Though they lived in the same complex, Pamela did not know Fred Taylor, but most of the residents did. As they saw the investigation unfold, they realized he was the man, and they were shocked.
Three days after the attack, Jay Long got the call he had been waiting for. It was the Texas Department of Public Safety. Every other state in the Union has a state police force, but Texas has the DPS. Trooper Jose Sanchez called from El Paso. The day before, Sanchez arrested Frederick Lavell Taylor on the Caddo warrant. Fred had been arrested within 48 hours of the crime. Jay Long’s hunch of sending a BOLO to El Paso paid off.
Trooper Sanchez was leaving El Paso Friday morning (the attack occurred late Wednesday night) and he noticed a green Camaro Z-28 parked on the eastbound side of I-10. The Camaro appeared to be abandoned, but he was too busy to stop and check. At 2 pm, Sanchez was westbound on the interstate, and he saw the Camaro still parked in the same place. This time someone was inside the car. Sanchez pulled his car on to the shoulder and walked across the median to the Camaro.
He “visited” with the young, likable man behind the wheel, but he was very self-conscious. Sanchez said, “I noticed he was nervous and avoided eye contact with me.” The man did not have an ID, wallet, or any paperwork for the vehicle. Sanchez wrote down the VIN (vehicle identification number) and asked the man his name and date of birth. Fred answered truthfully.
Trooper Sanchez went back across the median to his car. It took several minutes to get there. He called dispatch and requested information on Taylor and the Camaro. He merged into the westbound traffic and drove to the next exit, crossed the interstate, and turned back eastbound so he could get behind the Camaro. As he pulled up, dispatch told him Frederick Lavell Taylor was wanted in Louisiana for aggravated rape and attempted first degree murder, and the green Camaro returned stolen from Louisiana.
The nice man was not just a motorist with car trouble. Frederick Taylor was wanted for rape and murder. He was a desperate criminal who could have fled on foot before Sanchez made it to the other side of the interstate, but he did not. He was still there, sitting in the car. Maybe he was exhausted. Maybe he was at the end of his rope. Either way, the trooper didn’t care. He got out of his car with pistol in hand and ordered Fred out at gunpoint. He handcuffed him, and placed him under arrest.
The Camaro was broke down as a result of a flat tire. Pamela’s car was pretty, but her tires were bad, and she didn’t have the money for new ones. Fred was hundreds of miles away from home with no means to change a tire, so he just sat there…all day long.
Sanchez said Fred smelled like a homeless person and seemed weak. He read him his Miranda warning, but Fred did not remain silent. He admitted to stealing the car but denied the homicide. However, the Trooper didn’t accuse him or anyone else of murder. Fred thought he killed Pamela Wednesday night. He checked her pulse to be sure. Everyone in Shreveport knew Pamela was alive, but he did not.
To Fred’s neighbors, he was the guy next door…cordial and easy to talk to, and Trooper Sanchez felt the same way. He said, “He had a carefree attitude. At times he would giggle and smile. He was not aggressive at all. He would just laugh and smile and shake his head…” Up until May 19, 1999, Fred was a law abiding citizen.
The Trooper took a knife from Fred’s pocket. It was a cheap Spyderco knock-off, but good enough to be deadly, and there was blood on it.
Trooper Sanchez had a friend who was driving down I-10 east bound earlier that morning. He saw a green Camaro and a man sitting on the hood. Sanchez’s friend stopped and offered Fred Taylor a ride. Fred accepted. As he sat in the passenger’s seat the friend noticed his wallet in one hand and the pocket knife in the other. The Good Samaritan pulled off the interstate when they came into town and drove straight to the police station. He was relieved to see Trooper Sanchez’s car in front of it. He told him Sanchez was his friend and would help him however he could. He pulled up behind the trooper’s car, and Fred got out. The man drove away, and Fred never went inside. He wandered around and eventually made his way back to the Camaro where the trooper found him. It seemed everything Fred did during those 48 hours was unreasonable. His escape was merely going through the motions, half-hearted at best, but just because he was passive in his capture didn’t mean he was regretful. He never took responsibility for his actions or showed any sign of regret.
Jay Long asked Sanchez to take photographs of Fred and his hands. There was a cut on his right hand where Pamela stabbed him.
Fred was in jail in El Paso, but the case was far from over. On Monday, May 24, 1999, two days after Trooper Sanchez’s phone call, Jay Long and Bill Duncan got on a plane for El Paso. Though Fred was cordial and talkative to the trooper, he wasn’t to the Louisiana detectives. Detectives want an alibi from their suspects, but he refused to talk to them. Jay had to go with what he had, but was it enough?
How could a regular man lose all restraint and stalk, kidnap, rape, and murder a woman? Fred’s obsession for Pamela blinded him from reason. In what amounted to mere minutes on a Wednesday night, he changed the course of his life forever, but those minutes were forged over time in the fires of lust, envy, and entitlement.
