Mississippi man accused of killing six, including 7-year-old child and pastor

Jan 10 (Reuters) – A man has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the Friday night deaths of six people, including a child, in Clay County, Mississippi, law enforcement officials said.

Daricka Moore, 24, is accused of killing several family members and a local pastor before being taken into custody, Clay County Sheriff Eddie Scott said on Saturday at a press conference. The charge against Moore, a county resident, is likely to be upgraded to capital murder, and the death penalty is a possibility if he is found mentally competent, officials said.

“This is horrific. It’s about as bad as it gets,” said Scott Colom, the district attorney for Mississippi’s Sixteenth Circuit Court, whose jurisdiction includes Clay County.

According to Scott, Moore is accused of shooting his father, brother and uncle fatally in the head on Friday evening before stealing a truck and driving to a second site where he allegedly attempted to sexually assault a 7-year-old girl, who was also related to him, before fatally shooting her in the head.

A 911 call then directed law enforcement to a third site, where two more males were found fatally shot in the head. One of those males was a local pastor. Moore was apprehended at a nearby location just before midnight, Scott said.

The motives for the killings are unknown, Scott said.

“This has really shaken our community,” Scott told the press conference. “Personally, I don’t know what kind of motive you could have to kill a 7-year-old.”

The Mississippi Crime Lab, a state office, will conduct autopsies, Scott said. 

Moore is set to appear in court on Monday.   

Located in northeastern Mississippi, Clay County has a population of nearly 20,000.   

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder in Houston; editing by Sergio Non, Mark Potter, Rod Nickel)