Irene Reynolds, held over the weekend after being charged with murdering her mother 17 years ago, scanned the courtroom for her husband Monday afternoon when she was presented for arraignment in Superior Court in Norwich.

The Southeastern Connecticut Cold Case Unit had charged the 38-year-old mother of three from Baltic on Friday with the fatal beating and strangling of Bertha Reynolds on July 19, 1993. She had been held over the weekend on a $2 million bond.

Her husband, Joel Outlaw, came into the courtroom before her case was called and watched in disbelief as the short, stocky blond was presented before Judge Robert L. Young.

The judge kept the bond at $2 million, citing the seriousness of the case and a previous felony conviction. He transferred the case to the New London court where major crimes are tried and continued the case to May 24.

Reynolds looked over her shoulder at her husband as judicial marshals led her back to the courthouse lockup.

Outside the courthouse, Outlaw cried as he proclaimed his wife's innocence to news reporters. He then engaged briefly in a shouting match with a nephew of the victim.

"My wife's sitting behind bars now for no reason," Outlaw said. "We're normal people just like everybody else out there, trying to do the right thing."

Hearing his statement, the nephew, Mike DiMella, shouted, "What about Bertha Reynolds, my aunt?"

The two men argued briefly before friends of Outlaw led him away down Main Street.

Bertha Reynolds, 60, was found at the bottom of a basement staircase in her home at 84 Laurel Hill Ave. The state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled her death a homicide by blunt trauma to the head and ligature strangulation.

Norwich police followed up leads and eventually offered a $10,000 reward for information about the killing, but the case went cold. The newly formed cold case unit re-opened the case last fall, and Gov. M. Jodi Rell authorized an increased reward of $50,000.

Jim Reynolds, husband of the victim, said it was a former roommate of Irene Reynolds who provided the information that police needed to obtain an arrest warrant. The warrant has been sealed for two weeks. Jim Reynolds said he and Bertha Reynolds had adopted Irene as an infant and that, as far as he knew, his wife and daughter got along well except for occasional fights about money and the use of a car.

The daughter was living in a Norwich apartment with a roommate at the time of Bertha Reynolds' death and the father said she and the roommate often went to the Laurel Hill Avenue home to use the phone. He said a small amount of money had been taken from the house following the murder.

Irene Reynolds was convicted of third-degree larceny in 1994 and given a suspended three-year prison sentence and five years of probation. The father said she and a boyfriend were involved in drugs and had stolen his credit cards and "maxed them out." Irene Reynolds was charged in 1997 with violating probation and served 18 months in prison. The father said she went to a rehab facility and seemed to "straighten out" after that.

Reynolds and Outlaw have three children between them, including two young children and a severely disabled man that Reynolds gave birth to when she was 15. She had most recently been delivering newspapers for The Norwich Bulletin.

At the arraignment, she was represented by public defender Cynthia Love, who asked the judge to consider a bond reduction since Reynolds has known about the investigation for the past six months and did not leave the area. The judge did not alter the $2 million bond that had been set by another judge, Kevin P. McMahon, when he signed the arrest warrant.

The husband spoke briefly to the attorney following the court appearance and then stepped outside to face the newspaper and television reporters who awaited his statement.

"They should have dropped the bond at least a little bit considering my wife didn't do this," he said.