One of two men charged in the abduction and killing of a woman who was working the night shift at a Palmdale gas station more than three decades ago has pleaded guilty in connection with her death and two other murders in the 1970s, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday.
Terry Moses, 60, is facing three life prison terms without the possibility of parole in connection with his guilty plea last Thursday to the Dec. 3, 1978 murder of Leslie Long and the Aug. 22, 1976 murders of Carlton Goodwin and Michael Fuqua. He also pleaded guilty to an attempted murder in December 1996.
Moses admitted the special circumstance allegations of murder during a robbery, murder during a kidnapping and murder during a rape, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Co-defendant Neal Antoine Matthews, 58, of Lancaster, is awaiting arraignment Feb. 17 in Lancaster on a murder charge stemming from Long’s killing. Prosecutors will decide later whether to seek the death penalty against Matthews, who is facing the same special circumstance allegations that were filed against Moses.
Moses was serving a 25-year-to-life state prison sentence on an unrelated case when the two were charged last May in the attack on Long, a 20- year-old married mother of three who was working the night shift at what was then a Chevron gas station on the corner of Palmdale Boulevard and Division Street.
Authorities said earlier that robbers took money from a floor safe and kidnapped her at gunpoint.
Long’s body was found three days later at the base of a small hill just off the Antelope Valley (14) Freeway at Soledad Canyon Road in Acton, eight miles from the gas station. She had been sexually assaulted and shot, authorities said.
DNA evidence ties both men to the killing, Deputy District Attorney Tannaz Mokayef said last year after the charges were filed.
— Wire reports