A trip from rich to wretch

Young woman who cops say did
nothing to save poor Jennifer

BY ROBERT F. MOORE and ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS


Alleged prostitute Krystal Riordan is accused of watching as her boyfriend raped, sodomized and strangled Jennifer Moore in a Weehawken, N.J. hotel and later of helping him dispose of the body.


Murder suspect Draymond Coleman is escorted out of the NYPD's 10th Precinct in Manhattan yesterday.


Undated picture of slaying victim Jennifer Moore.

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."

loves women so much he has them work the streets to make his money lock him up and get his gal some help!