Killing of Aliza Sherman

Aliza Sherman, a 53-year-old fertility nurse at the Cleveland Clinic and a mother of four, was fatally stabbed in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, on March 24, 2013. She had gone to the Erieview Plaza office complex for a scheduled meeting with Gregory Moore, the attorney representing her in a contentious divorce case; her divorce trial was due to begin two days later. According to the Ohio Attorney General's cold-case file, Sherman was found on the sidewalk outside the building after being stabbed multiple times. A witness who went to help her reported that the only words he could make out were "I'm dying." She was taken to a hospital, where she died. Security video reportedly showed a hooded attacker running from the scene.

For years afterward, Cleveland police were unable to identify a suspect and the case went cold. Sherman's family and friends raised a reward that eventually grew to $100,000, described by local reporting as among the largest in Cuyahoga County history, and supporters held vigils on the anniversary of her death. Investigators' suspicion focused early on Moore: cellphone records, electronic key-card data, and witness statements contradicted text messages he had sent suggesting he was inside his office at the time of the killing. In 2017, Moore pleaded guilty to falsification for giving investigators inaccurate information about his whereabouts that day, and separately admitted to phoning in bomb threats in 2012 to delay unrelated court proceedings; he served six months in jail, and his law license was suspended in 2017 and later resigned.

The case remained formally unsolved until the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation took over in June 2021, working alongside the Cleveland Division of Police and the FBI's Cleveland field office. On May 2, 2025, a Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted Moore, then 51, on one count of aggravated murder, one count of conspiracy, six counts of murder, and two counts of kidnapping; U.S. Marshals arrested him near Austin, Texas, the same day. According to the indictment, Moore lured Sherman to the office under false pretenses as part of a plan, developed months earlier, to prevent her divorce case from reaching trial. Prosecutors allege that Moore or an unidentified co-conspirator chased Sherman and stabbed her more than ten times, and that Moore later took steps -- including disconnecting his phone from the cell network for several hours -- to obscure his location at the time of the attack. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley said the evidence showed Moore had "orchestrated and participated in the brutal murder of Aliza Sherman."

Moore was arraigned in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas on May 28, 2025, and pleaded not guilty to all charges; he was later released on a $2 million bond with GPS monitoring. His trial is scheduled to begin September 14, 2026. His defense attorney has said witness testimony contradicts the indictment, while prosecutors have said they intend to introduce cellphone and location-data evidence at trial. Sherman's estranged husband, Sanford Sherman, from whom she was seeking a divorce, was not accused of involvement in her killing and died in Florida in 2024. In 2023, Sherman's daughter established the Aliza Sherman Fund at the Cleveland Clinic to support patients and caregivers affected by violence.