Leonard, a 58-year-old American, was executed for a quadruple murder, three of which involved children: he is the fifth person sentenced to death this year
Eva Deschamps / February 8, 2023
The U.S. state of Missouri on Tuesday executed a man sentenced to death for a quadruple murder he denied, authorities said.
Leonard Taylor, 58, was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. local time from a prison in Bonne Terre, in the central United States.
He was sentenced to death in 2008 for the murder of his girlfriend and her three children, aged 5 to 10.
They were found dead in their home, each shot in the head, on December 3, 2004. According to the medical examiners, they had been dead for several days.
Leonard Taylor has always maintained that they were still alive on November 26, when he left their home in Jennings, Missouri, to catch a flight to California, on the other side of the country.
At the trial, prosecutors claimed that he had confessed the murders to his brother and made his gun disappear in front of a witness, and the jury found him guilty.
Since then, he had multiplied the appeals to be cleared. He has been unsuccessful.
As recently as Monday, Missouri Governor Mike Parson had rejected his request for clemency. “The evidence shows that Taylor committed these atrocities, a jury found him guilty and the courts have all upheld the sentence,” the Republican politician said in a statement.
The Innocence Project, which fights against miscarriages of justice and defends Mr. Taylor, asserts that the brother’s testimony was obtained under duress and that he later retracted it.
His lawyers have recently introduced a testimony of his daughter who assures that he was in California with her at the time of the murders, without succeeding in obtaining a reopening of the file.
They had introduced a final appeal Tuesday before the Supreme Court of the United States, without success.
Leonard Taylor is the fifth death row inmate executed since January 1 in the United States.
Responses