Guilty: Chester councilman’s killer gets life in prison

Christopher Moore will spend the rest of his life in prison, after a jury on Thursday found him guilty in the 2014 murder of Chester City Councilman Odell Williams.

The Fairfield County jury deliberated for about two hours Thursday afternoon before returning with guilty verdicts for Moore on charges of murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. Circuit Court Judge Paul Burch sentenced Moore to life in prison without the possibility of parole on the murder charge, and an additional five years for the gun charge.

Moore, 20, was stoic after the guilty verdicts were read, holding his fist to his mouth and staring ahead as his family members cried quietly beside him. But there were tears on both sides of the courtroom Thursday night. Burch warned both families before the verdicts were read to keep their composure.

“Today is not a good day,” Coretta Williams, one of the victim’s daughters, said before sentencing. “That guilty verdict, it doesn’t make my heart sing. He’s throwing his life away. My dad is not here anymore. I don’t really know what to feel.”

Moore’s father apologized to Williams’ family in court. Moore’s mother, however, didn’t feel the same way.

“He don’t deserve for his life to be taken away from him for the rest of his life,” she said of her son. “What if Odell had killed my child? Would we be here? No. I’m losing my child just like they lost their father. I don’t have no remorse for the Williams family, because their father could have took my child’s life.”

The case was first tried in April, but a hung jury forced a mistrial. Both trials were held in Fairfield County, because a judge ruled the case had received too much media attention to give Moore a fair trial in Chester County.

Williams was called by his wife on the night of the murder to investigate a suspicious pickup parked near her home on Featherstone Road, according to testimony. Moore and his co-defendants testified that they had planned to rob people in a home on Holmes Road and parked their truck on Featherstone before walking to a field between the two roads.

The robbery attempt fell through because the intended targets weren’t home, according to testimony. Williams arrived in his Cadillac coupe as the suspects were leaving the neighborhood, and chased the pickup truck across the city of Chester and onto Roundtree Circle.

Prosecutors said Moore got out of the truck and was lying in wait to shoot Williams as he turned onto Roundtree Circle. Moore and his defense team said he fell out of the truck and fired the rifle at Williams’ vehicle in self-defense because Williams had already fired two shots at the truck with his revolver.

“I am firmly convinced that you were told to get out of that car and put a stop to it,” Burch told Moore before handing down the life sentence. “I am certainly not impressed with any argument that it was self-defense. You got out of that vehicle with the full intention of stopping Mr. Williams with whatever it took. You murdered Mr. Williams.”

Burch called the firearm charge “really horrendous” because Moore, a convicted felon on probation at the time, “knew [he] shouldn’t have had that firearm to begin with.”

One key difference between this week’s trial and the mistrial in April was the testimony from Moore’s former cellmate, Stevie Breland. Breland testified Wednesday that he and Moore talked about Moore’s case, and that Moore said he was told by co-defendant Quinton McClinton to get out of the truck and shoot Williams.

Sixth Circuit Solicitor Randy Newman said after sentencing Thursday that they had no concerns about putting Breland on the stand.

“I think it certainly didn’t hurt our case at all,” he said. “... There are no winners here today. The Williams family lost a loved one, the Moore family lost a loved one. We asked for life (in prison) because we truly believe he’s a danger to the community.”

Moore’s four co-defendants are still waiting to stand trial on accessory charges, and prosecutors have said they plan to seek indictments for each of the co-defendants for conspiracy to commit armed robbery for their plans to rob the home on Holmes Road.

Outside the courthouse Thursday, Lana Williams Aiken, another of Williams’ daughters, told reporters that there was no feeling of victory from the outcome.

“Another black male lost to the system,” she said of Moore. “My daddy’s no longer here. We just have his memory.”

Aiken said some of their family members have forgiven Moore. She hopes one thing that can be taken from the case is the importance of keeping children and teenagers from getting involved with violence and gangs.

“I hope the young people of Chester County would be leaders and not followers,” she said. “If you’re a follower, there’s a lot of good things to be following instead of the bad things.”

This story was originally published June 30, 2016 at 4:28 PM with the headline "Guilty: Chester councilman’s killer gets life in prison."