David Stewart, a 23-year-old White man from Charleston, West Virginia, was killed during the early morning hours of July 7, 2016, at the Orchard Manor housing complex on Charleston’s West Side. Court records later established that Stewart had driven his girlfriend, Kaylie Gibson, and several other people, including DeAndre “Dravo” Moore and C’Audre Boxley, to the apartment complex. When the group arrived, Moore shot Stewart while Stewart was sitting behind the wheel of the vehicle. Local reporting said Stewart lost consciousness after being shot and the vehicle crashed on Hutchinson Street. Police initially said they had not recovered the weapon but believed an AR-15-style rifle had been used; prosecutors later stated that investigators determined Moore had used an AR-15. Although investigators did not publicly announce a motive immediately after the killing, later court records described the shooting as apparently arising from an earlier dispute involving a handgun.
Investigators rapidly focused on Moore. Gibson told law enforcement that she witnessed the killing and identified Moore as the shooter. Boxley initially told police that Moore had remained near Stewart’s vehicle while Boxley walked toward the apartment complex; after hearing the gunshot, Boxley said he encountered Moore moments later inside the complex carrying a gun. Other occupants of Stewart’s vehicle gave statements that supported that account. Investigators also obtained surveillance footage from the housing complex that captured the killing. The footage showed that the person responsible had dreadlocks, and the subsequent appellate record noted that Moore was the only person seen in or around Stewart’s vehicle who had that hairstyle. Based on the witness accounts and video evidence, Charleston police obtained a warrant charging Moore with first-degree murder and warned the public that he should be considered armed and dangerous.
The search for Moore lasted only about a day. On July 8, Charleston police announced that the 19-year-old had been apprehended at approximately 10:30 a.m. in Charlotte, North Carolina. Reporting indicated that authorities located him at an apartment there. He was subsequently returned to West Virginia, and by July 20 he had been booked into the South Central Regional Jail. Moore was eventually indicted on first-degree murder, wanton endangerment, and use or presentation of a firearm during the commission of a felony in connection with Stewart’s killing.
The case did not ultimately go to a jury. In November 2017, Moore accepted a binding plea agreement and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. The prosecution’s factual presentation at the plea hearing described Moore drawing a firearm and shooting Stewart while Stewart remained seated in the driver’s seat, with the shooting captured on surveillance video. Moore acknowledged his guilt in writing, and the court found that his plea had been entered knowingly and voluntarily. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to the dismissal of the remaining charges covered by the agreement. Local reporting also said two separate drug charges against Moore were dropped. Kanawha County Circuit Judge Charlie King sentenced Moore to life imprisonment with mercy, meaning he would become eligible to seek parole after serving 15 years rather than serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Stewart’s death continued to weigh heavily on people close to him when the case reached sentencing. His friend Joseph Butler addressed the court and described Stewart as someone he regarded as a brother and remembered for having a big heart. Butler became emotional while confronting Moore over the killing and had to be restrained and directed back toward the public seating area. Prosecutors explained that the strength of the evidence was substantial: the shooting had been recorded, witnesses placed Moore at the scene, and investigators believed the dispute centered on a gun. Moore’s own defense attorney later characterized the evidence as extraordinarily difficult to overcome and testified that the prosecution’s case was so strong that accepting an agreement preserving the possibility of parole was considered Moore’s best realistic option.
Years after the conviction, additional questions were raised through Moore’s post-conviction litigation. Moore filed a habeas corpus petition in 2020 challenging the validity of his guilty plea and alleging ineffective assistance of counsel, incomplete access to discovery, problems surrounding a requested mental-status examination, and ultimately actual innocence. During a 2022 evidentiary hearing, Boxley gave a substantially different version of events from the statement he had given police immediately after Stewart’s death. He claimed Moore had been inside the apartment complex when the gunshot was heard and denied remembering his earlier statement implicating Moore. The circuit court rejected that later account as not credible, emphasizing that it conflicted with Boxley’s original police statement, Gibson’s account, statements from other passengers and the surveillance recordings.
The post-conviction proceedings also brought out information about another person, Kerry Jemison. Moore’s attorneys pointed to a criminal complaint indicating that Stewart had alleged Jemison brandished a weapon and threatened to kill him the day before Stewart was murdered, and Moore attempted to use that circumstance to support an alternate-perpetrator theory. Moore’s original trial attorney testified that he believed Jemison had been included among people his investigator was supposed to examine, although he could not remember whether an interview actually took place. The courts did not find that information sufficient to undermine Moore’s conviction. The circuit court credited testimony from Moore’s former attorney that Moore had admitted responsibility for Stewart’s shooting during their early discussions, an admission Moore later denied, and concluded that further investigation of Jemison would not have changed the outcome. No source reviewed indicates that Jemison was arrested or charged with Stewart’s murder.
The Kanawha County Circuit Court denied Moore’s habeas petition on May 4, 2022, and Moore appealed. On November 26, 2024, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia affirmed that decision. The high court rejected his arguments concerning the voluntariness of his guilty plea, ineffective assistance, the mental-status examination, actual innocence and cumulative error. It concluded that the record supported the lower court’s findings, including its rejection of Boxley’s changed testimony, and that the evidence concerning Boxley and Jemison did not establish Moore’s innocence. As a result, Moore’s first-degree murder conviction and sentence of life imprisonment with mercy remained in effect, leaving the possibility of parole after the required 15-year period but providing no guarantee that parole would be granted.
