A 21-year-old man from Belle Glade admitted his guilt in a tragic case from 2020, where he was initially charged with first-degree murder. Instead, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 35 years.
Additionally, he admitted to burglary of a dwelling and grand theft of a motor vehicle, which led to concurrent sentences of 15 years and five years, respectively. Carolina Cahill Shepherd, a judge at the West Palm Beach Courthouse, oversaw the case.
The incident occurred on September 15, 2020, at 1:40 a.m., when Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a shooting in the 200 block of Northwest 11th Street. They discovered the lifeless body of 18-year-old Johnathan Moore in the back seat of a 2016 Mazda 3 hatchback. Moore had suffered a single gunshot wound to the back of his head.
Remarkably, Robert Nero Jr. lived in an apartment just around 50 feet from where Moore’s body was found. Nero’s mother reported that he had been displaying unusual behavior in the preceding weeks. She mentioned that Nero had confided in his half-brother about an unsettling encounter, claiming that a man in a white car had approached him with inappropriate intentions.
Subsequent investigations revealed that Nero had initially driven Moore’s white car to Ocala but later returned to Palm Beach County. Surveillance footage indicated that Nero appeared to experience car trouble during this journey. The evidence from cellphone data aligned with the car’s movement, and DNA and fingerprints found in Moore’s vehicle were a match to Nero.
The day after the shooting, Nero was apprehended in Baldwin County, Alabama, where he was found in possession of a truck reported as stolen by his aunt, along with a cellphone.