Tiki the dog helps Illinois man Chris Smith survive gunshot to the head
On Thanksgiving afternoon in 2021, emergency medical technician Dennis Hobson was summoned to a house in the tiny village of Farmersville, Illinois. It was the house where his friend Chris Smith lived with his dog Tiki.
What he encountered is the subject of "Fatal First Date," an all-new "48 Hours" reported by correspondent Erin Moriarty, now streaming on Paramount+.
A 911 call had been placed to the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office by someone checking on Smith, and Hobson walked into a bloody scene.
The side door of Smith's house had been broken, and Hobson found his friend — barely alive — lying on the floor of the blood-soaked kitchen. Smith had a gunshot wound to the head and a woman, later identified as Leslie Reeves from nearby Troy, Illinois, was lying dead on the living room floor with a single bullet wound to her head, according to a sheriff's report.
Friends later told sheriff's deputies that the couple had gone on their first date the previous night after meeting online. In the first hours of the investigation, no one knew what happened, but investigators believed a third person was involved because no gun was found at the scene.
Smith survived the shooting but doesn't remember anything from that Thanksgiving Day. Hobson later told him some details. "He said I had no pulse," Smith told Moriarty. "He screamed my name three times, and I took a gasp and I said, 'Denny, I'm f***ing freezing.'"
Hobson later told Smith that Tiki likely helped to save his life. The temperature inside the house on that Thanksgiving Day was much colder than normal because the suspect had broken the glass on the side door.
"But somebody was keeping you warm," Moriarty said. "I had Tiki there," Smith replied. "My little girl, my little four-legged daughter."
Smith had owned Tiki, a beagle-terrier mix, for three years. He says he found her in a Craigslist ad and adopted her when she was a pup. Tiki apparently was Smith's lifesaver when she huddled with him, and provided much needed warmth, in the 12 hours before he was rescued.
"Tell me about [Tiki]," Moriarty asked Smith.
"Well … she apparently — when Denny walked in and saw her laying by me … I was … in the fetal position … and she was cuddled up next to me," he replied.
The dramatic story of Smith and Reeves' "Fatal First Date" and Smith's remarkable recovery is being told for the first time on "48 Hours." The broadcast will include an exclusive interview with Reeves' convicted killer, a former boyfriend of hers named Robert Tarr, who denies that he was the shooter.
A Montgomery County Sheriff's report later pieced together what happened that night. Smith and Reeves, after a night of barhopping and getting to know one another, had returned to his rented house in Farmersville.
Sometime around 1 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning 2021, authorities believe an assailant broke into a side door while Smith and Reeves were in the ground floor kitchen warming up a late-night frozen pizza.
A deputy sheriff told a friend of Reeves' that she died immediately and "did not suffer."
Investigators later concluded that the assailant that night was Robert (Bobby) Tarr, an ex-boyfriend of Reeves who had secretly followed her to Smith's house, according to Andrew Affrunti, the prosecutor in the case.
Tarr was convicted of murder and attempted murder in April 2024 and was sentenced to 85 years in prison.
Smith, who had three strokes in the hospital and was put into a medically induced coma, has been recovering since the shooting and making progress. He still uses a wheelchair and a cane but has returned to singing in his rock and roll band and is looking for work.
He has been unable to care for Tiki himself as he recovers, but she lives nearby, and they see each other often. Smith also has started a business as a motivational speaker and has created a website: ChrisSmithmotivatingyou.com. He also bought a new house and just proposed to his girlfriend, now fiancée, Michelle Albrecht.