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The Double Murder of Robert and Ben Moore
By Roberta Paul
By Roberta Paul
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I left home at about 7 a.m. that morning to take care of my elderly father. I remember seeing the boys near the bathroom door as I got ready to leave the house. About 45 minutes after I left, my then-husband, John Moore, (we have since divorced), phoned me at Dad's house and told me the boys were missing. I rushed home to find John standing in back of the house, staring into space. It wasn't until I had searched the house for the boys that John told me that their old car, which we jokingly referred to as "Ben's car" was missing also.
Right away I thought of tire tracks, because it was a rainy day. Sure enough, tracks were there, leading down Ogema Prentice Road to Spring Road and into a recreational trail. I returned to the house and got John, and he drove down to the trail. At John's insistence, I stayed in the truck while he walked into the woods. I waited about fifteen minutes and then walked down the trail to a point where I could see the old car. But I didn't see John or the boys and wondered where everyone was.
I returned to the truck and started to drive down the trail. I was met by John coming out. He was crying. I asked him, "Where are the boys?" He said, "Don't come any closer. They killed themselves and the gun is there."
Shock and grief have distorted my memories of that morning. When I look back I can't recall the order of events. I know that I heard a gunshot. One single gunshot. I know I was out by the trail when I heard it. But I can't say for sure when I heard it. Whether it was on my trip to the trail on my own, following the tire tracks, or whether it was on the second trip, while I was waiting in the truck for John.
As soon as we got home, I called 911. The time of that call is on record as 8:25 a.m. It's also on record that, only twelve minutes later, John called Heindl's Funeral Home and arranged to have our sons cremated. I was very upset when I found out, but he told me it was the cheapest way to bury them.
John held a funeral at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah Witnesses. It was a terrible funeral with hardly anything said about the boys. John was an adamant member of Jehovah Witnesses. When we first were married, I was a member as well, but I disfellowshipped myself in 1986, as my sister did six years earlier. Like her, I couldn't live by the teaching that Satan is ruler of this world and that everyone on this planet, except Jehovah Witnesses, is under his control. When my sister disfellowshipped, John no longer allowed me to associate with her. When I disfellowshipped, he was beside himself. According to the Jehovah Witnesses teachings, anyone who is disfellowshipped should be stoned or killed, but since the law of the land won't allow that, they are treated like they are dead. After I disfellowshipped, John continued to make Robert and Ben go to the Kingdom Hall, although they found it frightening. When they got old enough to rebel, he bribed them with a motorcycle. After that they went about two times a week and only went for one year.
After our sons’ cremation, I got a memorial stone and buried the boys’ ashes in the Ogema Cemetery. John refused to go to the cemetery for a service when the stone was placed there. The ashes in the little white boxes were gray and looked like wood ashes to me.
At first Mike Roberts, the investigating officer for the Price County Sheriff's Department, seemed convinced that the deaths were a double murder. The first responder, an officer named Neil Edward Holmes, told my private investigator that, when he first arrived at the scene, his impression was that it was staged, like it was an ambulance drill. Then, for no apparent reason, Investigator Roberts decided to close the case as a double suicide. He speculated that Robert might have shot Ben and then shot himself. The motive he suggested was that the boys didn't like school, because their father's religion prohibited them from going on field trips, pledging allegiance to the flag or being in school programs. (John has since stated that he will take the blame for the deaths of the boys himself before he will let Jehovah Witnesses be in any way implicated.)
I went along with Investigator Roberts' theory because I was in so much pain, and the media kept hounding me, and John was so insistent. But once the numbness wore off, I came to my senses and realized that the evidence didn't point to suicide. I separated from John Moore and hired a private investigator.
The rifle found at the scene was John's old, single shot, long barrel Remington that fired .22 short shells. What the deputies found at the scene were two .22 long shells! Ben's autopsy revealed that he had metal fragments in his head that could not have been caused by a .22 Remington rifle. There were no such fragments in Robert's head, which suggests that the boys were shot with different guns. When John came out of the woods he told me that the rifle was lying 10-15 feet from the boys’ bodies. Yet the deputies found it lying between Ben's legs. That makes me think that the killer may still have been lurking at the scene when John was in there and changed the location of the gun between the time John left and investigators arrived.
