Ricky Dickie Moore featuring The Winter After

In this episode, we tell the heartbreaking story of Ricky “Dickie” Moore, a Michigan man whose life was taken in a senseless act of violence that never should have happened. What begins as an ordinary day spirals into tragedy, leaving a family shattered and a community stunned by the sheer meaninglessness of the crime.

We walk through the events leading up to Ricky’s death, the investigation that followed, and the emotional fallout that still lingers. This case is a painful reminder of how quickly a single reckless decision can destroy countless lives — and how the people left behind are forced to pick up the pieces.

To close out the episode, we feature Michigan band The Winter After, setting the tone with their track 

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Transcript

Ricky Lawrence Moore

MDOC 184566

DOB 12-23-1961

Muskegon Correctional Facility

Graduated from Colon High School in 1980 with unremarkable grades and didn’t really stand out at anything.  

His senior year he worked as an office aid, that’s about it.

No prior records to date.

In 1985 at 24 years of age, Ricky was unemployed and living with his parents in Three Rivers Michigan.

His father, Larry, is a sergeant at the St Joseph’s Sheriff Department.

Ricky himself worked as a reserve deputy at the Mendon, Michigan post not really sure when.  I did read that he had been suspended but it wasn’t told why.

Three Rivers is a quaint little town with a population of 7,000 to 7500 people in the 80s and 90s.

Yes, three rivers do come into the town:  Portage, The Rocky & St Joe Rivers

The Moore family owned their home in Three Rivers and they also owned a place in Colon.

Colon’s size is even smaller…..with approximately 1,190 people according to the 1980 census.

The drivetime between the times is about 25 minutes, its 17.4 miles…I don’t know how far as the crow flies, but I will ask Crow.

In the early summer of 1985 on May 10  a pole worker for General Telephone (company)  was walking power lines, just north of Colon,  just doing his job when he spotted something.

The something was dark and wet on the ground with a small piece of blue jeans visible and flies buzzing around it.

When he tugged at the jean material, he noticed decomposing skin and immediately went to call the police.

Officer Robin Baker arrived at the scene, taking it all in.

He described on Oxygen channells True Crime that when he arrived on scene he noted the flies, the material, a belt and of course the decomposing skin.

Also the smell.  Undeniably they had a human body.

Crime techs spent hours excavating the scene, being careful to preserve everything that they could.

The body lay in a shallow grave, face down and sadly the decomp was so bad that the person was unrecognizable.

When they gathered the clothing, they knew that they had the body of a woman reported missing 8 weeks prior.

They found her on the opposite side of the country from where she went missing.

Linda VanBuskirk was recently divorced from local law enforcement officer Bruce VanBuskirk.  They had two daughters together.

Linda rented a place from a good family friend, who rented her his place.

On March 26, 1985 Linda is going on a walk and her parents are watching the kids.

Totally unlike her, she doesn’t come home.  Linda is a conservative young lady with strong Christian convictions.

Paul & Evelyn, her parents, call around to their people to see if anyone has seen her and nobody has.

They do not hesitate to call the Three Rivers police department because Linda is very predictable.

She is especially predictable with her walks:  Her parents said that she walks the same route at the same time, every day.  

They start searching the area.  Nobody finds anything right away…eventually helicopters and MSP….local townsfolk and local law agencies all chipped in to help find her.

After talking to the people on her jogging route, she was last seen at the intersection of Mt Zion and Bent Rd about a mile and half from her home.

Then one of the people said that his son heard some gunshots  and he had actually walked to the top of a little hill & looked down at the intersection.

This kid says he saw a man putting something in his car trunk.

This little dude is 10 years old at the time and came home and told his dad right away.  I tell you, he looks younger than 10 at the same time, he looks like an old soul, if that makes sense.

This kid ends up going through the ringer.  He is questioned a lot.

They find out from him that it was a dark hatchback type car.  That the guy was pulling something out of the ditch and the kid thought it was a deer.

They put him through HYPNOSIS, which is on video and available for all to see to this day and they have him sit down with a sketch artist to come up with an idea of what this dude looks like.

Then, the kid shows them where he saw everything and the detectives searched the area, successfully I might add.

