A bizarre love triangle resulted in two men shooting at each other and multiple arrests.
On August 15 around 9 p.m., the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office was made aware of a shooting that was happening in a town called Creola. Two men were injured by the time the officers arrived, and luckily nobody suffered from a fatality. While a man thought he was shooting a home invader, he was actually shooting his wife’s secret lover.
Michael Amacker and Frank Reeves exchanged gunfire after Reeves’ wife told him an intruder was breaking into their house, according to local station Fox10. Amacker was struck in the lower leg and elbow, while Reeves was shot in the chest.
Both men survived.
The homeowner and husband, Frank Reeves, simply thought he was defending his property from an unwanted guest. However, he did not know that the man he shot was actually his wife’s secret live-in boyfriend.
Detectives from the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office determined that the wife, Tracy Reeves, had been having an extramarital affair with Amacker and had secretly let him live in a bedroom of the home.
“She had been allowing him to stay within the home for a couple of days, providing him with food,” said Sheriff Paul Burch, according to local station WKRG. “There were bottles of urine in the room which indicated he had been there for a little while.”
Jail records show that Amacker is being held on charges of attempted murder, possession of a firearm with an altered ID, and possession/receiving of a controlled substance.
At the time of the incident, authorities say that both Amacker and the homeowner’s wife, Tracy Reeves, were high on methamphetamines, reports FOX 10. A possible murder-for-hire plot is under investigation, as a potential explanation for why Tracy Reeves told her husband that Amacker was an intruder whom she did not know.
“Another thing with meth,” Burch said, according to WKRG, “people that are on meth, not only do they have paranoia, they can’t keep their mouth shut. So if there was some kind of diabolical plan, it is very possible Amacker has told some other people.”
A neighbor who did not want to be identified told FOX 10 of the Reeves couple: “I just know that they’ve had some problems in the past.”
She added: “Frank is a very calm person. He’s very nice. He cuts his grass and does things around the house. There’s nothing ever going on over there much, but he is a very good person.”
“I hate that it happened to Frank, because he’s just not the type of person to be a troublemaker, and I hope he’s okay,” she said.
Burch said it was Tracy Reeves who alerted her husband to the alleged intruder.
“He got up and armed himself,” he told FOX10. “A shootout ensued; he noticed the suspect was armed as well. They began shooting at one another.”
“Mrs. Reeves called her daughter, who lived across the street, or in close proximity. She and her husband came over and then held Amacker at gunpoint, who was trying to flee the scene until deputies arrived.”
“As we began digging further into the investigation, it was determined that Amacker actually had a relationship with Mrs. Reeves for some period of time,” said Burch. “That relationship involved methamphetamine, as well as a relationship. He had actually been staying in one of the rooms within the house for a period of time. She was supplying him with food.”
Tracy Reeves must have been very sneaky — or perhaps her husband was just oblivious — to not know that Amacker was reportedly spending nights in the home.
It’s unclear as to whether or not having Frank Reeves shoot Amacker was completely due to confusion based on the drugs or if this was something that his wife had plotted ahead of time. No matter what, she’s lucky neither of them was killed due to the misunderstanding.
Watch the video report below for more details: