Community reeling after triple homicide leaves mother, two Madill students dead
On August 22, the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office received a phone call that shook law enforcement and the community to the core. Sheriff Danny Cryer said they received a call from New Jersey that has placed a dark cloud over the community.
“Early this morning, we received a 911 call from a female who reported that a friend of hers had confided in her that he had shot his wife and kids in their home here in Marshall County,” Cryer said.
The caller said Kevin Moseley confessed to her that he shot his wife and two stepchildren in a home in Marshall County, however, she did not have an address.
Cryer and his deputies tracked the address down and dispatched a few units to the residence at 10236 Page Road in Powell. When officers pulled on scene, they were met by family members attempting to do a wellness check since Monica missed work and the children never made it to school.
Deputies entered the house to find all three occupants in the house dead from apparent gunshot wounds. The victims were Monica Moseley, 16-year-old Jonathan Horath, and 12-year-old Stephanie Horath.
Once deputies cleared the house to make sure the house was secure from of the suspect, they began logging the crime scene, and requested the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations assist with the investigation.
Investigators used an app to ping the location of Moseley’s cell phone. Originally, it triangulated in Fort Worth. However, further investigation showed the suspect was in Abilene, Texas. OSBI contacted Texas authorities and had them actively searching for Moseley.
Due to the fast-acting officers, and diligent investigators, Moseley was arrested by gunpoint in Abilene. He is currently awaiting extradition back to Marshall County to answer to his horrendous crimes.
Cryer said it seemed like the shooter used a small or medium caliber pistol to initiate the horrible act of violence.
Even though the sheriff’s office is not aware of prior domestic violence issues with the couple, they are treating it as such.
“The overwhelming crime is the homicide, but we look for a motive,” Cryer said. “And the motive in this incident looks to be domestic violence.”
Just because law enforcement does not have reports about marital issues, does not mean there were not any.
“Just based on some of the interviews we’ve done with family friends and people who were familiar with this lady, they indicate it looks like there were some problems between the two financially and their marriage was kind of rough,” Cryer said. “Based on that and what we saw in the house that shows to be the only motive.”
Cryer said this type of violence is meaningless and does not have to happen.
“There are no words. This..,” Cryer said, pausing to keep his emotions in check, “there’s no reason for this. These are innocent kids and he snuffed out their life before they had a chance to have a life.”
Even though Cryer has been in law enforcement for years and has seen basically everything, crimes like this still affect him. “It’s heartbreaking to see situations such as this. This guy made a decision to do what he was gonna do.”
“And um, I think he took a very cowardly way out,” Cryer continued. “He killed his family and then run as hard as he could run to try and avoid law enforcement.”
Cryer said he was tight-lipped about the case until the suspect was apprehended.
“That’s one of the reasons I refused to let any of this information out earlier than I did. We were still currently tracking him, and I didn’t want social media or public media to inform him of how close we were getting. I held that information up until he was arrested.”
“That’s what I want the public to understand,” Cryer continued. “I don’t do it ‘cause I want to put them at fear or cause I was wanting to make them to wait for an answer. There’s a reason we held it and it’s so we could get him in custody.”
The sheriff wanted residents to know that they were never in any danger.
“At no time was the public here in the local area in danger,” he said. “We suspect this happened sometime around the midnight hour and he was certainly out of the State of Oklahoma before sunlight. So, we didn’t want to panic anyone, put schools on lockdown or things of that nature. So, we were monitoring his location. That was one of the positive things was highlighted in this case. The fact that we got to keep the public safe. We didn’t have to put anybody into a panic, and we were able to find this guys before media got out the location of where he was so he could further avoid law enforcement.”
Cryer said he is extremely proud of his law enforcement family and how fast they worked to track him “halfway across the state of Texas and got him in custody in a matter of hours.” He stated, “It was really cool how everybody was able to work together, make this thing work and get him in custody as quickly as we did.”
The sorrowful sheriff said this crime has impacted the community because the family was loved by many.
“Our heart goes out to the family, and I ask that anybody that can, please support that family, he said. “They’re gonna need a lot of support.”
“Fortunately, we were able to work with Madill School to get counselors set up for [Friday, August 23],” he continued. “We started working with them in the first few hours. Once we found it was Madill students, we started reaching out to Madill Schools and said, ‘hey you’ve got something happening and just get counselors ready and get them standing by. Madill Police Department worked with us on that end.”