He Said He Didn’t K!ll His Girlfriend In A Target Storeroom — But He Still Got Life In Prison | HO

The store’s overhead monitoring system—used for internal loss-prevention oversight—captured him entering several seconds after Talia. His face was partly concealed, but for a brief frame he lifted his hood as he crossed into the stock room, and the camera caught enough of him to turn a blurred stranger into a name later. The door shut behind him at 6:13 a.m.

For the next 50 seconds, the motion sensor mounted near the supply racks activated and deactivated irregularly, suggesting rapid movement within a confined radius.

Not the slow, steady pacing of someone searching for a box of staples, but the quick, jagged pattern of someone cornered or chasing. At 6:14 a.m., a corridor employee heard a single metallic impact from inside the stock room, the kind of sound that doesn’t belong in a quiet morning—too hard, too final. She tried the door. It didn’t budge. She tried again, thinking maybe her hand just slipped.

“It’s blocked,” she told a team lead, voice tightening.

They tried together and got the same result. At 6:16 a.m., maintenance staff arrived with a key and forced the door inward. Inside, they found Talia on the ground near the rear shelving unit. The weapon used was a box cutter, and the visible injuries on her arms indicated she had tried to defend herself at close range. No one else was in the room.

In the back of that Target, in a place meant for cardboard and pallets and extra inventory, someone had treated a human life like it was something you could cut away and discard.

The emergency exit door at the back of the stock room stood ajar, its alarm sounding in that relentless retail shriek that makes even shoppers flinch. Supervisors initiated a store lockdown and began directing customers and off-duty employees out through the front. First responders from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office arrived at 6:21 a.m. Deputies secured the stock room, the rear exit path, and the surrounding loading area. Paramedics confirmed Talia had no pulse and had likely died within minutes.

Detectives began reviewing internal monitoring footage immediately. The man in the hooded sweatshirt seen entering behind Talia was identified through that brief facial capture as Jamal Reading, 25, a delivery driver and Talia’s boyfriend of about one year. Employee interviews and personnel notes revealed he’d shown up at the store during her shifts before.

More than once. There had even been an incident on August 12 where two coworkers reported hearing an argument between them near the break area. Talia never filed a formal complaint, but coworkers remembered her face afterward—tight, shaken, like she’d swallowed something she didn’t want to taste.

Detective Isaiah Broom, 38, a homicide investigator with the sheriff’s office, was assigned as lead. His first step was to build a timeline the way you build a case: not from feelings, not from gossip, but from what time-stamped systems can’t lie about. He reconstructed movement from logs, internal footage, witness statements, and the emergency-exit alarm timestamps. According to that reconstruction, Jamal entered the employee-only corridor at 6:12 a.m., reached the stock room door within seconds, and fled through the emergency exit at approximately 6:14 a.m.

Two minutes.

Fifty seconds of sensor activity.

A door blocked from the inside.

And then an alarm screaming into the fluorescent morning.

That was the moment everything changed.

Deputies traced the emergency-exit route into a fenced loading zone behind the building. The gate showed signs of being pushed open. Footprints led toward a service roadway running behind several retail businesses, the kind of back-lot artery that connects dumpsters and delivery bays and makes every store feel like it shares one long spine. No further trace of the suspect was found at the scene.

Broom interviewed the two employees who saw the hooded man approach the stock room. Both independently described the same clothing, height, and build, consistent with Jamal’s driver’s license. Neither saw any other person enter the area before the alarm sounded. At 7:05 a.m., Talia’s body was transported to the Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office for autopsy.

Before leaving the store, Broom did his own walkthrough of the stock room. He mapped the path from the employee corridor to the emergency exit and confirmed the lack of alternate routes. He requested the full export of internal monitoring footage from 5:30 a.m. to 6:45 a.m. and collected digital records of motion-sensor timestamps. Then he wrote a line in his case log that changed the tone of the day: the investigation had shifted from locating a person of interest to locating a homicide suspect based on the totality of evidence.

At 7:20 a.m., he contacted dispatch and requested units check Jamal Reading’s last known address.

