A man charged with killing his live-in girlfriend and her three children has been executed despite always claiming his innocence.
Raheem Taylor, 58, was put to death by lethal injection in the state prison Bonne Terre, Missouri, US, shortly after midnight UK-time on February 8.
Republican Governor Mike Parson denied a clemency request on Monday and last minute appeals to the Supreme Court by Taylor's lawyers were declined.
Gov Parson dismissed Taylor’s “self-serving claim of innocence.”
Taylor always claimed his innocence, saying he was in California at the time Angela Rowe, her 10-year-old daughter Alexus Conley, 6-year-old daughter AcQreya Conley, and 5-year-old son Tyrese Conley were killed in 2004.
On Dececember 3, 2004, police were sent to the home after worried family members said they hadn’t heard from Rowe. Officers found the bodies of Rowe and her children. All four had been shot.
Taylor, who had a criminal record for drug and fraud-related offenses, boarded a flight to California on November 26, 2004.
In the wake of the killings a medical examiner said the family was likely killed shortly before the bodies were found.
But at the trial, the medical examiner had a different take, saying the family was probably slain much earlier, when Taylor was still in Missouri.
At Taylor’s trial, Medical Examiner Phillip Burch said the killings could have happened two or three weeks before the discovery of the bodies, long before Taylor’s trip to California.
Before the execution an attorney for Raheem Taylor urged the U.S. Supreme Court to halt a “constitutionally intolerable event” — the potential execution of an innocent man.
Attorney Kent Gipson’s motion asks the Supreme Court to grant a stay of execution and appoint a special master to review Taylor’s innocence claim.
A similar request to the Missouri Supreme Court was rejected late Monday.
Gipson said that several people, including relatives of Rowe and a neighbor, saw Rowe alive in the days after Taylor left St. Louis.
The lawyer said: "I think any fair-minded person that looks at all the evidence we have now would have serious doubts about whether he's guilty, and that's all we're really asking for—to be able to be given an opportunity in front of a judge."
Meanwhile, Taylor’s daughter in California, Deja Taylor, claimed in a court filing that she and her father called Angela Rowe and one of the children during his visit. The court filing said Deja Taylor’s mother and sister corroborated her story.
Last month, Taylor’s attorneys petitioned St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to ask a judge for a new hearing on the innocence claim, as allowed by a new Missouri law.
Bell declined, finding no “credible case of innocence.” On Monday, he reiterated his belief that the jury “got the verdict right.”
The Midwest Innocence Project, the national NAACP and several Missouri civil rights and religious groups also called for a stay of execution.
