Man Tried To Kill Woman, 90, Deputies Say

LAND O’ LAKES, FL — A 46-year-old man faces attempted homicide charges after Pasco County Sheriff’s deputies say he tried to kill a 90-year-old woman at a Land O’ Lakes area Racetrac on Thursday.

According to the agency, patrol deputies responded to a disturbance call from the 23390 State Road 54 Racetrack just before midnight on April 6. That call resulted in the arrest of Eric Moore on disorderly intoxication charges, the agency noted.

A short time later, however, a call was placed to the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office from a woman that offered more details in the incident.

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Pasco deputies say Moore and the victim, Irene Parish, 90, were traveling in a vehicle driven by the female who called the Hernando sheriff’s office. “The defendant was drinking alcohol,” an email from the Pasco County Office said. “He got into an argument with the victim.”

That argument took a violent turn when deputies say Moore began pulling Parish’s hair. Physical evidence, the email noted, “shows he was slamming her head into the window.”

The vehicle’s female driver pulled into the Racetrack and Moore got out, the agency noted. He is then accused of getting a chain from the back of the vehicle. With that chain, “he began choking the victim,” the email said.

Investigators say the female driver and victim both indicated that “it seemed he was trying to kill the victim.”

The driver and Parish left Moore behind at the Racetrac, Pasco deputies say, and fled home to Hernando County.

Following his Friday arrest on attempted homicide charges, Moore “admitted to touching the victim but said he was only trying to restrain her,” the email said.

Parish, the agency noted, “sustained severe head, neck and facial injuries.” She was taken to a local hospital where she was last listed in stable condition in the ICU.

Moore's last known address was in Indianapolis, Indiana, according to an arrest report. The relationship between Moore, the victim and the female driver of the vehicle was not explained by authorities.

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Booking photo courtesy of the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office