While most people are looking forward to Thanksgiving Day Kanisha Taylor is dreading it.
Absent from the table will be her husband James and adding insult to this most grievous injury is the knowledge that the man who killed him was given a pass by an Elko County Coroner’s inquest.
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In an exclusive interview with the High Desert Advocate, Kanisha Taylor recounted just what it means to be made a widow at the age of 20 and watching her husband’s killer go scot free with a ruling of justifiable homicide.
“It was so unfair,” the young woman said Monday. “James was killed only in September and by mid- October Glen Mead walks free. How can that be?”
Last month Mead’s killing of 23 year old James Taylor was ruled a justifiable homicide in an Elko County Coroner’s inquest. The finding shocked and outraged the Taylor family.
“It was an absolute miscarriage of justice from the moment deputies arrived,” James’ father Glenn Taylor said. “ With my son laying dead with five bullet holes in him, they didn’t even charge him (Mead with murder) with murder that night. The Sheriff’s office and the DA’s office did virtually no investigation in the three weeks between James’ killing and the inquest and the evidence and the testimony given in the inquest was a joke. There was no study done on the angle of the bullets. I could go on and on. They even ignored Mead’s own statements that he didn’t feel threatened and that he should not have shot James a third time.”
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Taylor was referring to the statement Mead gave to elko Detective Kevin McKinney less the same night as the killing where Mead admitted to standing over a prone writhing in pain James Taylor and then shooting him a third time.
That part of the transcript of the statement:
KM: What about — now, so the first time you shot him —
GM: He was in the door.
KM: He was in the door.
GM: He fell back. He went back down the step.
KM: Uh-huh.
GM: I don’t know where I hit him. He went back and he went,
“You son of a bitch.” And he came back up the steps. I
went, “f***.” And I shot him again and then he fell.
KM: Uh-huh. Okay.
GM: And then he started talking s*** and saying stuff. And I
think I shot him again (indiscernible) and I went, “f***.”
And I shot him again.
KM: Hm.
GM: God damn it.
KM: So you shot him at least three times that you remember?
GM: That I remember. I know I shot him twice, and then he was
going to get up and I said, “f***.” And then I thought,
you know, I don’t know what I was thinking. And then, you
know, f*** him (indiscernible).
KM: Could you have shot him more than three?
GM: (Indiscernible).
KM: Now, the second and third time, where were you standing?
GM: First time I was sitting in the thing.
KM: Uh-huh.
GM: And he goes back outside. And I got up and he comes back
up the steps and he goes, “You son of a bitch.” And he’s
holding his side or wherever and I went boom, and shot him
again and he fell out. And I walked up to the door and I
go, “God damn it, James.” And he just said something and I
went, “f***.” And I shot him again.
KM: Now, is that a semi auto or a bolt or?
GM: No, no, it’s bolt, man. It’s a bolt. I had to cock the
f***er, man.
KM: So the first time you shot him and —
GM: I shot him both and then he came back in the door. It was,
like, I don’t know, I hadn’t seen where I hit him. I don’t
know.
KM: Uh-huh.
GM: You know, he came back in and I went, “James, come on.”
Boom. And he fell back out.
KM: Hm.
GM: And then he said something and I shot him again.
KM: So then the third time?
GM: The third time he was laying down. The third time he was
laying down. By the third time there was no need to shoot
him, man. That was stupid, man.
KM: So were you standing outside or inside?
GM: No, I was inside.
KM: You were still inside?
GM: I was still inside, man. I never came outside until I came
out, and I put the rifle right there and I went and called
the police. The rifle never came out, man.
KM: But there’s a couple shell casings just outside the steps.
GM: Well, I was inside. I wasn’t out.
KM: Uh-huh. Were you standing in the doorway?
GM: Yeah. I mean, I shot him, he came in.
KM: Uh-huh.
GM: Boom, he goes back out. He comes back in, I shot him. He
came back down. He started to get up and I walked to
the — I wasn’t out, but I was in the door, boom.
KM: Uh-huh.
GM: I shot him again.
KM: Okay. Now, um —
GM: I shot him, you know. I killed — I mean, he didn’t have a
gun in his hand, okay? I mean, I’m sick about it. You
know, he attacked me and stuff, but he’s a f***in’
24-year-old kid. He could have beat the s*** out of me. I
shouldn’t have shot him, man.
The inquest jury evidently chose to ignore those statements and instead go on the principle of Mead’s mindset that he thought he was in danger for his life.
But while state of mind is a valid defense jurors did not hear other evidence that as little as two weeks before the killing Mead openly talked about shooting someone as a kind of retirement plan.
In an exclusive interview with the High Desert Advocate, Perette and Everett Rhodes of Cherry Creek said they were present at a barbecue two week before the killing when Mead threatened the lives of James and Glenn Taylor.
“Glenn was coming in from Salt Lake,” said Perette Rhodes. “ And Mead said that if he didn’t get money from Glenn, bullets would be flying. I said something like you got to be kidding and he said no, three hots and a cot were better than nothing.”
The coroner’s panel never heard from the Rhodes.
“We didn’t contact the police or the DA because who ever heard of a man shooting another man five times walking free?,” said Perette Rhodes
“I don’t blame the panel,” Taylor added. “After the instructions of the judge there was hardly a way for them not to get the verdict they delivered on the other hand I have know doubt in my mind that had this case been charged and investigated properly Mead would have been found guilty in a criminal trial. What the Rhodes said to me was completely voluntary and came out of the blue, who knows what a real police investigation might turn up.?”
“After the night I lost James no one contacted me,” Kanisha Taylor said. “Nobody from the Sheriff’s office and nobody from the District Attorney. I tried calling the DA but he wouldn’t return my calls and then we get notified they are going to have this thing and all of a sudden Glen Mead walks out a free man. I am sick about it.”
complete Mead statement click link
