DADE CITY, Fla. - For the first time, we're getting an account of last year's deadly Wesley Chapel theater shooting from the wife of the accused gunman. It's a play-by-play perspective from Vivian Reeves, who recalled a wide range of emotions.
The panic: "I was trying to be invisible."
The fear: "I turned my face away…it frightened me."
The regret: "Believe me; I am very sorry that I didn't see what happened."
Reeves' deposition was taken in mid-October. Under oath, she described how things quickly escalated the moment her husband, retired police officer Curtis Reeves, asked Chad Oulson to put his cell phone way.
"It happened so quickly," she recalled. "(Oulson) stood and leaned over the seat."
Moments later, Curtis Reeves went and talked to the theater manager. When he returned to his seat, Vivian said, things went from bad to worse.
"Mr. Oulson stood up in a very loud voice said, 'Who the [censored] do you think you are?'"
"In my mind," she continued, "I felt like he was going to hit him."
And so did Curtis Reeves, apparently. He told investigators immediately after the shooting, "it scared the hell out of me. The guy was fixing to beat the [censored] of me."
Vivian says she and her husband felt trapped once Oulson leaned over, and after she moved over, she heard a 'pop' and turned away.
A portion of her police interview was played at a bond hearing last year.
"I don't know, he's been in law enforcement for 20 years and he's never shot anybody, never threatened anybody with a gun. If the guy hit him, and I trust my husband. I think he thought he was going to be hurt," she said at the time.
As her October questioning wrapped up, Vivian remembered telling her husband after the shooting, "I either said, 'You can't shoot into a theater full of people' or I think I said, 'You just shot into a theater full of people,' and Curtis said, 'Not now' -- like, 'We're not going to discuss it now.'"
Reeves is due back in court in late January for a stand-your-ground hearing, which could last for an entire week.