Reda Jane Sisler, a 46-year-old White/Caucasian woman, was killed during the early morning hours of May 31, 2014, at a residence near Aurora in Preston County, West Virginia. What began as a report of gunfire quickly became a murder-suicide investigation involving Reda and her former husband, Paul Edward Sisler. According to authorities, the violence occurred at a home along U.S. Route 50, identified in contemporary reporting as 26005 George Washington Highway.
At approximately 4:30 a.m., the Preston County Sheriff's Department received a complaint reporting shots fired at the residence. Deputies responding to the scene discovered Reda and Paul inside. Investigators determined that Paul had used a pistol to shoot and kill his former wife. After fatally shooting Reda, authorities said, Paul turned the weapon on himself. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
The relationship between Reda and Paul had ended before the shooting, with law-enforcement accounts describing them as divorced. Public records nevertheless show that the two had previously been financially connected to property in Preston County; a deed of trust recorded in 2012 listed both Reda Jane Sisler and Paul Edward Sisler in connection with real estate. Those records provide some background on their previous shared affairs, but available reporting about the killings does not establish a specific motive or identify a particular dispute that immediately preceded the shooting.
Authorities identified Paul Edward Sisler as the person responsible for Reda's death, rather than describing the case as an unsolved shooting or a homicide committed by an unknown assailant. Because he died by suicide immediately after killing Reda, there was no surviving suspect to arrest. Consequently, the case did not proceed through the usual stages of criminal charges, indictment, trial, or conviction. The available contemporary accounts do not report any additional suspects, accomplices, or arrests connected with Reda's killing.
Reda's death left a lasting absence within her family. Later obituaries for her parents, Joann Lantz Watring and Ralph Lee Watring, both recorded that their daughter Reda Jane Sisler had preceded them in death. The surviving public record of the case remains tragically straightforward: deputies were called to the Aurora-area home before dawn, Reda was found fatally shot, and investigators concluded that her former husband had killed her before taking his own life, ending any possibility of a criminal prosecution against the person authorities identified as her killer.
