Sounak Sengupta
In September 1981, a beloved schoolteacher named Olivia Dare Christian was found strangled and dead in her apartment on Ivy Home Road, Hampton, in September 1981. However, the perpetrator was caught around 34 years later, in 2015. Investigation Discovery’s ‘On the Case with Paula Zahn: A Face and a Voice’ explores the tragic murder and unravels the multiple facets of the case.
How Did Olivia Dare Christian Die?
Born on November 16, 1948, Olivia Dare Christian graduated from Elon College in North Carolina. She used to teach kindergarten at John D. Cary Elementary School before moving on to teach at Captain John Smith Elementary School. A member of First Presbyterian Church of Hampton, Olivia was religious; she taught Sunday school and was a member of the church choir. Her elder brother, Thomas Christian III, reminisced how much she loved skiing in Maryland and Virginia.
On September 4, 1981, Olivia was due to attend several workshops at her school and finish preparation for classroom preparation for the September 5 start of school. When she did not report to work, a colleague called her father in the afternoon, and Thomas J. Christian Jr. visited her Ivy Home Road first-floor apartment in Hampton, Long Island, to check up on his daughter. The 32-year-old was discovered on her bedroom floor with the cord of an alarm clock tied around her neck.
As per reports, the clock radio was lying nearby, reading 7:30 am, and the several broken items in the living room and the kitchen indicated a violent struggle between the assailant and Olivia. There was no evidence of forced entry on the apartment door, and Hampton police ruled out robbery after Olivia’s untouched purse was recovered from a living room chair. The police also discovered a half-eaten piece of toast and a glass of milk on the table. Talking about that fateful day, Olivia’s father said, “The TV was on. The lights were on. Vases were broken. It was not pleasant. I’m hurt, and I’m angry.”
Olivia had been strangled and beaten to death. Prosecutors would later testify that she had been bashed on the head with an alarm clock at least 6 times with the cord wrapped around her neck to strangle her. Her autopsy report listed her time of death as 7:30 am on September 4, 1981, and the cause of death read as “[a]sphyxia by ligature strangulation; acute head injury from blows to the head.” Apart from her “shirt being pulled up to expose her bra,” the investigators found no evidence of sexual assault.
Who Killed Olivia Dare Christian?
The police initially suspected Olivia’s erstwhile boyfriend, but he was cleared as a suspect eventually. However, the investigators found a leading witness in Anita Purcells Michaels, then-16, who lived with her sister and mother in a house across Olivia’s. She stated that she saw a person pulling into Christian’s apartment, driving “in a distinctive aqua green 1965 Ford Galaxy.” Anita further added that she saw the man “walk in front of Christian’s apartment and peek into her window.”
Anita had earlier seen Olivia going on a walk with her cat near the complex background. She further stated that she saw the man again later that morning driving away in his car. Anita testified that she “locked” eyes with him and testified in court decades later, stating, “I will never forget them eyes.” The police theorized that the assailant supposedly entered Olivia’s apartment in her absence and laid in wait for her return.
However, the case turned cold as the police could not find any suspect to arrest. More than three decades passed until the case was re-opened by the Hampton Police Division, the FBI, the state, and the Hampton Commonwealth’s attorney offices. In December 2015, an officer reportedly found similarities in the modus operandi of Olivia’s murder with that of another, for which the perpetrator had been arrested a few months after the school teacher was killed.
Ruben Edward Moore had been convicted of various charges ever since he was a teen, ranging from sexual assault to break-in. On June 10, 1982, Ruben was arrested and charged with the rape of a woman on Keith Road in Hampton, around ten months after Olivia was murdered. He was convicted and sentenced to 30 years of prison on November 5, 1982. He was arrested again on December 11, 2015, after Anita and other witnesses identified Ruben as the man they had seen around Olivia’s apartment on the morning she was strangled and murdered.
Ruben Edward Moore is Still Behind Bars
In March 2018, a Hampton Circuit Court jury convicted Ruben Edward Moore of second-degree murder and recommended the maximum penalty under the law for second-degree murder, which is 40 years. Two months later, in June, Circuit Court Judge William H. Shaw III sentenced Ruben, now 72, to 40 years of imprisonment. As per official court records, Ruben is presently incarcerated at a cell in Augusta Correctional Center, Virginia, with a potential release date of April 21, 2036.
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