‘I told her to shut up . . . and I shot her,’ Fort Worth defendant testifies

When he fatally shot the woman he loved, Jerry Wayne Moore Jr. testified Thursday, they were fighting about sex and money.

That was what he and Larissa Easley-Kelly always fought about, he said.

Easley-Kelly’s tone was like an icepick, Moore said.

“I went to bed, and she kept yelling,” Moore said. “I told her to shut up. We’re both yelling at each other. She said she didn’t love me.”

“She is attacking me, she is hysterical,” Moore said. “We’re still yelling at each other. I grabbed the Glock and she said, ‘You’re not going to do anything with that.’

“She won’t shut up and she’s attacking me, and she went on and on and on, and I shot her. I lost control.”

Police were called to the couple’s home in the 6000 block of Forest Lane in east Fort Worth on Jan. 31, 2014, after getting a 911 call about a shooting. Officers found Easley-Kelly shot in the neck. The 45-year-old woman was the owner of Hilltop Montessori School and was a decorated Air Force veteran.

Moore, 48, initially pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in his wife’s death. But after a day-and-a-half of testimony, on Thursday, he switched his plea to guilty. The jury is still seated and will now consider his sentence.

The maximum sentence is 99 years to life in prison, state District Judge Wayne Salvant said. In October, Moore was offered a 40-year prison term in exchange for a guilty plea but that has been withdrawn, Salvant said.

Moore’s attorney, Ken Cutrer, said, “He did it. He’s guilty, and he did not want to lie on the stand.”

Moore said he believed the jurors were good people and that all the lying had to end.

“I shot my wife and I started lying right away” to police, Moore said. “I wasn’t thinking. There was no plan.”

Moore said he was about six feet from Easley-Kelly when he shot her. Moore said he lost all concept of time, but he knew that things were happening fast.

Easley-Kelly died while Moore watched, he said.

“I put pressure on the wound using my robe,” Moore said. “I said ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ I tell her to look at me and she looks at me and she was so scared. I said ‘I’m sorry. I’ll call for help.’ I take my hand off to look at how bad the wound was and it’s gushing blood, and I tell her ‘I’m sorry’ and she died right there.

“I just completely panicked. I knew I was in trouble. She was dead. I’d thought I’ll make it look like an accident. Like we had struggled over the gun.”

Easley-Kelly had threatened to kill herself before, so Moore said he thought he could rearrange the master bedroom to make it look like the scene of an accidental shooting.

Moore said he started taking pain pills and drinking immediately. He took some of Easley-Kelly’s Xanex and when those ran out he went to a doctor’s office the next day to get some more.

“I didn’t want to face up to it, and I didn’t want to admit it,” Moore said. “I didn’t really think that I could get away with it.

“I panicked. At that point, I was just thinking about myself. I wasn’t thinking.”

Prosecutor Dale Smith asked Moore to step down from the witness stand and demonstrate how he killed Easley-Kelly.

“You placed a gun in your dead wife’s hands so there would be [gunshot residue] on her hands and her DNA on the gun, you altered a crime scene and waited for her to die before you called 911, and you weren’t thinking?”

Smith pointed out that Moore lied to police, Easley-Kelly’s friends and relatives, spoke at her funeral, challenged her will and fought for an inheritance from her estate. And then Smith asked, “You don’t deserve mercy, do you?”

“I deserve whatever sentence the jury decides to give me,” Moore said.

The sentencing phase of the trial is expected to continue Friday with closing arguments.

This story was originally published June 25, 2015 at 3:20 PM with the headline "‘I told her to shut up . . . and I shot her,’ Fort Worth defendant testifies."