Left inset: William Moore (Colbert County Sheriff’s Office). Right inset: Pravin Patel (Morrison Funeral Homes and Crematory). Background: The Hillcrest Motel in Colbert County, Ala., where William Moore shot and killed owner Pravin Patel (WHNT/YouTube).
An Alabama man has been sentenced to life in prison for shooting a motel owner to death during a dispute over checking into a room. The owner’s daughter unleashed her heartbreak on her father’s killer at his sentencing, telling him that he “annihilated the foundation of our entire family,” according to reports.
“You turned our lives into a permanent crime scene,” blasted Pravin Patel’s daughter in court on Thursday, while staring directly at 34-year-old William Moore, local NBC affiliate WAFF reports.
Moore was found guilty of murder in Colbert County after shooting Patel three times in the face and chest during a dispute over an attempted check-in, according to WAFF. Moore pulled a handgun on Patel after attempting to get a room at the Hillcrest Motel in Sheffield, which Patel owned.
Moore fired multiple shots at Patel after being told he was trespassing, with a worker at a barbershop across the street hearing the violence unfold and telling WAFF, “It was pretty consecutive, pow, pow, pow.”
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Patel tried to get Moore to leave his motel after they began arguing. Moore shot him right before leaving, according to reports. Surveillance footage presented at Moore’s trial showed the shooting and what happened leading up to it.
“We had clear video of the actual incident in and of itself,” Colbert County Assistant District Attorney Summer George told WAFF last month after Moore was convicted. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the Patel family. What they’ve had to live through this week having to watch the video. Not only the physical but the emotional toll that took on them is tough.”
Moore claimed during his sentencing that he suffers from PTSD after serving in the military, and that he has a dark past, WAFF reports. He was allegedly homeless and lived in the woods before the shooting.
“We will serve a life sentence of grief because of your choice,” Patel’s daughter concluded.
