A Vancouver man who killed his mother and dismembered her body at their home in February 2017 was resentenced Wednesday to 33 years in prison after winning part of his appeal.
Kenneth Jay Moore, 53, was originally sentenced to 34 years in prison after a Clark County Superior Court jury convicted him in June 2019 of first-degree murder — with an enhancement for an egregious lack of remorse — in the death of Leisa A. Holt. He was also convicted of second-degree assault with a firearm on a law enforcement officer for pointing a rifle at a responding officer, which initiated a SWAT response.
With the enhancement, Moore’s original sentence was above the standard sentencing range, court records show. He appealed his conviction and sentence.
The Washington Court of Appeals upheld Moore’s murder conviction, but found the state did not provide evidence at trial that Moore showed an egregious lack of remorse. The appeals court also found that another aggravating factor the judge considered during sentencing — deliberate cruelty to the victim — was not properly put before the jury.
“Although the facts of the case are both sad and gruesome, this goes only to the heinousness of the crime, not to Mr. Moore’s mindset after the offense,” the appeals court wrote. “Mr. Moore’s general denial of guilt is not sufficient to establish a lack of remorse.”
At trial, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Kasey Vu had told the jury that in a three-day window, Moore killed Holt by strangulation and stabbing, and cut up her body for disposal. Her legs were found wrapped in trash bags in the kitchen, and her torso was located on a cutting board in a shower stall with cutting instruments still on top of her.
Former Vancouver police Officer Brett Bailey spoke at Moore’s 2019 sentencing about his experience having a rifle pointed at his head. After speaking with his family in the weeks following the incident, he decided to retire later that year.
At Moore’s resentencing hearing Wednesday, his defense attorney, Sean Downs, said Moore still maintains his innocence. Moore filed several handwritten documents with the court, some of which outlined his continued belief that someone else killed his mother.
Vu asked Judge John Fairgrieve to resentence Moore to the top of his new sentencing range without the lack-of-remorse aggravator.
Fairgrieve said he agreed with the appeals court’s description of the case as gruesome, and he granted the prosecutor’s request for a 397-month sentence. The new sentence reduces Moore’s prison time by 13 months.
The appeals court also responded to another request Moore made to instead be stripped of his United States citizenship and sent to live in exile in Mexico with a backpack full of survival equipment.
“To the extent we have the power to do so, we deny this request,” the appeals court wrote.
