If it weren’t for the crab fries, maybe they never would have met.
Ra’D Moore was stopping into the Chickie’s N Pete’s in Marlton, New Jersey, to pick up takeout when he bumped into Natalia Baranowski during the NBA playoffs.
She was at the bar waiting for a girlfriend, and his food was taking a while. They quickly bonded over basketball—he was a huge Lakers fan—and he had been coaching it to kids for years in a community league.
Ra’D didn’t even drink, so to his family it would later sound weird that they met at a bar. But to Natalia it was fate.
“We clicked right way as soon as met,” she said. “And the rest is history.”
They dated for a couple years, got engaged. Ra’d had been born and raised in Camden, later moved to Cherry Hill, but was living in Lindenwold when they met. He agreed to move to Port Richmond so he could live with Natalia closer to where they worked.
Last year the two had a daughter, Isla, a name he picked because it sounded pretty.
“He found it somewhere, and after that there was no debating,” said Natalia, who didn’t need much convincing.
He was determined to give his daughter a better upbringing than he had, but his life was cut short when she was just six months old. On January 15, 2025, he was shot dead on Allegheny Avenue near Kensignton. It was 2:30 in the afternoon, and Natalia was FaceTiming with him when it happened.
Three people have been arrested but police are still looking for one suspect, Natalia said.
Only four months before he was shot, he had begun a job teaching at Community Council Learning Academy, a charter school in North Philly. His class even won a contest to create the best new handshake in the school.
“He wasn’t there that long, but I heard from so many people how he had made such an impact,” Natalia said. “Everyone has taken this whole thing very hard.”
After school, he also was working in a group residence for young adults with autism. It was a sign of his giving nature, since working with teenagers is hard enough, let alone ones with autism.
“It requires understanding and compassion to hold those jobs,” Natalia said. “They don’t always pay the most, so you’re not doing it for the money. It’s genuinely about who you are.”
He had grown up in a big but fractured family. His mom was addicted to drugs and he spent a year in foster care. For about five years, he spent time living with his aunt and was raised by his extended family.
His mom got herself together, and of all the kids, she got him back before he was a teenager. Then his father died when he was 13, and it was only the two of them.
Still, he stayed out of trouble and was the first person in his family to go to college.
“He did everything right to pull himself out,” Natalia said. “He got educated, worked, never drank or touched substances and stayed on a straight path.”
That’s one of the reasons Natalia is still so confused about what happened. “In general he was a peaceful person, who never caused problems with anyone, and anyone who knows him can speak to that. He was a very charismatic, positive person.”
Besides work, he mostly kept to himself or spent time with his family. They would travel to the beach as often as they could.
Isla was constantly in his arms since being born because she never liked to sit in stroller. They spent lot of July and August walking the boardwalk.
“He was just so happy, in awe holidng her,” Natalisa said. “He never complained she was too heavy, always tended to her every need. Looking back, that was best time we had with him.”
He also loved learning about black history and watched one documentary after another. It’s tragic that he was killed on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
Hundreds of people came to his service at Faith Tabernacle of Living God church, in Camden, where his mom was heavily involved.
“He was just a stand-up guy,” Natalia said. “That’s what comes to mind.”