By 9:12 a.m., Broom was at Jamal’s apartment, a multi-unit complex off East Colonial Drive with short-term leases common among hourly workers and people living one paycheck ahead of the rent. He spoke with three neighbors who recognized Jamal’s photograph immediately. Each reported hearing frequent arguments between Jamal and Talia in the preceding month.

One neighbor said that on August 5, she heard Talia yell, “I said I was done,” followed by a heavy impact against the wall that made her pause her TV.

Another neighbor recalled seeing Talia leave the building crying on at least two occasions.

None of them had called police. They shrugged it off the way people do when they don’t want to become the next door someone pounds on.

Inside Jamal’s unit, Broom saw signs of sudden movement: drawers pulled open, clothes scattered, toiletries left uncapped, as if someone packed without finishing the thought. On the kitchen table, he found a crumpled receipt dated two days earlier for a box cutter identical in make and model to the one recovered at the scene.

It wasn’t a dramatic item, just a slip of paper, but it landed like a nail.

Digital forensics photographed and collected the receipt, then imaged Jamal’s laptop. The device revealed a series of messages Jamal sent to Talia between 10:41 p.m. and 11:58 p.m. the night before. The wording escalated from accusation to certainty—claims that she’d “played” him, that she’d lied about “that dude at work.” The final message at 11:58 p.m. read: “You won’t keep ignoring me. I’ll talk to you in person.”

Broom stared at the timestamp and thought about the handheld scanner beep that logged Talia’s first inventory actions at 6:11 a.m. A tiny chirp recorded in a system, proof she was alive and doing her job. Then fifty seconds of irregular motion. Then silence.

Sometimes a life doesn’t end with a scream. Sometimes it ends with an entry in an inventory log.

That was the moment everything changed.

Broom returned to the Target store to conduct follow-up interviews. Malik Springs, 26, a shift supervisor, described recent changes in Talia’s interactions with Preston Bale, 30, a receiving associate. Malik said Talia and Preston sometimes remained in the stock room after closing duties, talking about schedules and work tasks.

Rumors had swirled among employees that something personal might be developing, but there had been no formal complaints and nothing management could document as misconduct.

Broom interviewed Preston separately. Preston admitted he and Talia exchanged messages about work and personal issues, but denied anything romantic. He acknowledged they left together after a late shift the previous week, but said he drove her home because her rideshare was delayed.

Broom’s mind didn’t care about rumors. It cared about patterns. Preston’s name appeared repeatedly in Jamal’s angry messages. Broom requested phone records for Preston and Talia for the previous thirty days to determine contact frequency and timing. He also confirmed through management that Jamal had no authorized reason to be inside employee-only zones.

A canvass of the area behind the building began. At 12:47 p.m., deputies located a black backpack about sixty yards from the stock room exit near a service alley partly concealed by shrubs. Inside were Jamal’s state ID card, loose clothing, and a hooded sweatshirt matching what the internal monitoring footage captured.

An energy drink with Jamal’s fingerprints was recovered. A small blood stain on the zipper tested positive for Talia’s DNA during a rapid field swab, later confirmed by lab analysis.

Broom didn’t need the DNA to feel it. The backpack was a story in physical form: someone ran. Someone shed layers. Someone tried to leave pieces of themselves behind.

The direction of disturbed vegetation suggested movement toward a retention area behind adjacent retail structures, then the trail dissipated near the perimeter fence. Based on evidence from the apartment, the messages, and the backpack recovery, Broom requested a countywide bulletin at 1:32 p.m. identifying Jamal as a homicide suspect. Law enforcement agencies, bus depots, and rideshare companies were asked to report any sightings or trips consistent with someone fleeing on foot.

At 2:10 p.m., the medical examiner’s office provided a preliminary verbal update: Talia sustained three penetrating wounds to the torso consistent with a box cutter blade matching the recovered weapon. The examiner noted the assault occurred within a short time frame at close range. Defensive injuries on her arms indicated she tried to block the weapon in the initial seconds.

Fifty seconds. That number kept echoing. Fifty seconds of sensor activity. Fifty seconds in which a woman tried to protect herself in a room meant for boxes.

That was the moment everything changed.

