'15 disappearance suspect charged with lying to cops

A suspect in a four-year-old disappearance case of a Lawrenceville man has been charged with lying to police, jail records show.

Jeffrey Moulder, 24, was arrested on seven charges of making false statements on Jan. 4, Channel 2 Action News reported. He was released on $55,200 bail the next day.

Mould e r h as been ident ified as the “lone suspect” in Samuel Waters’ disappearance and assumed death in Gwinnett County court documents. Waters was last seen on Jan. 4, 2015, leaving his home with Moulder to get beer, according to a 2017 court motion. Gwinnett County prosecutors believe that Moulder killed Waters by choking him until he fell unconscious and then suffocating him with a plastic bag. Moulder then tried to burn Waters’ body, and later cut it into pieces and buried it near Lake Lanier in Hall County, court documents say. Moulder has not been charged with murder; the only charges he’s currently facing are the false-statement counts.

Moulder and Waters fathered children with the same woman, and prosecutors believe tension between the three led to Waters’ death. Investigators searched a home owned by Moulder’s family last month and took away a burn barrel, Channel 2 reported.

Waters’ family welcomed the false statements arrest as a step toward resolution.”We need to get justice for Samuel,” Consuella Acosta, Waters’ sister, told Channel 2. “That’s what we have hope for now.”