CRIME HUNTER: What drove Miami fetish club king to strangle gal pal?
· Toronto Sun
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People’s most torrid passions are usually tucked away in the deepest recesses of their minds.
Most of us don’t act upon our most outlandish and twisted desires. In the subconscious of others, the kinks and fetishes are running at high speed. And there they will stay. Safe. Out of bounds.
But Luis Moya provided a venue for aspiring kinks in the form of Miami’s Hammer & Nails fetish club. There, those bold enough to put their inner fantasies on display could get their freak on.
At Hammer & Nails, the host provided an elaborate dungeon, a photo studio for sado-selfies, and the club itself that offered up cages, a coffin and devices for delivering electro shocks and other surprises.
Moya was the self-described ‘dungeon master’
But Moya — a native of Manchester, England who moved to South Florida in 2014 — sniffed to the Miami New Times in 2016, that he wasn’t running a “f— club.” He was the “dungeon master” and was offering open-minded folks a joint for safe sexual adventures.
“Come and experience what it is to be yourself — no hang-ups, with no one telling you, ‘That’s disgusting, nasty, you’re a f—ing pervert, and I can’t believe you like that,’” he said. “Come and experience what it’s like to be free and open.”
Warming to the topic of BDSM, he added: “People think BDSM has to give someone pain all the time, but it has nothing to do with that.
“The majority of BDSM is about having control over someone’s feelings and beliefs and making them feel awesome. We’re humans; sex is a part of every human’s lifestyle.”
Ana Rosa Moreno, 21, worked at a Miami car dealership. She met Moya on Craigslist where he told her he was a 37-year-old Brazilian businessman. This was not true. He was 52.
He lied about his age and other things
She trusted him, but whether she shared his taste for the sexually outlandish isn’t known.
At some point the young woman moved in with the “dungeon master” at his home in suburban Kendall. The nature of their relationship was unclear but it is a fact that Moreno tired of the relationship and moved out. It appears as though Moya was smitten.
For Moya, this would simply not do. Who leaves the “dungeon master” anyways?
But the domestic disputes of two adults suddenly took a sinister turn in the early morning hours of Dec. 15, 2019. A passerby spotted the raven-haired beauty’s body lying on the side of a Miami road.
Initially, cops put her tragic death down to an overdose. A not uncommon event among Moreno’s demographic in Miami. A post-mortem told a dramatically different tale.
Moreno, 21, was strangled to death
Ana Rosa Moreno, dead at 21, had been strangled to death.
Cops began delving into the attractive young woman’s life. First stop? Luis Moya’s house.
Why, yes, Moya told detectives, Moreno had visited his home on the night cops believed she was murdered. She wanted money, in fact, demanded it, the “dungeon master” claimed.
The kinko club owner told investigators that he had driven Moreno to Miami’s The Road’s neighbourhood. She got out of his vehicle and entered someone else’s and was driven away, never to be seen alive again.
But homicide detectives had an ace up their sleeves and they brought Moya in on the gag. Cops had video footage of Moya ditching the vivacious young woman’s body and then driving away in Moreno’s Honda Accord.
That car? Not the one I was driving that night he told skeptical cops, who caught him in the lie that Moreno had returned to his house.
El kinko’s lies caught up to him
In the courtroom, Moya was flailing helplessly as his sordid tale imploded. Prosecutors Suzanne Von Paulus, Sarah Waters and Stewart Hedrick showed the jury the CCTV that depicted him dumping Moreno’s body, and then driving away in her Accord.
Detectives testified that Moya changed his tale more than a kinky couple switches out their rubber sheets. Prosecutors also entered toll records that illustrated he drove from his home in Kendall to Miami where Moreno’s body was discovered.
There was also their bitter text message exchanges, filled with bitterness and anger. A cyber forensics team discovered a Google search on how to disable a car’s GPS. Before dumping Moreno’s body, he gave the GPS a snip.
Moya said nothing. He never admitted to strangling Moreno. Hs lawyers lambasted cops as the root of their client’s woes. Police efforts were called “insufficient” and there was no evidence proving he was a killer.
’45 years is going to be a life sentence’
On Oct. 24, 2024, Moya appeared in a South Florida courtroom. His attire was not leather and chains, it was an orange Dade County Jail jumpsuit. This time, he was the one handcuffed
“The simple fact that I can no longer call her or text her to tell her I love her hurts me so much,” her sister Wendy told the court, adding that Moya was a “monster.”
The BDSM killer did not seem to care even as prosecutors suggested life in prison. His legal eagles called a possible life sentence a “huge burden” on taxpayers.
“At your age, Mr. Moya, 45 years is going to be a life sentence,” Circuit Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez told him, adding that the victim died in one of the “most horrific ways a human being can die.”
Lying in the ashes were Moreno’s dreams. She planned to attend Miami Dade College before joining the military. A cop or a lawyer were high on the free spirit’s list of dream jobs.
“She had the most contagious laugh you could ever imagine,” Wendy Moreno said. “It’s just tragic that somebody she trusted did something like this to her.”