San Antonio, Texas, February 9, 2018: On Monday, a Bexar County Grand Jury returned a true bill of indictment for Capital Murder, charging Larry Moore, age 64, with intentionally causing the death of Dianna Lowery by strangulation while committing or attempting to commit Kidnapping and Sexual Assault of Lowery. After returning the indictment, a warrant was issued for Larry Moore’s arrest, and Moore was located and arrested in Prescott, Arizona, where he awaits extradition to Bexar County to face this charge.
On
January 29, 1987, more than 30 years ago, 25 year old Dianna Lowery was found
dead in the bathtub located in her home on Bailey Street in San Antonio, Texas.
There was evidence at the scene that she had not died of natural causes. An
autopsy was performed and the medical examiner determined that Lowery had died
by asphyxiation, and the manner of death was Homicide. The San Antonio Police
Department was never able to gather sufficient evidence to arrest a suspect and
the case went cold. In 2004, Lowery’s mother called the San Antonio Police
Department and told them that she was terminally ill, and she would like to see
justice for her daughter before she died. The officer assigned to look into Lowery’s
murder was Elizabeth Greiner, an SAPD Homicide Detective assigned to the Cold
Case Unit at the time.
Through Detective Greiner’s investigation, enough evidence was obtained to identify Larry Moore, a man who had lived in the duplex next door to Lowery back in 1987, as the person responsible for Lowery’s murder. As part of Detective Greiner’s investigation, Larry Moore was found to be the owner of both his and Lowery’s duplex unit, and had access to Lowery’s apartment by a spare set of keys he kept with him. The case was presented to a Grand Jury in September of 2005, and Larry Moore was indicted for murder on September 19, 2005. A prosecutor under the previous administration dismissed the case for further investigation on March 15, 2007, and Lowery’s mother subsequently passed away.
In
January of 2018, Lowery’s niece called the Bexar County District Attorney’s
Office seeking answers for why her aunt’s case had been dismissed. The District
Attorney, Nico LaHood assigned the Chief of the 187th District Court to go through the archived file for an answer to her question. Upon investigation, LaHood determined that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Larry Moore of Capital Murder.
Moore is charged under the capital murder statute as it existed in 1987, which means possible punishment on conviction is either death or life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years.
