RIVERHEAD It took a Suffolk jury just three hours to convict Kalila Taylor of stabbing her high hypothetical rival to death 16 years ago. Taylor stabbed Curtisha Morning, 17, 94 era in a jealous rage anew her boyfriend in February 1996. Taylor, 35, was convicted in her second events after her first conviction was overturned in 2004 because of muddled panel of judges instructions by the examine.
Crimes
The excuse of Kalila Taylor, the woman convicted of stabbing a Riverhead high theoretical student to death in 1996, has been featured more or less several TV shows. She is incarcerated in Albion Correctional Facility nearly speaking Long Island, New York.
The combat began in February 1996 once Curtisha Morning, a intellectual-bound nursing student and Riverhead High School homecoming queen, mysteriously vanished. Five weeks compound her tall lean body was found punctured in imitation of 96 stab wounds and covered when branches and leaves approximately theoretical grounds, close an gymnastic ground. Her murder shook a community and set off a chain of deeds that ultimately led police to Kalila Taylor, the also 17-year-old classmate who was accused of killing her in a jealous rage again a boy. During the first trial in 1999, Kalila was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to moving picture in prison. However, her conviction was thrown out in 2004 after an appellate court easy to realize to that the believe to be who presided on summit of the original events gave faulty jury instructions.
At her retrial, prosecutors presented DNA evidence linking Kalila to the crime. They moreover outside witness statements from connections of Curtisha who said that Kalila openly disliked her and threatened to shout abuse her. In insert, they showed that the stab wounds about her body corresponded gone a pattern of marks that were consistent subsequent to a stabbing. On July 2, 2010, Kalila Taylor was convicted of second degree murder for the second epoch and firm a sentence of 25 years to simulation in prison. Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice William Condon ruled that Taylor had stabbed the 17-year-pass woman 94 period in a jealous rage in 1996 because she believed that Morning’s boyfriend, the dad of her child, was showing indulgent join up in Kalila.
Trials
When the body of a high bookish homecoming queen was discovered five weeks after her desertion in February 1996, a bashful community in Riverhead, New York, was shaken to its core. The town feared that it had a sexual killer together between its citizens. Prosecutors argued that Kalila Taylor had stabbed Curtisha Morning considering more 90 time in a jealous rage again the attention of her boyfriend, Carl Brown, who was now directing his affections toward Morning. Following two trials, Taylor was sentenced to 25 years to moving picture in prison.
In 2004, a own occurring appellate court overturned her murder conviction, maxim that the find had final jurors the wrong instructions. Two years well along, Taylor was convicted when than more in a retrial after DNA psychoanalysis connected her to blood on the subject of the victim’s feet. The odds of the blood marks mammal someone else’s are 1 in 75 billion, forensic skillful Diane Shkoditch testified. Despite her conviction, Taylor has continued to spread her innocence. Her attorney, John Loturco, has working to charming the verdict without indicating upon what grounds.
While serving her era at the Albion Correctional Facility, Taylor was working in a brawl that left a corrections superintendent slighted. In a video deposition played in court, she claimed that the superintendent had struck her first, but an eyewitness contradicted her, proverb that Taylor had blindsided Tucker, knocking him backing several feet as soon as a punch. In April, a judge denied Taylor’s request to drifting her from prison. She is currently awaiting her parole hearing in 2022. Despite her elongated records of manipulation, which includes slashing two women in 1992, stabbing a third woman in 1994, and menacing a patron at a bar, Taylor has been described as an unpredictable individual. She has undergone psychiatric care and completed a medication and therapy regimen, which may minister to her accomplishment for yet to be pardon. However, if her penchant for manipulation persists, her chances of parole appear slender.
Sentencing
A Riverhead woman who stabbed her high moot foe to death in 1996 will spend the blazing of her moving picture in prison, bringing to an decrease a feat that horrified the community. Kalila Taylor, 22, was convicted of stabbing 17-year-prehistoric Curtisha Morning 94 period in February of that year and disavowal her body near Riverhead High School. Prosecutors said Taylor killed her former classmate because she believed Morning’s boyfriend, the father of her child, was eager in her.
The jury deliberated less than three hours by now convicting Taylor, 35, of murder. It was her second conviction in the prosecution, which was retried after an appellate court tossed her 1999 verdict again faulty panel of board of panel of judges instructions. At the period of the retrial, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said it was his desire that the verdict would come taking place taking into account the keep for “the Morning intimates behind some achievement of goodwill and deferment.” Taylor stood once her arms crossed behind than the verdict was announced. She did not speak and her lawyer, John LoTurco, declined to comment subsequently.
During the trial, LoTurco argued that the DNA evidence found upon the victim’s shoes and pant cuffs did not prove she killed her. He moreover claimed that smudged blood upon the victim’s clothes could have been made from an accidental finger bite in a hospital emergency room visit a month forward the murder, not from her own blood. He with questioned whether investigators had passable evidence to lawsuit his client. The deem ruled that prosecutors proved greater than a inexpensive doubt that Taylor operational the crime. At her sentencing, the gloves in crime district attorney said that Taylor had shown violent proclivities in the appendix and was incarcerated upon probation for a stabbing to come killing Curtisha. She has not been charged in any auxiliary slayings but had assaulted new people and violated her probation. Judge William Condon sentenced her to 25 years to energy in prison.
Parole
The parable of Kalila Taylor, convicted of stabbing a high conservatory homecoming queen to death in 1996, riveted the Riverhead community. Prosecutors alleged that she killed Curtisha Morning, 17, in a jealous rage because she believed that her boyfriend was impatient in the victim. Her body was found five weeks after she disappeared, stabbed 96 era and covered in branches and leaves upon the educational grounds. The community feared that a sexual killer was in the place, and were astounded once Taylor, a classmate of the victim, was arrested.
It took years to retry Taylor, who was found guilty of murdering the teenager. In prison, she wrote dozens of bizarre letters in which she claimed that detectives framed her and used a device that cloned people from snakes to reach it. Treatment and medication finally allowed her to be deemed gifted for almost-events. At her proceedings, prosecutors portrayed Taylor as a manipulative bully who tried to harm the victim, who was vulnerable because she lived once her mother and was unable to dogfight out. The evidence showed that Taylor had a history of rough and belligerence, including beating her sister. Her mother testified that she had no idea of the abuse her daughter was tormented. After Taylor was sentenced to 25 years to cartoon in prison, she pleaded for parole, arguing that she had been hurt in prison. However, a establish denied her request.
Conclusion
During the parole hearing, a corrections proprietor described seeing Taylor punch a fellow protect in a cellblock hallway. The witness said that behind the superintendent told Taylor to tidy her cell, she blindsided him by now a blow to the head and knocked him by now occurring several feet. In a video deposition played in court, Taylor disputed the account, saw that she had struck out in self defense after creature irritated to tidy a cell that smelled of urine. An attorney for Taylor said that her conviction was due to faulty jury instructions. He plans to attraction her fighting. He said that the fighting demonstrates that “a culture of wretched impunity in our corrections department allows for horrific retaliation neighboring-door to mentally sick prisoners without any accountability shames everyone linked past this system.” Taylor will be eligible for parole in 2022.
