"Me and my husband didn't get a date night very often, much less a whole day to spend together, so I was just so excited and looking forward to spending the day with the love of my life," Oulson said today. The Oulsons were at the Cobb Grove 16 in Wesley Chapel on Jan. 13 for a matinee of Lone Survivor when a man behind them became agitated because Chad Oulson was texting on his phone during previews. Authorities say Curtis Reeves Jr., also a Navy veteran and a retired Tampa police captain, left the theater to complain to management, then returned and started arguing with Chad Oulson. Witnesses said Oulson threw a bag of popcorn at Reeves, who then pulled a .380 semiautomatic pistol and fired once. "In the blink of an eye my whole world just got shattered into a million pieces," Oulson, 33, tearfully told the media gathered at a news conference in her attorneys' office. "Now I'm left trying to pick them up and trying to put them all back together. "It's so hard and so unbearable," she added before leaving the room. Reeves, 71, is in jail in Pasco County, charged with second-degree murder. Attorney TJ Grimaldi said Nicole Oulson was surprised that Reeves' attorney said he acted in self-defense. The Oulsons' daughter, Alexis, is too young to be fully aware of what has happened but she "knows that Daddy's gone," Grimaldi said. Nicole Oulson said Alexis is where her focus is now "and always will be."
– Nicole Oulson spoke out yesterday about the shooting death of her husband, Chad, over the small matter of texting in a movie theater. The couple had been on a rare "date night" away from their 22-month-old daughter, "so I was just so excited and looking forward to spending the day with the love of my life," she said at a news conference, per ABC News. During previews at a showing of Lone Survivor, her husband sent one last text to the babysitter, before an argument broke out with Curtis Reeves—who now faces a second-degree murder charge. "And just to think that in the blink of an eye, my whole world just got shattered into a million pieces," she said. "And now I'm left trying to pick them all up and putting them back together." Reeves' lawyers say they'll invoke Florida's Stand Your Ground law—a move that shocked Nicole. "She doesn't understand what he was defending himself over," one of her attorneys told the Tampa Bay Times. While Oulson hasn't ruled out suing the theater where the shooting took place, experts say it would mean proving the shooting was "foreseeable and preventable." But one notes that if a report of Reeves previously threatening other movie-goers checks out, "then I think the movie theater likely had some kind of a higher duty than just to let this guy keep coming back in." Some $20,000 has so far been donated to the Oulson family. "It's hard and it's so unbearable," Nicole said. "But I want to thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers."