Report: Evidence May Support 1992 Uptown Murder Convict's Alibi
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A man who has spent nearly half his life behind bars may not have been physically able to commit the murders for which he is in prison.
As WBBM Newsradio's Bernie Tafoya reports, Daniel Taylor, 36, might not have been able to take part in a double murder in 1992 because he was in police custody on the city's North Side at the time, according to a Chicago Tribune report.
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Taylor was convicted of the Nov. 16, 1992, murders of Sharon Haugabook and Jeffrey Lassiter in their apartment at 910 W. Agatite Ave. in the Uptown neighborhood. He was sentenced to life in prison.
But according to court documents and interviews by the Tribune, Taylor had been arrested at 6:45 p.m. that same evening, and a bond slip shows that he was in the Town Hall District lockup at Halsted and Addison streets until after 10 p.m. The murders happened at 8:43 p.m.
Taylor had the same alibi when he was on trial, the newspaper reported.
But Taylor confessed to the murders, and all eight suspects implicated all the others in their confessions, the Tribune reported. Five of the eight defendants -- Taylor, Paul Phillips, Deon Patrick, Lewis Gardner and Dennis Mixon -- were ultimately convicted.
The Illinois Attorney General's office is investigating the handling of the case by Cook County prosecutors, and whether prosecutors held back on the potentially exonerating information, the Tribune reported.
A State's Attorney's office spokeswoman told the Tribune that Taylor's alibi and the claim that it evidence of it was suppressed is an "unsubstantiated allegation."
