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Police look for clues in motel room slaying

Huntsville woman had been living at inn for several months

01/20/02

By STEVE DOYLE
Times Staff Writer [email protected]

Murline Pride’s family spent a rainy Saturday wondering what went wrong.

Who, they wondered, would have wanted to hurt the mild-mannered woman they
knew as a sister, an aunt, a mother?

A relative discovered Pride’s body Friday night in a room at the Scottish
Inn on North Memorial Parkway, where she had been living for several months.
A niece, Tasha Pride, said her aunt had been stabbed several times; her
throat was also slashed. “I just want to know who did it,” said Tasha. “She
was one of my favorite aunts.”

Huntsville police spokesman Wendell Johnson said homicide investigators were
questioning possible suspects but had “no positive leads” as of Saturday
afternoon.

Authorities think Pride, 32, was killed at the motel Thursday night. Her
body has been sent to Birmingham for an autopsy at the state forensics
laboratory.

A Huntsville native, Pride went to Butler High School and had spent the past
few years working as a cook at Burger King and Denny’s restaurants on
University Drive to support her 8-year-old daughter, Chiquita, 3 relatives
said.

For now, Chiquita is staying with one of Pride’s sisters, Rosetta.

“Murline was a very sweet person, she never hurt anyone,” said Tyrone Pride,
one of 10 brothers and sisters. “She just wanted the best life for herself
and her family, that’s all. She never got smart with anybody, always stayed
to herself.”

Pride’s husband, Willie Eugene Moore, is in the Madison County Jail. He was
arrested Thursday on a first-degree burglary charge. Tyrone Pride said his
sister and Moore were married last year.

He said Murline would occasionally show up at St. Bartley Primitive Baptist
Church on Belafonte Avenue to hear him sing in the choir. He remembers her
being moved by the hymns.

“She was into the Lord,” Tyrone said.

Another brother, Howard Pride, is a Huntsville basketball legend.

He won the state’s “Mr. Basketball” award during his senior year at Butler
High in 1993. He is an assistant coach at Tennessee State University in
Nashville.

Huntsville police are asking anyone who spoke with Murline Pride in the last
couple of weeks to call detectives at 722-7100.