Dad who starved son to death sentenced in ‘horror movie’ case that judge calls worst she’s ever seen
A Milwaukee dad was sentenced to 47 years behind bars for starving his son to death, then leaving his corpse wrapped in blankets – a crime so heinous that a veteran judge called it the worst case she had ever seen.
Romuan J. Moye, 45, allegedly tortured 12-year-old Jacarie Robinson, whose feeble 54-pound body was found with a broken arm and decomposing in a hell house that reeked of feces,
“I don’t understand this at all — it’s unconscionable,” Judge Laura Crivello said in court at his sentencing last week. “In my 30 years, the most vicious and aggravated thing I have ever seen.”
“The offenses [are] stuff of a horror movie.”
Moye pleaded guilty to reckless homicide and other charges stemming from the gruesome death after Jacarie was found dead inside his dad’s North Elmhurst Road home on Oct. 10, 2023, network WTMJ 4 said.
The local medical examiner said Jacarie could have been dead a month before he was discovered.
“He was confined to a living room by his own father,” Deputy District Attorney, Matthew Torbenson said in court. “A person who is supposed to love him, care for him, raise for him, keep him safe, provide for him, slowly tortured him and killed him.”
The house reeked of mold, feces and decay, authorities said in the criminal complaint, and the kitchen was piled up with garbage.
Moye was sentenced to 47 years, with 20 years of extended supervision because of the homicide charge, the station said.
“The conditions inside the house were unlivable,” city police Detective Michael Driscoll . “Human feces, urinating in jugs, the smell, the mold.
“The facts in this case go beyond disturbing,” he continued. “They kind of cut deep into your soul at times.”
The young victim has been remembered as a happy, quiet kid who loved wrestling and TikTok videos, according to his aunt and uncle.
Cops said Moye had custody of the boy, whom he homeschooled. But his other two children were with their mother.
He had no criminal history, but had been accused of neglecting or abusing his other kids at least four other times, the Journal Sentinel said.
The accusations were never substantiated, according to the newsaper.
Moye allegedly had strict rules on when his kids could eat, and he used food as a punishment when they displeased him, authorities said.
The demented dad deemed Jacarie bad because he was hungry — and he could be harsh and violent when he punished the child for “stealing food,” according to the accusations.
“He was beaten, he was choked, he was stomped,” Detective Driscoll said.
The boy’s family got worried in October when they hadn’t seen him for some time, the Journal Sentinel said. Moye had allegedly stopped replying to text messages.
His two siblings had been sent out of the house about two weeks before the little boy’s body was found, but a suspicious older brother went back into the house of horrors — and found the little boy rotting inside the blanket, Fox said.
The victim’s brother, Jay Moye, said in court that the family was shaken by the loss.
“Jacarie was my everything,” Moye said. “My everything. Jacarie was Jacarie, no matter what.”
