Prescription-Drug Addicts Annihilate a Community Asset
(‘Partners in Crime,’ Forensic Files)
All murder victims make for sympathetic characters (well, Michael Prozumenshikov is marginal), but Charles “Jack” Lynch seemed especially deserving of a much better fate.
The Forensic Files episode about the case kicks off with an interview with Kim Arwin, who sounds as though she’s had a hard-knock life. Kim lived in Jack’s neighborhood in Danville, Illinois, and tells Forensic Files about his kindnesses to her family, such as the time she was having financial problems and Jack bought her daughter a dress for eighth-grade graduation.
Code 911. For this week, I looked into where Jack’s killers are today, so let’s get going on the recap of “Partners in Crime” plus extra information from internet research.
Jack Lynch, who was unmarried and lived alone, acted as a benevolent father and grandfather figure to neighbors for decades.
Those relationships ended on July 16, 1992, the day a passerby reported a fire at Jack’s house. His car was missing from the driveway, so neighbors assumed he wasn’t home.
Death by bloodbath. Then, responders pulled a charred body from the blaze.
Dental records confirmed the victim’s identity as Jack Lynch. An autopsy revealed no smoke in lungs. He died from 24 stab wounds, one of which cut his jugular vein, before the fire started.
Jack’s injuries came from two different knives, which police believed meant two killers.
Van abandoned. Rope left at the scene suggested someone had tied him up.
Although they found no sign of forced entry, investigators could see that one or more people had ransacked the house, taking a TV, VCR, microwave, gaming unit, .357 magnum, and small amount of cash. The fire that ravaged Jack’s home originated from three separate places in the structure, a clear sign of arson.
Jack’s car, with his TV inside, turned up in a housing project’s parking lot.
Bandits on the loose. As far as suspects, a neighbor named Ed Kramer put himself front and center early on. Ed had a career-criminal mullet and was a bit of a drama king — talking to reporters and demanding to be let into the house. He was also the last person to see Jack alive, and had just borrowed money from him.
But police soon had reason to look in a different direction. They suspected a tie between the fire and a string of thefts in the area.
Just days before the murder, a gunman had robbed two area drugstores and stolen large quantities of prescription medicines. And a number of neighborhood houses had recently been burglarized.
Dregs of society. Hours after the murder, police stopped motorist Robert Moore and found in his van a .357 magnum like the one stolen from Jack as well as a sack of cash from a local Comfort Inn that had just reported a robbery.
Robert and his wife, Jamie L. Moore, both 30 years old, were drug dealers addicted to prescription pills and well-known among locals. The Moores didn’t have legitimate jobs, and they collected welfare.
In the Moores’ bedroom, investigators found two knives covered with Jack’s blood. (As YouTube commenter Jay Brown wrote: “Quick! Hide the knives behind the bed! No one will EVER think to look there…”)
Worse than expected. The weapons came from a wooden holder in Jack’s kitchen.
Still, the Moores’ neighbors “probably were surprised by this,” State’s Attorney Craig DeArmond said, according to an AP account. “I don’t think that anybody saw them as being that violent.”
But at the very least, no one could deny the two were highly unstable. When the authorities arrested Jamie, she swallowed pills in a suicide attempt or maybe a bid for sympathy. She also deliberately cut herself with broken glass while waiting for police to take her fingerprints.
Spouse spills it. Meanwhile, her husband immediately started blabbing.
He told police that he got the .357 magnum when he “killed that guy.”
Robert admitted that he went to Jack’s house, tied him up, and began gathering his possessions. He said that Jack freed himself, they fought, and he stabbed the older man to death and set the house on fire to cover up the crime.
Jamie’s talkin’. In an instance of rarely seen semi-honor among thieves, Robert insisted that “Jamie didn’t have no part of it” and that she was asleep on the couch during the crime.
(He probably wanted the children the couple shared — a daughter, 9, and son, 6 — to have a mother.)
But Jamie implicated herself. She told police she knocked on Jack’s door to gain entry and allowed her husband to come in behind her.
Hotel hit. She maintained, however, that Jack was still tied up and alive when she exited his house.
Prosecutors made a case that both Moores stabbed Jack.
They used Jack’s car to haul the stolen goods, then abandoned it and robbed the Comfort Inn because they didn’t get enough cash from Jack’s house, the prosecution contended.
Robert continued to insist that he alone killed Jack.
Setting low expectations. Jamie pleaded guilty to armed robbery and agreed to testify against her husband.
She attempted suicide yet again. Prosecutors decided not to put her on the witness stand.
Robert’s testimony at his own trial didn’t help his case much. He admitted that he went to Jack Lynch’s house to get money to buy drugs and said he didn’t know why he stabbed him to death or set the place on fire. He also declined to fight off his affinity for drugs — he said if he had any, he’d take them.
Kim Arwin testified for the prosecution, telling the court about Jack’s dedication to his neighbors.
Odd man in. In February 1993, a Vermilion County jury found Robert Moore guilty of murder, home invasion, armed robbery, and arson.
One of the 12 jurors felt Robert deserved a shot at rehabilitation. He voted against the death penalty, so Robert got life in prison instead of a lethal injection.
After a separate trial, Jamie Moore received a sentence of 39 years.
She’s free. The children stayed with relatives, and Robert’s father pursued custody.
Jamie spent time in the Decatur Correctional Center, where she availed herself of the prison’s social media platform to seek an “honest, serious and dependable man” for friendship.
In 2011, Jamie Moore won release with three years of parole, which she successfully completed, according to the Forensic Files Facebook page.
She has maintained a low profile since then.
Behind razor wire. Robert Moore, 59, resides in Menard Correctional Center in Illinois.
The facility was once home to two other Forensic Files killers, Mark Winger and Gene A. Brown Jr. (Both of them have since moved to Western Illinois Correctional Center.)
In Robert’s mugshots, it looks as though someone propped him upright to take a last picture, much like the ones sheriffs in the Old West took of dead outlaws after a gunfight.
Robert’s inmate profile notes that he is ineligible for release and has “Jamie” tattooed on his upper left arm.
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR
Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube or Tubi
