(Lawrenceville, Ga., 3/11/25) – A Cumming man was sentenced to life in prison for killing the father of his ex-wife’s first child more than a decade ago and destroying the man’s remains.

Gwinnett County jurors on Tuesday found Jeffery Emerson Moulder, 30, guilty of malice murder and two counts of felony murder for the January 2015, strangulation death of 21-year-old Samuel Waters. A judge sentenced Moulder to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“Samuel Waters’ family is able to get justice after 10 long years,” Gwinnett District Attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson said. “Our goal was to ensure that this family was able to get closure for this tragic loss. This was not an easy case to close because the body was never found. But our team was able to successfully piece together evidence to prove the defendant’s guilt.”

Samuel Waters was last seen on of Jan. 4, 2015, and was classified as a missing person case until 2021.

Moulder’s first wife Rebecca Bell had a child with Waters, but they never married, and he was not involved in the child’s life. When she was contemplating divorce from Moulder, Moulder tried to bring Waters back into Bell’s life to avoid having to pay child support for his own child and Waters’ child. Bell told Moulder that to salvage the marriage, he would have to get Waters back out of her life.

Moulder subsequently lured Waters to a back road in Lawrenceville and strangled him to death, then dismembered Waters’ body and disposed of the remains in multiple areas near Lake Lanier after unsuccessfully attempting to burn the body.

After killing Waters, Moulder told at least seven people, including his first wife and second wife about what he did to elicit advice about how to dispose of Waters’ body. According to testimony from the trial, he also described the locations where he buried parts of the body.

In 2021, after a heated argument in which Moulder strangled his second wife until she was unconscious, the woman separated from him and told Lawrenceville Police about Moulder’s confession of murder. Investigators searched the areas Moulder described with cadaver dogs, but were unable to find any human remains. The cadaver dogs did, however discover evidence that human remains had once been in one of the burial locations.

During the trial, a cadaver dog expert described for the jury how the animals could identify where remains had potentially deteriorated, and thus were imperceptible to the human eye. Also, during trial, prosecutors played an audio recording of Moulder strangling his second wife until she passed out while demanding that she stop recording the argument they were having. She testified that when she came to, Moulder told her, “I killed Samuel Waters, do you want to record that, too?”

The jury deliberated for less than two hours before reaching a guilty verdict on all charges.

Gwinnett County Assistant District Attorneys Don Geary and Angela Mattozzi prosecuted the case. DA’s investigators Damien Cruz and Andrew Whaley and victim witness advocate Korinne Haskins assisted with the case. The Lawrenceville Police Department was also instrumental in closing the case.