That evening, Broom received a report from a convenience store on South Orange Blossom Trail. Around 6:42 p.m., a clerk said a man matching Jamal Reading’s description entered the restroom and stayed inside for several minutes. The clerk later said the man washed both hands for a long time and kept his right hand positioned away from the sink, as if avoiding contact. He bought a prepaid mobile phone with cash and left on foot.

Broom reviewed the store’s internal monitoring footage. The clothing differed from what Jamal wore at Target, but the physical build and gait matched. Jamal’s right arm moved stiffly, suggesting an injury consistent with a cut or abrasion. Broom obtained the prepaid phone packaging containing the activation number, then used emergency disclosure procedures to request activation data from the provider. Records showed the phone activated at 7:03 p.m. through a tower less than half a mile from the gas station. Only one outgoing call had been made. The number belonged to Derek Reading, 32, Jamal’s cousin.

Broom found Derek at an auto repair shop on West Oak Ridge Road. The interview began at 8:12 p.m. Derek confirmed he’d received a call from Jamal.

“He was panicked,” Derek said, eyes flicking toward the shop bay like he wanted the sound of tools to drown out the conversation. “He said, ‘They’re going to say I did it, but I didn’t touch her.’”

Broom leaned in. “Did he ask you for money? A ride? A place to stay?”

Derek shook his head quickly. “No. I told him to turn himself in.”

Broom noted hesitation in Derek’s tone and the way he answered like he was stepping around landmines, but there wasn’t enough to hold him. The case didn’t need Derek. It needed Jamal.

Back at the sheriff’s office, Broom reviewed the digital history between Jamal and Talia. Six months earlier, their messages were routine: work hours, shared expenses, transportation. Then, by late spring, the tone shifted. Talia’s late closing shifts became a recurring point of conflict. Jamal demanded proof of where she was, asked for photos, accused her of choosing “people” over him. Employees confirmed Jamal arrived unannounced, waiting in the parking lot, standing near the employee entrance like a shadow that didn’t have a shift badge.

One coworker recalled Talia saying she was tired of explaining every shift. Another said Talia began requesting escorts to her car on closing nights.

Then Broom analyzed Jamal’s phone location data from the morning of the homicide. Between 4:50 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., his device pinged along a route passing the Target store three separate times. Three passes before she even clocked in. That wasn’t a coincidence. That was surveillance behavior, a person orbiting a building like a thought he couldn’t drop.

Broom watched the stock room footage again. Jamal didn’t wander. He walked directly toward the aisle where Talia was assigned to scan. He didn’t move as if searching. He moved as if he already knew.

That was the moment everything changed.

At 9:54 p.m., dispatch notified Broom that deputies stationed at the Lynx bus terminal on John Young Parkway had spotted an individual resembling Jamal near the boarding lanes. Broom responded with two patrol units. When he arrived, he saw Jamal seated alone on a bench near the Route 7 departure area, his right hand tucked inside his sleeve.

Deputies approached. Jamal stood abruptly and tried to move toward a side exit. Officers intercepted him after several steps, restraining him and placing him in handcuffs. As they guided him up, he repeated, “I didn’t kill her. I just came to talk.”

Broom identified himself. “Jamal Reading?” he asked.

Jamal’s eyes darted. “I didn’t do it,” he insisted. “I didn’t kill her.”

Broom instructed officers to transport Jamal to the station for processing and secured the prepaid phone from Jamal’s pocket. At 10:42 p.m., Jamal was placed in interview room 3 at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. The recording system activated at 10:55 p.m. Broom entered with the initial case file: witness statements, digital records, photos from the backpack recovery.

Jamal looked tense, his injured right hand resting on the table like it didn’t belong to him. Before Broom could ask a question, Jamal spoke fast, as if speed could outrun evidence.

“I want to explain what really happened,” Jamal said. “I went to talk. She been ignoring me.”

Broom’s tone stayed controlled. “Walk me through it.”

Jamal claimed he entered through an employee entrance door Talia had previously shown him. He said he went to the stock room to find her. He said they argued.

“She told me she was done,” he said. “I just wanted to talk.”

Then he shifted the blame. He claimed Preston Bale appeared unexpectedly, grabbed a box cutter from an open carton, and came at him. Jamal said Talia stepped between them, got cut by accident, and then he panicked, fled through the emergency exit, and discarded items while running.

