A Fulton County jury has sentenced to death a rapist who murdered two teenagers six years ago.
Jeremy Moody pleaded guilty earlier this month to killing 15-year-old Delarlnova “Del” Mattox and 13-year-old Chrisondra Sierra Kimble after raping Kimble in April 2007.
The two cousins were reported missing after they walked from their home to an Old National Highway store to buy snacks on April 5 and were later found stripped of their clothes and stabbed several times around their heads and necks.
Police determined that Moody, 35, had used a screwdriver in an attempt to rob them.
Charges against him included two counts each of murder and kidnapping; rape, aggravated assault and armed robbery.
The jury imposed the death penalty Wednesday for each of the murder counts. On the non-death-penalty charges, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Christopher Basher added three consecutive life sentences plus 40 years.
Moody had pleaded guilty on the first day of the trial, and the jury was held over to determine his punishment.
Pete Johnson, the Fulton County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, said prosecutors sought the death penalty because the circumstances fit the criterion for capital-punishment cases: a murder that occurs during another capital felony, in this case the rape of Kimble.
Johnson also said the killings were carried out in a manner that was considered torture, and reflected an abandoned heart or a depraved mind on Moody’s part, more criteria for death penalty consideration.
Defense attorneys tried to paint Moody as an unstable drug abuser who was the product of growing up around drug-addicted parents.
“We were saddened that (jurors) didn’t give the mitigation evidence as much consideration as we thought it warranted,” defense attorney Maurice Kenner told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We plan on filing an appeal or motion for a new trial within the next week. We think there are some areas of error.”
Johnson said, “The fact that 13-year-old Chrisondra Kimble was stabbed approximately 17 times in the head and neck with a screwdriver and raped at the same time … while her 15-year-old cousin “Del” Mattox, Jr. was stabbed almost 40 times in the head and chest with a screwdriver, impaling his skull and going into his brain, would qualify for a death-penalty case.”
Moody was arrested a day after the teens disappeared, but prosecutors say it took them six years to bring the case to trial because he continued to intentionally injure himself in the Fulton County jail.
The victims’ grandmother, Vivian Mattox, told Channel 2 Action News that her family’s patience paid off. “We just knew justice was going to be served,” she said.
“We’re so ecstatic about the jury’s decision as to the death penalty,” Shana Long, a cousin, told Channel 2. “We couldn’t ask for any less than that. We are just thankful for the turnout.”
It was the fifth Fulton County death-penalty ruling in 13 years.
Gregory P. Lawler was sentenced to death in March 2000 for killing Atlanta Police Officer John Sowa. In July 2008, Demetrius G. Willis was sentenced to death for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend, her boyfriend and 3-year-old son in Atlanta.
Cleveland Clark was convicted as the hitman in a racially-motivated murder-for-hire scheme that left Union City mother Sparkle Rai, at the behest of her father-in-law Chiman Rai. A Fulton County jury sentenced him to death in June 2009.
And De’Kelvin Martin fatally stabbed his girlfriend’s grandparents and her 12-year-old son in a fit of rage, leading a jury to rule in October 2010 that he should be executed by lethal injection.
Each of these men remain on death row.
About the Author
