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LONG BEACH - A 39-year-old parolee convicted 20 years ago of violently raping elderly women was sentenced to more than 100 years behind bars Thursday for an attack with an eerily similar method.
Ernest C. Moore was 19 when he was convicted in the bloody attacks on two older Asian women, one 66 and the other 84, in Los Angeles in 1989.
Both women were watched as they gardened in their yards in the same neighborhood, which included mostly Asian families. Both women had their heads covered and were bound with household items and held at knife-point before both were raped and one was sodomized.
Moore was also found guilty of an attempted assault on an older white woman who was married to an Asian man and who lived in the same largely Asian neighborhood at that time.
His 1989 conviction included multiple violent felonies for which he was sentenced to 32 years in state prison.
But Moore was paroled in 2005 after only 15 years for good behavior. Within 10 months of his release from prison, Moore was back to his old and violent ways when he attacked a 59-year-old Asian woman at the Gardena home of her deceased parents on April 6, 2006, said Deputy District Attorney Carol Rose.
Eiko Stewart was tending the garden at her parents' home that she and her husband were getting ready to sell before she went inside to get the mail. She had no idea Moore had already crept inside through the open garage door.
It was when Stewart
"He told her was going to kill her, that he was serious, and he cut her throat," Rose said.
Moore ordered Stewart, who was on her knees, to lay facedown on the floor with her hands at her sides as he had done to his 1989 victims.
While he walked away to get an extension cord in the back bedroom
Stewart's pleas drew the attention of some teachers at an elementary school across the street. She committed the license plate number of Moore's silver Honda to memory and some of the teachers remembered portions of the plate and the car as well.
Although Stewart not raped, she testified in Moore's trial that she believed Moore planned to sexually assault her and kill her that day.
Considering Moore used the exact same methods with Stewart that he used on his victims 20 years ago, the prosecutor said, Stewart was right.
"He was caught four days later by Sgt. Patrick Such in Torrance after the sergeant saw him standing in the yard of an elderly Asian woman and staring at her while she was gardening," Rose said.
"The sergeant knew something was wrong and ran (Moore's) license plate. (Stewart's incident) came up," Rose said. "If she hadn't memorized his plate, God knows how many more victims we would have."
The jury agreed and convicted the now 39-year-old rapist of six felonies, including residential burglary, assault with intent to comment rape, sodomy or oral copulation, criminal threats, attempted robbery and assault with a deadly weapon, bringing his current number of strikable offenses to 11.
Moore's attorney, Greg Lesser, argued Tuesday that his client's prior crimes should not have been included in the trial and that a mistrial should be declared. The lawyer also asked that all but one of Moore's previous strikes be waived, given the amount of time that had passed between his 1989 crimes and the current case. Lesser also cited his client's stellar behavior while he has been in county jail for the last three years.
Long Beach Superior Court Judge Gary Ferrari was not swayed and told Moore that his disgusting crimes proved he was the true definition of a sexual predator.
"Mr. Moore, if there was ever anybody who deserved 105 years in the Department of Corrections it is you, unequivocally it is you," Ferrari said.
The judge wasn't the only one with choice words for Moore.
Stewart pleaded with the court to ensure the convicted rapist will never be released from prison again. She said the attack left her mentally scarred, causing her to stay in her home in fear and making it impossible for her to return to her parents' home for more than a year.
"Had I not been able to escape, Mr. Moore would have done these things, these horrible things that happened to those victims," Stewart said, her voice quaking.
A worse thought, Stewart said, was that Moore could have gone to the house while her mother was still alive.
"That could have been my mother," she said, tears in her eyes. "That would have killed my mother."
Los Angeles Police Department Detective Patricia Guerra, a Harbor Division detective who was the lead investigator on the case, also urged the court to take a hard stand.
"A message needs to be sent to the California State Parole Board," Guerra told the judge. "It is my opinion and my review that this defendant should never have been released."
Both Guerra and Rose said they were stunned when they learned their suspect had been imprisoned for brutally raping two other women and trying to attack a third and yet served only 50 percent of his sentence.
Had the victim in this case not had the strength to get away from her attacker and to copy down his license plate number, both the detective and the prosecutor said, Moore would likely still be at large today.
"When he was caught in 1989 he wrote a confession explaining he had a compulsion. He said he couldn't help it, and he asked for help," Rose said. "Nobody helped him."
The three strikes law, which also includes legislation requiring violent sexual offenders serve 85 percent of their sentence, was not in place at the time of the 1989 attacks, Rose explained.
The state, however, could have insisted Moore be confined to Patton State Hospital for the rest of his life as a violent sexual predator, she added.
Why that did not happen Rose does not know.
"Because of that we almost had two more women raped and sodomized, or who knows how many more women.
"(The original victims) were destroyed by the rapes, they were horribly bloody and violent, one was hospitalized, both of them said they didn't want to go on living, yet he was given half-time and paroled," Rose said. "It brings tears to your eyes."
tracy.manzer@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1261.
