Gena Richardson says she was a high school senior working in the men's department of Sears at the Gadsden Mall when a man approached her and introduced himself as Roy Moore.
"He said, 'You can just call me Roy,' " says Richardson, who says this first encounter happened in the fall of 1977, just before or after her 18th birthday, as Moore, then a 30-year-old local attorney, was gaining a reputation for pursuing young women at the mall in Gadsden, Alabama. His overtures caused one store manager to tell new hires to "watch out for this guy," another young woman to complain to her supervisor and Richardson to eventually hide from him when he came in Sears, the women say.