A Montgomery Village couple has been acquitted of murder and involuntary manslaughter charges related to the 2022 death of their 17-year-old, but both parents face prison sentences following their convictions on neglect charges related to their surviving six children, according to the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office.
The parents separately went before the Montgomery County Circuit Court in Rockville in early October and November. Cynthia and Dominique Moore face up to 30 years in prison and are expected to be sentenced in early 2025, the state’s attorney’s office said Monday in a statement.
The Moores’ were arrested in May 2023, after police and paramedics a year earlier had been called to the home for their “unresponsive” teen. When first responders arrived at the home in 2022, they found the family and their six other children, the youngest of whom was 4 years old, had been “living in squalor” with toilets that did not appear functional and animal feces on the floor throughout the home, according to police.
On Oct. 16, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Jill Cummins convicted Cynthia Moore, 41, on six counts of child neglect of her six children following a seven-day bench trial – a trial in which there is no jury and charges are handled by a judge. On Monday, Cummins accepted the guilty plea of Dominique Moore, 46, on six counts of child neglect, according to the state’s attorney’s office.
In the case of the murder and manslaughter charges, Cummins ruled on Oct. 16 that the charges for each parent were not supported by Maryland law, according to The Washington Post. She noted that the cause of the 17-year-old’s death was an “essential element” to convict the parents, and cited testimony for physicians who could not definitively determine the cause of death, the Post reported.
“There was no evidence presented that had [the 17-year-old] received some medical care, whether it had been six months, three months, one month, one week or one day prior to his death, that he would have survived,” Cummins said in her verdict, according to the Post.
State’s Attorney John McCarthy said in an emailed statement to MoCo360 Monday that his office plans to ask the judge to go “well above the sentencing guidelines” set for the case during the upcoming sentencing hearings. He added the guidelines “do not reflect the true magnitude of what was done by these parents.”
Cynthia Moore’s public defenders, Roberto Martinez and Clare Carlson, told MoCo360 on Monday that their client’s acquittal on the murder and involuntary manslaughter charges was “consistent with the law and facts available.”
“There was simply too much uncertainty, and ultimately, insufficient evidence to establish that any acts or omissions by Ms. Moore caused her child’s death,” Martinez and Carlson said in an email.
But the lawyers disagreed with Moore’s conviction on the neglect charges.
“We respect the verdict but find it troubling that the State’s narrative almost entirely ignored the broader systemic failures at play — including barriers to accessing healthcare, food stamps … and the lack of meaningful oversight over homeschool instruction — as well as the children’s father’s complicity in this tragedy. Instead, the State fell prey to stereotypical ideas about gender roles and placed most of the blame on Ms. Moore alone,” the email said.
Andre Mahasa, Dominique Moore’s attorney, did not immediately respond to MoCo360’s request for comment Monday afternoon.
McCarthy described the case as “horrific” and said it “involved a shocking abandonment of parental responsibilities.”
“It is one of the worst cases of child neglect that we have seen in the county,” McCarthy said. “Under the guise of homeschooling, the parents were able to operate without any outside supervision or intervention from the community. The children’s basic human needs and necessities went ignored.”
‘Unsafe and unsanitary’ living conditions
On May 10, 2022, Montgomery County police officers and Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service personnel responded to the 9400 block of Quill Place near North Creek Community Center in Montgomery Village for a report of a “working code in progress.” According to police spokesperson Shiera Goff, the term is used to describe a person in cardiac arrest who has stopped breathing and who someone is attempting to resuscitate.
When officers arrived at the home, they discovered the Moores’ 17-year-old child unresponsive. According to charging documents, Cynthia Moore told officers that the teen had multiple sclerosis and diabetes and had been dealing with the side effects of COVID-19. In addition, the mother said the teen had not seen a doctor since the age of 15.
Cynthia Moore said she had given the teen some apple juice and they sounded as if they were “trying to cough up … mucus but was having a difficult time doing so,” charging documents state. The teen’s eyes rolled back and they collapsed, the mother told police, according to charging documents.
Paramedics who responded performed CPR on the 17-year-old and pronounced the teen dead at the scene.
A responding officer noted in a report that the teen “appeared emaciated” and an autopsy later said that the body weighed 79 pounds clothed. According to charging documents, the pathologist wrote the teen was not provided with the necessary “adequate care” for their medical condition.
The charging documents also detailed the “unsafe and unsanitary” conditions found at the Moores’ home. An officer at the scene noted animal feces on the floor throughout the home, electricity not functioning in “most areas of the home,” a refrigerator with little food inside, non-functioning toilets, windows covered with blankets and not enough beds for all family members, according to charging documents.
More details about the neglect were uncovered during Cynthia Moore’s trial. The Washington Post reported refrigerator was kept locked and the children were not taught how to bathe, according to testimony during the trial.
“This court finds that the children had all been socially isolated and kept inside the home 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and were intentionally precluded by their mother from having personal interactions with anyone other than their siblings and parents,” Cummins said in her verdict for Cynthia Moore, according to the Post. “These children have been traumatized by the actions and inactions of this defendant.”
According to charging documents, the six children were removed by Child Welfare Services and placed into foster care following the police investigation of the 17-year-old’s death.
Nearly a year after police were called to the Moores’ home, the Moores were arrested and later indicted on charges of second-degree depraved-heart murder, involuntary manslaughter and child neglect.
Facing 30 years in prison
Cynthia Moore and Dominique Moore are being held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Boyds while they await their sentencing hearings, according to digital court records. Cynthia Moore’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Jan. 22 and Dominique Moore is expected to be sentenced Feb. 5, according to the state’s attorney’s office.
