Financial adviser charged with dumping Phila. woman's body
A financial adviser has been charged in the death of a Philadelphia woman whose body was found dumped on a central Pennsylvania road on Valentine's Day, police said.
A financial adviser has been charged in the death of a Philadelphia woman whose body was found dumped on a central Pennsylvania road on Valentine's Day, police said.
Robert Moir, 59, allegedly told police that after spending several nights with Corrine Pena, 35, he awoke one night to find her dead in his bathroom from an apparent drug overdose.
He then carted her corpse in his Mercedes-Benz to a snowy, secluded road in Centre County, where he dumped it and wrote authorities an anonymous letter to help them identify the body, according to an affidavit filed in the case.
Moir, of Port Matilda, Pa., near State College, faces charges of abuse of a corpse, a misdemeanor that carries a punishment of up to two years in prison. His attorney, James Bryant, said his client was trying to do the right thing and is distraught over the mistake.
"He overdosed, too - on stupid pills," Bryant said Wednesday, a day after the charges were filed.
Officers found Pena's body facedown and shoeless, covered by a red sheet, on the side of Plainfield Road in Ferguson Township, according to an affidavit. She had no identification on her, but several distinctive tattoos helped police identify her a few days later.
One of Pena's friends later told investigators that Pena had been hanging out with "Stock Broker Rob" in the State College area, according to the affidavit. The day before she died, Pena and the friend had gone to Lock Haven, Pa., to get heroin, parting ways that afternoon at a Walmart store in State College, according to the affidavit.
Police have said Pena has a child in elementary school.
By the time police visited Moir on Friday with a search warrant, he "admitted that he did [it] and that it had been 'eating' at him all week," according to the affidavit.
He told police that he met Pena in Philadelphia a few days before Valentine's Day, when she approached him on the street and asked him for food, according to the affidavit and Bryant.
After spending two nights in a Philadelphia hotel, the pair returned to the State College area, where Pena stayed at Moir's home but also visited friends.
Bryant said the relationship was not sexual.
The night before she died, Moir told police, he had picked her up from the Walmart, eaten a turkey dinner with her, and fallen asleep on the couch, according to the affidavit.
He allegedly told police he awoke just before midnight to find Pena slumped against the bathroom door, her face and lips purple and a needle and spoon on the vanity.
He dragged her body through his kitchen and garage to his Mercedes, according to the affidavit, and decided to dump it "somewhere she would be found," believing the freezing temperatures would prevent decomposition until its discovery.
"This was unnecessary, because if he would have called 911, he wouldn't have been charged," Ferguson Township Police Chief Diane Conrad said Wednesday, referring to the Good Samaritan law, passed by legislators two years ago, that lets people alert authorities to suspected drug overdoses without fear of prosecution.
The results of Pena's toxicology tests are still pending, Conrad added, so the case remains open.
Moir faces a March 23 preliminary hearing.