A North Carolina man accused of murdering his pregnant girlfriend claims that she was trying to poison him, but the woman’s mother says the man is concocting the allegation as part of an insanity defense, the Fayetteville Observer reports.
Authorities say 27-year-old Willie Earl Moore fatally shot 31-year-old Tanajwa McMurray on October 11 at her home in the city of Fayetteville. She was five months pregnant at the time, according to Spectrum News.
McMurray’s 10-year-old daughter was in the residence when the shooting occurred. She was found unharmed but told investigators that she heard the gunshot and that Moore threatened to kill her if she did not go to her room.
Audio of Moore’s 911 call obtained by the newspaper reveals that he contacted authorities around 9:15 p.m. to report the shooting. Moore can be heard in the audio recording claiming that a street gang called the Gangster Disciples was using McMurray to poison him.
“They had my girlfriend just try to poison me,” Moore can be heard saying in the 911 call, according to the newspaper.
He further claimed that McMurray had been “trying to set me up for a murder,” the Observer reports.
During the 911 conversation, Moore tells the dispatcher that he and McMurray had been arguing before he pulled the trigger.
“She grabbed her gun, pointed it at me and I shot her,” Moore tells the dispatcher, according to the newspaper. “It’s on video that we was arguing. I told her that I was gonna kill her.”
He continues: “Hurry up. Send an ambulance. I really shot her, though.”
Moore also alleged that police were colluding with the gang.
“They gonna give you the evidence. They got police with them, too. They got law enforcement on their side,” Moore says in the recording, according to the newspaper.
Moore then said he needed to call McMurray’s mother before hanging up on the 911 operator.
“I going to get my brother. I need to call her ma,” Moore told the dispatcher, according to the Observer.
However, McMurray’s mother, Tasha McMurray, has raised doubts about Moore’s story. She told the newspaper that she never got a call from Moore and that she had no knowledge of her daughter owning a gun.
Rather, Tasha McMurray said that her daughter was planning to leave Moore.
“My daughter was leaving him, and he couldn’t handle it, point blank period,” Tasha McMurray told the newspaper. “It’s the same story when a young lady gets killed by her boyfriend — she’s leaving him, he can’t handle it, he kills her. That’s all this is.”
The heartbroken mother suspects that Moore made the peculiar claims in the 911 call to feign insanity. She told the newspaper that she intends to make sure Moore is held accountable.
“She was carrying his baby, and that didn’t stop him from killing her. So now, the rest of my life, it’s never going to be the same,” Tasha McMurray told the Observer. “My granddaughter has to grow up without a mother. I’m going to be in that courthouse every day during those court proceedings and he’s going to have to look at me. If he won’t look at me, he’s going to feel my eyes in the back of his head. He cannot get away with this.”
Moore fled in McMurray’s vehicle, but he later surrendered to police on October 17, according to WTVD-TV. Authorities subsequently revoked his parole related to a previous conviction.
In connection to McMurray’s slaying, Moore is facing charges of murder, murder of an unborn child, possession of a firearm by a felon, larceny of a motor vehicle, and possession of a stolen vehicle.
A GoFundMe account was created to help cover memorial expenses and to provide care for McMurray’s surviving daughter.
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[Feature Photo: GoFundMe]
