Clark Brewster, Moffett’s attorney, filed a motion before the sentencing, arguing for a lighter sentence, saying, “The remorse Amanda feels is profound and genuine. Her suffering is a punishment in itself that no legal sentence can match in severity or permanence.”
“Amanda Moffett’s life over the past six years has been consumed with the anguish of losing her daughter, compounded by guilt and shame of causing her daughter’s death.”
DEFENDANT AMANDA MOFFETT’S MOTION FOR DOWNWARD VARIANCE, Aug. 13, 2014
Moffett told authorities she accidentally shot the teen, an accomplished barrel racing winner, while attempting to shoot a stray dog. The younger Moffett qualified for the world barrel racing finals in the National Barrel Horse Association.
“Amanda’s complex grief has been aggravated by the public ridicule and false narratives about her and her family following the accident,” the motion states.
The motion says, “Since Laramie’s death, Amanda has received extremely negative, unwarranted judgment from some people in the small community of Nowata.”
Laramie Moffett told her mother that a stray dog was attacking kittens outside their home. Amanda Moffett confessed to stepping out onto the front porch and discharging the handgun into the dark at what she believed was a stray dog, according to federal court documents.
Moffett also admitted that she did not confirm the whereabouts of her daughter before shooting the handgun.
She was initially charged in Nowata County District Court with first-degree murder with deliberate intent. The case was dismissed after Winston Connor II, Moffett’s attorney, argued that the mother, a Cherokee Nation resident, was wrongfully charged in state court.
Initially, there were discrepancies in how many times the teen was shot and that before the shooting, the mother and daughter had been arguing, according to Nowata County District Court documents.
The Nowata County court motion states Moffett fired at the dog, which yelped and ran away. Moffett told Nowata County deputies the gun was firing by itself, and she threw the gun into the yard, and it fired again.
Brewster’s motion stated when former Nowata County Sheriff Kenny Freeman investigated the shooting he called the younger Moffett’s death “a tragic accident.”
Freeman resigned and was replaced by Sheriff Terry Sue Barnett. One day after being sworn in as sheriff, Barnett executed several warrants in the case and aggressively pushed for murder charges against Amanda Moffett despite no involvement in the initial investigation, the motion states.
Barnett also resigned, and “despite obvious and fundamental flaws in the Nowata Sheriff’s investigation, including a sheriff’s office barely able to function at all,” Amanda Moffett was charged with first-degree murder in state court, the motion states.
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