Broom let him finish without interruption, letting the story hang in the air long enough to show its weak seams.

When Jamal stopped, Broom began dismantling it piece by piece.

“First,” Broom said, “every available record places Preston at the front of the store during that time.”

Jamal frowned. “That’s what they told you.”

Broom slid a printout across the table. “Access logs show Preston scanned into his workstation at 6:06 a.m. Point-of-sale data shows he assisted a customer at 6:14 a.m., which overlaps the moment the emergency exit alarm activated. Multiple employees saw him on the floor before and after. Your story requires Preston to be in two places at once.”

Jamal’s jaw tightened. “Y’all only got their side.”

“Second,” Broom continued, “we recovered a receipt from your apartment dated August 12 for a box cutter matching the one used.”

“I bought it for projects,” Jamal snapped.

“For what projects?” Broom asked quietly. “You live in a one-bedroom unit. No repairs. No tools. And Target provides box cutters to staff. The idea that Preston grabbed an identical cutter from a random carton at the exact moment you claim doesn’t hold.”

Jamal’s eyes flicked away.

“Third,” Broom said, “your backpack was found behind the store with your ID, your clothing, and the hoodie matching the footage. There was blood on the zipper. Lab says it’s Talia’s.”

Jamal swallowed. “I must’ve dropped it running.”

Broom leaned forward. “That doesn’t explain why it’s there, why it contains the same sweatshirt seen on video, or how her blood got on it.”

Jamal’s breathing quickened. “I didn’t kill her. I came to talk.”

Broom held up another report. “And your phone location data shows three passes by the store between 4:50 and 5:30 a.m. before her shift. That’s not ‘just showing up.’ That’s checking. That’s waiting.”

Jamal’s voice rose, then cracked. “I just wanted to talk to her.”

Broom’s mind flashed back to the internal system logging Talia’s scanner at 6:11 a.m., that little beep that said she was where she was supposed to be. Fifty seconds later, the sensor pattern turned frantic. The emergency exit alarm screamed. If Jamal wanted to talk, why block the door? Why flee? Why shed evidence into the brush?

When Broom pressed further about Preston’s supposed presence in the stock room, Jamal kept repeating, “You only got their side,” until finally he asked for a lawyer. Broom terminated the interview at 11:31 p.m. per protocol.

In the hallway afterward, Broom wrote the summary that would carry the case forward: Jamal’s story didn’t fit the objective timeline, the digital logs, or the physical evidence. It wasn’t that he had no explanation. It was that his explanation required the store’s systems, witnesses, and timestamps to be wrong all at once.

That was the moment everything changed.

On August 15, Broom assessed motive beyond the immediate conflict. He reviewed personnel documentation from Target HR and found an entry dated July 30 indicating Talia met with a manager about concerns regarding Jamal’s behavior. The note described him as controlling and said he appeared at her workplace without warning multiple times. HR documented that Talia was considering a formal complaint and had been provided contact information for corporate security if the behavior escalated. No record showed she ever filed the complaint.

Broom searched supervisor communication logs and found an email from Preston Bale to a department lead dated August 3. Preston described an encounter in the parking lot where Jamal approached him and warned him to stay away from her. Talia wasn’t present. Preston left immediately. Management acknowledged the report but took no internal action because no direct threats were made and no one was injured.

Device extractions from Talia’s phone revealed an unsent draft message created about a week before the homicide, addressed to a corporate hotline. The draft said she feared Jamal would “snap” if she broke it off for good. It referenced repeated arguments, his unexpected appearances at her workplace, and her uncertainty about how to distance herself safely. Reading it, Broom didn’t feel like he was reading a dramatic prediction. He felt like he was reading a tired person trying to put fear into words that could be filed and ignored.

Broom also checked Jamal’s legal history and located a prior misdemeanor domestic battery case involving Jamal and a different former partner. Adjudication had been withheld contingent on completing anger management counseling and probation compliance. The file noted employment consequences if he failed to comply.

