Officials: Probe may hurt investigation
Local authorities say the work of an investigative reporter who has made the first of several planned trips to Jennings to investigate eight unsolved death may actually hurt the investigation rather than help it.
Melissa Moore, the daughter of “Happy Face Killer” Keith Hunter Jeperson, who killed at least eight women across the country in the 1990’s, was featured on the “Dr. Oz” show in April. During that episode, she alleged that Jeff Davis law enforcement officers colluded with area drug dealers and did not properly process the evidence in the unsolved deaths of eight Jeff Davis women. Moore has now brought a team of videographers with her to Jennings in the first of several planned trips to interview the family members of victims in the cases, as well as those who say they were witness to the crime.
Moore told Jennings Daily News last week that she plans to share any and all information learned during her investigation with the Jeff Davis Sheriff’s Office.
“We are uncovering people that actually had evidence they’ve shared with us,” Moore said. “That’s as much as I can say about that, but we’re finding great new leads.”
The sheriff’s office has yet to receive any information from Moore concerning the case, said chief deputy Chris Ivey.
“It hasn’t happened,” Ivey said. “She never called, she never offered anything to us. If she was truly trying to help us solve the case, you think she would have stopped here first and sat down and talked to us – but nothing. We’ve heard she’s been here twice already and is planning to come again, but she hasn’t requested to talk to us.”
Ivey added that when Moore appeared on the “Dr. Oz” segment, she claimed she had collected a good bit of evidence.
“But she hasn’t come to us with any of it,” Ivey said. “Evidence or witnesses don’t do anyone any good if she doesn’t tell us. She can’t go out and arrest anyone.”
"Evidence or witnesses don’t do anyone any good if she doesn’t tell us. She can’t go out and arrest anyone.”
– JDSO Chief Deputy Chris Ivey
Moore has, to Ivey’s knowledge, “no education or credentials to be an investigator.”
“She has no experience or any kind of background to be doing this,” he said. “She’s an investigative reporter or at least she’s claiming she is. Her only qualifications that anybody can provide to me is that her father killed several people.”
Moore’s inexperience in investigation may actually hurt the still ongoing police investigation into the murders, Ivey said.
“It could hurt us if she is actually talking to somebody who has credible information or evidence that’s good,” he said. “Put yourself in that position. If you thought she was a credible investigator that was truly working on this case, and you gave her a piece of information or a statement about something you know — she might tell you she will bring that information to authorities then not. You probably wouldn’t come to us yourself if this person said they would. People might think she’s giving this information to us, but because she hasn’t talked to us, we don’t have it.”