West Bloomfield man charged in slaying of boy, 2 others 'over drugs and money'

Warren — A West Bloomfield Township man who has a long felony record and left prison less than two months ago has been arrested and charged with killing a 6-year-old boy and two others — slayings police say stemmed from a falling-out over drug deals.

Warren Police Commissioner William Dwyer provided new details into the killings Tuesday while announcing Nicholas Raad Bahri, 37, has been charged in all three deaths.

“This was all over drugs and money,” said Dwyer, who described it as one of the worst killing sprees he's worked on in his career of more than a half-century.

Bahri was arrested about 7 a.m. Friday at his parents’ West Bloomfield home, taken into custody without incident by a task force of Warren and Detroit police, federal ATF agents and Michigan State Police troopers.

Dwyer said Bahri alone is believed to be responsible for the Oct. 1 deaths of Tukoyo Moore, 31; Moore's girlfriend, Isis Rimson, 28; and his son, Tai'raz Moore, 6, all of Warren.

Rimson and the boy were found dead hours after Detroit police identified Tukoyo Moore as the man whose body was found at about 2 a.m. Oct. 1 in the rear seat of a torched rental car on Hyde Street on Detroit’s east side. Moore had been shot in the head, according to an autopsy.

Detroit investigators went to Moore’s Otis Street home in Warren about 10 a.m. on a welfare check and found a door ajar and notified Warren police, Dwyer said.

“The house had been ransacked, and in the basement, they found the woman and the boy,” Dwyer said. “Both were killed by shotgun blasts to the head.”

The police commissioner said overlooked were $40,000 inside a safe and a small quantity of suspected drugs in the attic.

Investigators conducted more than 20 interviews in a probe that turned toward Bahri, Dwyer said.

“Violent acts among drug dealers is not new,” said Dwyer, who headed the Detroit police narcotics investigations for several years before becoming chief of departments in Farmington Hills and Warren.

“But killing a baby, a 6-year-old, has shaken not just the tri-county area but has shocked the nation ... only monsters or godless creatures would pull the trigger on a 6-year-old.”

Relatives of the victims said the arrest was a relief.

"I would like to thank you all," said Derlande Farmer, Rimson's mother, at the news conference.

"Thanks to the detectives — how you comforted me when I needed it," Farmer said. "Thanks to all you guys, we, we have ... some closure, not a lot. We just want to see justice done."

She added: "My daughter leaves an 8-year-old granddaughter, and this man lives around the corner from us. And she's scared. I'm scared." 

Brittany Harris, mother of Tai’raz Moore, said in an interview she was pleased by the arrest.

“I’m happy they did catch somebody," she said. "I am happy they were swift about catching them, because I thought it was going to take longer than that.

"And I am happy the detectives did their job and that Warren police, Detroit police, Macomb and Wayne County and the feds were all working together. But nothing brings my baby back.” 

Harris said she knows Bahri and that he and her son's father did have a relationship.

“We have all had dinner a couple of times together,” she said. 

Bahri was arraigned Tuesday in Warren's 37th District Court on 15 counts, including three charges of premeditated homicide and related weapons offenses, arson, and disinterment and mutilation of a dead body. The homicides carry penalties of life in prison while the other offenses, all felonies, have penalties ranging from two years to 10 years in prison.

"I don't know what more one person can do to show they are a danger to society," Warren Police Detective John Twardesky told Judge John Chmura in requesting no bond for Bahri during the video arraignment from the Warren jail.

Bahri told Chmura he understood the charges against him, except for the offense of mutilation of a dead body, asking for an explanation.

Chmura said he was satisfied that there was probable cause the crimes occurred and remanded Bahri to the Macomb County Jail without bond pending an Oct. 22 probable cause conference and an Oct. 29 preliminary examination.

"I have no faith that you would come back here (if out on bond)," Chmura told Bahri. "None."

Bahri's list of felony convictions dates to 2004, when he pleaded guilty to breaking and entering a building with intent in Oakland County, according to Michigan Department of Corrections records. He was sentenced to three years' probation in March of that year, then discharged April 6, 2006, for violating his probation and sentenced to 1 1/2 to 10 years in prison. 

Four days before his sentencing date, Bahri committed larceny from a person in Oakland County, an offense that netted him a prison term of 2 to 20 years in December 2006.

In June 2009, he was sentenced in Wayne County to 2 to 4 years in prison for possession of less than 25 grams of a controlled substance-narcotic/cocaine.

He was sentenced to two years' probation for a second conviction for the same drug offense in Wayne County in December 2012.

And in October 2013, he was sentenced in Oakland County to 1 to 15 years for third-degree fleeing a police officer. According to state corrections records, he was released from prison Aug. 20.

Dwyer credited "old fashioned police work and some modern technology" for Bahri's arrest. He did not elaborate and said multiple theories regarding events before and after the killings would be unveiled in future court hearings.

Twardesky told Chmura that evidence linking Bahri to the crimes includes cellphone records and surveillance video from Bahri's house showing him with Tukoyo Moore in the driveway; GPS tracking data putting the two men at the Warren house; and a Detroit gas station video of Bahri filling a can of gasoline.

 Dwyer felt because of the seriousness of the crimes — especially the killing of the boy — Bahri deserved to be charged with federal offenses that could result in the death penalty upon conviction.

“I talked with (Detroit U.S. attorney ) Matthew Schneider who said he would be interested in working with us on these cases," Dwyer said. "So it appears the door may still be open on that.”

Dwyer had said in the early hours of the investigation that police would seek federal prosecution to include the possibility of seeking the death penalty. 

Oct. 2:'We want the death penalty': Feds evaluating whether to prosecute Warren homicides

"Truly evil. Unthinkable," he said Tuesday.

Dwyer had cited the killing of a witness as a possible federal connection but declined, both on Oct. 2 and on Tuesday, to elaborate on how that relates to the case.