Editor’s note: Joyce Coronel sat down with a West Chandler couple in an effort to gain insight into a high-profile murder case in which the man accused, a homeless meth addict, recently pleaded guilty.
Don and Ellyn Black, a West Chandler couple, have a unique perspective on the deadly grip of drug addiction and how it fosters criminal behavior.
Don is a retired law enforcement officer and Ellyn is a social worker who often assists clients with substance abuse issues.
Three years ago, a brutal crime at a Phoenix church that left a 28-yearold priest dead and another gravely injured grabbed national headlines. The man accused of the crime, Gary Moran, pleaded guilty last month and will spend the rest of his life in prison.
The night the murder took place, Moran was high on methamphetamines. He had only been out of prison a short time when the attack took place.
“Drug addiction takes away your decision-making capacity,” Ellyn said. “The drugs run your body and your mind—you don’t make logical, rational decisions.”
At his sentencing hearing, Moran’s defense attorney attempted to paint a picture of a man who had not received the psychiatric care he needed for his bipolar disorder and other issues.
“It doesn’t excuse what he did but it helps the parties to understand…Mr. Moran really struggled.”
Prosecutor Patricia Stevens was having none of it. The county attorney’s office had reviewed the ex-con’s records and he had indeed received care, she said.
“He was using meth. He did have a number of prescriptions in his possession when he was arrested,” Stevens said. In other words, Moran was receiving psychiatric care and could have taken medication but instead succumbed to his drug addiction.
“Meth users often become paranoid and the longer they use, the more paranoid they become, Ellyn said.
“It’s the drugs that run your body. They think, ‘How do I get my next fix?’”
Getting that next fix becomes such a desperate search that addicts often turn to crime. Don said that in his experience, the majority of the arrests he conducted dealt with people addicted to drugs. “The crimes they were committing were to support their drug habit,” he said.
He recalled a 19-year-old woman he and his partner observed who looked out of place in a drug-infested area of town. He described her as a normal, healthy-looking person and said it was obvious that she was hoping to buy drugs. Over time, Don said, he watched her tragic descent: dramatic weight loss, the decaying teeth, the lines on her face. The woman eventually became a prostitute to support her drug habit. Within a year, she was HIV positive and had tuberculosis.
As a police officer, Don said it was customary for him to keep track of who was locked up and who had been released in his district.
“Almost a hundred percent of the time, when people were released from jail, they would go right back to the same environment that they were in and the same people that were negative influences on them and start using again,” he said.
“Several times, on the day they were released from jail, we’d catch them again trying to support their habit.”
Even after advising people to stay away from their former companions and neighborhoods, they’d often tell him, “Sir, I just can’t.”
Ellyn said she remembers a client who begged authorities to let him keep his ankle monitor even after his probation had ended.
“He didn’t have the ability to tell his friends no but he could say ‘I can’t do it because I’ve got the monitor on.’”
Substance abuse often goes hand-in-hand with mental illness, Ellyn said. Often, people don’t like how they feel when they’re on medication, so they seek relief in illegal substances. “And then that gets you into a different problem,” she said. “Your body needs it.”
In Moran’s case, he had managed to stay clean and sober for most of the 47 days following his release from prison for an earlier violent crime.
Strung out on meth, he tried breaking into the church where the Rev. Kenneth Walker and Rev. Joseph Terra served a thriving congregation. When Terra went to investigate the ruckus, the deadly encounter began.
Standing in the courtyard near the door where the crime took place, you can hear the birds call to one another.
The blood has been scrubbed away and no signs of the violent encounter remain. Terra has been reassigned to Texas. In an interview with this reporter near the one-year anniversary of the attack that took the life of his fellow priest, Terra said he had forgiven Moran.
“There is forgiveness,” Terra said. “But there is also justice.”
Moran is not eligible for parole but could at a future date seek clemency.
