Wanted Man Strolls Into Sheriff’s Office, Claiming Amnesia

Robert Joseph Moody walked up to a reception desk at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department claiming to suffer from amnesia.

If Moody didn’t know who he was, he quickly found out. He’s a TV celebrity of sorts, a murder suspect featured in December on “America’s Most Wanted.”

Moody appeared Wednesday morning at a personnel office on the first floor of the Sheriff’s headquarters in Santa Ana, saying he was “confused as to his identity,” a sheriff’s spokesman said.

A fingerprint search promptly identified him as the 34-year-old Tucson resident suspected of killing two women in separate incidents in November. He’s being held without bail in the Orange County Jail. In several days or weeks, he may be extradited to Arizona to face murder charges.

The arrest ended a manhunt of almost two months that spanned three states. The first killing occurred Nov. 15 when an acquaintance of Moody’s, 33-year-old Michelle Page Malone, was found shot to death in her Tucson home. The second victim, 56-year-old Patricia Magda, a neighbor of Moody’s, was found beaten to death in her Tucson home about a week later.

Moody stole Magda’s car, which was later recovered at the home of Moody’s former sister-in-law in Yuma, authorities said. Moody then allegedly tied up his former relatives Dec. 20 and stole their car, a gun and cash, said Sgt. Michael Downing, homicide supervisor for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.

“They told us that he said he was going to Mexico,” Pima Detective Mike Ying said. “We knew we’d arrest him eventually, but I never thought it would happen like this.”

By tracing credit card receipts and following tips from viewers of “America’s Most Wanted,” police traced Moody’s path, Downing said. He went from Yuma to Las Vegas to San Diego to Los Angeles, and back to Yuma and Las Vegas. Sheriff’s deputies missed him in each city by a small margin, he said.

Police came closer Jan. 4, when Los Angeles County sheriff’s officers stopped the stolen car in a routine traffic stop in Lennox. The driver told deputies that Moody had loaned him the car, Downing said.

The driver also said Moody had bragged that he had been the subject of a segment of “America’s Most Wanted,” but the driver said he had dismissed Moody’s story as bravado.

At the sheriff’s station in Santa Ana, a spokesman said, Moody told investigators “he didn’t know anything about himself before (Tuesday). He said, ‘You call me Moody, but I don’t know anything about that name.’ ”

An Arizona sheriff’s deputy said Moody was a former financial analyst.

His capture brought relief to Magda’s family in Tucson, who had been living in fear since the killing.

“We’re really glad he’s not going to have the opportunity to do this to anyone else,” said Nancy Royle, the victim’s daughter-in-law.

Royle said she believes her mother-in-law, who had three children and five grandchildren, was killed for her car Nov. 24. The woman’s assailant also stole her wallet, bank card and some money. Royle and her husband found Magda’s body after she had failed to arrive at a Thanksgiving gathering at a relative’s home in Utah.

“It’s sickening,” Royle said. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing.”

Royle said Magda, who worked at a title company, was a “charitable, giving, caring, wonderful person” who would help anyone.

Her caring even extended to Moody, her neighbor. Although Magda did not know Moody well, she would listen with sympathy to his complaints about financial problems and about his daughter living out of state, Royle said.

“She was very kind about speaking to him,” Royle said. “At one point she brought him over some food because she knew he was hungry. She had even mentioned to a friend at work that she felt bad for him.”

Times Staff Writer Mary Lou Pickel contributed to this report.