The third of three comment sessions this month on the possible parole of the former Lorna Anderson was held Friday morning in Topeka before the Kansas Parole Board.
Anderson, known in the Kansas Department of Corrections as Lorna Anderson Eldridge Moore, has been in prison since 1985, after she was convicted of criminal solicitation to commit first-degree murder in the July 1983 death of Sandra Bird. Bird was the wife of Thomas P. Bird, an Emporia minister who was convicted of criminal solicitation and first-degree murder in the case. Anderson and Bird allegedly were having a love affair.
Anderson’s husband, Martin Anderson, was killed in November 1983 in a shooting in a plowed field along Highway 177, about five miles south of its intersection with Interstate 70 in Geary County. Anderson pleaded guilty in 1988 to second-degree murder in that case, after cooperating with authorities and naming Bird as the masked man who shot her husband. Bird was found not guilty of first-degree murder after a trial in Geary County District Court.
Bird was paroled in 2004 from the first-degree murder conviction involving his wife. After his release, Bird told interviewers on “City Confidential,” an A&E network program, that he had been working as a marriage counselor since his release.
Moore’s husband, Terry Moore, and her father, Loren Slater, were among those who presented remarks at a comment session held Dec. 15, in Wichita.
The Wichita Eagle-Beacon reported that Terry Moore told the parole board that Lorna Moore had earned an associate’s degree while in prison, has been a leader in inmate drug-treatment programs and is active in a women’s church group in prison.
“If she does get paroled, I know you will never regret that decision,” the newspaper quoted Moore as saying.
Three of Lorna Moore’s four daughters also attended the Dec. 15 comment session to support their mother, the paper reported. The daughters ranged from pre-school to early elementary-school age when their father was killed.
The parole board will decide in January whether Moore will be released. This is the fifth time Moore has been considered for parole since she became eligible.