Elkie Taylor was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Otis Flake
According to court documents Elkie Taylor would go to the home of sixty five year old Otis Flake and broke in. Taylor would murder Otis using a coat hanger to strangle him before robbing the home
Elkie Taylor was also suspected in a very similar murder that took place eleven days prior
Elkie Taylor was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Elkie Taylor was executed on November 6 2008 by lethal injection
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When Was Elkie Taylor Executed
Elkie Taylor was executed on November 6 2008
Elkie Taylor Case
More than 15 years after he was arrested following a wild police chase in a stolen tractor-trailer cab, a paroled burglar was put to death for using hangers to strangle a 65-year-old mentally ill Fort Worth man during a home burglary, one of two men he was accused of killing in similar fashion.
Elkie Lee Taylor continued to maintain his innocence from the death chamber gurney Thursday night after telling some friends and an aunt watching through a window that he was “going home.” “You ain’t got to worry about nothing,” he told them. “I hope to see all of y’all one day.” Then he turned toward another window, addressing relatives of the two men authorities said he killed. “Stay strong,” he said. “It’s bad to see a man get murdered for something he didn’t do. But I am taking it like a man, like a warrior.” He was pronounced dead nine minutes later.
Taylor, 46, was condemned for killing Otis Flake in April 1993. Flake was found dead — sitting up against a bed, his feet and hands bound and hangers twisted around his neck — by a friend after Taylor and an accomplice were spotted earlier walking away from Flake’s home near downtown Fort Worth.
He became the 15th Texas inmate executed this year and the first of six scheduled for lethal injection this month in the nation’s most active capital punishment state. Taylor’s lethal injection came after the U.S. Supreme Court, about two hours before he was to be taken to the Texas death chamber, refused to stop the punishment. Taylor’s attorneys had argued improper instructions were given to Taylor’s jury in Tarrant County at his 1994 trial. Lawyers then went to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, asking judges there to reconsider an earlier unsuccessful appeal that contended Taylor was mentally retarded and ineligible for the death penalty under Supreme Court standards. The state’s highest criminal court also turned him down.
Flake’s slaying was 11 days after Ramon Carrillo, an 87-year-old great-grandfather from the same neighborhood, was killed similarly, strangled with a coat hanger after he was struck in the head with a statue of the Virgin Mary during a home burglary. Taylor acknowledged involvement in both burglaries but blamed the killings on a partner. Evidence, however, showed Taylor had bragged to friends about wrapping a hanger around a man’s neck and that “dead men can’t talk.”
Renee Harris Toliver, Flake’s niece, said she and other relatives would pray for Taylor. “But not one of us will say he’s not deserving of having his life taken,” she said.
Taylor, originally from Milwaukee, was arrested after he eluded police for more than 100 miles while behind the wheel of a stolen tractor-trailer cab, leading officers on a chase from Fort Worth to Waco. A state trooper finally shot out the truck’s tires. At one point, Taylor tried to ram two police cars and run over two troopers standing on the side of the road. Taylor was on parole about three months when Flake was found murdered. He’d been released after serving less than nine months of an eight-year prison term for burglary.
Some of Flake’s relatives had been instrumental in drawing up a petition demanding a greater police presence in the neighborhood because of rising crime against elderly residents. Taylor’s initial burglary conviction was a result of the police response. Terri Moore, a former Tarrant County district attorney who prosecuted Taylor, said Taylor targeted Flake’s house in retaliation. “He’s mean,” she said. “You don’t kill two people and hold grudges. Coat hangers and two defenseless men — it was heartbreaking.”
Authorities contended Taylor and an accomplice, Darryl Birdow, took jewelry, cash, a television and other items in the robbery at Flake’s house so they could be sold to buy crack cocaine. Prison records showed they got $16 for the loot. Birdow was sentenced in 1994 to life in prison.
In 2003, Taylor came within two days of execution before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals gave him a reprieve after state prison records showed he might be mentally retarded. Courts subsequently determined he was not.
Two more executions are scheduled for next week. George Whitaker III, 36, was to die Wednesday for the shooting death of Kiki Carrier, the sister of his ex-girlfriend, at her home outside Crosby in Harris County, east of Houston. A 5-year-old girl was one of two others wounded in the attack. Then the following day, Nov. 13, Denard Manns, 42, faced execution for the 1998 fatal shooting of Christine Robson, 26, at her apartment in Killeen. Robson was a Fort Hood soldier living off the base.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/6100201.html
