Uncle Recounts Tara Reile’s Lying, Thieving, Drugs, Arrests—and Family Heartbreak

Pathological lies, thieving, heavy drug use, violence and seven arrests: Tara Reile has caused her family much heartache, uncle recounts.

TRANSCRIPT:

I’m Tara’s uncle and I’ve known Tara since she’s been in diapers, which is somewhere around thirty-six years, give or take.

Tara actually was a very cute child. But somewhere along the line, she really became a problem. Truth became a very big inconvenience for her, unless it was to her advantage. As a matter of fact, growing up through high school, junior high, she was a flamboyant liar. And she—actually, and I don’t like saying it, but she was a thief. I would want to go as far as saying she was a pathological liar; truth was unknown to her. If she was caught doing something, she would deny it, until forced to show that, “Well, we know you did it. Here’s the proof.” And then she would just backtrack and say, “I did it,” with wild irresponsibility. It didn’t seem to matter what she did.

She acted like a very tough chick. She would rebel at any order a parent would give any child, “Please clean your room,” you know, “Help me with the dishes,” “Help me mow the lawn.” She would just rebel; would not do it. And she would steal cigarettes, steal booze.

She stole her grandmother’s car keys—which happened to be my mother—and then proceeded to steal the entire car. Drove it 25 miles into Buffalo, and left it. My mom came home and said, “Where’s my car?” So, we finally tracked it down, and Tara had taken it. She just acted with wild abandonment. It didn’t matter who owned what.

The reports were coming in from the school and the teachers. And she’s skipping school and smoking cigarettes. And, by her own admission, she had done LSD in 8th grade. So, the reports of her problems were when she was very young, junior high school.

The superintendent, as well as the teachers, actually didn’t want her there. And it was strongly suggested and demanded that she do this program called PINS, P-I-N-S. And PINS stands for, “Persons In Need of Supervision.”

I had a construction business, and Tara’s dad—my brother—and I worked together. We would build homes. We would design them and build them. So, I had a very close relationship with my brother, and I would hear about Tara daily. And, I can tell you that Tara made my brother’s life a living hell.

I saw it in my brother. He got, he would—actually I’ve seen him, actually be so at his wits’ end, he’d have tears in his eyes. He’s like: “What I am going to do with this person?”

And it is interesting because, Tara doesn’t have any friends. And, according to people who know her, she is too mean to them. They try to be her friend but she’s too mean, so they just walk away. Her own sister, that she lived with for a month, had to remove Tara from the apartment where they stayed. Tara was a complete and utter slob. She brought home a different boy, or man, at the time, every other night, came home intoxicated, to the point where she would vomit on her clothes, sleep in it and wake up in the morning and start over again. Who would want to live with a person like that? And she didn’t. Her sister moved out.

Tara has two children. And I’m sure that she loves them, however, the last time she came to visit the parents, Tara’s parents, they tried to make it very nice for her. And Tara went out, leaving the two children to my brother and his wife to watch for the evening, which they did. Tara came home at 2:00-3:00 in the morning intoxicated. And in the morning around 8 o’clock or so, her son got up and said, “I’d like to speak to my mom.” And was told that: “Your mom’s still sleeping.” And the son waited till noon to speak with his mom—I guess he wanted to go somewhere or whatever. And Tara woke up at noon, was told that: “Your son’s waiting to speak with you.” She ignored him, went outside and took off with her friends. And, apparently got high, stoned, whatever they did, and didn’t even talk to her son.

One of the neighbors in the apartment complex had—wrote in to a web site called Good Neighbors, and there you can complain about your neighbors in the apartment complex. And they said that, this apartment where Tara was living had two people in it. And, apparently, the lady thought that there was child abuse going on and they should call Child Protective Services on Tara. Well, that may be true because Tara would spend a lot of time away from home. She would be intoxicated quite often, and she’d smoke drugs in front of her children. Well, what kind of parent does that? So, yeah, they probably should have called Child Protective Services.

Tara is, by the way—Tara has been, by her own admission, arrested seven times, for crimes such as domestic violence, DWI, drug charges, disorderly conduct, just to name a few. This is Tara’s life.

When you have a close family, like we did, you try to help one another. And if someone needs help, you help them. If someone is in trouble, you come to their assistance and you give them aid—whatever they need. Tara needed help. And I can honestly say, that the family members tried everything they knew how to do to help her, to give her a good life, to give her a good start in life. However, if you don’t want help, and you won’t help yourself, what can you do? Much time, effort, money, heartfelt allegiance, was given to Tara. And she basically would accept it because it was free, but it would never end. She was the kind of person you would have to help forever—because she could never really help herself.

And yet, the interesting thing is she’s an incredible actor. She can be so sweet and you’d go, “Who cannot like this person?” But don’t turn around. Watch your back.