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The murder of the 62-year-old Scott Horn outside his house in Maryland led to the arrest of his wife, Anne Reed Allen, in June 2017. Scott and Anne had been going through a contentious divorce battle with their four-bedroom property in Laurel at the center of their disagreements.
Reed Allen was charged with first and second-degree murder along with other charges but was acquitted by the jury due to lack of motive and evidence. She faced trial three more months later under charges of witness tampering but was let go yet again. Anne Reed Allen is a free woman now.
The Dateline NBC episode titled The House chronicles Scott Horn's mysterious murder and originally aired on April 17, 2020. The official synopsis of the episode reads,
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"A daughter finds her father, a former FBI agent, murdered at his house; police dig into the man's past and begin to think the key to the mystery might be quite close to home."
Why was Anne Reed Allen arrested?
Episode 30 of Season 28 of Dateline takes viewers on a journey through the unsolved case of Scott Horn's murder in 2017. According to Oxygen, Scott was found shot in the neck and beaten with a log of firewood in his yard close to the furnace shed of their Laurel home. Horn's son, Riley, discovered his dead body on March 16, 2017.
The Laurel Police initially ruled out any foul play from his previous line of work as an FBI agent or his then-profession as a real estate agent before looking into the Horn couple's history of domestic violence. Scott Horn had filed for divorce in December 2016, according to the Washington Post.
Moreover, his wife, Anne Reed Allen, had been home throughout the day, raising suspicion about her involvement. According to Oxygen, Anne allegedly claimed to have stepped out only to refill firewood in their home heating system. The authorities also found evidence of wood chips containing Scott Horn's DNA in their washing machine.
Scott's daughter, Kelly Horn, spoke to Oxygen to share the volatile nature of her parents' marriage. She shared,
“It got to the point where there were locks on everyone’s doors, on the outside and on the inside.”
She also mentioned an incident where she had been made to sleep in the hallway as punishment. As Scott objected to the situation, Anne had allegedly pulled out her handgun. During the divorce proceedings, Anne had also been in an affair with Jason Allen Byrd, who was suspected to have been involved.
What was Anne Reed Allen charged with?
Anne Allen Reed was charged with first and second-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and use of a handgun in the commission of a crime, according to The US Sun. Anne faced trial and the jury deliberated to acquit her of all charges on November 20, 2018.
On the same day, Anne was charged with one count of obstruction of justice and two counts of witness tampering on accusations of trying to influence her adult children to not testify against her, per The Baltimore Sun. There had allegedly been no reports on these charges since January 2019.
Meanwhile, authorities dropped all charges against Jason Allen Byrd due to insufficient evidence and he never went to trial, per The Washington Post.
Catch all the details of Anne Reed Allen's arrest on the latest Dateline episode The House which is currently streaming on Peacock. The episode was re-aired on June 9, 2024, at 10 p.m. EST on NBC exclusively.