There is also information in Robert's autopsy report that suggests that he may have been sodomized. Not that same day, but on earlier occasions.
My private detective discovered that the shell that was in the gun had marks on it that were caused by someone attempting to remove the spent shell with a pair of pliers. There were no pliers at the scene, only a butter knife. Sheriff Wayne Wirsing told me he sent the knife to the crime lab to be dusted for prints. However, when I looked into the car at the impound yard, the butter knife was still in it. It hadn't been sent to the crime lab at all.
The private detective attempted to remove a spent shell from the Remington. Using pliers, it took him six minutes to do that. A police lady, working along with him, couldn't get the spent shell out of the gun and gave up. When I saw how hard it was to remove a spent shell from that gun, I knew there was no way that 13-year-old Robert could shoot Ben, then pry out the spent shell with a butter knife, reload the gun and shoot himself in the left side of his head, especially when he was right handed. According to police, there were no prints on the gun or on the steering wheel of the car. Why would my boys wipe the steering wheel clean before shooting themselves? And how could they wipe the gun clean after shooting themselves? This defies reason. The P.I. is also convinced that one or more individuals murdered both boys.
My sons were not the only people to die on that road during that time period. The bodies of one other child, who came from the same school as my boys, and an older man were found on that same road in a pattern of two-year intervals prior to my sons. All those cases were closed as suicides.
In September 2002, nine years after my sons' deaths, our local newspaper, The-Bee, did a follow-up article on the case. The-Be made an open records request to view the contents of the case file. Sheriff Richard Heitkemper denied that request, saying the case had been reopened and was actively being investigated. He said Investigator Mike Roberts had been reviewing the case files for approximately a year and some physical evidence was currently at the state crime lab in Madison. I got very excited! Maybe the sheriff's department had finally sent the butter knife to the crime lab! Sheriff Heitkemper told The-Bee that he would let them know the results of the investigation once it was completed. That never happened. Mike Roberts later informed me that the case was never reopened. I can only assume the sheriff gave that story to reporters to block their open records request.
There's an additional bizarre chapter to this true-life horror story.
The autopsies on my sons were preformed at Ramsey Medical Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. This used to be county run but is now known as Regions Hospital Dr. Michael McGee performed the autopsy on Ben, and Dr. Susan Roe performed the autopsy on Robert. My sons' bodies were then allegedly sent to Heindl's Funeral Home in Phillips, Wisconsin, and cremated at Rhinelander Crematorium. When Bill Heindl of Heindl's funeral home informed me that it is illegal to cremate a child without the signatures of both parents, I became suspicious that someone had faked my signature. A friend went with me to the crematorium to inspect their records. We discovered that the crematorium had no record of having cremated Ben and Robert. I have no idea what we actually buried at the cemetery.
I might be able to chalk that up to poor record keeping if I hadn't found the Real Crimes website and read the story of Gregg Meissner, who died in Hawley, Minnesota, in 1998. Like my boys, Gregg's autopsy was done at Ramsey Medical Center. The same pathologist, Dr. Michael McGee, who did the autopsy on my Ben, did the autopsy on Gregg. In 2002, Gregg's parents had his body exhumed and a second autopsy performed by Private Autopsy in San Bernardino, CA. Forensic pathologist, Monica Rohlinger, who supervised Gregg's autopsy, informed the Meissners that Gregg's organs and brain were missing and the cavities had been filled with Kitty Litter. It would be interesting to know how many other bodies and organs have gone missing after autopsies at the Ramsey Medical Center. And how many graves in Minnesota and Wisconsin contain something other than the remains of the person whose name is on the grave marker.
My children need justice, and I need to be able to grieve for them without the added nightmare of fighting The System. I pray that God - not a God of terror and damnation, but the loving God that I personally believe in - will guide me to finding the answers I need for closure.
This site has been created for free by Moggies - No part may be reproduced without express permision of Moggies or Roberta Black, permission must be in writing.
