I stared at the man who was accused of raping and killed my brother Vickie, in August 1979. He 28.
I can see him, but he can’t see me. We are connected to the video. He wears an orange jumpsuit, sitting in a jailland jailland Holding room say waiting for his bail to hear. I am alone in a hotel room, on a New York business trip.
I was opened in his appearance. He was 18 years old in 1979. Today 62, he looks like years older, changed, flowing into the eye. She is black – like me, like Vickie.
I feel my chest hard, sweat gathered on my forehead. Vickie left me with my own boogeyman. A bad presence is not far from my side. I see real and imagined threats everywhere. My life has been changed to before and the after. I beat the baggage in Survivor – sadness, guilt and fear.
And now he is: Boogegeyman has a face and a name: Andre Taylor. And, most important, genetic markers. She left the DNA when she brutal raped Vickie, she shot her head and left her body along a road in the province of carles county, MD. His murder was added to the shocked number to unchanged killed or lost black women and women in the US
My younger sister Kay, now is a retired deputy in California Sheriff, keeps pushing for answers. I chose instead to focus on supporting Vickie’s son, which was 8 during his death, with the money for the Church in the Scholie Belk and speaking against the gun of violence.
After the mid-2023, the combination of developed DNA technology, the determination of Nay and New Leadership of the Charles County Sheriff’s department and Moryland Attorney Attornes in Maryland, there was a great case rest.
A DNA sample lifted from Vickie’s coat equal to a Profile in the National Database. At the time, Taylor lived in a Washington, DC, Convalescent Home. One of his legs was filled and he used a wheelchair. He has no vickie relationship. What he did was a long, violent criminal record, and time in jail. If the DNA match confirmed, he was recognized and arrested.
That brings us to hear bail.
Memories rushed back. The last time I saw Vickie on my wedding day. He stood next to me on the altar in a blue stipulated tadak-to-enthusiast wear and pair of hat. Three weeks later, I’ll be back on the same altar, crying for his lifeless body lying in a coffin. He wears the same blue clothes. For weeks, the unpacked wedding gifts remain in the corner of our house.
I listened as the public defender explains why the judge should give Taylor Piyo. A flicker of mercy moves me. I spend years working for criminal justice reform. I know the system always fails the poor, especially those with disabilities and community colors. I am a strong public advocacy in restoring justice and a critic incarceration in the masses.
“Judgment, see him,” as public protector. “He didn’t go anywhere. He wasn’t at risk of flying.”
I transferred any thoughts of kindness when the prosecutor shared Taylor’s version of how his DNA in Vickie’s clothes.
He claimed to be a friend named Mikey appeared his house with a hysterical vickie in the backseat of his car. Taylor’s story is that he begged his life, offering to have sex if they just let him go. He said Mikey left Vickie, alive, and when he was told later, Mikey told him: “Man, you know I need to do.”
I started crying.
The prosecutor jumped, found the defensive injury of Vickie’s body as he fought for his life and lost, the presence of DNA in Taylor. And then it was: When Taylor was arrested, the administrator said, he told the officials he had signed his brothers to help him come.
“He is a risk of flying and should be held without bail,” prosecution insists.
“Denidensa!” the judges thunder.
::
One year and a half later, in the summer 2024, I traveled east from California, at this time for Taylor’s test. Every day our family and friends from the ancient neighborhood and beyond the Maryland Countroom or zoomed in.
Choice of jury is a reminder of how much violence in American life is. The judge asked different pools of nearly 100 future jurors to stand when anonymously injured or killed with gun violence. Only five remain seated. If he asked about sexual violence, a majority of women standing. Many accept the verdict offer to forgive if they feel they are not prejudiced. I began to worry about whether any women left in service. Finally, prosecution and defense agree to four women and nine men (including a substitute). They are usually people of color.
The joys have been cleared every morning while Taylor was a court court. Personally, he looks a little, innocent. I found myself wishing I was aware of how to hate the better, but I came out of hand. Everything I can explore is curiosity, loss and pain, thinking about what happened to him in his first 18 years of life.
Ana is one of the first to be called the basis of the prosecutor’s content. He should noticer Vickie with crime scene pictures. Many family members choose to leave the court. I stayed and watched as gasp in images or looking away. Taylor is sitting in motion, as evidence has nothing to do with him.
We hear the emotional testimony from the person who finds Vickie in the woods. Now a grandfather, he was 15, who rode his bicycle near his house, when he saw his body. She shared the family how she was filled with the image for years.
If the defense begins, I start managing my bitterness less than Taylor and more than his lawyers. It’s a two-person team led by the main defender public, a black woman, with a white woman in the second seat. I know they do their jobs, but their ability is turned on my stomach and heart out.
Taylor’s lawyer asked medical examiner who made the original autopsy if Vickie was committed to death or if his blunt vaginal injuries could come from consensual sex. Completely not, medical examiner says. He stood in his analysis that Vickie’s death was a murder, and that he was sexually attacked.
Taylor’s next lawyers take a page from the OJ Simpson playbook and spend a lot of time trying to dispute the collection and validity of DNA evidence.
But in the end, Taylor’s own words have been convicted of him. Prosecution played the entire two-hour video of his interview with arrest. Within almost 60 minutes, he denies that there is any contact with Vickie, and then he claims what prosecutors will call “actions that are mandatory.”
“I have sex with him so he is quiet. She is well dressed in lovely dear shoes. I remember the shoes. It was worn as he worked in an office or something.”
He is the dead, “he was alive when I was done with him.”
In the closing argument, the prosecutor connects the dots. There is no Mikey. All evidence focuses on the fact that Vickie was arrested, brought to the woods several miles from where Taylor lived, was humiliated and killed. DNA has carried out Taylor and Taylor alone.
Jury is required two hours to return with a verdict: guilty. As they filed outside the court, several of them were contacted in the eye. I’m silent “Thank you.”
::
A month later, I returned to court for Taylor’s sentence. Family members have been given a chance to make statements.
We are taught to take over our commentary commentary, not Taylor. Vickie’s son says first. I kept my words, reminded the court of crime crime, what Vickie was afraid, and how Taylor did not show his actions.
When my youngest sister in the youngest brother, he began to apologize to the judge not to ignore his instructions, then turning to Taylor, and said what I wanted to nerve I said: “You’re a trash.” He accepted the judge’s reprimand and left the court.
Taylor was sentenced to life in prison. “My deeds now do not bring Vickie,” as judge. “It may not give a closure. But I hope you can remember justice and peace.”
Maybe it’s a day. But not this day. I left the court feeling the loss of a sister – no justice, no peace.
Judy Belk, former President and Chief Executive of California Wellness Foundation, a constant contributor to times. He worked in a book of personal essays about the appraisal change and social change.
