50/50 after Lore’s death, but each time the value of the inheritance from the home went down, so did Shane’s portion. Ryan had made his own way in life and was content to be left out of the arrangement.
Who was Shane Moore?
Shane, a former attorney, had moved back to the 60-acre ranch in 2000 after battling a drug addiction to care for his ailing father. He continued to live on the property in his own cabin after his father’s death.
“As my dad deteriorated, Shane took care of him,” Ryan said. “As he got worse, he was wheelchair-bound and my brother would carry him from the chair to his bed or the shower. There was plenty to do and he did it.”
Ryan described his brother as a “good guy.”
“I personally think he was the kindest, nicest person in our family after my dad,” Ryan said.
Financial dispute heats up
The financial dispute caused growing tension in the family. Just nine months before the deadly shooting, during a heated argument, Shane allegedly threw an oil can that hit Moore-Reed in the face. As a result, Shane was charged with assault and Moore-Reed took out a no contact order against her uncle, legally requiring him to keep his distance from her.
The drama all came to a head on July 26, 2016 at the ranch property.
Kelly would later tell detectives that she wanted to add language to her mother’s will that stated that if anything happened to Lore or Kelly’s family, Shane would be “immediately disinherited.”
But Shane saw another option to preserve his dwindling inheritance. He wanted his mother to sign the property over now, equally to him and Kelly, through a grant deed. That way, if Kelly borrowed against the property, it would only affect her share, according to Dateline: Unforgettable.
Kelly told detectives that her mother had decided to sell the property and that on the day of the shooting, a realtor had been called to appraise the land. When the realtor arrived, however, a fight broke out between the siblings.
Kelly told detectives that an enraged Shane threatened to kill her and Moore-Reed — a claim the realtor later backed up — and shouted at her not to “f–k up my deal” with their mother.
The realtor left, but not long after, a notary public arrived. Shane hired the notary to certify the grant deed that he wanted in place to divide the property.
But just as Lore, Moore-Reed and Kelly were sitting inside with the notary to go over the paperwork, Shane approached the house. Kelly and Moore-Reed would later insist that Shane, who legally had to stay away because of the restraining order in place, tried to force his way into the house.
“I was … absolutely sure he was going to kill my mother,” Moore-Reed later told detectives in an interrogation.
Moore-Reed grabbed a nearby gun and fired a shot into Shane’s chest, killing him. She claimed the shooting had been an accident, only carried out in self-defense.
“She seemed very dramatic,” recalled Gabe Burchfiel, who was a Jackson County Sheriff’s Detective at the time. “When looking at her, she seemed emotional. She would — she’s sitting in a chair — she’d pull her knees up to her chest and put her head between her knees and do different things like that. But when she wanted to say something, it didn’t seem like she was upset.”
The aftermath of the fatal shooting
The day of the shooting, Moore-Reed was taken into custody and charged with manslaughter, but she bonded out that same day, later going on to appear in that horror movie.
Detectives, however, were left with a nagging feeling that they hadn’t discovered the whole story, and they continued to look into the shooting.
Notary Carla Tryber described arriving at the house to find an enraged Kelly, who was yelling throughout their brief meeting. When Tryber brought out the grant deed, Kelly ripped it from her hands and tore it into pieces, according to Tryber.
“She was always yelling the whole time,” Tryber said. “She was very excited.”
What happened to Shane Moore?
Tryber said that after Shane was spotted approaching the house, Moore-Reed took out a .38 revolver that had been hidden on the table underneath a towel. Tryber said that after a brief argument at the door between Kelly and Shane, she heard Moore-Reed exclaim, “Mom, Mom, look out, he’s coming in.” Tryber said she looked and saw no sign that Shane had entered the property, but she then heard the gunshot go off.
A terrified Tryber managed to call 911, then quickly left the home, noticing that Shane, who was lying on the porch, was four or five feet away from the door, not at the entryway.
But it was a video taken by Moore-Reed on her cell phone that would take the case in a new direction. The video showed Shane pacing outside as Tryber sat inside with Lore, Moore-Reed, and Kelly. Then Moore-Reed suddenly cried out, “He’s coming into the house,” and picked up the gun.
The video captured Kelly at the door, but Shane was not visible.
“She’s not signing a grant deed. It’s her property,” Kelly shouted at Shane.
Then without warning, Moore-Reed fired the weapon and a surprised Shane shouted, “Ow, god-damn it.”
“It proved the exact opposite of what they were claiming,” Det. Burchfiel said. “It proved no self-defense and exactly what happened at the front door.”
Aisling “Tucker” Moore-Reed’s charges upgraded to murder
Moore-Reed’s charges were upgraded to murder after detectives saw the video, and then felt that the shooting may have been used as a way to get rid of Shane and his claim to the property.
“It was almost like they were looking for something to happen where they could concoct this story to justify its use,” Burchfiel said of the gun shot.
Shane had also called 911 earlier in the day to ask a sheriff’s deputy to come out to the house that afternoon while the notary was there. He told authorities that he was on edge after Moore-Reed had fired the gun earlier in the day.
“I’m afraid my sister’s gonna try to stop the notary public and … that’s what I’m afraid of. And I don’t want any — I don’t want any trouble,” Shane said on the call.
Even more disturbing, as Shane lay dying on the porch, Kelly can be heard in the 911 call screaming at her brother to, “Die! Die!” A witness also reported hearing Moore-Reed tell Kelly after the shooting, “You told me to do it.”
But Moore-Reed insisted that her mother never told her to shoot her uncle, and there was never enough evidence to link Kelly to any crime. Kelly continues to maintain that she had been afraid for her life and that Moore-Reed acted in self-defense.
What happened to Aisling “Tucker” Moore-Reed?
After continual trial delays due to COVID-19, Moore-Reed ultimately agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter in her uncle’s death. The district attorney told Dateline that she made the deal because she couldn’t predict how a jury would react to Moore-Reed, who dramatically had to be taken out of the courtroom during a bond hearing.
Moore-Reed was sentenced to six years and three months behind bars.
