A trip from
rich to wretch
Young woman who cops say did
nothing to save poor Jennifer
July 29, 2006
BY ROBERT F.
MOORE and ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
 The
sad-eyed hooker accused of watching her ex-con boyfriend rape and
kill Jennifer Moore grew up a child of privilege - with seemingly
more in common with the victim than the alleged killer.
Krystal Riordan was raised in
Connecticut and attended a pricey boarding school for troubled kids
before selling her body for cash.
She and Moore were born only two
years apart; they both grew up in middle-class comfort in the
suburbs of New York City and attended high schools dominated by
wealthy children.
Riordan, 20, is accused of doing nothing
to help Moore as small-time pimp Draymond Coleman allegedly raped,
sodomized and strangled her to death in a dive motel - a world away
from the affluent suburbs both girls knew.
In her mug shot, Riordan appears
terrified and on the verge of tears. "We think she was scared and
just helped him because of that," Riordan's younger sister, Nicole,
told the Daily News yesterday.
"If someone just killed someone in front
of me, I would be scared, too," the 19-year-old said from her rural
home in Orange, Conn., where she and Krystal grew up after being
adopted as young kids.
"We never liked him," Nicole said of
Coleman, the 34-year-old father of Krystal's 1-year-old daughter,
Trinity, who is in foster care. "We never wanted her to stay with
him."
Coleman allegedly abducted Moore early
Tuesday as the 18-year-old wandered around lost and drunk in
Manhattan near 12th Ave. and W. 37th St.
Moore had sneaked into the city with
a friend to go clubbing in Chelsea. She ended up alone after their
car was towed and her intoxicated pal passed out at an NYPD impound
lot.
Somehow, police say, the petite,
5-foot-2, college-bound kid wound up in the same taxi as the
6-foot-1, 240-pound felon. Cops don't know if he pulled her inside
or enticed her with the promise of a ride back to her home in
Harrington Park, N.J., where the average house sells for $800,000.
Police are hunting for the cabbie who
drove the pair to the drab Park Avenue Hotel in Weehawken, hoping he
can provide answers. Coleman allegedly escorted Moore into room No.
37.
His girlfriend was waiting inside, cops
say.
Riordan, who has battled emotional
problems most of her life, was furious that Coleman had another
woman with him, a source said. Riordan grew even angrier when he
asked her to pay the cabbie, the source said.
Minutes later, Coleman allegedly ravaged
his unconscious victim and strangled her as she fought back,
scratching his body. Believing she was dead, he allegedly stuffed
her inside a laundry bag. When Moore began to move, he opened the
bag and suffocated her with a plastic bag, police sources said.
"The vicious animal reached in,
opened the bag and finished what he started," a source said.
Coleman then left the hotel, bought
gloves and ammonia and rubbed down Moore's body in a bid to destroy
DNA evidence, before stuffing her into a suitcase, the sources said.
With Riordan's help, Coleman dumped Moore into a trash bin, the
sources said.
Riordan's sister told The News her
sibling met Coleman through a classmate at Elan School in Poland
Spring, Maine, a residential school for out-of-control teens. It was
at Elan - which charges $49,000 a year - that Kennedy cousin Michael
Skakel allegedly confessed to the 1975 murder of 15-year-old Martha
Moxley in Greenwich, Conn.
Riordan and Coleman had been together
for two years.
"I don't know why," sighed Nicole
Riordan.
Elan, a 160-bed school known for its
unusual behavior modification methods, tells parents of troubled
kids: "We cannot offer you miracles, but we can offer you hope . . .
We hope Elan can change its course."
The course Krystal Riordan took led
to prostitution.
"He made her go out and work and she had
to give him the money to him right away," the sister said. "When I
found out what she was doing, I said she had to leave him."
Police arrested Coleman and Riordan
at a rundown hotel in upper Manhattan early Thursday. Cops said they
found them after checking Moore's cell phone records and discovering
the phone had been used to call Coleman's mom and ex-lover.
Riordan was being held on $1 million
bail in New Jersey, charged with evidence tampering and hindering
prosecution.
Coleman, who has more than 16 prior
arrests, took a nap in a police lock-up after getting busted. He is
fighting extradition to New Jersey, where he is charged with murder.
His stepdad, William Harris hopes he's innocent.
"He loves women," said Harris, 82. "He
just loves them."
With Barbara Ross
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