Thursday, July 3, 2003 | 11:31 a.m.
Linda Moore says her son's bad timing cost him his life.
Moore's 17-year-old son, Jason, was visiting friends in Las Vegas when he and two other young men were shot to death in a feud police called a drug deal gone bad.
But Moore claims the teen was an innocent bystander who found himself in the middle of a dispute that he had nothing to do with.
"He was at the wrong place at the wrong time," she said Wednesday by telephone from her Hesperia, Calif., home. "That was always my fear, because Jason just wasn't that kind of kid."
As Moore tried to piece together the details of her son's slaying, the man charged with the killing, Glenford Anthony Budd, also known as "A.I.," was getting his case under way in District Court.
During his arraignment Wednesday before District Judge Nancy Saitta, Budd, 20, pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder in the triple shooting that killed Moore, Da'jon Jones, 13, and Derrick Jones, 23. None of the victims was related.
"It's ridiculous," Moore said of Budd's not guilty plea. "How could you live with yourself knowing that you took three lives? The law may say they were men, but they were kids."
Budd's public defender, Howard Brooks, could not be reached for comment this morning.
During the hearing, prosecutor Taleen Pandukht told Saitta that prosecutors would soon know whether they would seek the death penalty against Budd.
"The state is going to take the case to the (death penalty review) committee within the next week or two," she said.
But Moore, a high school teacher, said she does not know if death is the appropriate sentence for the man authorities say killed her son.
"I don't believe in the death penalty," she said. "My hope is for him to be put away for life. I pray for Jason to get justice."
Authorities claim Budd open fired on the boys at the Saratoga Palms II Apartment complex at 2895 E. Charleston Blvd., near Fremont Street.
During Budd's preliminary hearing in Justice Court, a former neighbor said she saw Budd shoot Moore on an apartment patio after several shots rang out from inside the apartment.
Budd, who maintains his innocence, told police that on the day of the slayings he had approached the victims about a missing half-pound of marijuana.
Another witness said Budd had argued with Derrick Jones about the missing drugs while the four played basketball hours before the shooting and that Budd had also argued with Jason Moore over a foul shot.
"That is unbelievable," Moore said. "Over a basketball game? You take someone's life over some nonsense like that?"
If a dispute over drugs did precipitate the slayings, Moore said, she is confident her son wasn't involved. A coroner's report showed Jason Moore was shot three times in the back.
"My son wasn't in that mess," she said. "Jason was just there."
Moore said Jason had moved out of his family's home in February, saying he wanted to live on his own and had joined the Navy for a brief period of time.
One of Jason Moore's friends in Hesperia was related to Da'jon Jones, she said, but she did not know any of the other victims.
Moore's husband, truck driver Earl Moore, said Jason was a shy follower who wanted to be accepted by other teens his age.
"He wasn't a leader," he said. "He was a quiet, unassuming boy. Jason was a good son. He didn't deserve this."
Moore said her son excelled in athletics as a child and played high school football.
"He was a typical boy," she said. "He was very good athletically. But he was very quiet and shy. You had to make him talk. That's just how he was."
Moore said she hadn't talked to her son in the days before the killing and that she didn't even know he was in Las Vegas, which is about 200 miles from Hesperia.
Jason Moore had been in Las Vegas about a week when the shootings occurred, she said.
Moore, who has three other daughters, ages 22, 14 and 12, said her son's death has devastated the family.
"It's torn the family apart," she said. "This thing has wrought havoc in our lives. Things will never be the same again."
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