Reverend: ‘We need to forgive that person’

ATLANTA — Family and friends gathered at Providence Missionary Baptist Church exactly one week after someone shot and killed Rev. Derek Moses at his financial services company.

It was standing room only as pastors from six different churches shared their memories of Moses.

Moses earned a B.A. in Management and Economics from Fisk University when he was 19.

The Rev. William Flippen said he remembers when Moses started school.

Flippen and his classmates thought Moses was a lost high school student.

But they all quickly became friends, “with those nerd glasses on, with that huge smile and we had a huge level of respect for him when he became most of our tutors.”

Flippen then gave everyone in the sanctuary a challenge, saying “Would you look at somebody and say ‘I want to live like Derek’ so that my living will not be in vain?”

The Rev. Gerald Durley, the pastor of Missionary Baptist Church then gave Moses’ family and friends another challenge, saying “It’s hard to forgive somebody who came and ripped your life apart. But we need to forgive that person.”

Moses youngest sister, told Channel 2’s Rebecca Lindstrom, she agrees. “I’m saying I haven’t forgotten but I have forgiven. I have. It’s hard, but I had to, to let go and let God take care of it,” Kwana Moses Scott said.

KC Sparks also said he will forgive, but first, he needs to know who killed his cousin.

“I need to know who that person is and to be able to look in their eyes and say ‘why?’” Sparks said.

Atlanta police believe Moses knew his killer.

Investigators said there was no sign of forced entry at Moses’ office on Cascade Road and nothing of value appeared to be taken except his 2002 dark blue BMW.

It was found less than two miles away from the murder scene on Montreat Avenue.

Anyone who saw the car before it was abandoned is asked to call police.