While serving a sentence of nine years to life at the Arizona State Prison in Florence, Moorman was given a 72-hour compassionate furlough to visit with his mother. The two stayed at the Blue Mist Motel in Florence.
On January 13, 1984, Moorman bound and gagged his mother and then strangled and stabbed her. Moorman chopped the body into many parts and disposed of them in dumpsters throughout Florence.
