MACHIAS, Maine — A Robbinston woman pleaded guilty Thursday morning to murder in the killing of a suspected drug dealer in Pembroke.
Rebecca Moores, 43, was charged with murder for shooting Paula Johnson, 53, in the back of the head at Johnson’s home on Leighton Point Road on Feb. 8, 2022.
Leane Zainea, an assistant state attorney general who prosecuted the case, said Moores is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 29, 2024.
Johnson was a suspected drug dealer and had been robbed at her house by her son and two other people in April 2021, according to a Maine State Police affidavit filed in court. Johnson allegedly was supplied by dealers from out of state and, in exchange for selling the drugs from her house, got to keep some of the proceeds from the sales.
Moores was a customer and former girlfriend of Johnson’s, witnesses told police. One of the witnesses told police that after Moores allegedly killed Johnson, she returned home the next morning with “two big rolls of money,” one with $5 and $10 bills and the other with $50 and $100 bills, and with “a lot of heroin and cocaine.”
When she initially was questioned by police, Moores said she was present when Johnson was killed but that she was forced to be there by two other men who were “taking out” drug dealers. Johnson shot up heroin and then was shot by one of the men after she nodded off, Moores told police.
When police later talked to the two men, they provided evidence from their cell phones and from their posts on Facebook that they were not with Moores or at Johnson’s house during the time period when Johnson was killed, according to the court document.
Surveillance video taken at a gas station on Route 1 in Pembroke, two and half miles away from Johnson’s home, showed Moores stopping to get gas at the station at around 7:20 p.m. on Feb. 7 and again at around 8 a.m. the next morning, and each time she was by herself in the vehicle.
Police also found a paper towel with Johnson’s blood on it and 9mm handgun bullets in Moores’ car, according to the affidavit.