MARTINEZ — Police here continue to investigate a bizarre homicide involving a homeowner who reportedly told investigators that midway through beating an intruder to death, he realized it was his ex-boyfriend.
The March 15 incident has not resulted in any arrests or criminal charges, according to court records. Police say the homeowner, who lived on the 100 block of Hale Court in Martinez, was cooperative with police and gave a full statement.
The victim of the fatal baseball-bat beating has been identified as 40-year-old Dual Moore Jr., a Hayward resident who had been to the Hale Court home before. Police say they are still combing through evidence to explain why Moore ended up at the home that night, only to get beaten to death by a man who claims not to have recognized his former boyfriend.
When the resident made his statement to police, he mentioned that Moore had sought a restraining order against him, authorities said.
It all started around 2 a.m., when the Hale Court resident — who this newspaper is not naming, because he hasn’t been arrested or charged — said he believed someone rang his doorbell. When he found no one there, he went to sleep. But around 4:45 a.m., he heard someone enter, authorities said.
That’s where his story takes an odd turn. The resident told police he believed the intruder was his brother, who sometimes entered through the garage, as Moore apparently did. This assumption continued even after the resident said Moore came up and struck him with a selfie light, which the resident told police he thought was a “prank,” authorities said.
Because he was under the impression he was being pranked by his brother, the resident told police he lightly struck the intruder with a baseball bat. But then when the intruder continued to hit him, he realized it wasn’t a prank, nor was it his brother. That’s when he started hitting the man aggressively, or in his words, “swinging for the fences,” according to police.
Moore was beaten extensively and pronounced dead later that morning. Police are waiting on an official coroner’s report which will determine exactly how he died, but he reportedly suffered internal bleeding, multiple contusions and other blunt force trauma.
At some point during the beating, the resident told police he realized it was Moore, an ex-boyfriend who had stayed at the house before, authorities said. He called for a family member who lived there to dial 911 and waited for police.
Police are asking anyone with information to contact Detective Rubio at 925-372-3454 or at erubio@cityofmartinez.org.