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Moore

ELKINS – A Clay County man currently serving a sentence at the Huttonsville Correctional Center for manslaughter and weapons offenses took a plea deal in Randolph County District Court this week and was immediately sentenced for a violent incident involving another inmate.

Cody Brooke Moore, 36, of Ivydale pleaded guilty to first-degree assault. Moore is accused of planning an attack on a fellow inmate with two other Huttonsville inmates, one of whom possessed an improvised weapon. The trial was presided over by District Court Judge David Wilmoth.

Moore was initially charged with one count of malicious wounding, one count of conspiracy, one count of criminal conduct committed by an inmate and one count of inmate conspiracy – all felonies. Those charges were dropped in exchange for the deal.

Randolph County Assistant Prosecutor Richard Shryock said on October 30, 2023, that Moore, along with Joshua Emery Greene and Dakota Lee Heckert, attacked another inmate. One of the co-defendants had a “homemade weapon”, It was a lock attached to a belt.

Shryock said the video shows each of the three men striking the victim multiple times, with Moore punching and kicking the victim while he was on the ground. The victim suffered multiple cuts to his head, lacerations to his jaw and other minor injuries. The fight was broken up by correctional officers.

“The video shows, Your Honor, that this was a coordinated attack,” Shryock told Wilmoth.

However, Moore said he was the only aggressor in a fight with the other inmate, after which the scuffle escalated and both men ended up on the floor. Moore claims he stood up when he saw a group surrounding them and was dragged into another room by a correctional officer. He stated he did not know the other two men were going to attack the victim.

“However, I was the original attacker, so I decided to accept the confession,” Moore told Wilmoth. “I was wrong.”

Moore's attorney, Tyler Resetter, requested on Moore's behalf that sentencing be held that same day rather than at a later date, thereby waiving his right to a pre-sentence hearing.

Wilmoth ruled that Moore must serve one to five years consecutively with his current conviction. Moore is currently serving a 15-year sentence for manslaughter and a 10-year sentence for using or displaying a firearm during the commission of a felony, both of which also run consecutively, for the 2020 shooting death of Benjamin Laughlin.

Laughlin, a four-time Little Kanawha Conference wrestling championship winner at Calhoun High School, was found by state police with multiple gunshot wounds in his home after receiving a call from a woman who said someone had been shot at her son's apartment.

According to the indictment, a witness identified Moore as the shooter and said he was driving an extended-cab pickup truck. Clay County officials found a vehicle matching the description in the Hansford Fork area and arrested Moore.