Bio

Peter Lucas Moses Jr. was born on January 9, 1984, in the United States. Before the murders, Moses lived in Durham and led a small religious group that prosecutors described as cult-like and polygamous. The group lived in a house on Pear Tree Lane. Several women lived with him and considered themselves his wives or common-law wives. Authorities said some members referred to Moses as “Lord.”

Moses was described in court as having a history of mental health problems. His defense attorney said he had been in the mental health system since childhood and had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. His defense argued that his condition worsened when he stopped taking medication, but the court still accepted his guilty plea and sentenced him for the murders.

By 2010, Moses lived with several women and children in the Durham home. Prosecutors said he controlled the group through fear and religious authority. The household included Jadon Higganbothan, the young son of Vania Rae Sisk, and Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy, a woman who had known Moses earlier and later moved into the home.

Murder Story

In October 2010, prosecutors said Peter Lucas Moses Jr. killed 4-year-old Jadon Higganbothan inside the Pear Tree Lane home in Durham, North Carolina. Jadon lived there with his mother, Vania Rae Sisk, and other members of the household. Prosecutors said Moses believed the child was an “abomination” and accused him of behavior that Moses interpreted as a sign the boy might be gay.

According to court testimony, Moses ordered women in the home to set up computers and speakers in the garage. Music and the Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew were played. Moses then took Jadon into the garage and shot him in the head. Prosecutors said members of the household later cleaned the boy’s body and placed it in a suitcase before moving it because of the smell.

Two months later, Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy was killed. Prosecutors said McKoy wanted to leave the group and may have known too much about Jadon’s death. She had also learned that she could not have children, and court testimony stated that she wrote in her diary that she feared Moses would kill her.

Before her death, McKoy reportedly ran to a neighbor’s house and asked to use a phone to call her mother in Washington, D.C. She was later brought back into the Pear Tree Lane home. Prosecutors said she was beaten, strangled with an extension cord, and taken into a bathroom while religious music played. Vania Rae Sisk, Jadon’s mother, later pleaded guilty in connection with McKoy’s killing.

McKoy’s body was placed in garbage bags and kept in a trash bin before being buried. The bodies of McKoy and Jadon were later found in June 2011 behind a house on Ashe Street in Durham, where Moses’s mother had previously lived. Both victims had been shot in the head.

The case came to police attention after a young woman escaped from the Pear Tree Lane home and told investigators about the violence. Investigators later charged Moses and several others connected to the household. Seven people were originally charged in connection with the killings.

On June 11, 2012, Moses pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Jadon Higganbothan and Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy. The plea agreement allowed him to avoid the death penalty. Prosecutors said he agreed to cooperate in the cases against other defendants.

On July 5, 2013, Moses was sentenced in Durham County Superior Court to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. During the hearing, he apologized to McKoy’s mother. As of the latest available public information, Peter Lucas Moses Jr. remains imprisoned for the murders.