In 2010, a disturbing case unfolded in Durham, North Carolina, involving Peter Lucas Moses Jr. and a polygamous religious group that authorities described as cult-like. The group lived in a home on Pear Tree Lane in southeast Durham, where multiple women and children were gathered under Moses’s control. Prosecutors said the women considered themselves his wives or common-law wives, and members of the household reportedly referred to him as “Lord.”
The case became widely known because of the murders of 4-year-old Jadon Higganbothan and 28-year-old Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy. Their deaths exposed a household built around fear, obedience, manipulation, and extreme control. What may have appeared from the outside as an unusual religious living arrangement was later described in court as a dangerous environment where Moses had overwhelming power over the women and children around him.
The adults publicly named as being connected to the Pear Tree Lane home and the sect included Peter Lucas Moses Jr., Vania Rae Sisk, Lavada Quinzetta Harris, LaRhonda Renee Smith, and Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy. Public reporting also described an unnamed woman who escaped the group and told police that two people had died in the home. Because her identity was not released publicly, she cannot be listed by name. Additional relatives of Moses were charged or discussed in connection with events after the killings, but the core adults publicly identified as living in or directly tied to the household were Moses, Sisk, Harris, Smith, McKoy, and the unnamed former member…