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Kevin TAYLOR
Classification:
Spree killer
Characteristics:
Rape
Number of victims: 4
Date of murders: June - August 2001
Date
of arrest:
August 20,
2001
Date of birth: June
11,
1974
Victims profile: Bernadine Blunt, 39 / Ola Mae Wallace, 39
/ Diane Jordan, 42 / Cynthia Halk, 38 (drug-addicted prostitutes)
Method of murder: Strangulation
Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Status: Sentenced to life in prison on June 2006
Police in Chicago's South Side said
that on August 20, 2001, they arrested a man and charged with raping and
strangling four drug-addicted prostitutes over a two-month period.
The
suspect, 27-year-old Kevin Taylor, left a fifth woman for dead over
after arguing with her over the price for sex. "He would meet with
the victims, make an arrangement for an act of prostitution, take them
to a secluded area, and in these particular cases, he got into arguments
with the victims and he strangled them," Chief Detective Philip
Cline said.
Police arrested Taylor, a cook at The
Cheesecake Factory restaurant, at work after investigators found a time
card with his name under the body of one of the victims.
The victim, 39-year-old
Bernadine Blunt, was found August 18 in an abandoned building in the
South Side. Similarities between Blunt's death and three other slayings
led detectives to question Taylor about those cases.
Cline said Taylor
confessed to the four murders and the attempted murder of a 38-year-old
woman who survived a July 27 attack. The surviving woman was able to
identify Taylor in a lineup after his arrest, police said.
The other victims are Ola Mae Wallace,
39, whose body was found in an alley on June 25; Diane Jordan, 42, found
in an alley on July 10; and Cynthia Halk, 38, found in a city garbage
can in an alley. In early August police issued an alert to Chicago's
street women, warning them about the recent murders of several suspected
prostitutes. Over the past two years, 18 prostitutes have been slain in
the city.
Kevin Taylor
August 26, 2001
Police in
Chicago's South Side said they arrested a man and charged with raping
and strangling four drug-addicted prostitutes over a two-month period.
The suspect, 27-year-old Kevin Taylor, left a fifth woman for dead over
after arguing with her over the price for sex. "He would meet with the
victims, make an arrangement for an act of prostitution, take them to a
secluded area, and in these particular cases, he got into arguments with
the victims and he strangled them," Chief Detective Philip Cline said.
Accused
serial killer sentenced
By Carlos Sedovi -
ChicagoTribune.com
June 15, 2006
A Cook County judge
sentenced an alleged serial killer to 50 years in prison for the 2001
killing of a woman whose partially clothed body was found in a garbage
can on the North Side.
Circuit Judge Fred G.
Suria Jr. spared Kevin Taylor, 32, of the 10700 block of South Eberhart
Avenue, the 60-year maximum sentence after reading a report by Taylor's
defense lawyers detailing Taylor's childhood in foster homes because he
had a drug addicted mother and a convict for a father.
In January a jury
convicted Taylor of first-degree murder in the July 27, 2001, strangling
of Cynthia Halk, 38. He is awaiting trial for the killings of three
other women in 2001.
"It goes without saying
that this crime should never have happened, it also goes without saying
that the life you led I would not impose on our worst enemy ... [but] in
no way does it justify what occurred in this case," said Suria.
"Cynthia Halk was an
unfortunate person. Fifty years ... is the only sentence I can impose
that would protect the public."
Assistant State's Atty.
Carmen Aguilar read a victim impact statement prepared by Halk's
daughter, Aisha, detailing how the woman's family had dropped her off at
Provident Hospital on the South Side for treatment for her epilepsy. Her
body was found three days later in the garbage.
"I still have a hard
time believing that my mother was found naked and dead in a garbage can.
She had no dignity in death, but she did have dignity in life," Aisha
Halk's statement said.
She said in the
statement that because of the epilepsy, her mother could not hold a
paying job but was able to take care of her three grandchildren. Halk
said the family had told Provident Hospital to call them to pick her up
after her treatment. But the call never came. "This time, they [the
hospital] did not call. My mother wound up on the North Side in a
garbage can three days later. My children loved their grandmother and
miss her very much. We all do. Our lives will never be the same without
her," Halk wrote.
Assistant State's Atty.
Angela Petrone asked for the 60-year maximum sentence. She said Taylor,
in a videotaped statement, told police he ran into the woman while
looking for a prostitute after his shift as a cook at the Cheesecake
Factory on Michigan Avenue. Halk agreed to have sex with him for $10,
Petrone said. Halk tried to get up to leave as the two were having sex,
and Taylor strangled her, Petrone said.
Halk's body was found in
an alley near Clark and Division Streets, Petrone said.
"We do know that Cynthia
Halk desperately wanted to go home and at one point she got up and said
she wanted to leave, but Kevin Taylor wasn't ready. While she was having
an epileptic seizure, Kevin Taylor was squeezing the life out of her,"
Petrone said. "When she died, he picked up the $10 bill and tossed her
in the garbage like she was a piece of trash."
Petrone said prosecutors
now plan to try Taylor on the 2001 killing of Ola Mae Wallace, 39, of
the 4100 block of North Sheridan Road. Wallace's body was found in an
alley in the 5200 block of North Broadway. Petrone said prosecutors are
seeking the death penalty in that case. Suria set a June 27 court date
in the case.
Taylor
also is facing trial for the 2001 killings of Diane Jordan, 42, whose
body was found in an alley in the 1400 block of North Mohawk Street; and
Bernadine Blunt of the 200 block of East 115th Street, whose body was
found in an abandoned building.
