LR man admits to killing cousin

He gets 50-year term; victim a longtime school worker

A Little Rock man arrested with his slain cousin's ring in his pocket admitted Monday to killing the woman, a beloved elementary school cafeteria worker, and accepted a 50-year prison sentence.

Almost three months after 56-year-old Debbie Jean Moore-Bush was found stabbed to death in her Tatum Street home, Joe Louis Wicker pleaded guilty before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson to first-degree murder, reduced from capital murder, said senior deputy prosecutor Marianne Satterfield.

Wicker, who turned 41 last week, will have to serve at least 35 years before he can qualify for parole.

Bush was a mother of three with seven grandchildren who was survived by her parents and six of her eight siblings. She worked for the Little Rock School District for more than 30 years.

Her body was found April 15 after she did not show up for work at Wilson Elementary, and a concerned co-worker went to check on her. Her TV and gold jewelry had been taken, police said.

Bush's 2002 Cadillac DeVille was missing, but police found the vehicle about 11 hours later in the 7600 block of Morris Drive, roughly 7 miles from her home.

That was about two blocks from where Wicker had been staying, according to arrest reports. Three days after Bush's body was found, police arrested Wicker, acting on a tip that he had been seen driving her car on Longcoy Street and trying to sell a TV and gold bracelet.

During questioning, detectives noticed that the shoes he was wearing appeared to match bloody shoe prints police found in the home. He was charged after police found a ring in his front pocket that Bush's relatives said had belonged to her.

Wicker told police he had gone to Bush's home late in the night before her body was found but that when she didn't answer her door after he knocked, he went to a Longcoy Street residence about a block away and spent the night.

He said he found her car with the key inside at the intersection of John Barrow Road and West 40th Street the next morning and drove it to the Morris Drive residence where he parked it, according to police reports.

In a statement after Bush's body was found, school Superintendent Dexter Suggs described her as a "beloved" member of the Wilson Elementary family.

Her older sister, Brenda Moore, who died in August 2000, had also worked at Wilson Elementary. Their mother, Hattie Moore, retired from the school district.

Metro on 07/08/2014

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