GRAFTON, W.Va (WDTV) – A Preston County woman was arrested Tuesday and accused of murdering her 82-year-old mother with insulin in 2023.
Kelly Moore, 61, of Arthurdale, was living with her mother, Ethel Moore, 82, in Grafton in May of 2023 when she injected her with 20 units of her own, personal insulin, which resulted in her death, according to the Grafton Police Department.
Police responded to a cardiac arrest call at 40 Howard Street in Grafton on May 25th, 2023 at approximately 11:50 p.m. and found Ethel dead. Kelly told police that Ethel’s blood sugar was 250, so she gave her 20 units of her own insulin, which Ethel was not prescribed.
Kelly seemed angry and annoyed and told police that Ethel, who recently had a full hip replacement, had been feeling bad for a couple days and that her blood sugar was really high. She said that her mother had heart problems, arthritis all over, dementia and had “all kinds of s— wrong with her,” court documents say. When Kelly mentioned the dementia, she seemed very annoyed and said that’s “why I’m her with her,” police said.
Police said Kelly had been living with Ethel a little over a year prior to the incident. She told police that she lived in Arthurdale previously but that she was the only one not married, so she “got elected” to stay with Ethel because there “wasn’t anybody else” to do it.
Kelly also said that Ethel had told her other daughter, Sandy, that she “wasn’t doing nothing for her,” so Sandy called from Florida “freaking out” about her not helping her, court documents say.
Ethel weighed about 130 pounds, according to her ID, and Kelly’s listed weight is 275 pounds, police said. However, she injected Ethel with 20 units of insulin in her shoulder while she typically injects herself with 30 in the stomach, court documents say.
An autopsy confirmed that Ethel’s cause of death was insulin shock and the manner of death was homicide, police said.
Police also said Sandy believed Ethel died due to complications from her hip replacement and that Kelly never mentioned anything about injecting their mother with insulin.
Moore is charged with murder and was booked into the Tygart Valley Regional Jail Tuesday with no bond set.
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