Jury Convicts Woman of 1st Degree Murder for Helping Husband Fatally Beat, Strangle Their Disabled Roommate in 2023
NORFOLK, Va. —A jury convicted Kristie Marie Lynch, 45, on Friday of first-degree murder for the beating and strangling death of 45-year-old Jose Luis Moreno, a disabled man whom Mrs. Lynch and her husband James Christian Lynch had invited to live with them. Mr. Lynch, 52, who pleaded guilty earlier this year to second-degree murder and was sentenced to serve 25 years in prison for his role in killing Mr. Moreno, testified on his wife’s behalf at her trial.
According to statements the Lynches made to police following the murder, they met Mr. Moreno through church and, at some point in 2022, invited him to live with them at their Mariner’s Way apartment because he had “nowhere to go.” Mr. Moreno had a disability that caused weakness in his ankles and required him to use a walker, and he contributed to the Lynches’ household finances with his Supplemental Security Disability Income. According to Mr. Lynch, the couple had physically “punished” Mr. Moreno on multiple occasions for not contributing to household chores due to his disability and for speaking in Spanish (Mr. Moreno’s native language) around them. Mr. Lynch admitted that, in the days leading to Mr. Moreno’s death, he had beaten Mr. Moreno over the head several times with a frying pan, gashing Mr. Moreno’s scalp. Mr. Lynch said he refused to take Mr. Moreno to the hospital because he did not want to be arrested.
While it is unclear exactly when the Lynches murdered Mr. Moreno, Mr. Moreno most likely died on Aug. 9, 2023, after the Lynches severely beat and strangled him using a number of household implements, including the frying pan, a belt, a baseball bat, and a dog leash. The Lynches did not report Mr. Moreno’s death until Aug. 11, 2023, when they asked to meet with a local pastor and told him that Mr. Moreno was dead inside their home. The pastor told them to call the police, which Mrs. Lynch did.
Norfolk Police responded to the Lynches’ apartment and found Mr. Moreno’s body — naked, covered in bruises and cuts, and with ligature marks on his neck — partially under a blanket at the foot of the first-floor stairs. Investigators found blood spatter on the walls and floors throughout the residence and found evidence, including missing sections of carpeting near the top of the stairs, that the Lynches had tried to clean blood from different areas of the second floor. Based on their investigation, the police detained the Lynches. Mr. Moreno’s autopsy showed that he had died from a combination of strangulation and blunt-force trauma
Mrs. Lynch told investigators that, on the day of the murder, she had told Mr. Lynch that Mr. Moreno had attacked and sexually assaulted her. She said she then challenged her husband to “man up,” “grow a set,” and “go take care of your boy.” After this, Mr. Lynch went inside their apartment and began the fatal attack on Mr. Moreno. According to Mr. Lynch, Mr. Moreno tried to kick him and fight him off, and Mr. Lynch responded by, again, beating Mr. Moreno with the frying pan. Mr. Lynch — who stands 6-foot-4 inches tall and weighed more than 300 pounds at the time — claimed that Mr. Moreno — who stood 5-foot-7 inches tall and weighed about 130 pounds — was possessed with a “demon”-like strength and would not be subdued, so Mr. Lynch said he grabbed a baseball bat and continued to beat Mr. Moreno with it. Further evidence showed that the couple used Mr. Lynch’s belt to whip Mr. Moreno and that they used a dog leash to strangle him. It is unclear why Mr. Moreno was naked by the end of the fatal attack, although Mr. Lynch claimed that he made Mr. Moreno take a shower due to his bleeding.
The police charged the Lynches with second-degree murder, and the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office secured indictments against them both for first-degree murder. In May 2025, Mr. Lynch entered an agreement to plead guilty to second-degree murder and face an active sentence of up to 30 years in prison. Judge Robert B. Rigney accepted Mr. Lynch’s plea agreement and, on Aug. 29, after hearing the arguments from the Commonwealth and the defense, sentenced Mr. Lynch to serve 25 years in prison plus six months of supervision following his release. That sentence was above Mr. Lynch’s state sentencing guidelines, which called for a midpoint sentence of 17 years and one month and a high-end of 21 years and four months. In sentencing Mr. Lynch above the guidelines recommendation, Judge Rigney noted the “horrendous nature of the offense.”
Mrs. Lynch rejected a similar plea offer to second-degree murder and elected to go to trial before a jury. After hearing the evidence — including testimony from Mr. Lynch in which he sought to shift blame for the crime to Mr. Moreno — from Sept. 9 through 11 and two hours of deliberation on Sept. 12, the jury rejected the Lynches’ rationalizations for murdering Mr. Moreno and found Mrs. Lynch guilty as charged of first-degree murder. Judge David W. Lannetti, who presided over the trial, set Mrs. Lynch’s sentencing hearing on Jan. 16.
“The word ‘shocking’ has been overused, but the suffering that the Lynches inflicted on Mr. Moreno — a disabled man they claimed to have been ‘helping’ and who had ‘nowhere to go’ — is truly shocking,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi. “It is possible to kill another person in an instant using a gun, but to beat and strangle another person to death takes serious physical exertion and a sustained determination to inflict pain and to kill. It hurts the heart to imagine what Mr. Moreno experienced at the hands of the Lynches and the agony he felt as he died. The excuses the Lynches offered for their crimes were no excuse, and each of them will now face their consequences. We will continue to stand up for people who, like Mr. Moreno, can no longer call for justice themselves and to prosecute those people who hurt vulnerable victims.”
Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorneys Emily A. Woodley and Phil Y. Bailey are prosecuting the Lynches’ cases, and Norfolk Police Detective Ryan B. Davis led the investigation.
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