Some cases are made with communication skills. Some are made from a multitude of circumstantial evidence. Some are made due to multiple witnesses or victims, but this case was made with forensics: a diligent review of a crime scene, collection of evidence, the electronic trail of a cell phone, and a trail of blood left by the victim and offender. Fred left a dirty house, and the detectives cleaned up after him, but even though forensics made the case, the timing was controlled by the detective, and timing is everything. He wrote down a plate number which led him back to Fred’s car, and a witness who told him about the box of clothes in Fred’s apartment. When Jay Long had the information on Pam’s stolen car, he placed it in NCIC. The moment he had a suspect, Jay wasted no time securing a warrant for Frederick Lavell Taylor in the middle of the night. As soon as the warrant was signed, he put the information into the national computer and sent the information on Fred Taylor and Pamela’s car to the El Paso Police Department. Hours later, he had his man. Any delay in retrieving the cell phone information or getting the warrant could have changed things drastically.
The El Paso Police Department searched Pam’s car. Just like Pamela’s and Fred’s apartments, it was full of forensic goodies. The evidence, including the pocket knife he had on him when he was arrested, would be used to nail down the case.
Fred was in jail, waiting for a free ride back to Caddo Parish. He initially fought extradition, but after a few days in the county jail in El Paso, he changed his mind.
Jay interviewed half a dozen residents of the Woodlands Terrace Apartments. Nothing earth shattering came from the interviews, but several things were corroborated. The way Fred attacked Pamela, it may have seemed like he was sexually repressed, but the investigation showed that was not the case. The day before he attacked Pam, Fred had sex with one of his neighbors and referred to her as his “baby”. There is no way to know why he targeted Pam. Maybe he thought she was unattainable.
The recording of the detective’s interview with Pamela was transcribed by the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office Transcriptionist. Though she transcribed hundreds of recorded interviews in her career, Pamela’s interview was unforgettable, a real life horror story. The transcriptionist noticed the way Jay spoke to Pamela. She said, “That was the most compassionate interview I have ever heard.”
Fred was indicted by the Grand Jury on June 16, 1999. Before the end of the month, he pled not guilty to aggravated rape. The only sentence for the charge was life without benefit of parole. Though a guilty plea would not have rescued Fred’s character, it would have been the right thing to do, but it was too late for that. His trial was big and expensive. Jurors were chosen. Witnesses were called. Evidence was presented. The trial convened on December 13, 1999, only seven months after the crime took place. Jay Long was the prosecution’s main witness.
There are two types of evidence that make up a criminal case: circumstantial and real. Circumstantial evidence is the circumstances and events in a case that lead reasonable people to believe a person has committed a crime. It includes witness statements, eyewitness testimony, and even the statements and behavior of the accused. A case with nothing but a small amount of circumstantial evidence will never go to trial, but the case against Fred had a lot of circumstantial evidence:
- Fred lived near Pamela,
- a witness heard him say, “I’ll have her no matter what,”
- he was known to watch Pamela from his apartment,
- he had her cell phone and made phone calls on it,
- he told two women he was on the run because something bad happened,
- he called a friend and asked him to dispose of a box of bloody clothing in his apartment,
- he was arrested while sitting in Pamela’s stolen car, and
- he had injuries and a bite mark on his hands.
In addition, Fred’s case also had real evidence. Real evidence is of a material nature that applies to the case which has real, physical substance. It encompasses physical evidence, trace evidence, and biological evidence. Real evidence can be seen, read, heard, and touched (even though it might be small). Though Fred never made a verbal confession, his handiwork was all over the crime scene, his apartment, and elsewhere. Some of the more important real evidence included:
- his fingerprints were found on the broken glass of Pamela’s rear window,
- his blood was found on the same window seal,
- her blood was found on his clothing in his apartment,
- her blood was found on Fred’s pocket knife which was on him when he was arrested, and
- his semen was found on Pamela.
DNA was a relatively new phenomenon in Caddo Parish in 1999, but it had a huge impact on the case. Pamela’s blood cried out from the scene, from Fred’s clothing, and from his pocket knife. Due to the multitude of evidence, Fred told all without opening his mouth.
The glue that holds all evidence together is corroboration. Corroboration has to do with all of the evidence supporting the end result. Ultimately, corroboration is the verification of every point of evidence. It takes into account how, when, and where evidence is collected. It scrutinizes witnesses, victims, and even the suspect’s testimony to make sure it applies to the case.
Pamela, a true survivor, testified in court. She identified Fred as the man who raped her, stabbed her repeatedly, and left her to die. Fred’s defense attorney pulled no punches when cross examining Pamela. He suggested she had consensual sex with the man who broke in her home, raped her, and did his very best to murder her. Pamela’s family did not take kindly to the lawyer’s innuendo. It was an insult to any victim, especially one who had been through so much.
The Caddo ADA, Bruce Dorris, used every bit of real evidence in the trial. Bruce presented the case the way a carpenter constructs a house. He framed it, roofed it, put sides on it, insulated it, and furnished it. The house that Bruce built proved to be air-tight. In a short deliberation, Frederick Lavell Taylor was found guilty of aggravated rape two weeks before Christmas. Judge Crichton sentenced him to life without benefit of parole.
Just before the trial, Pamela came to visit Jay Long. She thanked him for his kindness and hard work, and she gave him a small statue of a detective in his office at work.
It is sad when a happy ending puts a man in jail for the rest of his life, but it is a reminder for us all to be cautious with our feelings and impulses. We look forward to a day when the lion will lay down with the lamb, and the weapons of violence are fashioned into works of art, but until then, the men and women of law enforcement are essential for our protection.
Jay Long is currently Chief Deputy of the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office.
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