By Dave Andrusko
On Monday Torrey Damien Moore, 31, was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation on charges of first-degree murder and first-degree murder of a viable unborn baby. The unidentified woman, shot multiple times, was eight months pregnant. Her decomposing body was found in Moore’s apartment.
“Moore is charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a convenience store clerk Thursday, an incident that led a SWAT team on Friday to swarm his apartment, where they discovered the woman’s body,” Dan Morse reported for the Washington Post. “There is no indication the deaths of the two adults are related.”
Moore kept the body of the 26-year-old woman for at least a month, police say. Her remains were in “an advanced stage of decomposition.”
Police and prosecutors “are employing Maryland’s law against the ‘murder or manslaughter of viable fetus’ in charging Moore,” Morse wrote. “Under the statute, a person can be prosecuted for murder if he or she ‘intended to cause the death of the viable fetus.’”
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said the unborn baby “was in fact viable” and that the woman “was shot many, many times.”
The Montgomery County Police Department said “they were able to locate Moore’s apartment in the Enclave Apartments thanks to surveillance footage showing him crossing the street and entering his rental.”
According to CBS Baltimore, “Following a heated altercation in which the convenience store employee claimed Moore, a Maryland resident, had been paid multiple times, Moore is accused of shooting and killing the employee.”
“Moore told detectives he had been in a relationship with the woman in the apartment, and that she was eight months pregnant when she died.”