Peter Lucas Moses on Friday was
sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for the
2010 murders of a 4-year-old “gay” boy and a woman.
According to the News
& Observer, Moses, 28, pleaded guilty last year to
murdering 28-year-old Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy and 4-year-old Jadon
Higganbothan.
Moses led a “religious” group of
five women and nine homeschooled children, all of whom lived with
Moses in southeast Durham, North Carolina. He fathered all of the
children except for Jadon. The AP identified Moses' sect as the
Black Hebrews, which believes in an impending race war.
Vania Rae Sisk had been told by Moses
to “get rid” of her son, who Moses feared might be gay because
his father had left Sisk.
Moses, according to court testimony,
became angry sometime in October 2010 when he found out that Jadon
had stuck another child's bottom. He ordered the women to set up
computers and speakers in the garage, then took Jadon in the garage
and shut the door. With religious music playing, the women heard a
gunshot.
He admitted to killing McKoy in
December of the same year after he learned she was barren and wanted
to leave the group.
One of the women escaped the house and
told police that the remaining three women encouraged Moses to kill
McKoy because they feared him going to jail.
McKoy's mother, Yvonne McKoy, told
Moses, who suffers from bi-polar disorder and other mental health
issues, that he had taken “something very dear and precious from
me.”
“There is not a day I don't think
about her,” she said. “There will come a time I can forgive you,
but I just haven't gotten to that state now. … If I don't forgive
you, God can't forgive me and I can't see my child again. … This is
like a nightmare.”
“I am sorry for what happened to your
daughter,” Moses quietly said.