INDIANAPOLIS (WXIN) – Her family said Jeanettrius Moore worked hard at a beauty supply shop to support herself and two little girls and appreciated the most recent $1,400 stimulus check issued to help Americans recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The father of her youngest baby, Malik Halfacre, thought he should get half, according to Moore’s relatives.
“He wanted some of Jeanettrius’ tax money, stimulus money,” said Wendy Johnson, a cousin who heard Jeanettrius’ account of what led up to a quadruple murder at an Indianapolis home Saturday night.
Johnson said she was told that the day before the shooting Halfacre told Moore “he wanted half of her money.”
“She said, ‘No, you don’t deserve any of this. I work. I take care of our child. You don’t do anything,’” Johnson recalled.
After he insisted, Johnson said Moore relented, offering $450 – but that wasn’t enough. Johnson said Halfacre vowed to “get that money.”
Johnson was told that on Saturday evening, Moore was outside at the curb looking after her car when Halfacre walked up.
“She said he gave her an evil look and walked off,” said Johnson. “He came back.”
Police said after Halfacre came back for a second time, four people were dead, the mother of his child was wounded, the baby was missing, and the ex-con was on the run.
The family identified the dead as Moore’s 7-year-old daughter, Eve Moore, her brother, 23-year-old Daquan Moore, her mother, 44-year-old Tomeeka Brown, and her cousin, 35-year-old Anthony Johnson.
“Malik came back in the house asking, ‘Where’s the money?’ said Johnson, repeating the account Jeanettrius told her.
“They’re like, ‘What money? What? What are you talking about?’
“He said, ‘Where’s the money? Where’s the money?’”
Johnson said she was told that’s when Halfacre started going through Moore’s purse.
“Daquan was trying to save his sister. He was taking up for his sister,” said Johnson. “He stood up and said, ‘You cannot have the money. You cannot have her money.’ [Moore] pushed Malik, and Malik pulled out the gun and just started killing everybody.”
“He shot Daquan first. He shot Anthony. He turned around, and he shot my Auntie Tomeeka. My Auntie Tomeeka said, ‘Malik!’ and he shot her again. He came back and shot Daquan for the second time and somewhere between little baby Eve got hit somewhere and she was screaming, she was screaming.”
Johnson said Moore recalled that Halfacre took her and their infant daughter to the car, and after strapping the baby into a child safety seat, he reentered the house to retrieve a milk bottle.
“He went back in the house, and that’s when he shot Anthony again when he was coming down the steps,” said Johnson. “When he went in the house, that was Jeanettrius’ cue to run for her life, and that’s what she did. Ran for her life in traffic across New York Street and knocking on everyone’s doors.”
Moore hid on a neighbor’s porch until police officers arrived as Halfacre drove away with their child.
“He told her that she made him kill everybody,” said Johnson. “She made him do it.”
Moore directed officers to the home a block north where the victims were discovered. At the same time, Lorenzo Moore walked in the back door to find his brother, Daquan, and the rest of his family.
“I seen all my family members in there on the floor dead,” said Lorenzo. “I could put the picture together of how everything went down and how everybody went.”
Lorenzo said he was in disbelief.
“I didn’t even know that that was my people on the ground suffering because they let a monster out of prison.”
Halfacre was accused of shooting a man five times on the city’s northwest side in early 2017 but was released from custody in 2018 after pleading guilty to a lesser charge.
“We always knew that he carried a gun,” said Lorenzo. “He didn’t have a job — just laying around being lazy.”
Lorenzo said his sister was afraid of Halfacre.
“It was like you could feel this fear, but you never want to do anything about it because you’re too scared and it might come to what it’s come to,” he said. “Just him being angry about not having any money and him not doing anything for himself, so he thought he would just take something from her.”
Several hours later, the couple’s baby was recovered unharmed on the city’s northeast side while almost 24 hours after the killing, following a four-hour SWAT standoff on the east side, Halfacre emerged from a duplex in handcuffs after hiding in an attic to avoid several volleys of tear gas that had been fired inside.
“He just felt he could take from her,” said Lorenzo.
In the middle of the grieving family is Shawn Brown who lost a sister, two nephews and a niece on Randolph Street Saturday night.
“We grew up so close. We was always together,” said Brown, “but at the end of the day, we are blood, and we love each other, and we hate to see something like this happen. It is the most tragic thing that has ever happened by far to my family.”
Brown knows of what he speaks, having lost one brother to drowning and two of his wife’s cousins to murder on the far east side a year ago.
“I feel like this gun violence has touched enough people that y’all can go ahead and knock it off,” Browns said. “It’s been enough. Enough is enough.”
The family now is struggling to raise the funds to bury four loved ones.
Brown said Eve used to call herself “Uncle Shawn.” Anthony Johnson leaves behind his wife, Renee, and 3-year-old son, Anthony III. Daquan was the family cutups, making everyone laugh, and Tomeeka relished her role as a mother.
“Her whole life was her kids — period. That’s all she knew,” said Brown, who called Daquan “The Next Big Thing” because of his possible future as a rapper and comedian. “He got robbed. He had so much potential.
“The world was robbed.”
