A religious leader in North Carolina shot to death his four-year old step son because he thought the boy, Jadon Higganbothan, might be gay. The man, Peter Lucas Moses, 27, who also shot to death a 28-year old woman, may face the death penalty.
Moses, whom police stopped short of calling a cult leader, lived in a one-room home with nine children and three women. The 28-year old woman, Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy, Moses killed had been beaten and strangled with an extension cord before Moses murdered her. The day he did, she had escaped to a neighbor’s house and begged her to use her cell phone. The neighbor did not call police because she claims she thought the woman might be mentally disturbed. She witnesses Moses dragging her into the house, and still never called police.
More, via WRAL:
Moses beat her throughout most of the day, with the women joining in at least once, and tried to strangle her with an extension cord, according to the witness.
The witness described how McKoy begged for her life, but Sisk got the gun Moses used to kill Jadon and took it to the bathroom, prosecutors said. The women told Moses “you cannot let her go” and said they feared him going to jail, Cline said.
They turned on the same music in the bathroom and took McKoy in there, prosecutors said. Sisk shot McKoy several times, killing her, they said.
The group threw a party a few days later, prosecutors recalled the witness saying, and Moses showed McKoy’s body to several relatives, including his mother Sheilda Evelyn Harris, 56, his brother P. Leonard Moses, 21, and his sister, Sheila Falisha Moses, 20.
McKoy’s body was also kept in the house for some time, taped up inside black garbage bags placed in garbage bin, prosecutors said the witness told them.
A few salient facts:
Religious extremism is at the heart of this sad story. The children were home schooled. Neighbors ignored them. This took place in North Carolina, the current subject of a social agenda campaign against the LGBT community. A same-sex marriage equality ban may be on the 2012 ballot.
Good thing they have their priorities in order.
“In the religious belief of that organization, homosexuality was frowned on,” Cline [the DA] said. Huh? That better not be allowed in court.
“Investigators think some of those involved in the deaths were members of a religious sect known as the Black Hebrews, which believes it descends directly from the ancient tribes of Israel,” the Republic stated.
