Billings man charged with homicide freed

BILLINGS — A Billings man charged with fatally shooting his wife’s friend while she was on the phone with a dispatcher reporting a domestic disturbance has been released from jail on $450,000 bond.

Authorities released 28-year-old Richard Douglas Reinert on Friday from the Yellowstone County Detention Facility.

Reinert pleaded not guilty Jan. 6 to deliberate homicide in the Dec. 21 shooting death of 25-year-old Jessica Stephenson of Joliet.

Conditions for Reinert’s release include that he be monitored by GPS and doesn’t leave the state without written permission. He also has a 10 p.m. curfew and can’t contact witnesses.

Reinert’s trial is scheduled to start Aug. 4.

Judge Mary Jane McCalla Knisely in April reduced Reinert’s bond from $750,000 to $450,000, which the family paid in cash.

Stephenson called 911 late on Dec. 21 and said she’d helped Reinert’s wife bring him home from a bar and that he’d pointed a gun at himself, court records said. Gunshots could be heard during the call and the dispatcher could no longer speak with Stephenson.

The dispatcher then heard a woman in the background yelling: “You shot her. What are you doing?” and a man yelling “you made me do this,” court records said.

Responding officers found Reinert straddling his wife, who was screaming for help. Stephenson’s body was found in a bedroom. She died of multiple gunshot wounds to the head and torso, authorities said.