LIHU‘E — Aureo Moore paid the ultimate price on Dec. 17 for being hooked on prescription painkillers. He was murdered in broad daylight near Anahola Beach Park, allegedly on an ambush while waiting to buy prescription pills. Although the legal
LIHU‘E — Aureo Moore paid the ultimate price on Dec. 17 for being hooked on prescription painkillers. He was murdered in broad daylight near Anahola Beach Park, allegedly on an ambush while waiting to buy prescription pills.
Although the legal system may eventually convict a murderer, some experts say the underlying culprit is oxycodone.
Moore, 34, lived on Kaua‘i since he was a toddler until as a young boy he moved to California, were he lived for about five years. During that time he earned the nickname “Cookie” for his love of sugar, said longtime friend Geoff Stepien.
The avid surfer earned his income as a construction worker, but in 2006 a fall from a roof at a job site changed Moore’s life forever.
Moore’s chronic back pain resulting from the accident never went away. The more painkillers he took, the more he needed them, which led to addiction, said his father, Richard Moore.
By the time Aureo Moore was murdered, his Kilauea doctor was prescribing him 160 oxycodone pills and 50 morphine pills each month, according to Richard Moore, who also said attempts from his son’s family and doctor to pull him out of addiction were unsuccessful.
Aureo Moore’s doctor refused comment, citing privacy laws.
But pain and addiction to the pills weren’t Aureo Moore’s only problems the accident caused. Unable to find steady work due to chronic pain, he lived on disability checks and sold some of his medicine illegally to get by, his father said.
A few days before Aureo Moore died, he had ran out of pills, and had asked his doctor for more. Moore’s father said the doctor refused, and told Moore to come back the following week.
In need of his fix, Moore set up a place to buy pills, he said. An acquaintance, Angie Nora Crawford, dropped him off near Anahola Beach Park on the morning of Dec. 17, so he could meet the person who was supposed to sell him the pills, according to Moore’s father.
After Crawford drove off, Moore was shot five times from behind at close range.
The police later arrested two suspects. One of them, Vicente Hilario, 24, of Anahola, had been arrested — and released — a few months prior for being in a get-away car in a shooting robbery in which Moore was robbed of $900 in cash and over 200 pain pills.
The other suspect, David Kawaihalau-Manaku, 25, of Anahola, was released pending investigation after being charged with second-degree murder, and became a key witness in the case.
If Hilario is convicted of his first-degree murder charge, he will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars with no possibility of parole. He has four other charges, including second-degree murder, which allows for parole.
The case is still pending in court. The most recent report was the trial being delayed until early 2012.
