Inset: Kimberly Moore (Shelby County Jail). Background: Home Inn and Suites in Memphis, Tennessee, where police reportedly discovered Moore’s ‘mummified’ daughter in a bed (Google Maps).
Police in Tennessee uncovered a shocking scene on Friday when they investigated a call regarding a woman experiencing a mental health crisis. They found the body of her young daughter, who was “malnourished and mummified.”
Now her mother, 46-year-old Kimberly Moore stands accused of abuse of a corpse and failure to report a dead body.
Officers from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office went to the Home Inn and Suites in Memphis after Moore began making unusual claims that her husband owned the hotel and she wanted to “ensure employees were doing their job,” as detailed in a probable cause arrest affidavit obtained by local ABC affiliate WATN.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
Moore reportedly continued to make the statements to deputies when they arrived but they didn’t express much concern until they “smelled a strong odor emitting from the room” where the defendant was staying, the affidavit said, per CBS affiliate WREG.
Cops went inside the room where they found her daughter “laying in the hotel bed unresponsive, cold to the touch, malnourished and mummified.” A cause of death and the girl’s age were not stated in the report nor did authorities give a date she died other than saying she was there “for quite some time.” It also is not clear if Moore is set to face additional charges.
More on Law&Crime: ‘Mom is in the car’: Man drove mother’s corpse to sister’s house covered in McDonald’s wrappers and ‘household goods,’ DA says
Detectives determined Moore was going through a mental health crisis. She reportedly declined to answer investigators’ questions and kept insisting her daughter was “still with her” and that she “reads her Bible.”
Moore was taken to a healthcare facility for treatment and is now at the Shelby County Jail on a $5,000 bond. Her next court date is scheduled for Monday.
