Nearly 50-year-old cold case cracked; TPD arrests man in clerk's 1976 murder

The Tallahassee Police Department has made an arrest in a cold case dating back to nearly half a century.

James Dudley Jr. faces a first degree murder charge under a sealed indictment. As the indictment remains sealed, prosecutors were unable to share additional details of how law enforcement cracked the cold case. However, they confirmed the victim in the 1976 murder was Richard Stanley Moore.

With the indictment sealed, it is not clear how investigators connected Dudley to Moore's broad daylight murder.

The 68-year-old clerk at Sasser’s Beer City on Basin Street was killed in December 1976, according to the Tallahassee Democrat archives. He was shot once in the head with a .22 caliber pistol during a robbery and was left to die in beer cooler. A $1,000 reward was offered for information at the time, but the crime has remained a mystery.

Moore was remembered as a father, a husband, a friend, and a cooker of hamburgers on a backroom hot plate to provide lunch for the neighborhood and the needy.

"The kindest man you'd ever want to meet . . .there was nothing he wouldn't do for you," one of his friends told the Democrat in a Dec. 30, 1976 front page story.

Tallahasseeans knew Moore as the former owner of the Tempo, a pizza parlor where warmth and kindness were items on his menu. They were free of charge. In the early 1970s, Moore and his wife sold the Tempo and he later became clerk of the small food and beer store owned by Max Sasser.

He was a friend to every customer, said an employee of a neighboring store. He was also her friend, and knew most of the policemen who worked round-the-clock Wednesday to locate his murderer.

"He was an old Tallahassee man. He knew everybody, and he didn't know any strangers," said TPD Sgt. Ben Rozar at the time. As Rozar directed questioning of residents in the neighborhood adjoining Beer City, he recalled the time Moore took a hungry 12-year-old customer to a local restaurant and bought him a meal.

Moore was the only fatality in a four-month series of armed robberies in 1976 that plagued local businesses and sent police on a countywide search for suspects.

The day of the murder

Excerpts from the Democrat's story the day after the murder described the early investigation.

At 11:20 a.m., a customer found the store empty and telephoned police. The police arrived and found Moore face down in the walk-in beer cooler at the back of the store. He had been shot once in the back of the head with a .22 caliber pistol and was transported to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, where he later died.

"We believe it happened around 11 a.m.," said Rozar. "We know he was all right at 10:45."

Rozar said people outside spotted a man leaving the store about that time and described him as being in his early 20's, black, with a brown knit cap.

"We have reason to suspect he (Moore) could have identified the man who robbed him Wednesday," said TPD spokesman Carl Swanson. "That's probably why he was shot."

Indeed, Moore had recently told friends he knew the identities of the men who had earlier robbed him.

"This time I'll be ready for them," he reportedly said.

The man who surprised Moore stole a small amount of cash, shot him, and apparently drove his car to Alabama Street, where it was later found by police. A team of search dogs led police from the car to a house on Woodward Street, where they took one man into custody who matched the description of people who spotted the robber near the store. The man was later released.

How James Dudley was arrested

Flash forward 47 years later: On Thursday, State Attorney Jack Campbell issued an order calling for Dudley's arrest. The order was put out to sheriff's offices throughout Florida. But he was arrested close to home.

A member of TPD's fugitive task force located Dudley Jr. Friday outside the Kearney Center homeless shelter.

"Dudley Jr. was taken into custody without incident and searched," court records state. "No contraband was located during the search."

He was transported to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement headquarters to be questioned.

At his first public appearance in Leon County Court Saturday morning, a public defender was appointed to him. A judge also determined there would be no bond in the case.

Dudley has a long criminal record dating back to 1992, including drug and armed robbery charges as well as an aggravated assault with a deadly weapons charge.

William Hatfield is the editor of the Democrat. Reach him at whatfield@tallahassee.com

This is a developing story check back for updates as records become available.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee cold case cracked: Police arrest man in 1976 murder