Jarrod Taylor was sentenced to death by the State of Alabama for the murders of three people
According to court documents Jarrod Taylor would rob a used car dealership and in the process would shoot and kill three people: Sherry Gaston, Bruce Gaston, and Steve Dyas
Jarrod Taylor would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
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Where Is Jarrod Taylor Now
Jarrod Taylor is incarcerated at Holman Prison
Jarrod Taylor Case
The State’s evidence tends to show the following. On the morning of December 12, 1997, Jarrod Taylor and his friend, Kenyatta McMillan, took a .380 caliber pistol from the home of a friend of Taylor’s and then bought a BB-pellet pistol from a nearby Wal-Mart discount department store. According to McMillan, who was the State’s main witness against Taylor, Taylor was armed with the pistol and McMillan had the BB gun. Later that morning, the two men entered Steve Dyas Motors, a used car dealership in Mobile, for the purpose of robbing it. Jarrod Taylor pretended to be interested in purchasing a Ford Mustang automobile. Taylor negotiated the purchase of the automobile with Sherry Gaston, a salesperson at Steve Dyas Motors, and told her that he was from Louisiana and that his father-in-law was going to give him the money to purchase the automobile as an early Christmas present. Taylor and McMillan spent the day test-driving the automobile, filling out the paperwork for the purchase of the car, and waiting for Taylor’s fictitious father-in-law to arrive with the $13,700 to purchase the car.
At one point, Taylor asked Sherry Gaston for a bill of sale that he could take to his father-in-law to show him the price of the automobile. They came and went from the used car dealership several times during the day. As closing time neared, the employees of Steve Dyas Motors began leaving the dealership to prepare for their annual Christmas party. When Taylor and McMillan entered the car dealership for the last time, around dusk, only Sherry Gaston, who was awaiting Taylor’s return to complete the sale, her husband, Bruce Gaston, and Steve Dyas, the owner, were in the office. When Taylor and McMillan entered the office, Taylor immediately shot Bruce Gaston in the chest with the .380 pistol. Bruce Gaston fell to the floor as Sherry Gaston ran to a bathroom and locked herself in and Steve Dyas ran to a back room and tried to escape through a window. Kenyatta McMillan stopped Steve Dyas and brought him back to the office at gunpoint.
Taylor and McMillan were demanding to know where the money and the safe was, and Steve Dyas was on his knees begging for his life. Dyas tried to convince them that he did not have a safe and did not keep money in the office; he offered the two gunmen any car on the lot and the money and credit cards from his wallet. As Steve Dyas begged for his life, Taylor placed the .380 pistol to Dyas’s head and shot him, killing him instantly. Taylor then went to the bathroom door and ordered Sherry Gaston to come out. Sherry Gaston obeyed and opened the bathroom door. She begged for her life and told them that she was the mother of two children who needed her; Taylor put the .380 pistol to her head and shot her, killing her instantly. The two gunmen then rummaged the office area, taking Sherry Gaston’s purse and the wallets from the two male victims. They took the paperwork Sherry Gaston had prepared for the sale of the automobile, leaving copies of the paperwork on Sherry Gaston’s desk that they thought would make it appear that Jarrod Taylor had bought the automobile. As they were preparing to leave, Taylor noticed Bruce Gaston move, so he walked over to Gaston’s body, put the .380 pistol against Bruce Gaston’s head and shot him, killing him instantly.1 The two gunmen took the automobile they had been negotiating for and fled to Selma, where they were apprehended the next morning.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/al-court-of-criminal-appeals/1096230.html
