Murders of Nireah Johnson and Brandie Coleman

Background

Nireah Johnson was a 17-year-old African American transgender teenager living in Indianapolis, Indiana. On June 18, 2003, she and her 18-year-old friend Brandie Coleman were riding in a car with another friend when they encountered Paul Moore, a passenger in a car driven by Curtis Ward. The two groups stopped at a gas station, where Johnson and Moore briefly spoke and exchanged phone numbers. Moore later told police he was attracted to Johnson and believed she was a cisgender woman, and that Johnson had kissed him on the cheek before they discussed meeting again. He denied seeing her again after that encounter.

The Killings

According to court documents, at approximately 12:51 a.m. on July 23, 2003, Brandie Coleman called Moore's residence to speak with Curtis Ward. Coleman and Johnson then drove to Moore's apartment. After the group spoke outside, they went inside, splitting into separate rooms. Moore later entered Ward's room with a Ruger P90 handgun and privately asked Ward whether he knew Johnson's sex assigned at birth. The group reconvened, and Moore questioned Johnson and Coleman on the same subject. After about forty minutes, Johnson went to the bathroom; Moore followed and reportedly discovered she was transgender. He became agitated, had Ward retrieve wire, and both women were bound with their hands tied behind their backs. Moore placed them in the back seat of their vehicle and directed Ward to follow him to a wooded area of Fall Creek Corridor Park, where he entered Ward's vehicle and fatally shot both women. He then dismantled the firearm and discarded its parts.

Later that day, Moore proposed destroying the vehicle by fire. Ward told Moore's half-brother, Clarence McGee, who had seen the bodies. That night, McGee and Ward returned to the park and set the vehicle on fire with the victims inside.

Discovery and Identification

Firefighters responding to a burning vehicle discovered the bodies on the night of July 23, 2003; the remains were too severely burned for visual identification. On July 24, the Marion County Coroner's Office identified the victims as Nireah Johnson and Brandie Coleman and confirmed both had been shot in the forehead before the fire was set, with gasoline poured into the back seat and ignited. Authorities were led to the identification after Mary Coleman, Brandie Coleman's mother and a FedEx employee, recognized the vehicle's distinctive FedEx license plate from news coverage and alerted a television station, which notified police.

Arrests and Trial

Paul Moore was arrested July 31, 2003, after a witness identified him and ballistic testing linked recovered bullets to a firearm previously confiscated from him in 2002. He was charged with murder, criminal confinement, and arson. Curtis Ward was charged with criminal confinement, arson, and assisting a criminal; Clarence McGee was also arrested. At an April 2004 trial, Ward testified against Moore and McGee in exchange for reduced charges. Moore was convicted of two counts of murder, criminal confinement, and arson; McGee was convicted of arson, assisting a criminal, and obstruction of justice. On May 5, 2004, Judge Robert Altice sentenced Moore to 120 years in prison. McGee received 10 years. Moore's conviction and sentence were upheld on appeal in May 2005.