Man arrested for double murder

*This story was updated June 20 with new information, including details from the arrest affidavit.

The bodies of a 41-year-old woman and her 11-year-old daughter were recovered at a Decatur home last week, and the woman’s husband has been arrested in connections with the deaths.

ROBERT A. MORAIRITY

Robert Aaron Morairity Jr., 45, is charged with murder in the death of his wife, Kimberly Kellum, and capital murder of a person between the ages of 10 and 15 in the death of his 11-year-old daughter, Rachel Morairity. He is also charged with tampering/fabricating physical evidence with intent to impair a human corpse.

According to the arrest affidavits in the case, Morairity is accused of stabbing Kellum and killing his daughter by asphyxiation, based on information Morairity provided investigators.

The investigation began last Monday morning, June 12, when the sheriff’s office received a call from the brother-in-law of Kellam saying she and her 11-year-old daughter had not been seen since November of last year.

The brother-in-law told a deputy that when family would ask about Kellum’s whereabouts, “Robert reportedly makes excuses about where they are,” the affidavit states.

Deputies went to the last known address, 1356 County Road 4371 in Decatur, and found the residence apparently abandoned.

Around 6 p.m. the next day, officers located Morairity outside an Irving motel where he had been staying. A WCSO investigator, Texas Rangers and Dallas Police Department officers met with Morairity, who had two children — ages 10 and 3 — with him, according to a WCSO news release.

“Morairity, at first, claimed he had not seen his wife or oldest daughter in six months. Eventually, he admitted his wife and 11-year-old daughter were deceased, and their remains were inside the garage at the CR 4371 address,” the news release states.

According to the affidavit, Morairity told investigators that his son had stabbed Kellum in November of 2022, killing her, and the son smothered his daughter with plastic, killing her in either January of February.

“We don’t believe the evidence supports that,” Akin said of the son being involved in the deaths.

The sheriff added that Morairity told “a lot of different stories” about how the two were actually killed, and investigators will rely on the autopsy results from the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office to determine the exact cause and manner of death, as well as possibly how long ago the two died. Due to the level of decomposition, Akin said the autopsy results could take several weeks.

Morairity told investigators that he placed his wife’s body in a “large Tupperware container” inside the garage at their Decatur home, according to the affidavit. The affidavit states Morairity initially placed his daughter’s body in the garage, but he told investigators that animals had drug the child’s body outside, so he wrapped her in a tarp and placed a number of items on top of her, including a box, a broken table and a bicycle.

Investigators found the child’s body under a tarp outside the garage and her mom’s body in “a large plastic tub or trough, the kind commonly used to water livestock” in the center of the garage, the affidavit states. 

Other evidence has been collected in the case, according to the sheriff.

“We do have a statement from (Morairity). As a result we recovered two knives at the scene. But we are awaiting the autopsy results,” Akin said.

The other two children, who Akin confirmed were the biological children of Morairity and Kellum, were released to Child Protective Services.

“They are in good health, at least in good physical health,” Akin said.

The children were not enrolled in a local school, according to the sheriff. 

Morairity remains in the Wise County Jail with total bond set at $800,000.