Broom found a notation indicating Talia had spoken with a probation counselor in early July about an argument in which Jamal pushed her and grabbed her arm. Her statement was scheduled for review at an upcoming probation hearing. If confirmed, it could be deemed a violation.

The motive picture sharpened into something ugly but clear: the relationship was ending, rumors were swirling about Preston, and Jamal faced probation risk and potential job consequences. In Broom’s notes, Jamal’s behavior in the weeks leading up to the homicide demonstrated escalating attempts to monitor and confront Talia, culminating in the encounter in the stock room.

Later that afternoon, Broom had a limited follow-up exchange with Jamal due to Jamal’s request for counsel. He outlined the HR note, the probation risk, the evidence suggesting pre-purchase of the box cutter. Observers noted Jamal’s demeanor shifted. He stopped trying to redirect blame. He repeated quietly, “I never meant for her to die,” but declined to describe what happened inside the stock room. Broom ended contact immediately to comply with procedure.

And in the background of every report, the same details kept repeating like a refrain: 6:11 a.m. scanner activity. 6:13 door closes. 50 seconds of irregular motion. 6:14 emergency exit alarm. Two minutes that swallowed a life.

That was the moment everything changed.

Jamal Reading’s trial began in Orange County in early May 2022. Prosecutors opened with a structured timeline built from internal monitoring footage, digital evidence, and forensic findings. They described a targeted act committed in a controlled workspace where the victim had limited ability to evade an attacker.

Jurors were shown the stock room sequence: Talia entering, Jamal entering seconds after, the door closing, the sensor activity turning irregular, the emergency exit alarm sounding less than two minutes after Jamal entered. Prosecutors emphasized no other unauthorized individual accessed the area during that period.

Coworkers testified about the relationship dynamics. Malik Springs described arguments in the weeks prior. Other employees confirmed Jamal’s repeated unannounced visits and confrontations about Preston. HR personnel testified about Talia’s expressed concerns and the guidance she was given for corporate security.

Preston’s alibi stayed intact. Timestamped surveillance from the front placed him assisting a customer at 6:14 a.m., coinciding precisely with the emergency exit alarm. Additional data logs confirmed he hadn’t accessed restricted rear areas during the relevant period.

When Jamal testified, he repeated the narrative: he didn’t kill her in that room; she was injured during an unexpected struggle involving Preston; he panicked and ran because he believed no one would believe him.

But under questioning, Jamal couldn’t explain why the weapon matched the one he purchased, why Talia’s blood was on his backpack, or why his phone data showed three passes by the store before her shift. When confronted with late-night messages demanding Talia’s schedule, Jamal kept circling back to the same phrase, like it could turn back time: “I just wanted to talk.”

Prosecutors highlighted the defensive injuries on Talia’s arms, the short time frame, the entry into a restricted area, and the absence of evidence supporting a third party in the stock room. They argued these elements demonstrated intent rather than accident, and that Jamal’s attempt to shift responsibility onto a coworker was part of the same pattern: control the narrative when you can’t control the person.

After two days of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict finding Jamal Reading guilty of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon. Jurors later cited the convergence of digital evidence, surveillance data, and forensics as decisive.

At sentencing, the judge noted aggravating factors: Jamal’s deliberate choice to confront Talia at her workplace, the concealment of a pre-purchased weapon, Talia’s documented efforts to distance herself, and Jamal’s attempt to blame an uninvolved coworker. Jamal was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Afterward, people who worked that Target remembered the sound of the handheld scanner beep in a way they never had before. It used to mean inventory, routine, a normal morning. After Talia, that beep became a timestamp—proof of presence, proof of a person doing her job. Some employees said they started glancing over their shoulder whenever they walked into the back corridor.

Some started asking for escorts without apologizing for it. Some went home and finally told someone about arguments they’d overheard in their own buildings, because they realized “not my business” is sometimes just another word for “too late.”

And in the store’s system, the log would always show it the same way, cold and factual: 6:11 a.m., scanner activity; 6:13 a.m., door shut; 50 seconds of motion; 6:14 a.m., alarm. Numbers that don’t cry. Numbers that don’t lie. Numbers that, in the end, spoke louder than a man saying, over and over, that he didn’t do what every objective timeline proved he did.

That was the moment everything changed.