A tobacco heir was shot at Reynolda, his pregnant widow was indicted for murder, and their son was paid $6.25 million

Zachary Smith Reynolds was the youngest child of R. J. and Katharine Reynolds. On 29 November 1931, days after his first wife divorced him in Reno, he married the Broadway singer Libby Holman in Monroe, Michigan, and kept it secret until May 1932. Shortly after midnight on 6 July 1932, after a party, he was shot in the head on a sleeping porch at Reynolda and died that morning. A grand jury ruled out suicide. Holman, several months pregnant, was indicted for first-degree murder, with his friend and secretary Albert Walker named as accomplice. A month before the trial date his guardian asked the prosecutor to drop the case, and Holman and Walker were released. Her son, Christopher Smith Reynolds, was born prematurely on 9 January 1933. The estate dispute ended in 1935: Holman received $750,000 and the baby $6.25 million. In 1936 Smith's siblings set up the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation in his memory. Christopher died in a climbing accident in California in August 1950, aged 17, and in 1952 Holman founded the Christopher Reynolds Foundation, which made $3.5 million in grants by 1985. Holman died of carbon-monoxide poisoning in 1971. Reynolda House says it is still not known whether Smith Reynolds died by suicide, accident or murder. Reynolda is now a museum of American art.