MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The defense will begin presenting its case Monday in a Monongalia County murder trial.

Cleotis “Ghost” Eppes

Detroit resident Cleotis Eppes allegedly killed Morgantown resident Matt Moore in May 2022. Co-defendant Arlo Romano has already pleaded guilty to related charges.

The prosecution rested its case Friday after a full day of testimony from Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department detective Stephen Currie.

Currie estimated the murder occurred around 1:20 a.m. on May 7, 2022, and before the time of the killing, Moore grabbed one of the four phones in the vehicle, but the one he grabbed was one of the two phones Eppes was carrying.

Currie explained to the court the unexpected find when he pulled a Motorola phone out of the back pocket of Moore’s lifeless body.

“Once I started looking through the extraction of that device, it pretty quickly became apparent that there was information and evidence there that did not look like Matt Moore’s phone,” Currie said.

Through that phone, referred to as defendant device #1, detectives paired text messages with location data to detail the travel of Eppes from the Detroit area and back after the murder including routes Eppes took to get to Morgantown, The Waterfront Marriott Place, and ultimately to Round Bottom Road, where the murder was committed, and to Bridgeport, where Eppes stayed the night with a Michigan woman.

Following the afternoon recess, Eppes’ attorney sought acquittal on all charges, including first-degree murder, conspiracy, and kidnapping, because he said the state did not present enough evidence to continue the trial.

Judge Paul Gwaltney ruled in favor of the state after reviewing the evidence and hearing from Monongalia County Prosecutor Gabe Mucciola.

“This defendant was outside the victim’s residence, produced a firearm from Mr. Romano, and retrieved the victim for the purpose of terrorizing and killing him,” Mucciola said. “Then they continued to drive to Round Bottom Road to commit the murder.”

The defense will begin its case Monday at 9 a.m.