Remembering Jeni

SHORELINE — Jeni Moses loved the color orange, wearing funky hats and fun clothes.

She was tall and thin, with flowing red hair, and had a quirkiness about her that endeared her to friends and family.

“Jeni had a loving energy about her, that touched everyone,” said her mother, Mary Green.

“She lived her life artistically and was a spiritual seeker too,” said a childhood friend, Henry Anderson.

“And she loved the outdoors — clamming with her sons, hiking and camping, even in the rain,” said her father, Jim Ogle.

Jeni became an accomplished biomedical researcher in Seattle. She worked her way up in the field after earning an associates degree in biotechnology at Seattle Central Community College.

For the five years she worked as a research technician at Fred Hutchinson, she worked on the herpes virus, and on a newly discovered virus connected with Kaposi’s sarcoma, “the characteristic skin cancer that people with HIV AIDs develop,” said David Koelle, who was her supervisor there at the time.

Most recently, she worked in the cell biology department at Cell Therapeutics Inc. where she was working on inhibiting cancer cells from becoming more potent. Her team’s work is being presented at the American Association of Cancer Research conference next month in Toronto, said Candice Douglass with CTI.

Above all of that, Jeni Moses was mother to her two young sons, Fisher, 8 and Forest, 5.

“When I think of Jeni qualities, I think of her love for her children,” said former co-worker Jeannine Pound. “She would light up whenever she talked about them. She loved being a mom, and made sure there was time in her schedule to have time with her kids.”

After living five years in an apartment near Fred Meyer in Shoreline, and for a year with family in Kenmore, Jeni bought a townhome in Richmond Beach, in the 19200 block of 15th Ave. NW, “and was so excited about owning her own place,” her father said, “especially for the boys.”

Before she could make the first payment, she died Sept. 27, 2002, of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s office. Her husband, Jeffrey Duane Moses, is charged with second degree murder, domestic violence. Moses has pleaded not guilty and a trial is set for May 19.

Jeni Moses would have turned 35 this month.

Jeffrey Moses told police his wife committed suicide. In court papers, police say that suicides in the manner Jeni Moses died are rare. According to prosecutors, Jeffrey Moses has a prior felony conviction for second-degree domestic violence assault.

Family and friends say the news of Jeni’s death was jarring.

“I was extremely shocked,” Koelle said.

“When this happened, everybody at CTI felt like a big family coming together, and we wanted to do something to express the love we had for Jeni and her parents and her children,” Pound said.

Her friends, family and co-workers conducted a memorial service for her at Sunset Park in Ballard, the first Friday in October.

“It was overcast, the birds were out, and three boats were chugging out, blowing their whistles. It was really sad,” Susan Ogle said.

On March 20, her friends and co-workers at CTI, Fred Hutchinson, the University of Washington and Children’s Hospital put on a fund-raiser auction and dinner party at Experience Music Project in Seattle to raise money for the education of Jeni Moses’s two sons, who are now living with family out of state.

“She took such pride in her children, she even told me she thought Fisher would be a scientist when he grows up because he already shows that he thinks carefully about things,” Pound said. “Her kids are her legacy, they are what Jeni left behind and we want to support them because that is what she would have wanted.”