James Dudley, who was charged in the nearly 50-year-old murder of Richard Moore, was acquitted after a two-day trial in case that had no DNA or fingerprint evidence and relied heavily on the accounts of eyewitnesses who were children at the time.
Jurors deliberated only about an hour on Feb. 4 before returning a verdict of not guilty, allowing Dudley, 64, to leave the Leon County Courthouse a free man.
After the jury’s decision was announced, State Attorney Jack Campbell, who personally prosecuted the case, exited the courtroom through a rear door with members of Moore’s family.
“We are all very disappointed,” he said later in a text message. “Though we respect the verdict of the jury in no way does this lessen the great man that Richard Moore was nor the tragedy of his murder.”
The day after the trial, Public Defender Jessica Yeary said in an email that her office was confident jurors would acquit and grateful they reached their decision after such brief deliberations. She also criticized Campbell for pursuing the case.
“The personal prosecution of Mr. Dudley by State Attorney Jack Campbell in a case totally lacking in evidence highlights the routine practice of the 2nd Circuit State Attorney’s Office,” she said. “The reality is that false accusations and prosecutions like this have life changing consequences for people in our community. Mr. Dudley spent almost two years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, and with this verdict we hope both he and his family can start to move on from this injustice.”
Moore, 68, a kindly clerk at the now-defunct Sasser’s Beer City on Basin Street known for giving kids nickels and dimes to help pay for candy, was shot and killed on Dec. 29, 1976, during an armed robbery. Dudley, who opted not to testify in his own defense, was just 15 years old at the time of the murder.
And while the Tallahassee Police Department considered him a suspect back then, no arrest was made until 2024, after the Big Bend Cold Case Task Force took up the unsolved crime.
Detectives tracked down Veronica Knight, the one person who was in the store right before the murder. Knight, who was just 14 at the time of the shooting, told detectives she saw Dudley holding a gun to Moore after she went into the store to buy some Now and Later candy.
“I’m positive” it was him, she said after taking the stand on Feb. 3, the first day of the trial.
Campbell told jurors that Knight was too scared at the time to come forward. The jury consisted of eight men, including two alternates who were dismissed before deliberations, and six women. All of the jurors were White with the exception of one Black woman.
Assistant Public Defenders Randall Harper and Aimee Lim, who represented Dudley, tried to punch holes in her story by pointing out inconsistent statements she had made over the years.
Under questioning from Lim, Knight said she didn’t recall a man on the phone inside the store that she mentioned to police 50 years ago. She didn’t recall looking after a baby at the time of the shooting, something old police reports say she told officers.
“I don’t have the memory of any of that,” she told jurors.
One of her brothers, David Dewberry, also testified that as he was walking to the store the day of the murder, his sister ran past him.
“Something was wrong that day,” he said. “She was in a hurry, and she looked shook.”
Dewberry also said he saw someone driving Moore’s stolen car immediately after the shooting going up Basin Street toward Alabama Street. He identified Dudley as the driver, though he acknowledged he never went to police to tell them what he saw.
“And she didn’t say too much over the years because of fear,” he testified. “Even today, she’s scared.”
Case relies on 50-year-old memories
Former TPD Chief Tom Coe, now retired, also took the stand Feb. 3 to talk about his role in the investigation as a young homicide detective. He told jurors that some money had been stolen from the store, along with Moore’s car, a maroon and white sedan.
Coe said police never recovered the gun or the money, but they found the car with the keys in the ignition, a ploy he suggested the killer used in hopes someone else would drive off with it.
“Back in ‘76, this was a major crime for Tallahassee,” he said.
Under cross-examination, Lim asked Coe whether Knight, who picked Dudley out in a photo lineup after the shooting, ever mentioned seeing Dudley with a gun back then.
“No,” he said.
Lettie Mae Riley testified for the state that she went to the laundromat right next to Sasser’s the day of the shooting with her children, including her daughter, Andrea Stokes.
Under questioning from Campbell, she said a young Black man walked through the wash house before the shooting. She couldn’t see what he looked like.
