A Mississippi man wanted for allegedly posing as a Good Samaritan to rape and rob a woman stranded on an Alabama roadside, is now in jail.
From stealing a church van in his native Jackson, Miss., to mugging a man outside his Cobb County apartment then fleeing police, Malachi Josephus Moody allegedly left a trail of criminal mayhem in his wake late last month, authorities said.
“He was the perfect wolf in sheep’s clothing when he pulled over in that church van,” Jefferson County, Ala., Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Jack Self told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by phone Wednesday. “It just appears to us that it was an opportunity that he saw, and he took it.”
Moody, 21, faces a bevy of charges in three states including rape and sodomy, hit and run, and several counts of armed robbery and theft, according to police and court records.
Court records say he took a van from the Jackson Christian Academy and drove it to Alabama. This was after allegedly robbing a woman in Byram, Miss., on April 22, according to Jefferson County sheriff’s officials.
While passing through Alabama the next day, Moody encountered a woman whose car was stopped alongside Interstate 59 outside Birmingham, Jefferson County sheriff’s Chief Deputy Randy Christian said.
“He got out and offered to help,” Christian said in a statement emailed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “After looking under the hood, he told her that she needed oil and coolant and offered to drive her to the store to get it.”
Believing Moody meant well, the 34-year-old woman got into the van with him and rode to three stores before they returned to her car, authorities said.
“Once they arrived back at her car, the man slapped her, sexually assaulted her and took her money and cell phone,” Christian said.
He drove away, leaving the woman stranded again with her car until a passer-by stopped and called 9-1-1, authorities said.
On the afternoon of April 24, Moody pulled a gun on a man outside of a Booth Road apartment complex near Marietta, taking the man’s wallet with $50 cash, ID and credit cards, according to a Cobb County arrest warrant.
Moody’s would-be victim fought back and tried to disarm him, eventually popping the ammunition clip out of the handgun, police said.
Moody fled.
Several hours later, police said Moody hit a BMW at the corner of Saine Drive and Sandtown Road near Marietta, police said.
He drove away in the church van, leading Cobb County police on a brief chase until wrecking the van and being caught, authorities said.
“Jefferson County detectives obtained photographs of the suspect and identified him as the man responsible for the attack,” on the woman stranded in Alabama, Christian said.
In addition to first-degree rape and sodomy charges in Alabama, Cobb County police are charging Moody with felony armed robbery, theft by receiving, reckless driving, hit and run, obstruction, fleeing or attempting to elude police, and theft by bringing stolen property into the state.
Information about charges in Mississippi was unavailable, but Jefferson County sheriff’s officials said they have been in contact with law enforcement officials in Jackson, Miss.
Moody will be extradited to Alabama when he is released from the Cobb County Adult Detention Center, where he is being held without bond, authorities said.
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