Pizza delivery woman assaulted on the job

PASCAGOULA, Miss. (WALA) - A Pascagoula man is in jail accused of assaulting a pizza delivery driver. 

Police arrested 27-year-old Michael Moore, Jr. early Saturday morning. They say he assaulted a female pizza delivery driver around midnight. Moore was arrested about three hours later.

Nobody wanted to comment at the suspect’s home on Catalpa Avenue on Saturday. 

Police said Moore ordered several pizzas from a local restaurant late Friday night; they were to be delivered to a fake address. As the female driver got out of the car, police say she was assaulted by a man with a knife, and dragged behind an apartment building where she was robbed and sexually assaulted.

Police have not named the apartment where the assault happened, but Moore lives right next to the small apartment building where Ester Jackson resides.

"It's three apartment complexes around here, but they (neighbors) said this was most likely the one it happened at, because this one you can't see back behind there, and the other ones you can see," Jackson said.

Jackson was referring the narrow space behind her apartment building, which is blocked by a tall wooden fence.

Jackson said she knows Moore. She was surprised to hear about his arrest.

"I seen Mike earlier that day.  He was on the hill playing dominoes," she said. "He just got out of prison.  He ain't even been out a good four months.”

Kimberly Harris, a former pizza delivery driver, also lives in the area.

"I've been to houses delivering pizza and it was pitch dark outside and you can't see anything. So, I'm shocked that it was a pizza delivery driver, but I'm not surprised, because they expect for us to go wherever, whenever," Harris said.

Moore is charged with armed robbery, kidnapping, and sexual assault and is being held on $150,000 bond.

"He was just a funny, goofy kind of guy. I wouldn't see him as being dangerous, but you never know these days," Jackson said.