After a two day trial, a Bacon County jury has convicted Deion Smith, 24-years-old of Alma, for the August 9, 2009 murder of Jasmine Moore. She was 15 years of age when she was bludgeoned and stabbed to death around midnight in the E. 4th Street home she shared with her mother in Alma. After death, her body was set on fire. Jasmine’s charred remains were discovered by her mother upon her return home from work.
The case was investigated by the Alma Police Department with the assistance of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Bacon County Sheriff’s Office. No arrests were made until June 2014, when Tyberius Murchinson, also 24-years-old of Alma, turned himself in and confessed to his involvement in the brutal crimes. He also identified his close friend Deion Smith as the mastermind of the deadly attack. Murchinson was moved to come forward by his recent baptism into the Christian faith. This revelation pumped new life into the then-almost five year old investigation and led to the arrest of both perpetrators.
Tyberius Murchinson pled guilty to aggravated assault and arson in the first degree and received a 30 year prison sentence. He also testified for the State in the prosecution of Smith.
At trial the evidence showed that Smith decided to kill Moore because he believed she was pregnant with his child, and that he enlisted the help of Murchinson. Smith and Murchinson armed themselves, respectively, with a hammer and a large kitchen knife and walked to the victim’s home. A constant stream of text messages from Smith to Jasmine Moore in the hour leading up to her murder proved that Smith and Murchinson were together and that Moore was waiting for them to arrive. This was corroborated by a witness who put both perpetrators together on 4th Street just prior to the murder. Both Moore’s and Smith’s texting to anyone ceased at 11:46 p.m. on Saturday, August 8, 2009. Smith resumed texting other people thirty minutes later, after committing his heinous crimes.
Once inside the victim’s home, Smith savagely beat her about the head with the hammer. At Smith’s urging, Murchinson also hit Moore with the hammer to make sure that she was dead. Moore was also cut with the knife. Paper from a trash can was piled upon Moore’s now dead body and set on fire, resulting in damage to the home and to the victim’s corpse. After disabling a smoke detector, both assailants went to Smith’s residence, where they burned their clothing and shoes in an attempt to destroy any evidence linking them to their crimes.
A jury was selected on Monday, April 18, 2016, with the trial commencing the next day. On Wednesday, April 20, after two hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Deion Smith of malice murder, felony murder, and arson in the first degree. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder, and an additional fifteen years in prison for arson, to be served consecutively to the life sentence.
George E. Barnhill, District Attorney for the Waycross Judicial Circuit, praised the efforts of all the law enforcement agencies involved in the successful prosecution.
“This is the long-awaited resolution to an almost seven-year-old murder case,” Barnhill stated. “I hesitate to call it a ‘cold case,’ as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Alma Police Department, and Bacon County Sheriff’s Office had never given up on bringing those responsible for the death of Jasmine Moore to justice. Smith and Murchinson were suspects from the beginning, but it took Murchinson’s confession, and subsequent testimony for the State at the trial of Smith, to bring this case to a successful conclusion.”
The case was prosecuted by Alexander J. Markowich, Chief Assistant District Attorney for the Waycross Judicial Circuit. Deion Smith was represented at trial by John R. Thigpen, Sr., of Blackshear.
Deion Smith