Affidavit sheds light on murder of Pembroke woman

The Robbinston woman who has been charged with the murder of Paula Johnson of Pembroke last February pled not guilty to the charge on October 19. Rebecca Moores, 42, who was arrested in July, is being held without bail at the Washington County Jail in Machias.
Following her plea, the police affidavit requesting her arrest was released by the Maine attorney general's office. According to the affidavit by Detective Adam Bell of the Maine State Police, on the evening of February 9 Deputy Matt Carter of the Washington County Sheriff's Office responded to a report of an unattended death at a house on Leighton Point Road and found Johnson, 53, deceased on her couch with blood coming from her right ear and the left side of her head. An autopsy found a bullet hole in her head and indicated that the firearm that shot Johnson was close to her but was not in direct contact.
Officers also found a great deal of drug apparatus at the scene, including needles and lighters. A search of the home found a black bag containing a large amount of cash. According to those interviewed by police, Johnson allegedly sold drugs from her home and had 30 to 40 customers. Reportedly, she had been supplied with drugs by different out-of-state men.
Moores was then interviewed by detectives, but they found she had inconsistent statements about her knowledge of Johnson's death and later changed her story. She also tried to implicate two men from the local area for killing Johnson.
Moores told detectives that she understood that Johnson allegedly had received a large quantity of drugs on February 6. She said she had gone with the two men in her car to Johnson's house on the night of February 7, and she had thought they were going to break Johnson's jaw and rob her and one of them said they had been going around killing heroin dealers. She also alleged that the two men had given Johnson a fatal dose of injected drugs and then one of them had shot her. The toxicology report for Johnson found she had Xanax and a potentially fatal level of fentanyl in her blood.
Contrary to Moores' statements to police, cell phone records indicated that she was at Johnson's home from about 7:30 p.m. on February 7 until just after 8 a.m. on February 8. And video from the Shell gas station on Route 1 in Pembroke, which is about a couple of miles from Johnson's house, showed Moores stopping there with no passengers in her car both at about 7:20 p.m. on February 7 and at about 8:07 a.m. on February 8. Also, Moores texted one of the two men she alleged she was with and he texted her back after 7:30 p.m., which supported that they were not together in her car. In addition, the 9mm/.38 caliber bullet that killed Johnson was similar in design to 9mm cartridges found in Moores' car, and Johnson's DNA was matched to DNA in blood found on a paper towel on the floorboard of Moores' car.
One of the men that Moores alleged had shot Johnson told detectives that he had been staying with Moores in her trailer in Robbinston. He said that Moores had been in a relationship with Johnson, but that had ended some months ago, and now he was in a relationship with Moores. Text messages indicated that Johnson and Moores had had heated exchanges in December about their failed romantic relationship.
The man alleged that Moores would keep him high in her trailer and sometimes tie him up with zip ties when he passed out and sometimes would padlock him in her trailer. Detectives found that he had sent a Facebook message just before 11 p.m. on February 7 that he was locked in the trailer, which supports that he was not at Johnson's house.
Others who spoke with the police alleged that Moores had padlocked the man with whom she was in a relationship in her trailer and then had killed Johnson and returned to her trailer with "two big rolls of money" and "a lot of heroin and cocaine."
The other man whom Moores had alleged was with her when Johnson was killed had messaged Moores on Facebook during the time when she was at Johnson's house, indicating that he also was not there.
According to people who spoke with the detectives, Johnson's pitbull dog only would allow just a few people that it knew into her house, which included Moores and Johnson's son, and would "rip apart anyone else."