On Buried in the backyard,  they show the view of the intersection from the boys view, you can also see the boy.  He truly just looks like an old soul.

They found a blood spot that was about 12-15 inches in diameter about 15 feet off the road.  It had a significant amount of blood soaking.   Took photos, collected samples.

Of course the question of human or animal blood comes into play.  It’s human.

Down the road just a little ways, they find casings.  A brass shell casing from  a jacketed hollow point .38 or .357, often used by officers.

They put out information on the car and the sketch out to the public but didn’t get a whole lot right away.

Vehicles in the area with similar looking vehicles, hatchbacks, are stopped and asked to search their vehicle with no luck.

Officers in the area were asked to cough up their state issued weapons for ballistics test…because that casing was so common for officers of the law.

You know that they leaned hard on her ex…he was a Three Rivers Cop!  They really thought it was him at first, it makes sense…the divorce, the type of gun.  

However, his gun did not match the casing.  Luckily for him, he was also on patrol that night.  Solid alibi.

Unbelievable, they have the little guy go in and look at a line up to see if he recognized the guy.  He didn’t.

I wonder how many gd times that he had to go into the department.  Also, I wonder how he is doing now, little Todd.

Linda’s landlord, Jim, is questioned profusely but he also had a damn good alibi so he was let off the hook.

Medical examiner said that three shots had been delivered to end Linda’s life.  Her arm, her shoulder and then to her head having ended her 26 years of life.  She took the shots to the arm and shoulder first, so unfortunately it wasn’t quick.  So young.

Dental records were used to identify her.

Detectives hit up the local businesses…all 3 of them.  I don’t know how many there are.

At a gas station attendants wife tells detectives that Ricky was in town the day that Linda went missing.

Ricky ends up being interviewed a few times.  He denies knowing Linda Buskirk at all, never heard of her…never seen her.  He does say that he knows her police officer ex husband though.

Ricky admits that he bought a car from Bruce Vanbuskirk.

Ricky is very YES SIR….NO SIR.  A brown noser.

He tells detectives that he was at their cabin in Colon that night because they had a break in at their cabin.

There is a problem with Ricky’s vehicle though.  He drives a freaking white S 10, not a dark hatchback.

He allows them to check his truck out and of course, they find nothing.

During an interrogation the detective was giving it to Ricky pretty hard and he said, “you were out there weren’t you?   Out there riding around and you saw this pretty girl.”  Ricky just said I want to talk to my dad.

Detectives do a search of the Moore house. They find hollow point bullets in little Ricky’s bedroom.  That’s cool.

 .  

Then they ask to see Ricky's gun.   It took him a bit to bring the gun down and detective said that he was all sweaty when he finally came down.

 A screwdriver had been taken to the barrel of the gun.  Ricky says it’s because the lead was stuck in there and he used a screwdriver to get it out.  

Ballistics was near impossible at first…but then they just kept shooting it to wear the marks off.  

After they did that it matched the casing that they found.

Ricky was arrested on May 16, 1985 at the exact time that Miss Linda was being laid to rest.  Ahhh justice.

Ricky is still denying it after his arrest.  He takes a polygraph and fails.   Especially on the question DID YOU KILL linda vanbuskirk?

When Ricky's dad, Larry and his lawyer come in…Ricky just pukes his whole confession out to them all.  Crying “Im so sorry”

We don’t know why he did it though.  Just did, I guess.

The car though?   Was it the car that he bought from VanBuskirks?  Was it his parents??  I can’t find out anything about the gd car.  The hatchback.

Ricky waived his trial by jury choosing to have the Judge do it.  Trial by Judge.

He freaking pled guilty by reason of insanity.  You buried her body in a shallow grave, you lied…then you took a screwdriver to your gun.  That’s not insanity, that's stupidity.

On May 13, 1986 Judge Corcillia found him guilty of 1st degree Murder and Felony weapons/firearms sentencing him to life without parole, they also said it was premeditated murder.

The theory his that Rickyh had a thing for her after buying the car from them.  He stalked her and/or made advances toward her and was possibly rebuked.

Ricky's lawyer asked for protective care while in prison due to his previous law enforcement status.  I don’t think that he got it.