02-27-2012, 11:27 PM
what a sordid awful slasher-movie tale! AZ.
![[Image: article-2107221-11F28438000005DC-886_233x423.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/02/27/article-2107221-11F28438000005DC-886_233x423.jpg)
![[Image: article-2107221-11F28244000005DC-802_233x423.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/02/27/article-2107221-11F28244000005DC-802_233x423.jpg)
![[Image: article-2107221-11F273D7000005DC-685_468x347.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/02/27/article-2107221-11F273D7000005DC-685_468x347.jpg)
In 1984, Robert Moormann confessed to smothering his mother while free from prison for a family visit and, standing naked in a hotel room, 'dissecting' her and hacking her body to bloody pieces.
But as his execution Wednesday draws near, the story of one of the most infamous and heinous murders in Arizona history has become even darker and more bizarre.
Moormann's lawyers claim the 63-year-old killer is mentally retarded and has the intellect and emotional capacity of a small child.
Furthermore, they argue, the attack was provoked by years of sexual abuse by his mother Maude Moormann -- even while he was in prison.
Prosecutors say before Robert Moormann dismembered his mother's body, he tied her to the bed in the Blue Mist Motel in Florence, Arizona, and beat her. He then suffocated her with a pillow.
Moormann was free from prison on a 72-hour furlough -- given to inmates some to see family members or for conjugal visits.
He was serving time for kidnapping a neighbor girl, 8, and trying to take her to Las Vegas in 1972. Along the way, he sexually abused her several times in dusty motels along the way.
Prosecutors say he wanted to abduct and rape the girl's mother, but lost his nerve and took the child instead, according to the Arizona Republic.
A jury convicted him of premeditated, unprovoked murder.
But Moormann's lawyers tell another story. They say his mother, the widow of a well-known businessman from Flagstaff, had been sexually abusing him for years -- forcing him to perform sex acts on her.
Maude was actually Moormann's adoptive mother. His biological mother, a 15-year-old hard-drinking prostitute, died in a car crash when she was 17.
They claim it was in the midst of a performing a sex act on his mother, age 72, that Moormann put a pillow over her face to keep her quiet.
Once she was dead, he went about meticulously trying to dispose of her body.
He put her body on the table of the motel and cut it to pieces.
He then carried the pieces to dumpsters around the town and disposed of them.
He was caught when he arrived at a local pizzeria and asked if he could dump 'cow guts' in the trash bin behind the business. The suspicious owner called the police.
He also stripped some of his mother's bones of their flesh and packed them in a box. He gave the box to a prison employee and said they were spoiled meat bones for the prison guard dogs.
The crime-scene photos are ghastly: Maude's head being lifted out of a garbage bag, her feet lying on a table like cobbler's forms, her bones in a bloody box.
All of this, the lawyers said, was the result of Moormann's severely diminished mental capacity.
His psychologists, and even fellow prison inmates, have testified that beneath his gruff voice, bald head and over-sized glasses, Moormann has the mental capacity of a small child and still maintains an infantile affect and demeanor.
Moormann's lawyers also cited his difficult early childhood in their defense of the killing.
His mother gave birth to him June 4, 1948 at the age of 15. His father soon abandoned him. At 17, his mother, an alcoholic and a prostitute, broke her neck in a car crash and died.
Moormann was passed to his grandparents, though he was soon removed to foster car because his grandfather was an uncontrollable alcoholic.
He passed in and out of foster homes before being adopted at age 2 by Henry and Maude Moormann.
Henry was reticent about adopting the child, but Maude's maternal instinct won over and the couple took him in.
The Moormanns were well-known in Flagstaff. Henry ran a taxi service in town.
But early on, family members told the Arizona Daily Sun, they saw trouble in Robert.
He was classified as mentally retarded in school and given special education classes.
When he was 13 he was committed to a state mental hospital after he shot his mother with a .22-caliber rifle.
Moormann claims he was simply taking the gun out to show it to his mother and that it fired accidentally. Family members aren't so sure that was the case.
When Henry Moormann died in 1967, Maude clung to her adopted son.
In 1972 at age 24, Robert Moormann kidnapped an eight-year-old neighbor girl.
Court testimony indicated he might have been more interested in the child's mother -- whom he wanted to rape -- but lost his nerve and snatched the girl from school.
Prosecutors alleged that he sexually abused the child as he carted her off to Las Vegas. However, he was never convicted of that.
Even after Moormann was convicted, Maude, now elderly, visited her son -- taking a bus more than three and a half hours from Flagstaff -- three times.
It was on her third visit that Moormann murdered her in the hotel room where they were staying.
It's a crime that still haunts her relatives -- even 27 years later.
