On the morning of Friday, February 22, 2002, Janet Miller Moore, a 41-year-old female, was in her Oklahoma City apartment preparing for another workday. A loving mother and a dedicated employee in the insurance division at OU Medical Center, she was known by those who loved her as a rock for her family, always ready to lend a hand or a kind word. Her day, however, was cut tragically short when a man forced his way into her home and shot her.
The killing was senseless and brutal, a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The man who murdered Janet was Michael Dewayne Smith, a member of the Oak Grove Posse gang. At the time, Smith was already a fugitive, wanted for the murder of 26-year-old Otis Payne Jr. in November 2001. Smith’s motive for entering Janet’s home was not to harm her, but to find her son. Prosecutors said Smith mistakenly believed Janet's son had acted as a police informant and provided information about his whereabouts. When Smith didn't find the son at the apartment, he killed Janet instead.
The violence did not end with Janet’s murder. Later that same day, Smith went to a convenience store and killed 22-year-old Sarath Pulluru, a college student and clerk who Smith wrongly believed had disrespected his gang in a newspaper interview. The two murders on a single day triggered an intense investigation that led police to Smith, who was arrested two days later on February 24, 2002. During questioning, he confessed to the killings.
In 2003, a jury convicted Michael Dewayne Smith of two counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Janet Moore and Sarath Pulluru. He was also convicted of first-degree burglary and robbery with a firearm. The jury recommended the death penalty for the murders. The following year, Smith was tried and convicted of second-degree murder for the killing of Otis Payne Jr., receiving a life sentence for that crime.
Over the next two decades, Smith remained on death row, filing numerous appeals that were consistently denied. His attorneys argued that his confession was coerced while he was under the influence of drugs and that he was intellectually disabled. In a clemency hearing in March 2024, Smith expressed sorrow to the victims' families but maintained his innocence, claiming he was high on drugs and couldn't remember the events. The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board denied his request for clemency in a 4-1 vote.
On April 4, 2024, more than 22 years after he murdered Janet Miller Moore, Michael Dewayne Smith was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Following the execution, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond stated, "Janet and Sharath were murdered simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time; that was all. I am grateful that justice has been served." Janet’s family, who referred to her affectionately as 'Niecy,' released a statement honoring the "mother, the sister, the aunt, the cousin, and the angel on Earth and in heaven," expressing that the justice served was for a loss that "caused a ripple for generations to come."
