I Speak for Cheryl (4): We All Want to Know "How Did We Get Here"
For the past three weeks, I have been blogging and sharing with you all my blog posts, “I Speak for Cheryl” We All Want to Know…
Blog 1: Why?
I told you it had been 4.5 years since the brutal death of my sister and there has been no conviction for the man that killed her; therefore, no justice for Cheryl.
Blog 2: Who is the victim?
I told you that Cheryl has become the forgotten victim as we sit in court attending unscheduled, irregular, inconsistent scattered, and unsuccessful Hearings, evaluating his mental competency instead of convicting him. After several Hearings, we are beginning to question why are we here. Is it in support of Ferjus mental incompetence or justice for Cheryl? Who is the victim here?
Blog 3: How did he forget?
I took you back to the scene, the night of Cheryl’s murder to capture the competency
state of Ferjus Moore mind. From his intentional self-inflicted injuries, stabbing Cheryl 39 times, then lying to Cheryl's daughter about who murdered her mom displayed deliberate deceptive actions. According to the Winston Salem Journal, Forsyth County District Attorney, Jim O’Neill stated the alleged murder was, “especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel.”
Now, let’s start from the beginning of the legalities and see as to how we got to here.
So, on August 25, 2014, Ferjus Moore was initially charged with first-degree murder, in the death of my sister, Cheryl A. Bethea. Apparently, my family and I thought this would be an open and close case with all the evidence, no doubtingly, pointing to Ferjus Moore, as the murderer. From the beginning, it has turned out to be a very slow-moving case with Ferjus Moore spending most of the first year, after the murder, in the Winston-Salem Forsyth County jail.
Sometime in 2015, after speaking with Forsyth County prosecutors, Assistant Jennifer Martin and Matt Breeding, they let my family and I know that they were seeking and requesting the death penalty and they wanted to know how my family and I felt about the death penalty. During this time, I had so many mixed emotions and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. However, at the end of the day it was the State’s decision and not truly ours.
In June 2015, a request from the Forsyth County prosecutors, was made and approved by Judge Edwin Wilson called, a Rule 24 Hearing, to seek the death penalty in the murder of my sister, Cheryl A. Bethea, according to the Winston Salem Journal and statements given to my family and I, by the Forsyth County prosecutors. In addition to seeking the death penalty for Ferjus Moore, it was based on two aggravating circumstances that he had previously been convicted of, a violent felony and that the alleged murder was “especially heinous, atrocious and cruel”, said Forsyth County District Attorney, Jim O’Neill. Ferjus Moore served four years in prison on a 1999 armed robbery conviction and he was released in 2003. However, listen to this, he also had been convicted four times on charges of misdemeanor assault on a female, once in 1989, twice in 1995 and once again 2007, in which none of the assaults was related to my sister, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. So, these four prior misdemeanor convictions were not even considered in seeking the death penalty, wow...isn't that something?
This was in 2015 and there has been so much time past and wasted with many odd changes made in between just to get to the first Public Hearing which was not in favor of justice for Cheryl. So, how did we get here?...Umm.. going from a possible trial to numerous hearings and from the death penalty to 2nd degree murder with 35 years, and now to mental incompetence to stand trial or even conviction? Stay with me, now because it only gets more interesting, frustrating, and confusing,
Stay tune as, "I Speak for Cheryl" and Sound the Silence in Domestic Violence
