GARFIELD COUNTY, Colo. — Almost exactly three years after a man was found fatally shot in a car near Parachute, investigators in Garfield County have arrested a suspect in the case.
On May 11, 2021, deputies with the Garfield County Sheriff's Office responded to reports of a person bleeding and unresponsive in a car on Highway 6, west of Parachute. When they arrived, they found a vehicle parked alongside the highway in a wide area of the shoulder.
That evening, investigators with the sheriff's office and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) determined the victim had been shot multiple times. He was declared deceased at the scene and the case was listed as a homicide, the sheriff's office said.
The victim was identified as Wayne Moore, 60, a local man who lived in his vehicle in and around Parachute.
Investigators with the sheriff's office continued their investigation in the weeks and months after Moore's death. That stretched out to three years of witness interviews, search warrants and evidence analysis, the sheriff's office said.
Ultimately, investigators identified the primary suspect as John Michael Worley, 30, of Parachute.
On May 10 — almost exactly three years after the homicide — investigators obtained an arrest warrant for Worley. He was arrested that evening without incident and was transported to the Garfield County Jail, the sheriff's office said. His bond was set at $5,000,000.
Worley faces charges of first-degree murder, stalking and tampering with physical evidence.
Multiple agencies were involved in this investigation aside from the sheriff's office and CBI, including the Parachute Police Department, the Ninth Judicial District Attorney’s Office, and the Garfield County Special Problem Enforcement and Response (SPEAR) Team.
