premeditated? devastating!
“We believe that she’d been planning this for a while”
WOW!
On camera Sunday afternoon, a mother drew a handgun, aimed it at the back of her son’s head, and pulled the trigger. Then she turned the gun on herself, ending a murder-suicide as quickly as it started.
Now Casselberry police are trying to determine why MARIE MOORE chose to end her son’s and her own life inside of the Shoot Straight gun range on Highway 17-92.
“That’s up for public interpretation at this point,” Deputy Chief Bill McNeil said. “I’m not a psychiatrist so I’m not even going to speculate on whether she was crazy.”
Police are in possession of notes and audio tapes from Moore explaining why she would kill her son and herself in a seemingly random act. In her own words, she was trying to “save my son.”
“We believe that she’d been planning this for a while,” Detective Mike Toole said, “though we don’t know how long at this point.”
She did it all with a rented gun, paid for at the gun range where she killed her 20-year-old son, Mitchell. McNeil said he’s never seen an incident of a shooting at Shoot Straight before.
Security cameras at the gun range revealed the crime exactly as it happened. Marie Moore was seen talking to a man in the next firing lane who appeared to instruct her on how to use her revolver. Marie Moore than waited until her son Mitchell began shooting at a target, and she then drew her gun and fired into the back of his head. Seconds later, she pointed the gun into her mouth and fired again.
Marie Moore would die later in an Altamonte Springs hospital. Mitchell Moore died at the scene.
Despite the lack of evidence of a motive at the crime scene, police do have clues as to the shooter’s mental state before the shooting. Family members turned over notes and audio tapes from Marie Moore in which she apologized for what she was about to do.
She said God had told her to do it, and that she needed to “send Mitchell to heaven and send myself to hell,” calling herself the Antichrist.
Marie Moore may not have been allowed to buy a handgun, because of a history of mental illness, including an alleged incarceration at a mental hospital for observation.
According to Toole, Moore was still legally allowed to rent a gun, which gave her access to the revolver she used to kill her son.
MOM’s audio message before killing her SON at shooting range!
