Dad killed in failed plan to get custody of child (Dallas, Texas)

Wow, sometimes there does seem to be karma after all. Seems convicted felon dad DWAYNE LAMONT MOTEN wanted custody of "his" child (obviously, we're talking about possession here, owning a battle trophy, not quality time with a child). So he comes up with some weird plan to frame mom's current boyfriend on a phony assault charge. Only it all backfired, and now Daddy is dead. Another reminder that the motives behind fathers wanting custody are more often more suspect than many of us want to admit.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-custodyplot_14met.ART.State.Edition1.29592b4.html

Father killed in failed plan to get custody of child

12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, July 14, 2010
By SCOTT GOLDSTEIN / The Dallas Morning News
sgoldstein@dallasnews.com

Dwayne Lamont Moten wanted custody of his child. So he devised a plan with another man to get the new boyfriend of the child's mother out of the way, according to Dallas police.

Jacob Wheeler would shoot to wound Moten. Then Moten would call 911 and pin the shooting on the third man.

"It was a very ill-conceived plan," said Dallas police homicide Sgt. Bruce McDonald.

And it failed.

Moten, 20, a felon, died Saturday afternoon. Wheeler, also 20 and a felon, faces a murder charge, according to police records.

The shooting occurred about 3:20 p.m. Saturday in the 2700 block of Malcolm X Boulevard near Grand Avenue.

"He was actually planning on shooting him in the thigh and shoulder," McDonald said. "I don't know if [Moten] flinched and turned sideways a little more. The bullet entered the chest cavity and was fatal."

Before he died, Moten drove a short distance and yelled for someone to call an ambulance, according to a Dallas police report.

At some point Moten also called 911, though he did not pin the shooting on the third man during that call, police said.

The story that detectives were initially told implicated the boyfriend and didn't add up, McDonald said.

Police arrested Wheeler on an unrelated aggravated robbery charge Sunday morning and later added the murder charge. He was being held at the Dallas County Jail on Tuesday night on $750,000 bail.