In 2010, inside a Sandy Springs motel room, Matthew Lee Moore, identifying himself as a police officer, raped a woman he had met online. A napkin he left behind contained incriminating DNA evidence.
Five years later, at different Sandy Springs motel, the former Alabama corrections officer sexually assaulted another woman at gunpoint. He left behind handcuffs that identified his employer. And he was spotted, with his pants down, chasing after his victim.
Despite the strong case against him, the 50-year-old defendant “seemed to be confident, still, that jurors would acquit him,” said Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard
That would change on Thursday, the third day of his trial for the Sandy Springs attacks. Following testimony by the second victim, prosecutors showed cellphone video of her assault, recorded by Moore. He can be heard forcing himself on the woman, whose agonizing screams brought several jurors to tears. At its conclusion Judge Constance Russell bluntly asked the defendant if he wished to continue.
He did not, entering a non-negotiated guilty plea on all counts: rape, aggravated sodomy, false imprisonment, impersonating an officer, aggravated sexual battery and aggravated assault. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison and life on probation, avoiding a possible sentence of life in prison.
The details in Fulton assaults were especially harrowing. In the first case, Moore identified himself as a police officer before flashing his badge, gun and a can of pepper spray, prosecutors said. He then ordered his victim onto the bed and raped her, his gun nearby.
In the second attack, Moore brandished a gun and a knife before telling his victim, “You’re going to do everything I say tonight, or I’ll be the last person you see.”
After setting up his cellphone to record the incident, Moore zip-tied the woman’s arms behind her back, raping her for 40 minutes. The woman was able to escape after running across the room, opening the door and screaming for help, prosecutors said. Three men standing in the hallway were confronted by Moore, half-naked, as he exited the hotel room. He forced the men, at gunpoint, to retrieve his cellphone from the room before leaving the hotel.
Moore is suspected in a series of similar crimes throughout the Southeast. DNA evidence links him to four other rapes, including a 2010 assault in Cobb County, two in Alabama and another in Florida.
Sandy Springs police were first led to Moore after following a trail of cell phone records. They determined he had worked at a correctional facility in Alabama and began tracking his phone.
In March 2018, they executed search warrants at his home and place of employment. Investigators recovered zip-ties, restraints, computers, sex toys and the 2015 rape video, which was still on his cellphone, prosecutors said.
There were other similarities. Moore preyed on women he met on sites such as Backpage and Craigslist offering erotic massages and other tawdry services.
“I think he picked them because he believed that he could control them because of what they were doing, that they didn’t matter. But they did,” said Sandy Springs Police Sgt. William Johnson, who led the investigation of Moore.
Howard is convinced Moore is guilty of additional attacks, noting the reluctance of the known victims to come forward.
