Celestino “Tino” Gutierrez
David Ray Taylor
Convicted murderer accused in new killing
David Ray Taylor, imprisoned 27 years for one slaying, will be tried on another murder charge
By Greg Bolt
The Register-Guard
David Ray Taylor already has spent 27 years in prison for one Lane County murder, and now he faces trial for a second killing that could put him on death row.
Jury selection began Tuesday for Taylor’s trial on four counts of aggravated murder, part of a 31-count indictment that accuses Taylor of a months-long crime binge that included bank robbery, kidnapping and, ultimately, murder. Conviction on any of the aggravated murder charges would open Taylor to a possible sentence of death by lethal injection.
Attorneys are expected to spend the next two weeks picking 12 jurors and four alternates to hear testimony in a case expected to take three to four weeks to present. Opening statements are set for April 15.
Taylor, 58, is accused of murdering 22-year-old Celestino “Tino” Gutierrez of Eugene and then using the younger man’s car to drive to Mapleton and rob a bank, the last in a series of robberies around the state attributed to Taylor, according to police and court records. The killing, which the indictment alleges involved maiming or torturing Gutierrez, took place Aug. 3, 2012.
A key to the trial could be the testimony of Taylor’s two alleged partners in the killing, A.J. Scott Nelson and Mercedes Crabtree. Crabtree already has pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison with a chance of parole after 30 years. She has agreed to testify against Taylor.
Nelson faces aggravated murder charges and remains in the Lane County Jail with a trial set for September. According to police records, Nelson fully cooperated with investigators after his arrest and also is likely to be called as a witness against Taylor.
Their testimony could be important because Lane County Circuit Judge Charles Zennaché has ruled that statements Taylor made to police in which he allegedly admitted to the murder cannot be used in the trial. The judge found that those statements were made after Taylor had invoked his right to remain silent but detectives continued to question him.
Although police have not discussed details of how they think the killing took place, court records and testimony during pre-trial hearings paint a potentially grisly scenario. Crabtree, who was 18 at the time, already has admitted to posing as a woman in distress to lure Gutierrez from a north Eugene bar to Taylor’s house.
Exactly what happened after that has not been made public. But both Taylor and Nelson are charged with maiming or torturing Gutierrez and with abuse of a corpse for allegedly dismembering his body.
Crabtree later said Taylor threatened to kill her if she didn’t do what he told her. People who knew him said Taylor was fascinated with mystical religions and magic and once claimed to have spent 37 years in the “study and practice of the occult sciences.”
Gutierrez’s body was found in a shallow grave off a remote forest road in the Coast Range west of Eugene. A burn pile in the same area contained fragments of paperwork with Gutierrez’s name on them and provided some of the early clues that led police to believe he was the victim of a violent crime.
This will be the second time Taylor’s fate has been in the hands of a jury. In 1977, another jury convicted him of murder in the shotgun slaying of a female gas station attendant in Eugene and sentenced him to life in prison.
The body of the gas station attendant was found in an area not far from where Gutierrez’s body was located.
The attendant’s murder occurred before Oregon voters passed Measure 11, which sets minimum mandatory sentences for murder and other crimes, and one year before voters reinstated the death penalty. That left the question of Taylor’s eventual release up to the state parole board, which in 2004 voted to release him.
The release came in spite of some disciplinary problems while in prison and previous reports that Taylor suffered from a severe emotional disturbance. But at the time the parole board voted for Taylor’s release, two of the three members felt he did not represent a threat to the community, records show.
In all, Taylor now faces 10 counts of first-degree robbery, 13 counts of second-degree robbery, two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm, one count of first-degree kidnapping and one count of first-degree abuse of a corpse, in addition to the four aggravated murder charges.
The 23 robbery charges stem from just two bank robberies, one on June 8, 2012, in Creswell and the other the Aug. 3, 2012, robbery in Mapleton. The multiple charges reflect 10 separate victims — customers and bank employees — plus separate charges for using a firearm, threatening to use a firearm or threatening to use physical force during the robberies.
Similarly, all four aggravated murder charges involved the alleged killing of Gutierrez, but each alleges different aggravating factors. Taylor is accused of murdering Gutierrez after having been convicted of murder previously, of committing the murder as part of the kidnap and robbery of Gutierrez, of committing the murder to cover up his involvement in the kidnap and robbery of Gutierrez, and of maiming or torturing Gutierrez as part of the killing.
What that does is give the jury four different reasons they could find Taylor guilty of aggravated murder. If the panel returns more than one aggravated murder conviction, it’s likely they would merge together into a single charge for sentencing.
Taylor also is suspected, but not charged, in a December 2011 bank robbery in Eugene, one in January 2012 in Clackamas and another in Newberg in May 2012. All of those robberies were takeover-type robberies in which one or more men armed with guns forced bank employees and customers onto the floor and ordered them to surrender items of personal identification, threatening to use it to track them down if they cooperated with police.
Taylor also is charged with robbery, assault and other crimes in connection with an armed home invasion robbery in Lake Oswego in April 2012. A trial on those charges is set for July.
This will be the second aggravated murder trial in Lane County in as many months. A jury last month convicted Johan Stevon Gillette of two counts of aggravated murder in the bludgeoning deaths of his father and his father’s domestic partner.
Gillette avoided a possible death sentence by working out a deal to accept life in prison with no chance for parole. The families of both victims opposed a death sentence.
http://www.registerguard.com/rg/news...vated.html.csp
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