Rex Gilliand, a distant relative of Maude, who knew Robert Moormann briefly, said the convicted murderer was a 'throwaway' child who never got the attention from most of the people in his life that other kids receive.
Maude was the only exception.
'The one person in the whole world who loved him unconditionally, he kills brutally,' Mr Gilliland told the Daily Sun.
In 1984, Robert Moormann confessed to smothering his mother while free from prison for a family visit and, standing naked in a hotel room, 'dissecting' her and hacking her body to bloody pieces.
But as his execution Wednesday draws near, the story of one of the most infamous and heinous murders in Arizona history has become even darker and more bizarre.
Moormann's lawyers claim the 63-year-old killer is mentally retarded and has the intellect and emotional capacity of a small child.
Furthermore, they argue, the attack was provoked by years of sexual abuse by his mother Maude Moormann -- even while he was in prison.
Prosecutors say before Robert Moormann dismembered his mother's body, he tied her to the bed in the Blue Mist Motel in Florence, Arizona, and beat her. He then suffocated her with a pillow.
Moormann was free from prison on a 72-hour furlough -- given to inmates some to see family members or for conjugal visits.
He was serving time for kidnapping a neighbor girl, 8, and trying to take her to Las Vegas in 1972. Along the way, he sexually abused her several times in dusty motels along the way.
Prosecutors say he wanted to abduct and rape the girl's mother, but lost his nerve and took the child instead, according to the Arizona Republic.
A jury convicted him of premeditated, unprovoked murder.
But Moormann's lawyers tell another story. They say his mother, the widow of a well-known businessman from Flagstaff, had been sexually abusing him for years -- forcing him to perform sex acts on her.
Maude was actually Moormann's adoptive mother. His biological mother, a 15-year-old hard-drinking prostitute, died in a car crash when she was 17.
They claim it was in the midst of a performing a sex act on his mother, age 72, that Moormann put a pillow over her face to keep her quiet.
Once she was dead, he went about meticulously trying to dispose of her body.
He put her body on the table of the motel and cut it to pieces.
He then carried the pieces to dumpsters around the town and disposed of them.
He was caught when he arrived at a local pizzeria and asked if he could dump 'cow guts' in the trash bin behind the business. The suspicious owner called the police.
He also stripped some of his mother's bones of their flesh and packed them in a box. He gave the box to a prison employee and said they were spoiled meat bones for the prison guard dogs.
The crime-scene photos are ghastly: Maude's head being lifted out of a garbage bag, her feet lying on a table like cobbler's forms, her bones in a bloody box.
All of this, the lawyers said, was the result of Moormann's severely diminished mental capacity.
His psychologists, and even fellow prison inmates, have testified that beneath his gruff voice, bald head and over-sized glasses, Moormann has the mental capacity of a small child and still maintains an infantile affect and demeanor.
Moormann's lawyers also cited his difficult early childhood in their defense of the killing.
His mother gave birth to him June 4, 1948 at the age of 15. His father soon abandoned him. At 17, his mother, an alcoholic and a prostitute, broke her neck in a car crash and died.
Moormann was passed to his grandparents, though he was soon removed to foster car because his grandfather was an uncontrollable alcoholic.
He passed in and out of foster homes before being adopted at age 2 by Henry and Maude Moormann.
Henry was reticent about adopting the child, but Maude's maternal instinct won over and the couple took him in.
The Moormanns were well-known in Flagstaff. Henry ran a taxi service in town.
But early on, family members told the Arizona Daily Sun, they saw trouble in Robert.
He was classified as mentally retarded in school and given special education classes.
When he was 13 he was committed to a state mental hospital after he shot his mother with a .22-caliber rifle.
Moormann claims he was simply taking the gun out to show it to his mother and that it fired accidentally. Family members aren't so sure that was the case.
When Henry Moormann died in 1967, Maude clung to her adopted son.
In 1972 at age 24, Robert Moormann kidnapped an eight-year-old neighbor girl.
Court testimony indicated he might have been more interested in the child's mother -- whom he wanted to rape -- but lost his nerve and snatched the girl from school.
Prosecutors alleged that he sexually abused the child as he carted her off to Las Vegas. However, he was never convicted of that.
Even after Moormann was convicted, Maude, now elderly, visited her son -- taking a bus more than three and a half hours from Flagstaff -- three times.
It was on her third visit that Moormann murdered her in the hotel room where they were staying.
It's a crime that still haunts her relatives -- even 27 years later.
Rex Gilliand, a distant relative of Maude, who knew Robert Moormann briefly, said the convicted murderer was a 'throwaway' child who never got the attention from most of the people in his life that other kids receive.
Maude was the only exception.
'The one person in the whole world who loved him unconditionally, he kills brutally,' Mr Gilliland told the Daily Sun.