A Northwest Indiana jury acquitted a Chicago man Wednesday night in a deadly 1999 cold case stabbing. The jury deliberated for less than two hours.
Orvall M. McMoore, 58, of Chicago, was charged with 27-year-old Lisa Anderson’s death. She was discovered on Jan. 12, 1999 after her mother hadn’t heard from her.
Decades later, Hobart Police Capt. Nick Wardrip, part of the FBI’s Gang Response Investigative Team, pulled the case off a shelf in 2020 and submitted evidence to a state lab for DNA testing as part of the investigation.
A hit came back under Anderson’s fingernails to McMoore, prosecutors said.
On the stand Wednesday, defense expert Dr. Karl Reich sparred with Deputy Prosecutor Michelle Jatkiewicz, arguing that only one fingernail had DNA that could be definitively tied to McMoore.
Jatkiewicz, with co-counsel Milana Petersen, played a jailhouse call — from McMoore claiming Anderson came over on Jan. 9, 1999 to borrow $20, they “smoked weed” and watched a football game, before she scratched his back.
The prosecutor dismissed it later as a “crazy story” to explain how his DNA was there.
In closing arguments, Jatkiewicz said Anderson fought for her life, leaving behind defensive wounds, McMoore’s DNA and a bloody scene.
Defense lawyer Matt LaTulip piled up a large number of brown evidence bags on a table, before saying nothing other than a partial DNA hit on one fingernail tied McMoore to Anderson.
There was no evidence he was in her apartment, he argued.
There was no sexual assault, lawyers said. Nothing from a rape kit came back to McMoore.
Nearly a dozen DNA profiles were recovered — including Ivan Gregory, a former boyfriend, on her comforter, and Jackie Green, her liquor store boss on the hip of her jeans. Gregory was ruled out. Green has since died.
Several male DNA profiles were unidentified.
Jatkiewicz counter-argued that McMoore put “himself in her orbit” by making up a story on how his DNA got there.
Gary Police responded in 1999 to Anderson’s apartment at 501 Madison St., Her mother and brother Larry Mitchell found her body after they were let in by a janitor. They last saw her on Saturday, Jan. 9, 1999.
Her mother Johnnie Anderson told cops her daughter was lying on her back in bed and still had a knife sticking out of her neck. She also was stabbed in the face and her hands had stab marks as if she was defending herself.
The mother said she pulled the knife out and laid it on the bed. The Lake County Coroner’s Office later determined Lisa died from stab wounds to her neck and chest. Her death was ruled a homicide.
She was in a bra and nude from the waist down, the affidavit states. One sock was on her left foot, while jeans and her underwear were around her right ankle. She was still wearing a sock and shoe on her right foot.
The apartment was “ransacked.”
An officer wrote there were no signs of forced entry, but a violent scene. Cops found blood splattered all over the apartment, down the hall and in the stairwell.
Drawers were dumped out, a wall was “caved in,” and a chair was broken.
Gary Police told the Post-Tribune in 1999 that neighbors hadn’t had many clues.
Earlier in testimony on Wednesday, Wardrip said he thought the case was promising to investigate because the violent scene was more likely to have DNA to test.
It had never been sent to a lab for testing, he said.
Anderson’s mother and brother had since died.