A man confesses to the murder of his neighbor and has a funeral pamphlet at home containing the victim’s name

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – A former South Carolina police officer has pleaded guilty to killing a neighbor after investigators found a trove of physical evidence linking him to the crime, including bloody clothing and a funeral pamphlet at his home that read “RIP Oscar.” Authorities they said it said “you should love your neighbor.”

Justin Rawlins Moody, 43, was sentenced Monday to 34 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder shortly before his Greenwood County trial was to begin, attorney David Stumbo said in statement.

Deputies said 48-year-old Oscar Rubio’s girlfriend found him dead in his Ware Shoals home in May 2023, shot in the head and chest.

Neighbors told officers who responded to the shooting that Rubio and Moody had recently been arguing and said Moody had borrowed money from the neighbor in the past. Moody refused to come out of the house on behalf of deputies until someone he knew arrived.

When Moody spoke to investigators, he said he did not kill Rubio but had an unusual amount of information about what happened, Stumbo said.

Officers then asked him how he knew so much, and Moody “claimed he was God and could hear other people’s thoughts,” Stumbo said.

Officers found the gun used to kill Rubio in Moody’s bedroom, blood stained on pants hanging on a chair in the kitchen, shoes in Moody’s home consistent with a clear trace of blood in the victim’s home, $1,000 in cash belonging to Rubio and the keys to his home. vehicle, as well as a funeral pamphlet that read “RIP Oscar” and “you should love your neighbor,” prosecutors said.

Since 2006, Moody has worked as a law enforcement officer for at least six different South Carolina agencies, according to the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy.

His records show he worked in Laurens County for four years, Greenville County for one year and Richland County for almost three years before it appeared in October 2018 that he would leave law enforcement for good.

Records show that neither agency informed Moody that he was being fired or that he should not be hired elsewhere, although one agency was upset that Moody left after less than five months and took a job at another agency .