Joy A. Coby, a 45-year-old White woman, was killed in Moorefield, West Virginia, on September 16, 2015. Coby was a longtime educator at Moorefield Middle School, where she taught reading and had also coached track. The first indication that something was seriously wrong came Wednesday morning when she failed to arrive for work and had not arranged for a substitute, behavior that immediately concerned the school staff.
Principal Patrick McGregor contacted Moorefield Police Chief Steve Reckart, setting in motion a search that would soon develop into a homicide investigation.
As police tried to locate Coby, investigators were also unable to find her boyfriend, Jared D. Connors. Authorities traced Connors' cellular telephone and determined that he had traveled out of West Virginia to Staunton, Virginia. Police reported that Connors had Coby's vehicle with him, an important development that intensified suspicions surrounding her disappearance. Virginia State Police located him in the parking lot of a Walmart in Staunton. At approximately 12:30 p.m., as officers attempted to make contact with him, Connors shot himself. He survived the immediate shooting and was transported in critical condition to the University of Virginia Medical Center.
News that Connors had been located under those circumstances prompted Moorefield police to expand the search for Coby around her home. At approximately 2:00 p.m., investigators found her body in a wooded area nearby. Police said she had suffered fatal gunshot wounds. Authorities publicly identified Connors as the suspect and said they believed he had shot and killed Coby before taking her vehicle and driving to Virginia. The available contemporary reporting described the case as a murder investigation rather than an unexplained or accidental death.
The killing stunned Moorefield Middle School. McGregor later described Coby as an exceptionally devoted educator who regularly spoke about how much she loved her work. Students transformed her classroom into a memorial, covering it with notes, photographs, poems and memories for her family. Counselors and local clergy were brought in to help students and employees cope with the loss, while the school deliberately focused attention on Coby's influence on generations of children rather than on the person suspected of killing her.
The accessible online reports located in connection with the case identify Jared D. Connors as the principal and apparently sole suspect. They do not report that another person was suspected or arrested. The contemporaneous reporting available online states that Connors was critically hospitalized following his self-inflicted gunshot wound, but the sources located for this synopsis do not document a subsequent arrest, murder charge, criminal trial or conviction arising from Coby's death. Consequently, there is no documented prosecution outcome in the available reporting that would support describing anyone as having been convicted of her murder.
Coby's memory remained prominent in the community long after the killing. A memorial foundation established in her name has supported local scholarships, and annual Run for Joy events have continued to bring together relatives, friends, former colleagues and community members. Years later, those events continued to emphasize the teacher and coach Coby had been and the influence she left behind in Hardy County, preserving a legacy centered on education, young people and community rather than on the violence that ended her life.
