A West Virginia woman is facing up to 15 years behind bars after she admitted to killing her elderly mother by injecting her with a dose of insulin the victim was never prescribed.
Kelly Louise Moore, 61, pleaded guilty earlier this month to voluntary manslaughter in the 2023 death of her 81-year-old mother, Ethel Moore. Though she was initially charged with murder, prosecutors accepted a plea deal after concluding the act was not premeditated or malicious.
“It wasn’t done with malice,” Taylor County Prosecutor John Bord told Law&Crime. “She flew into a rage during an argument and gave her mother 20 units of insulin. It put her into shock.”
While both women were diabetic, only Kelly had a prescription for insulin. Prosecutors say that Ethel’s death was the result of a fatal insulin overdose—one that Kelly Moore administered herself during an explosive fight.
According to police reports, the incident happened just before midnight on May 25, 2023. Emergency responders arrived at an apartment in Grafton, West Virginia, and found Ethel Moore dead on a bed in the back room. Her daughter, Kelly, initially claimed she had given her mother insulin because her blood sugar was “really high.”
But her demeanor raised red flags. EMTs and police noted that Kelly seemed annoyed and dismissive of her mother’s health issues, which included dementia, heart problems, and arthritis. She told officers she was the only unmarried sibling and was “elected” to live with her mother and care for her—something she clearly resented.
Kelly reportedly told police, “She had all kinds of s— wrong with her,” and admitted injecting her with 20 units of insulin, despite knowing her mother wasn’t prescribed the drug. One EMT later said to officers, “I think she really killed her.”
The final piece of evidence came in August 2024 when an autopsy confirmed that Ethel Moore died of insulin shock. Her death was officially ruled a homicide.
The situation grew more suspicious when investigators learned Kelly never told her sister about the injection, leading other family members to initially believe Ethel died due to complications from a recent hip surgery.
Despite the grim circumstances, prosecutors feared a jury might return a lighter verdict—perhaps involuntary manslaughter—due to state laws not classifying insulin as a poison.
A sentencing date has not yet been set, but Kelly Moore now faces a potential sentence of three to 15 years in prison. In the meantime, a pre-sentencing investigation is underway.
Ethel Moore, remembered fondly by her family, was a mother of five, a grandmother of six, and a great-grandmother to several more. Her obituary described her as someone who never met a stranger, loved chatting with people at Walmart and McDonald’s, and always gave hugs to everyone she met.
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Author: thedailycrime1
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