Woman Who Killed Niece Is Sentenced

Madie Lee Moore, convicted of killing her young niece and entombing her in concrete, was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years to life in prison and blasted as “subhuman” by a furious judge.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Morris B. Jones said he was particularly enraged that Moore had telephoned the court’s bailiff Monday not to ask the judge for mercy but to request a special meal--a pork sandwich.

“Most people will call [before sentencing] and say, ‘I’m sorry this happened,’ ” Jones fumed before he sentenced Moore to the maximum allowable time in prison. “She has no remorse of any kind.”

Moore, 45, was convicted last month of second-degree murder in the death of her 8-year-old niece, LaToya Harris, whose battered body was found stuffed into a trash can and encased in concrete at Moore’s South-Central Los Angeles home.

Moore, who has been in jail for two years, showed no emotion as Jones likened her crime to World War II atrocities.

“It’s really that bad,” Jones said. “The conduct of the defendant was dastardly, far below the standards of a human being. . . . It cannot be tolerated in a civilized society.”

Added the judge, “If I had the opportunity to give her more time, I would gladly give it to her.”

During the 19-day trial, grim details emerged about the final hours of LaToya Harris’ short and tormented life. Her bruised body, a medical examiner testified, showed a long history of abuse. She was covered with scars, the back of her head was punctured, and her left hand was broken. Blood vessels had burst in her eyes, indicating asphyxia.

The official cause of death was an overdose of drugs and alcohol. The 55-pound child had a blood alcohol level of 0.14%, almost twice the legal limit. Her body also contained an excessive amount of an antidepressant drug: eight times what would have been toxic for an adult.

Moore has denied murdering LaToya. But during the trial, police said Moore had admitted to them that she beat LaToya with a belt and threw her against a closet door on the evening of her death.

For the jury, the testimony of Moore’s 9-year-old adoptive daughter Lisa proved to be the most persuasive, Deputy Dist. Atty. Jane Blissert said. Fighting tears, Lisa described seeing Moore pour pills down LaToya’s throat on the evening of LaToya’s death. After that, the girl said, LaToya fell on the floor and looked like she was asleep. Lisa said she went to bed and never saw LaToya again.

Lisa, now in a foster home, testified that she had witnessed other abuse. She described seeing Moore and Zhandra Soils--LaToya’s biological mother and Moore’s sister--burning LaToya’s hand over the flames of a stove.

LaToya, as well as four of her siblings, had been placed with Moore when their mother--an admitted crack addict--was unable to care for the children. The Department of Children and Family Services conducted no extensive background checks on Moore, who had a felony conviction in 1984 after she hurled a Molotov cocktail into a neighbor’s home. No one was hurt in that incident.

“LaToya ended up placed with Moore because her own mother was incapable of caring for her,” prosecutor Blissert said. “Moore was supposed to be a refuge. Instead, she was a nightmare.” The nightmare came to light a week after LaToya’s death two years ago.

Guilt ridden, Moore’s 21-year-old son, Maurice, confessed to police that he had poured concrete over LaToya’s body in a plastic trash can. Maurice Moore led police to the 30-gallon trash can under an avocado tree in the corner of Moore’s South-Central back yard.

(Maurice Moore has since served a prison sentence after he was convicted of being an accessory to the crime after the fact.)

Authorities’ suspicions increased several months after discovering LaToya’s body, when an anonymous female caller described the location of the body of another child, thought to be that of LaToya’s half brother, Kenneth Gridiron, who had been missing for years. Like LaToya, the skeleton was found buried in concrete inside a trash can. This one was placed in a storage unit rented to Moore’s son.

Tests, however, showed that the body was not Kenneth’s. It belonged to a child who was between ages 2 and 4 at the time of his death. No one yet knows the identity of this child. The investigation is ongoing.

“Someone came forward after LaToya’s death. And someone called about this second body,” said Moore’s lawyer, David Herriford. “Who knows who this body is? It’s another mystery.”

Before sentencing Moore, Judge Jones denied Herriford’s motion for a new trial, based on a claim that jury instructions were confusing. Herriford then filed a motion appealing the conviction.