Missouri governor denies clemency for man facing execution

ST. LOUIS — Gov. Mike Parson said Monday he will not grant clemency and halt the execution of Raheem Taylor, who faces lethal injection for the deaths his girlfriend and her three children.

Taylor, 58, is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday evening at the state prison in Bonne Terre.

"Despite his self-serving claim of innocence, the facts of his guilt in this gruesome quadruple homicide remain," Parson, a Republican, said in a statement. "The State of Missouri will carry out Taylor's sentences according to the Court's order and deliver justice for the four innocent lives he stole."

Parson's decision came despite a letter from Derrick Johnson, president of the national NAACP, asking Parson to grant a stay of execution. Johnson wrote that "evidence presented at trial does not support Mr. Taylor's conviction."

Separately, nearly three dozen civil rights and religious groups asked St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell to reconsider his decision not to ask a judge for a new hearing on Taylor's claim he was not even in Missouri when the killings occurred.

The letter said Bell has a "clear opportunity here to free an innocent Black man whose case was riddled with prosecutorial misconduct, police coercion and brutality, and ineffective assistance of counsel."

But Bell said in a statement Monday that although his office would not have sought the death penalty, "we believe the jury got the verdict right" in finding Taylor guilty, and that he wouldn't seek a new hearing.

Meanwhile, former St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch, whose office prosecuted the 2004 case, told The Associated Press that Taylor's claims of innocence are "nonsense," and the evidence against him is overwhelming.

Taylor himself called into the church service Sunday at Greater Fairfax Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis. He thanked those who support him.

"Please continue to let God use you, to work through you, as a vessel because time is one of my most valuable commodities and we only have a small amount of that time, and none of it can be replaced," Taylor told the congregation as the Rev. Darryl Gray held the cellphone to the microphone.

Taylor, who previously went by the first name Leonard, shared a house in the St. Louis suburb of Jennings with Angela Rowe and her children — 10-year-old daughter Alexus Conley, 6-year-old daughter AcQreya Conley, and 5-year-old son Tyrese Conley. Taylor boarded a flight to California on Nov. 26, 2004.

On Dec. 3, 2004, police were sent to the home after worried relatives said they hadn't heard from Rowe. Officers found the bodies of Rowe and her children. All four had been shot.

Authorities first believed the killings happened only a few days before the bodies were discovered, at the time when Taylor was in California. But at Taylor's trial, Medical Examiner Phillip Burch said the killings could have happened two or three weeks before the bodies were discovered.

Kent Gipson, one of Taylor's attorneys, said several people, including relatives of Rowe and a neighbor, saw Rowe alive in the days after Taylor left St. Louis. Meanwhile, Taylor's daughter in California, Deja Taylor, claimed in a court filing that she and her father spoke by phone with Angela Rowe and one of the children during his visit. The court filing said Deja Taylor's mother and sister corroborated her story.

McCulloch said those alibis provided by Taylor's daughter and her relatives were "completely made up."

McCulloch said evidence suggested that Rowe and the kids were killed on the night of Nov. 22 or on Nov. 23, 2004, when Taylor was still in St. Louis County. He noted that Rowe typically made around 70 outgoing calls or texts each day. Starting Nov. 23, she made none.

Meanwhile, DNA from Rowe's blood was found on Taylor's glasses when he was arrested, and a relative taking him to the airport saw Taylor toss a gun into the sewer, McCulloch said. Authorities believe Taylor shot Rowe during a violent argument, then killed the children because they were witnesses.

The execution would be the third in Missouri in three months, following those of Kevin Johnson and Amber McLaughlin. Johnson was executed Nov. 29 for killing a Kirkwood, Missouri, police officer. McLaughlin was executed Jan. 3 for fatally stabbing a woman in St. Louis County.