Simba Mata Moore
Date Found: October 26th, 1985
Location: Bartlesville, Oklahoma
Investigating Agency: Bartlesville Police Department
(918) 338-4001
On October 26th, 1985 the body of 12-year-old Simba Mata Moore was discovered in her Bartlesville home by her brother. She had been killed by a blow to the head and had been severely beaten.
At the time of her death, Simba lived in her home with her mother and her brother, and law enforcement found no reason to suspect either of them in her death; and though Simba had testified earlier in the year in a case involving a man making lewd proposals to children- he was in prison at the time of her murder, leaving law enforcement baffled and with little to go on.
Until 2003, when they announced that they had a suspect in custody for not only Simba’s murder but another unsolved Bartlesville murder, and that they were testing DNA in both cases against the suspects. While he had been a suspect for quite sometime due to statements he had made to other inmates while imprisoned, law enforcement had been unable to locate him.
In September of 2003 the suspect, Leotis Wooten (aka Leotis Hall) was convicted of killing 28 year old Dorthea Stanford. He was never charged in the murder of little Simba Moore.
If you have any information regarding the murder of Simba Mata Moore, please contact the Bartlesville Police Department.