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Monday, June 30, 1997

Report: Two charged in triple killing had been paroled early

JACKSONVILLE, Texas (AP) - Two men accused of executing a 13-year-old girl and two others last April were paroled last year under mandatory prison release guidelines, the Jacksonville Daily Progress reported Sunday.

Kenny Boyd, 22, and Rodney Moore, 23, were released after serving a fraction of previous sentences for manslaughter, the newspaper said.

Boyd was paroled in December, about four months before the killings in rural Center, after serving about four years of a 12-year term. Moore was paroled in September after serving just over three years of an eight-year term.

"In my 13 years as a prosecutor, Kenny Boyd is without question the scariest defendant I have ever seen," said Shelby County District Attorney Karen Price.

Boyd, Moore and two others are accused in the April 22 murders of Keith Moore, 25, his wife's sister, Christy Calhoun, 13, and Brian Keith Brooks, 26. Keith More and Rodney Moore are not related.

The three victims were shot in the back of the head in what is believed to have been a drug-related attack, police said.

Vivian Watts and her daughter Collandra, who live in a trailer behind the house where the three murders took place, also were wounded when the gunmen fired into their home.

The four suspects face charges of capital murder and attempted capital murder.

Boyd is being held at the Shelby County Jail on $1.45 million bond. Rodney Moore's bond hasn't been set. Two other suspects, Jecarro Keion Bennett, 19, and Rickey Tyrone Lathan, 19, are being held on $300,000 bond.

Center Police Chief Jimmy Matthews, a 30-year police veteran, called the attack "the scariest thing I had ever seen."

"They were all shot in the back of the head, execution-style," Matthews said. "It was like they were out to get them and they weren't going to leave any witnesses."

Nineteen bullet casings from a semiautomatic assault-style rifle were found at the scene, he said.

Matthews said the slayings were probably drug-related. It was the first triple slaying in Center, about 170 miles southeast of Dallas in East Texas, and the first murder there in at least three years.

Price has promised to seek the death penalty in the case.

Boyd was arrested in 1991 in the shooting death of a Houston man. He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to 12 years. He was released on Dec. 12, 1996.

Rodney Moore was sentenced to eight years for shooting a man in 1992. He was sentenced in June 1993 and paroled in September 1996.

The pair got out early as part of state mandatory parole guidelines put into place in the 1980s to relieve prison overcrowding. Mandatory release is no longer in effect, but felons convicted under the old rules are still subject to them. Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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