John Jefferson
Top inset: Jacarie Robinson (WTVJ). Bottom inset: Romuan J. Moye (Milwaukee Police). Background: Romuan Moye in court (WITI/YouTube).
A Wisconsin father will spend decades in prison after his 12-year-old son’s body was found in his home emaciated, covered in maggots and weighing 54 pounds with two broken arms.
Romuan J. Moye, 45, was sentenced to 47 ½ years in prison for the death of his son, Jacarie Robinson, online court records show. He pleaded guilty to first-degree reckless homicide, chronic neglect of a child and failure to report the death of a child.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Laura Crivello called it the worst case she’s seen, local Fox affiliate WITI reported from the courtroom.
“The offenses is stuff of a horror movie,” Crivello said. “In my 30 years, the most vicious and aggravated thing I have ever seen.”
As Law&Crime reported, Moye’s February arrest came just over four months after the victim’s brother found Jacarie’s body in an “advanced state of decomposition” in Moye’s home.
In an interview with Milwaukee CBS affiliate WDJT, authorities said that a seemingly insignificant tip from an “outside source” helped them locate Moye for questioning after months of searching.
“What we thought was maybe a really small investigative lead for us, so something that we thought was maybe really small, ended up pointing us in the right direction,” Thomas Kotnik of the Milwaukee Police Department’s Special Investigation Fugitive Apprehension Division told the station. “There’s a lot of people that had a lot of questions over the last couple of months about what we were doing, how come he hasn’t been found yet; so, I think this is a step in the right direction — makes everyone feel a bit better.”
Detective Mike Driscoll told the station that after Jacarie’s body was discovered, Moye essentially “disappeared.”
“He left the house that night and had not been seen since,” he said. “This is a dad who wouldn’t give his child food, for discipline. It’s incredibly sad.”
Officers with the City of Milwaukee Police Department responded at about 6:15 p.m. on Oct. 10 to a “dead on entry” call at an apartment complex in the 4100 block of North Elmhurst Road. The caller told the emergency dispatcher that there was a deceased 12-year-old child located inside the residence, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Once there, first responders located the caller, who identified himself as Moye’s 22-year-old son, identified in court documents as JM.
He told police his three younger brothers — ages 17, 15, and 12 — typically all lived in the apartment with Moye, but noted that for the last few weeks, the older children had both been staying with their mother while the youngest, “JR,” remained under Moye’s care.
According to police documents, JM said he’d visited his father a few days earlier and noticed he was acting “abnormal” and “repeatedly taking deep breaths,” but told police he never entered the apartment. With his father continuing to act strange, JM told police he returned to the apartment again on Oct. 10 to check on Moye’s well-being and let himself in when Moye failed to answer the door.
“JM went into the residence and looked around but nobody was home. JM went back into the residence to look for some belongings that were important to the Defendant,” the affidavit states. “As JM entered the living room, JM noticed a foot protruding from covers on the living room floor. JM immediately yelled out because JM knew it was JR’s body. JM pulled the cover back and observed JR’s face in an advanced state of decomposition with maggots present.”
“I don’t even know how to f—— feel right now,” a “lost” and “confused” JM told police after finding his younger brother “in a state of decay.”
JM told the police that Moye claimed to have been diagnosed with cancer and claimed that it had progressed in the last few months, saying he “does not have long to live.”
Moye had allegedly been keeping the victim “away from the family” for the last few months, claiming the boy had been “acting really bad,” JM told police. The last time JM recalled seeing his little brother alive was during the boy’s birthday on Aug. 19. He recalled JR looking “extremely skinny” and thinking, “Damn, what the f — is JR eating?”
JM also described Moye as a “harsh punisher” but claimed he “did not use physical punishment often.” Moye had allegedly told the victim’s mother that the victim had been acting out and “stealing food” of late.
The victim’s 15-year-old sister told investigators that her father “punishes” the victim for stealing food.
“The Defendant will pop JR or whoop JR,” police wrote in the affidavit, citing their interview with the child.
Homicide detectives took over the scene, saying that upon entering Moye’s home, “there was an overwhelming smell of mold, feces, and decay.”
“The kitchen had a large pile of garbage located in the center of the floor. The kitchen table was covered in garbage. The kitchen sink was covered in what appeared to be mold,” police wrote.
“There was molded food on the counters of the kitchen. The refrigerator appeared to be functional but was filled with molded food. The bathroom was filled with garbage and the toilet was filled with human feces. The vanity sink and shower were covered in mold.”
Detectives said the victim’s decaying body appeared to be “extremely malnourished” and noted he had “maggots covering his face and mouth.”
An autopsy determined that the victim had a recently fractured right humerus, noting that the break was “very large” and “in an irregular pattern for a fracture.” The left humerus also appeared to be fractured, along with two ribs that were in the process of healing when the victim died.
The body weighed only 54 pounds at the time of the autopsy.
Law&Crime’s Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.
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