“He came through with his hat pulled over his face walking fast,” she told jurors.
Riley testified she later saw the same person sitting behind the wheel of Moore’s car with a brown paper bag. She said she noticed the car because it made a “funny noise” when it started up that day.
Stokes, who was 10 at the time of the murder, said she remembered going to the laundromat that day and getting in trouble for roller skating in the beer store.
She saw someone she described as a young male in the store with Moore and in January 1977 identified Dudley in a photo lineup as the person she saw.
Stokes said she also saw the young man get into Moore’s car with a brown paper bag. When Campbell asked whether she recognized that person in the courtroom, she identified Dudley, though she said she recognized him “80%.”
On cross examination, Lim asked “You don’t actually remember anything that occurred that day, correct?”
“No,” she said.
Brothers of star witness testify for defense
After the state rested, the defense began its case Feb. 4, calling two of Knight’s brothers to the stand to testify about what they saw the day of the murder.
LeRoy Hill, who was 19 in 1976, said he walked to the store with several others and passed his sister on the way. He said she was walking, not running, but appeared nervous.
“She just said that Mr. Moore was acting strange,” he said.
Harper asked if she warned him not to go to the store.
“She didn’t say don’t go in there,” he replied.
He and his friends went into the store and didn’t see Moore behind the counter. They called for him but got no answer. Finally, one of them went into the beer cooler and found him on the floor.
Hill said he saw someone driving away in Moore’s car but didn’t get a good look at the driver. All he saw was a “light skinned arm,” he testified.
Another witness, Daryl Harris, who was about 11 at the time of the murder, testified that he went to the store daily to buy candy and got emotional talking about Moore, calling him a mentor whom he loved.
He said he was walking to take pants to a dry cleaner that day when he saw Moore’s car drive by with an African American behind the wheel, which he said seemed “very strange” to him. He described the driver as an older person with “very dark skin.”
“That person was probably 30 or 35, and he had on a military style jacket,” he told jurors under questioning from Lim.
The defense called a single expert witness, Heather Kleider-Offutt, a professor at Georgia State University who researches memory and decision-making and a consultant for the Georgia Innocence Project.
She told jurors that memories are malleable and can change each time someone tries to recall or retrieve them. She also said memories fade over time and can be contaminated
“People can be convinced of something happening that actually didn’t happen,” she said. “But it seems like it happened because it’s a real vivid memory.”
Campbell asked her on cross-examination whether she always testifies in court for the defense.
“Because they’re trying to use you as a tool in advocacy of their client, right?” he asked.
“That’s true,” she said.
Closing arguments: ‘It’s never too late to do the right thing’
During closing arguments on Feb. 4, Campbell told jurors that Moore knew all the kids in the neighborhood and that Dudley had to kill him after the robbery so he couldn’t identify him.
“Dick Moore was Santa Claus,” he said. “He was a truly kind and wonderful human being who didn’t deserve to die with a bullet in his head in the back of a beer cooler … four days after Christmas.”
He told jurors there was no reason for any of the eyewitnesses to lie about Dudley’s involvement.
“It’s never too late to do the right thing,” he said.
Lim, during her closing argument, emphasized inconsistencies in the various witnesses’ testimony and called into question police tactics back in the 1970s, including photo lineups in which two witnesses identified Dudley.
She said Dudley was considered a suspect at the time of the murder but no arrest was ever made. She said nothing had changed since then except the words of Knight.
“Mr. Dudley is not guilty,” she said. “Mr. Dudley is innocent. He did not do anything the government has accused him of doing — nor have they proved it.”
According to court records, Dudley has a long history of arrests and convictions on charges including grand theft and robbery. In 2019, he was sentenced to five years in prison for aggravated assault and false imprisonment. When he was arrested in Moore’s murder in 2024, he listed a homeless shelter as his permanent address.
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: 50-year-old murder, cold case ends in not guilty verdict
Reporting by Jeff Burlew, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
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