48 years after a 28-year-old Washington, D.C. man was found unresponsive and beaten at a construction site off Highway 301, the Charles County Sheriff's Office is once again asking the public for help solving his killing. Frank Moore was discovered on November 5, 1978, with trauma to his upper body, at a site that has since become the Charleston Senior Community. His death remains the county's oldest unsolved homicide.
The renewed appeal came as a cold case post from the Charles County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday, detailing what little is publicly known about the case. According to the sheriff's office, citizens contacted authorities at approximately 10 a.m. that day in 1978 about an unresponsive individual at the site, which sat off the southbound lanes of Highway 301. Moore was later transported to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which ruled his death a homicide, according to The BayNet.
A Reward, With Conflicting Figures Over the Years
The sheriff's office post states that Charles County Crime Solvers and the CCSO are offering a combined cash reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest of the suspect or suspects. That figure differs from a 2024 account, in which the Southern Maryland Chronicle reported the agencies were offering up to $5,000 for tips leading to an arrest or formal charges in the case — the dossier does not clarify which figure currently applies.
Tips can be submitted to Crime Solvers by phone, online, or through a mobile app, the BayNet's report notes. To remain anonymous and potentially qualify for a cash reward, tips must go through the Crime Solvers tip line rather than directly to detectives, per the same outlet's reporting.
Open Case or Closed?
Accounts of the case's status have also varied. A 2024 Southern Maryland Chronicle article stated the case remained open, with detectives actively seeking information that could lead to an arrest or indictment. But an October 2025 piece from the same outlet reported that the county's Cold Case Unit had closed the 1978 bludgeoning of Frank Moore, though details remained sealed pending trial.
Even the victim's name has appeared inconsistently in coverage: the BayNet's article text refers to him throughout as Frank Moore, though the page's title references a “James Moore” — a discrepancy the available reporting does not explain.
One of Many Decades-Old Cases in the County
The Charles County Sheriff's Office says its Cold Case Unit investigates unsolved homicides, rapes, and other serious crimes, with detectives working the cases outside their regular assignments using grant funding, according to the agency's own description of the unit. A 2025 Southern Maryland Chronicle report found that Charles County detectives had solved 94 percent of 88 killings between 1975 and 1994.
Moore's case sits alongside other long-unsolved Charles County killings that have drawn renewed public appeals. In 2003, Lamon Wright was shot and killed as she was about to enter her townhouse in Waldorf, and authorities later offered a combined reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest, according to FOX 5 DC. The Southern Maryland Chronicle's October 2025 reporting also referenced the 1995 killing of Sterling Emmanuel Settle Jr., whose body was found on a logging road in Brandywine, as another case that has lingered for decades without resolution.
Anyone with information about Frank Moore's death is asked to contact Charles County Crime Solvers at 1-866-411-TIPS, online at www.charlescountycrimesolvers.com, or through the P3Intel mobile app, listed in app stores as P3Tips.
