ST. LOUIS — Attorneys for a Missouri man scheduled to be executed next month are seeking a new hearing, citing sworn statements they call “clear and convincing evidence” that he didn't kill his girlfriend and her three children.
Leonard Taylor, 58, is scheduled to die by injection Feb. 7 for the 2004 killings of Angela Rowe, 28, along with her 10-year-old daughter Alexus Conley, 6-year-old daughter AcQreya Conley, and 5-year-old son Tyrese Conley. All four were found shot inside their home in the St. Louis County town of Jennings in 2004.
A jury convicted Taylor in 2008.
But on Friday, Taylor's attorneys asked St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell for a new hearing. A spokesman for Bell said Monday that the request is being reviewed.
A year-old provision in a Missouri law allows a prosecutor to file a motion asking for a hearing before a judge if there is new evidence of a wrongful conviction. Bell is a Democrat first elected in 2018. He created a Conviction and Incident Review Unit responsible for looking at, among other things, potential cases of wrongful convictions.
At issue are new sworn statements from Taylor's daughter, now 31, her sister and her mother. They claim that Taylor was in California at the time of the killings.
Police discovered the bodies on Dec. 3, 2004, after worried relatives requested a welfare check. Taylor, who had an extensive criminal record and was the live-in boyfriend of Angela Rowe, was arrested days later.
It's not known exactly when Rowe and her children were killed. The Missouri Attorney General's office believes it was before Taylor flew to California on Nov. 26, 2004.
But in the new filing, Taylor's attorneys said that while in California, Taylor met for the first time a girl he had fathered 13 years earlier. The statement from Deja Taylor said she and her father called Angela Rowe during his visit. She said she spoke with Rowe and one of the children — proof, Taylor's lawyers contend, that the family was still alive after Taylor left Missouri.
Deja Taylor's mother and sister corroborated her story, the court filing stated.
“All of the evidence in this case, both old and new, presents a compelling case that Leonard Taylor could not have possibly committed these murders because he was out of the state from the early morning hours of November 26, 2004, until he was arrested in Kentucky and returned to Missouri on December 9, 2004,” the court filing states.
"Leonard has maintained his innocence in this case," Michelle Smith, the co-founder of the Missourians for the Alternatives to the Death Penalty (MDAP).
However, now Taylor's attorneys said not so fast.
On Friday, they sent documents to the St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office stating Taylor's now 31-year-old daughter and her mother claim, at the time of the quadruple murder, Taylor was more than 1,800 miles away in Los Angeles, California and could not have committed the crimes.
Taylor's lawyers hope to move on a provision in a state law that allows prosecutors to request a hearing before a judge if information arises that a defendant could be innocent or erroneously convicted.
"So, we want Mr. Bell to ask the court to have an evidentiary hearing because Mr. Taylor has a very credible innocence claim," Smith said.
"What we need now is to bring attention to Mr. Taylor's case to ensure that he is not executed on Feb. 7," Nimrod Chapel, Jr., president of the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP, said.
"We received materials from Taylor's defense team on Friday and are reviewing it now," Chris King, a spokesman for St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, said.
Lajuanda Rowe, Angela's sister, said all of the children were happy and carefree and that's how she remembers them.
Rowe said not a day goes by that she doesn't think of her sister and Rowe's three children.
"It's been really rough. I mean our sister was brutally murdered and her children," Rowe said during an interview with 5 On Your Side's Robert Townsend on Monday.
Lajuanda said her sister and Taylor dated for two and a half years. She also said her sister "months before she was murdered my sister feared for her safety because of Taylor's drug-dealing past."
"Leonard Taylor had all these years to sit in jail and think on a way to get out of this," Lajuanda said.
"They need to go through with the execution. Just be done with it and give this case come closure," Lajuanda said.
As of Monday night, Taylor sits in a prison cell in Potosi.
He's scheduled to die by lethal injection on Feb. 7.
A spokeswoman for Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey declined comment.
