In a chilling echo of past misdeeds, a convicted sex offender, walking the streets on parole, was nabbed for the alleged sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl, an atrocity unveiled by the Bexar County Sheriff's Office. Marquise Anton Moore, 34, who barely tasted freedom for two months after a previous stint behind bars for a similar crime, was arrested posthaste, the nightmare unraveling at a residence in east Bexar County early in the morning as Sheriff Javier Salazar dug through records of an all-too-familiar past for Moore, according to KENS 5.
The suspect, whose criminal résumé boasts more than a dozen arrests in Bexar County, plunged into an alleged attempt to silence witnesses by commandeering cell phones, then reportedly swallowed a cocktail of sleeping pills, a potential suicide attempt that fizzled as the accused drifted into unconsciousness. These harrowing details surfaced when an occupant of the house seized the moment of Moore's slumber to alert the police, as per Sheriff Salazar's grim recount. He subsequently found himself booked into the Bexar County Jail on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
"Here's a guy that hasn't even been in the free world for two months, and he's already reoffending," Sheriff Salazar remarked in a despondent tone, suggesting that while hope clings to the notion of redemption, the patterns of one's past may yet betoken the tempests of their future. "I also tend to think that a good predictor of future behavior is past behavior," he mused over Moore's rapid return to criminality. This sentiment echoes across the shattered peace of a community grappling with the perpetual cycle of violence against its youngest and most vulnerable—a cycle befitting condemnation, as voiced in Salazar's heated disclosures from the perp walk streamed via the Bexar County Sheriff's Office.
Moore's arrest drums up the outrage of a community still reeling from the bitter shallows of justice. The mother of an earlier victim, enraged at another child's innocence lost, let her fury be known, as she was quoted: "When do kids begin to matter?" Her daughter, at 7, bore the brunt of a predator's advances, and even now, after four grueling years awaiting the facility of justice, finds herself echoing the piercing outcry of a 12-year-old who believes the system has faltered in its crusade to "protect us kids." A sentiment that finds no solace but in the confrontation of those who she feels "suck" at their court-appointed duties to shield her and her peers from such egregious harm, according to KENS 5.
Meanwhile, the Bexar County District Attorney's Office, rekindled their fervent opposition to such vile acts, with First Assistant Criminal District Attorney Christian Henricksen expressing a vehement condemnation of premature releases of registered sex offenders. "Those who abuse our children should serve every day of their sentence," Henricksen declared, voicing the office's dedication to prosecuting such cases with unyielding gravity, all within the scope of law and evidence at hand, per KENS 5.
