Man Indicted in Kidnap-for-Ransom Case That Ended With Victim’s Murder

June 28, 2022 – A 44-year-old man has been indicted on murder and other criminal charges related to the abduction of a Mississippi man who was held for ransom and eventually killed, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

A grand jury indicted Alfonzo Buford of felony counts of first-degree murder, murder in the perpetration of aggravated kidnapping, especially aggravated kidnapping involving ransom and especially aggravated kidnapping involving serious bodily injury.

Buford is free on $300,000 bond.

The incident began on Jan. 1, 2021, in Greenwood, Miss., where resident Broderick Moore, 40, was last seen. His wife said he called her hours later around midnight and told her to put a large sum of money and marijuana in a trash bag and leave it by a dumpster at a gas station on South Mendenhall.

When she did so the following day, a man approached her and told her to wait at a nearby fast-food restaurant where her husband would contact her. She followed his instructions, but did not hear from her husband.

Meanwhile, a workman entered a vacant home on Flowering Peach Drive about a half-mile away for a job and discovered Moore’s body bound with duct tape. He had been shot two times in the head.

Surveillance videos and other evidence pointed to Buford and led to his arrest and charging two days later. The defendant, who gave police several different accounts of the incident, was known to the victim and his wife.

The case is being handled by Asst. Dist. Atty. Joseph Griffith of the District Attorney’s Crime Strategies and Narcotics Prosecution Unit (CSNPU) which prosecutes cases in General Sessions Division 8 (Drug Court) and in Criminal Court Division 6.

The CSNPU handles cases involving gangs and violent crimes, including homicides, robberies, kidnappings, rapes, and narcotics trafficking.