Moore trial gets underway in Canton

Submitted by Willspoint1 on

 

By David Kapitan

Staff Writer

 

The murder trial of Michael Vincent Moore officially got underway at the Van Zandt County courthouse in Canton on Monday morning, with jury selection taking most of the day before opening statements and the first round of witnesses was called on Tuesday.

Moore was arrested back on May 6, 2013, in connection with the murder of his then 16-year old niece, Alicia Chanta Moore.

Alicia Moore, a Greenville High School student, was last seen alive while getting off a Greenville ISD school bus near her home on Nov. 2, 2012.

Four days later, on Nov. 6, 2012, Texas Department of Transportation employees working along the Magbee Creek area on Farm-to-Market 47, about four miles out of the Wills Point city limits, contacted authorities after finding a wicker trunk containing a body.

Investigators from numerous agencies, including the Van Zandt County Sheriff’s Office and Texas Rangers, flocked to the scene gathering evidence for hours while diverting traffic to alternate routes.

On Nov. 7, 2012, the Greenville Police Department held a press conference confirming that Moore’s body had been positively identified. At that time, Greenville Police Department Chief of Police Dan Busken confirmed that Moore’s body showed signs of trauma, and that an autopsy was ongoing to determine a cause of death.

Busken added, “There is a box that’s associated with this investigation. I’m not at liberty to give a lot of details about that, but that is certainly something that we are looking at and will be a key point of our investigation.”

Investigators continued to work leads in the ensuing months until May 6, 2013, when word broke that Michael Vincent Moore, the great uncle of the victim, was arrested at his Grand Prairie home on a capital murder charge.

At the time, Van Zandt County Sheriff Michael Lindsey Ray stated, “He (Michael Vincent Moore) was home and informed that he was under a capital murder investigation. He was then taken to the Grand Prairie Police Department while we completed a search warrant of his home and evidence was recovered at the home.” 

 

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