Peter Moses, who also confessed to slaying of ex-girlfriend in plea deal, avoids death penalty
The head of a polygamous cult pleaded guilty Monday to the murder of a 4-year-old boy he bizarrely believed was gay and an ex-girlfriend who tried to escape.
Because of a surprise plea deal, Peter Moses, who led a small sect called the Black Hebrews in Durham, N.C., won't face the death penalty for the 2010 shootings of Yvonne McKoy, 28, and Jadon Higganbothan.
Five women lived in the house on Pear Tree Lane with Moses and considered themselves wives.
“The arrangement was the women would periodically occupy the master suite,” Durham County District Attorney Tracey Cline told WRAL.
Moses was the father of all the children in the house except for Jadon.
He marked the little boy for death after he decided his father was gay. When Jadon struck another boy in the buttocks, Moses concluded it was a sign of the child’s homosexuality, and decided to “get rid of him,” prosecutors said.
The bipolar cult leader — called “Lord” by his followers — took the screaming boy into a garage and shot him in the head with his mother’s gun while speakers blared music with The Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew, prosecutors charged.
He had members of his harem put the boy’s corpse in a suitcase and stash it in his suite — until it started to smell.
McKoy was killed in much the same way after she revealed she couldn’t have kids and wanted to leave the sect, which preached that blacks will reign supreme after a race war.
After she left the compound to call her mother, she was dragged back by Moses’ other “wives,” mercilessly beaten and nearly strangled with an electrical cord.
A witness told authorities that the other women in the house, led by Jadon’s mother, Vania Sisk, insisted McKoy had to be killed. They took her into a bathroom, turned on the same music and shot her.
Moses then showed off her body at a party, before the remains were tossed in a trash bin.
The horrors came to light when another woman escaped the sect and told police two people had been killed in the home. The bodies were discovered by a plumber in the backyard of house where Moses’ mother had lived.
Prosecutors said they had intended to seek the death penalty for Moses, but he will instead face two consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole because he has agreed to testify against the six co-defendants in the case.
The head of a polygamous cult pleaded guilty Monday to the murder of a 4-year-old boy he bizarrely believed was gay and an ex-girlfriend who tried to escape.
Because of a surprise plea deal, Peter Moses, who led a small sect called the Black Hebrews in Durham, N.C., won't face the death penalty for the 2010 shootings of Yvonne McKoy, 28, and Jadon Higganbothan.
Five women lived in the house on Pear Tree Lane with Moses and considered themselves wives.
“The arrangement was the women would periodically occupy the master suite,” Durham County District Attorney Tracey Cline told WRAL.
Moses was the father of all the children in the house except for Jadon.
He marked the little boy for death after he decided his father was gay. When Jadon struck another boy in the buttocks, Moses concluded it was a sign of the child’s homosexuality, and decided to “get rid of him,” prosecutors said.
The bipolar cult leader — called “Lord” by his followers — took the screaming boy into a garage and shot him in the head with his mother’s gun while speakers blared music with The Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew, prosecutors charged.
He had members of his harem put the boy’s corpse in a suitcase and stash it in his suite — until it started to smell.
McKoy was killed in much the same way after she revealed she couldn’t have kids and wanted to leave the sect, which preached that blacks will reign supreme after a race war.
After she left the compound to call her mother, she was dragged back by Moses’ other “wives,” mercilessly beaten and nearly strangled with an electrical cord.
A witness told authorities that the other women in the house, led by Jadon’s mother, Vania Sisk, insisted McKoy had to be killed. They took her into a bathroom, turned on the same music and shot her.
Moses then showed off her body at a party, before the remains were tossed in a trash bin.
The horrors came to light when another woman escaped the sect and told police two people had been killed in the home. The bodies were discovered by a plumber in the backyard of house where Moses’ mother had lived.
Prosecutors said they had intended to seek the death penalty for Moses, but he will instead face two consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole because he has agreed to testify against the six co-defendants in the case.
