The US state of Missouri executed a man on Tuesday sentenced to death for a quadruple murder that he denied, authorities said. Leonard Taylor, 58, was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. local time at a Bonne Terre correctional facility in the central United States.
His girlfriend and children were found dead in their home, each shot in the head, on December 3, 2004. According to coroners, they had been dead for a few days.
Leonard Taylor has always maintained that they were still alive on November 26, when he left the house, located in Jennings, Missouri, to catch a flight to California, on the other side of the country.
last resort unsuccessful
During the trial, prosecutors had claimed that he had confessed to the murders to his brother and made his gun disappear in front of a witness, and jurors had found him guilty. Since then, the resources to be acquitted had multiplied. Unsuccessfully.
Again on Monday, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson denied his request for clemency. “The evidence shows that Taylor committed these atrocities, a jury found him guilty, and all courts upheld the sentence,” the Republican elected official said in a statement.
The Innocence Project association, which fights against judicial errors and defends Leonard Taylor, however, assures that the brother’s testimony was obtained under duress and that he later retracted it.
His lawyers recently produced testimony from his daughter that he was in California with her at the time of the murders, without getting the file reopened. They had filed a final appeal Tuesday with the US Supreme Court, to no avail.
Leonard Taylor is the fifth death row inmate to be executed since January 1 in the United States
Source: BFM TV
