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Jerry Moore was a thriving entrepreneur with a reputation for being a steadfast friend, always ready to lend a helping hand. However, his life came to a tragic end when he was discovered brutally stabbed in his Marietta, Georgia, residence on January 27, 2014. The police investigation that followed revealed a dark conspiracy orchestrated by someone who had once been a recipient of Jerry’s generosity, as detailed in a November 16 episode of Oxygen’s Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins.
Jerry’s stepmother, Judy Moore, fondly recalled his early years in Orrville, Ohio, describing him as “outgoing and happy.” Her memories painted the picture of a young man who was deeply cherished. “We just loved each other and became the best friends there ever was,” she reflected. “He was real smart. He could figure out everything.”
After completing high school, Jerry embarked on a career in the computer industry. Yet, he found it challenging to adapt to the confines of small-town life, a struggle that intensified after he came out as gay in his mid-20s. Seeking new opportunities and a fresh start, Jerry decided to relocate to Atlanta, where he hoped to find a community that embraced him.
According to his stepmom Judy Moore, Jerry was “outgoing and happy” while growing up in Orrville, Ohio.
“We just loved each other and became the best friends there ever was,” she remembered. “He was real smart. He could figure out everything.”
After graduating from high school, Jerry began a career in computers, but he struggled to fit into small town life, especially after coming out as gay in his mid 20s. To get a fresh start, Jerry moved to Atlanta.
“The Atlanta area is kind of what we called the gay Mecca of the east,” his best friend Randy Doolittle explained. “He would go the local bars, trying to meet people.”
There, Jerry found a new career in real estate and spent a decade renovating and restoring dozens of properties. He even purchased his own home in Marietta.
The home had separate living spaces and, after placing a series of ads focusing on the gay community, roommate Ross Byrne moved into the property. The two men hit it off as friends and Ross, a baker, convinced Jerry to purchase the bakery where he worked. While Ross made the baked goods, Jerry handled the books in an arrangement that saw the bakery thrive.
In 2013, after living together for seven years, Byrne decided to move into his own townhouse to be closer to the bakery.
Jerry Moore is Found Stabbed to Death
Once again, Jerry was in search of a new roommate, but he’d never find a replacement.
On Jan. 27, 2014 Jerry’s neighbor Pam Blair noticed the door to his house open and went inside to discover the 46-year-old dead on the floor.
“Hi, my neighbor has been, there’s blood, the house looks like it’s been robbed,” Blair frantically told a 911 dispatcher. “Oh my God, please hurry!”
Cobb County Police Det. Edward Stockinger arrived to find “blood everywhere” in the living room.
“As I stepped further and looked over the edge of the couch that’s when I observed the victim laying face down in a pool of blood,” he said, adding that Jerry had been viciously stabbed 32 times.
According to Tempie Hunton, an investigator with the Cobb County Medical Examiner’s office, evidence at the scene suggested that Jerry had been killed hours earlier.
“When you see injuries of this nature,” she explained, “my investigative mind immediately goes to this is some sort of personal rage, something with a lot of emotion behind it.”
There was also no forced entry into the home, leading authorities to believe that Jerry had likely been killed by someone he knew.
Jerry Moore Signs His “Death Warrant”
Detectives reached out to Byrne and asked him to come into the station to learn more about Jerry’s life at the time of his death.
“He wasn’t upset,” Stockinger remembered, “and I’m thinking to myself, right off the bat, that’s kind of strange.”
Byrne said their relationship had always been focused on business and was barely a friendship.
He pointed police toward a man Jerry sometimes let sleep on his couch, but authorities checked the man out, along with a prison penpal Jerry corresponded with and found no one with the motive or means to kill him.
Meanwhile, Jerry’s friends noticed that Byrne was suspiciously absent from his memorial service.
“That started raising a little bit of suspicion,” Stockinger said. “Like here’s this guy that lived with him for seven years, owns a business with him and yet, he doesn’t show up to his memorial service. Why?”
Detectives learned that at the time of his death, Jerry wasn’t happy with the bakery business and wanted out. According to Doolittle, Jerry wanted Byrne to pay him $35,000 for his half of the business, but that wasn’t something Byrne was willing to do.
As executor of his friend’s will, Doolittle also noticed in the bakery’s business agreement that if one of the business owners died, the surviving party would gain full and free control of the bakery.
“When I read that, it was like a gut punch,” Doolittle said. “I was like, ‘God, Jerry signed his death warrant back when he signed that document.’”
New Suspect Emerges
Byrne told detectives in a second interview that on the day of Jerry’s death, he’d held a housewarming party at his new townhouse. Yet, investigators noticed that Byrne had called the same phone number over and over throughout the weekend. The number was tracked to Johnathan Wheeler.
Detectives learned that after Jerry’s murder, Byrne and Wheeler took a trip to Key West together. Byrne had also bought Wheeler the van for his construction business.
“We found out that Wheeler had done a 10-year prison term for an armed robbery of a Taco Bell,” Cobb County Police Sgt. John Knoblach explained. “The weapon he used during that robbery was a knife, just like in Jerry’s murder.”
Detectives also looked into Wheeler’s cell phone records and saw that he’d called Jerry the day he died.
Wheeler’s phone records showed that during the housewarming party he’d left and traveled to the area of Jerry’s house, yet with both men not talking, authorities didn’t have anything definitive to prove his guilt.
Who Killed Jerry Moore?
Then, eight months after Jerry’s murder, Wheeler’s half-brother came forward to report that Wheeler confessed to killing the business partner at a bakery. Wheeler had also allegedly confessed to another friend, telling the woman that Byrne had helped him clean himself up after the murder.
It was enough to arrest Wheeler, but Wheeler refused to turn on Byrne, who investigators suspected put him up to the killing.
Wheeler was convicted at trial and sentenced to consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
After Wheeler’s conviction, detectives took another look at the case they had against Byrne, documenting how he’d benefited financially in the wake of his business partner’s death.
Byrne was arrested on murder conspiracy charges. While awaiting trial, investigators planted a rumor inside the jail that Wheeler was thinking of turning on his friend. As a result, Byrne reached out to another inmate to try to solicit Wheeler’s murder and he was given another murder solicitation charge.
He ultimately agreed to plead guilty to both conspiracy charges, admitting his guilt in court, in exchange for a 20-year sentence.
