Devon Moore
When
someone takes a plea deal it is generally for one of three
reasons.... to avoid the death penalty, to get a much lighter
sentence or to avoid putting the defendant's family through a trial.
In today's world, as in this case, so often the defendant's family
and the victim's family are one and the same. It is not unusual to
see someone who is wanting to avoid the death penalty to make a plea
and serve the rest of their life in prison. Nor is it unusual to see
someone get a much shorter sentence than they were looking at.
Sometimes this is done by lowering the charges or even changing them
and allowing the court to sentence differently. This case involved a
plea deal but the death penalty was never an option for prosecutors
because the defendant was a minor when the crime was committed. The
United States Supreme court had made this ruling in 2005, five years
before the crime was committed. Whether the deal was very specific
prior to entering the court is unclear but when Devon Moore walked
out he had the maximum sentence allowed to an adult for his crime as
that is how the prosecutors were charging him. If the deal was
specific and the judge rejected it as written Devon could have
withdrawn his plea deal. So, that only leaves out putting his family
through a trial. While I am sure these things are devastating to
families but in my opinion if taken to trial he could not have been
any worse off. But, here I go again, getting ahead of myself.
On
the evening of November 3, 2010 Rhonda Frazier reported that her
ex-husband, Timothy Moore was missing from his South Bend Washington
home. Now, I stated that Tim was her ex-husband but I guess to be
fair I cannot say this is true for sure. There were indications that
they were still a couple in some way but did not live together, but
then again, the only thing that I can state for a fact is that Tim
and Rhonda had a son together, Devon. Devon lived with his father
and by all appearances not only was he a good kid, but everyone
believed Tim to be a doting and wonderful father.
Now,
keep in mind that I have already said that this case ended in a plea
deal. This means that there was no trial in which specifics could be
told in open court and in most case, as it seems with this one, at
least for now, it means that no appeals have been filed. This makes
many of the “facts” and the “evidence” of the crime left to
the media to tell, whether it be through newspaper articles or one of
the many documentary type shows that are on television now days.
While there have been several of those shows made about this case,
and I have seen at least a few of them, I am going to keep my facts
simply based on what I found through my research on the Internet.
This means if you have seen one of those shows and you remember other
details you may not find them here.
Search
parties were formed to find Tim. It seems that no one truly believed
that he would have simply taken off. The last person to see Tim was
his son, Devon, who said he had last seen his father when he had gone
to bed on November 2nd.
A neighbor would later say that in the early morning of November 3rd
they had seen someone washing Tim's pick up truck. The neighbor
could not say for sure who exactly the person washing the truck was,
but apparently the county was able to determine that this was true
through water records. I had never heard such a thing but the way it
was explained was that the water department could tell when and how
much water was used at any particular time. It appears that this
seemed rather odd to investigators but it also seems that no one
suspected that Devon would have anything to do with his father's
disappearance.
Almost
four months to the day after he disappeared a skeleton was found in a
shallow grave in a wooded area. Some reports say it was found by
hikers, others say it was found by loggers. Either way at the time
of the discovery no one knew who this was even if it was suspected to
be Tim Moore. The body had to be identified through dental records.
It was then that they knew for sure this was Tim Moore and that he
had been killed from multiple gunshot wounds to the head. It seems
they were able to determine rather easily that the bullets had come
from a .22 rifle. Whether they knew Tim had owned such a rifle at
this point or not is unclear but a search of the home did not find
one.
By
now, while suspicion had not been on Devon in the beginning, it was
at this point. Whether it was because they had found the weapon and
had linked it to both Tim and Devon or it was just intuition I cannot
say. I cannot say exactly when they brought Devon back in for
questioning, only that they did at some point and within two hours of
the interview Devon had confessed to killing his father, telling
investigators why, what he did and where to find more evidence. While
Tim had been found on the 1st
of April all I can say is that sometime that month Devon was charged
with the murder of his father.
Devon
would tell first the investigators and then apparently later, the
courts, that he and his father had an argument on the night of
November 2nd.
Allegedly this argument had centered around Devon's grades and the
fact that his father had a rule about them. In order to maintain
driving privileges Devon was required to maintain his grades to a
level that kept him on the honor roll. He had failed to do that and
his father had told him he could not drive the vehicle. This
obviously angered the sixteen year old. He waited until his father
went to bed and then he retrieved his bolt action .22 rifle from the
closet in which it was stored. Devon went into his father's room and
proceeded to shoot him at least four times in the back of the head.
He then put his father's body in a garbage can and drug it to the
back of his father's pick up truck. He took the body to the area in
which it would later be found and buried it in a shallow grave. He
had dumped his father's clothing and wallet in another area. He then
went home and washed the truck. He would later sell the gun to a
friend of his, the son of a sheriff's deputy no less.
Prosecutors
had decided that they were going to charge Devon as an adult.
Although he could not receive the death penalty he could receive a
sentence of up to thirty-one years it seems. Had Devon been charged
as a juvenile he would have gotten about five years and released at
the age of twenty-one. Prosecutors did not feel that was enough time
for the heinous crime for one of the most unreasonable reasons. With
this I think I would have to tend to agree. This would be where the
plea deal would come in. In October of 2012 Devon would plead guilty
to the first degree murder of his father. The following month the
judge would sentence him. He received a sentence of thirty-one years
plus another 36 months of “community custody.” What this latter
indication means seems to be a bit of debate. One article stated it
was “community service” but I highly doubt that to be the case.
I would assume that “community custody” would refer to something
more like a half way house or work release program.
This
is where I become confused. The prosecutors obviously were not going
to agree to a short sentence, like he would receive if charged as a
juvenile, although he would have served every bit of those five
years. In adult prison they are often given “good time” and can
earn credits for an early release but in most states the juvenile
laws prevent their released until a particular birthday year. Again,
because of his age Devon could not have faced the death penalty in
this case. Had they taken the case to trial the MOST he could have
gotten was exactly what he got with the plea deal. It does seem that
initially his attorney's had planned to argue a “mental health
defense” and it was said that the case was delayed to give time for
an evaluation. I can only assume that the results were not as the
defense would have liked, hence the plea deal came about. But, I am
still left wondering why, even after getting the maximum sentence
allowed that the lawyers did not withdraw the plea and take chances
at court. Of course his confession would have been noted and there
is little chance he would not have been found guilty, but there is
the chance he could have gotten a lesser sentence. Not to mention
they could have withdrew the plea and started over working with
prosecutors. I am in no way saying that this boy was not guilty but
I question the advice he was given and the plea he was offered.
The
Washington State Department of Corrections website is one of, if not
the, worse I have seen as far as information. You cannot even click
on a name to get specific information. You search by last name...
Moore was fun.... and then scroll through pages to find your person.
Once there there are two links available. One is the link to the
facility the inmate is housed and the other gives you the ability to
be notified upon the inmates release. Beyond that there is nothing
to find any specifics on the crime, the sentence or any chance at
parole. So all I can tell you is that Devon Moore is in prison in
the state of Washington.
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