A 26-year-old man who violently attacked and raped an 80-year-old Kirkland woman at her Juanita home was sentenced today to a minimum of 22-and-a-half years in prison.
King County Superior Court Judge Mariane Spearman sentenced Moses Kelly for two counts of first-degree rape and one count of first-degree burglary that Moses committed in the cities of Kirkland and Bellingham in 2012.
Kelly pleaded guilty on Aug. 16 to the three counts and was charged with the October 25, 2012 rape of an 80-year-old woman that occurred in Kirkland’s Juanita neighborhood.
The Washington State Patrol Crime Lab positively matched DNA taken from both crime scenes to Kelly’s DNA.
A $1 million warrant was issued for Kelly and he was taken into custody with the assistance of the Redmond Police Department on December 26, 2012.
Kelly has remained in custody since his arrest.
Detectives believe Kelly was transient and his residence was unknown. They located him near a gas station in Redmond and took him into custody on Kirkland’s felony warrant.
According to the police report, the 90-pound woman who is small in stature returned home on a Metro bus from a visit to Seattle on Oct. 25, 2012. When she got to her Kirkland home, she went to close her front doors and saw the suspect swiftly walking towards her and assumed he might be a salesmen.
However, Kelly forced open her doors before she could lock them, “grabbed her by the throat/mouth area, choking her as he did so and forced her backwards into her residence,” according to the police report.
In her request for bail to be set, Lisa Johnson, the senior deputy prosecuting attorney, said during the course of the sexual assault the defendant allegedly “wrapped his hands around the frail and elderly victim’s throat, choked her with his hands and threatened to kill her if she didn’t keep quiet.”
However, despite the woman’s age, she fought back, bit the man’s hand and the defendant responded by biting her, said Johnson.
“Close to losing consciousness and unable to breathe, there were moments that [the victim] was convinced she was going to die,” the prosecutor continued.
The suspect conversed with the victim during the assault and he told her he is currently homeless and had recently broken up with his girlfriend, according to charging documents.
When she asked him why he was raping her, he said, “I need sex,” the documents continue.
After the sexual assault, Kelly left and the woman called her husband who took her to the Group Health Urgent Care Center in Bellevue. She was later transported and treated at Harborview Medical Center.
Kelly has no criminal felony convictions, but his criminal history consists of two convictions for criminal trespass in 2008 and 2011 and additional convictions for malicious mischief and fourth-degree assault.
