A Gwinnett County man has finally been charged with murder in a case that happened seven years ago. Investigators have been working to formally charge the man who has been the sole suspect all along. Jeffrey Moulder, of Lawrenceville, is accused of strangling another Gwinnett County man after they went out for a beer.
According to the Gwinnett County District Attorney, Moulder was charged last week on three counts of malice murder and two counts of felony murder in the death of Samuel Waters. Moulder was already in jail for attempting to choke his wife to death earlier this month.
On the night of Jan. 4, 2015, Moulder is suspected of choking the victim unconscious and then suffocating him with a plastic bag. The two men had fathered children with the same woman and appear to have had some dispute over the former girlfriend.
The Associated Press says that “half a dozen witnesses told investigators that Moulder admitted to strangling Waters and taking his body to a house on Lake Lanier.” Reports say that Moulder took the body to his Buford lake house and attempted to burn the body. When it didn’t burn fast enough, he cut the body up and buried it in Hall County. It does not appear that the body was ever found, although the Gwinnett Daily Post reported at the time that police took away a “burn barrel and the contents thereof.”
Later that night, he is said to have called his ex-wife distraught and suicidal, saying she should be “grateful” for what he had done for her.
Shortly after Waters went missing, Moulder was questioned. He told police he had dropped Waters off on the side of the road after they went for a beer. He was arrested four years after the murder for lying to the Lawrenceville Police Department about the events of that night. He changed his stories several times about what happened so he was charged with seven counts of making false statements. They were not able to charge him with murder at that time.
