A man from Cumming has been convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the 2015 killing of a man in Gwinnett County.
The Gwinnett County District Attorney's Office announced Wednesday that Jeffery Emerson Moulder, age 30, was found guilty Tuesday of malice murder and felony murder in the death of then-21-year-old Samuel Waters.
The DA's office said Moulder lured Waters to a back road in Lawrenceville where he strangled him to death in January 2015. Investigators then said Moulder tried, unsuccessfully, to burn Waters' body before ultimately dismembering the remains and disposing of them at various locations around Lake Lanier.
The jury deliberated for less than two hours before finding Moulder guilty on all charges. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"Samuel Waters' family is able to get justice after 10 long years," Gwinnett County District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson said in a statement Wednesday. "Our goal was to ensure that this family was able to get closure for this tragic loss. This was not an easy case to close because the body was never found. But our team was able to successfully piece together evidence to prove (Moulder's) guilt."
Waters was last seen on January 4, 2015 and was listed as a missing person until 2021, when Moulders allegedly confessed to his second wife that he had killed Waters. After the two divorced, she told Lawrenceville Police, who began an investigation that led to Moulder's arrest in early 2022.
Waters was the father of the first child of Moulder's first wife. Prosecutors said Moulder killed Waters after his wife told Moulder to "get Waters back out of her life" to salvage their marriage.
Investigators were not able to find any of Waters' remains after searching the locations where Moulder said he disposed of them, but cadaver dogs were reportedly able to find "evidence that human remains had once been in one of the burial locations."
