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Left: Torrey Moore (Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office). Middle: Denise Middleton (Pope Funeral Homes). Right: Ayalew Wondimu (State Attorney via Washington Post).
A Maryland man is headed to prison for the rest of his life for the murders of his pregnant girlfriend and a store clerk some two months later.
Torrey Damien Moore, aged 34, received a sentence on Friday comprising three life sentences plus an additional 80 years for the 2022 murders of his 26-year-old girlfriend Denise Middleton, the unborn fetus, and the store clerk, Ayalew Wondimu.
The Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office reported that Moore entered the Dash In convenience store in Silver Spring on Dec. 8, despite being prohibited, and took an iced tea before approaching the counter.
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At some point, Moore allegedly began throwing items from the front counter at the 61-year-old Wondimu. Next, police said, the employee picked up a metal pole from behind the counter and tried to strike Moore from across the counter. The defendant then allegedly took a step back, removed a “silver handgun” from his “front vest pocket” and shot the convenience store clerk at point-blank range.
Once Wondimu fell to the ground, Moore reached over the counter and shot him multiple times before fleeing the store. The next day, cops completed a no-knock raid on Moore’s apartment across the street where they found the suspect.
“However that’s not where the story ends,” said State’s Attorney John McCarthy. “That’s where it became, tragically, worse than they ever could have imagined because there was a terrible smell that was obvious to the officers who came in to execute the no-knock search warrant.”
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Under a blanket, they found the body of Middleton, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant and set to deliver her and Moore’s baby boy to be named Ezekiel. She had been shot seven times and was in an advanced state of decomposition. Investigators later learned she had been dead for some two months.
Surveillance video showed Moore and Middleton enter an elevator at the apartment complex around 7 p.m. on October 9, 2022, where they had a physical altercation. Cops believe they went inside the apartment where Moore shot Middleton dead.
About an hour later, he left the apartment. He then “traveled the country” for about a month, prosecutors said. While on his vacation, he made Google searches such as “How long does it take for a dead body to smell?” and “How to move a dead body without being seen.”
Moore returned to his apartment in early November and lived with his girlfriend’s body for about a month before he killed Wondimu.
A motive for the slayings was unclear, which peeved family members.
“I’d really like to hear why,” Dennis Middleton, Denise’s father said at the press conference following the hearing.
Moore’s defense attorney wrote in court filings his client was mentally ill and suffered from schizophrenia, the Washington Post reported.
“The very fact that Mr. Moore was sleeping in the apartment with Ms. Middleton’s body emphasizes that Mr. Moore’s mental illness brought him out of touch with reality,” the attorney wrote.
A jury convicted Moore of Wondimu’s murder in May 2024 while a separate panel found the suspect guilty of the slaying of Middleton and her unborn fetus in November.
Wondimu’s window spoke to the court about her loss.
“He was my everything,” she said, per the Post. “I am heartbroken.”
