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To know my Aunt Maggie is to adore her.
She is a 92-year-old retired nurse who lives in Cleveland. When I graduated from law school, I moved to Cleveland to work for a law firm. During my first weeks in town, I lived with my Aunt Maggie and Uncle Thurman. It was almost embarrassing the way my aunt fussed over me. She loved being a nurse and worked in the maternity ward.
“There’s nothing better than watching the miracle of birth,” she told me.
I lived in Cleveland for 17 years before moving back to Los Angeles. But I remained close with my aunt and uncle. A few years ago, she lost her husband. They were married nearly 60 years.
A devout Christian, Aunt Maggie, a gifted singer with a four-octave range, still sings in the choir in the same church she joined nearly 60 years ago. She drives herself to the church every week and rarely misses a Sunday.
Correction, she used to drive herself. Last June, Aunt Maggie got out of her car in the church parking lot and was knocked down by an armed thug. He grabbed her purse and her Bible in which she jotted down notes for 40 years.
An investigating detective told me the criminal is 40 years old. And he has been busy. To say he is a career criminal is to insult career criminals. My aunt was one of five of his victims in just one month. He specializes in robbing women as they walk from their cars to church.
This is from Cleveland.com: “The robbery spree started on June 7. … (LaDon) Moore went up to a man on a ladder working on a home on Rexford Avenue. When the man came down off the ladder, Moore pulled a pistol on him and demanded everything he had. The man threw himself to the ground and tossed his cellphone and his wallet to Moore, who scooped up the items and took off. Moore then used the cellphone to call the man’s wife. He demanded she give him either the man’s Social Security number or his bank account information. If she didn’t, he would ‘blow his head off’ … The woman thought it was prank and hung up. She then called her husband back, and Moore answered. He repeated the threat, and the woman gave up the information and then called police.
“Six days later, Moore held up a Dollar Store at gunpoint. (After assaulting my aunt), the next day, Moore went up to a woman in a different church parking lot and pulled a gun on her. When she said she didn’t have any money on her, he made her walk to a nearby gas station and take money out of an ATM to give to him …
“Moore also robbed a woman in a gas station parking lot … The next day … tried to rob a 63-year-old woman outside another church. The woman ran into the church and called for help, and Moore ran away.”
Unfortunately for Moore, the assault on Aunt Maggie was captured on the church’s surveillance cameras. He was arrested. His criminal record includes eight years in prison and later another five years for aggravated robbery and felonious assault.
This time, he pleaded guilty and received a sentence of 18 years. In court, he apologized: “It was a cowardly, desperate act. I’m sorry. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I’m sorry.” He said he did it to provide for his two children.
The presiding judge clearly knew something about my aunt when he told Moore that she would pray for him while he sits behind bars. The judge said: “I hope you feel that. Nobody in this courtroom believes you’re beyond redemption. Hopefully, you’ll live through this, be released back into the community and change will come over you as a result.”
Aunt Maggie can no longer drive herself and she now walks with a cane. She added additional home security while Moore was at large, not knowing what he might do given that he had her address. Shattered, she says, “I feel as if something, someone is waiting to do the same thing that Mr. Moore did.”
Her beloved Bible was never recovered. Perhaps Moore can find one in the prison library — and read it.
They should consider going back to hanging Thieves like they used to
I would go so far as to offer Drawing and quartering. Seems that with executions privately carried out behind prison walls, and out of sight they are out of mind. Everyone seems to forget that back before the 60’s a guy could get 20 years for car theft. Today? Perhaps an hour of probation. The criminal justice system is no longer a threat to criminals and they know it.
There is no fear of punishment as we offer no real punishment. . Guy gets 10 years in the slammer and walks free after 3.
Mr. Elder,
I don’t have words. I’m spent three decades working the streets as a cop. We arrest the same ten to fifteen percent of the population over and over and over again. Some people just need to be separated from society. They rarely change. My prayers to your Aunt any to you Sir. Our system has failed you.
For good or for worse, very few ever change their good character virtues or their bad character defects.
Think about yourself, or any law-abiding acquaintance of yours, do you or they have a character defect or a lifelong bad habit, for instance a hot-head easily triggered temper? Can you change it, how much time and effort would it take to change that bad habit or defect? How much more difficult it must be to change a character or personality that has been drawn to and practiced cruelty and evil since childhood.
How about getting rid of a character virtue? That must be even more close to impossible than getting rid of a character vice. Psychological change is difficult.
It is possible to change but it requires a monumental, Herculean, constant, awareness, and discipline. It can require a decade or more of constant discipline.
Right now, there is no known way to change homosexuality or pedophilia and those two conditions begin in childhood.
There’s a good book that’s out of print called “The Shrinking of America: The Myths of Psychological Change”, I highly recommend it.
“It is only in romances that people undergo a sudden metamorphosis. In real life, even after the most terrible experiences, the main character remains exactly the same.” – Isadora Duncan
It’s all part of a plan to change our society. The left knows exactly what they are doing.
I wish your aunt well and hope that the criminal really does regret his actions, but I doubt he will. It kinda sounds like he was already arrested and imprisoned, why didn’t he regret that?
If he has said that he was a coward then there’s some hope.
How can society continue to turn a BLIND EYE on the career criminals? I thought – THOUGHT – we had a “Three Strikes” Policy that would put people in PRISON FOR LIFE with their third conviction! I have a friend of our family whose son and another “kid” were arrested for a string of housebreakings. They were sentenced to “LIFE”! No one was injured or robbed in person – no weapons – no physical assaults! One did get paroled after 30 years! He was 18 or 19 when convicted. The other boy has never been paroled and remains in prison! And yet you have these career criminals roaming around, assaulting people, and given releases with no bail and then a slap on the pinkie!
But then my friends’ sons are white!
We seem to forget what a stink criminal defense attornies would raise when the brough back after the third conviction for some stupid minor violation. Common sense would dictate that if you were on STRIKE TWO, you would be careful as possible. . .Seems the criminal mind is bizzare in that after two, they conveniently forget they are primed to spend life in the slammer for a third crime.
I suggest we go back to serious prison time and abandon Parole for all but the most trvial of offenses. Let them rot for 30 years.
Seems, we as free individuals have forgotten that putting offenders in prison was intended to keep US collectively secure from THEM. Not the other way around.
I hate it when criminals try to justify their actions, in this case Mr. Moore claimed he robbed other people to provide for his children. Really – just how long did he expect his crime spree to last before being sent back to prison? So going back to prison for 18 years, tell me how good of a father are you? So much for providing for his children who will be young adults by the time Mr. Moore is released. You think they’ll want to have anything to do with him then?
If the robber had come up with that cockamamie excuse to rob repeatedly, I would have said “Did it ever occur to you to get a friggin’ job to provide for your children?”
Looters Robbers Home Invaders and Burglars/Thieves should all get 40 to 50 years in prison without Parole Plea Bargains, Clemency or Pardons
Hi Larry, I’m sorry to hear what happened to your aunt. and I don’t believe the guy was sorry no matter what he said. I also don’t believe the courts care either the way they shirk their duty to protect. I think we should clone you and put your in offices country wide. You would make a change. Love you Larry 🙂
I guess the MSM showed this off as a hate crime because your Aunt is an elderly black female being attacked and folks will not be told the Race of the attacker as that would be racist.