The Eastern Michigan University Murder
The body of a young, 22 year old, EMU student, Laura Dickinson, was found in her room at Hill Hall, on December 15, 2006. They believed she died on Wednesday, December 13, and was last seen late Tuesday, December 12.
A Southfield man, Orange Taylor III, age 21, was arrested on February 23, 2007 and
charged with homicide, home invasion, two counts of criminal sexual conduct, and larceny.
It was reported from the medical examiner that her death “was suspicious from the start. It was the arrangement of her body. She was lying on the floor with no clothes on from the waist down. It was suspicious to me as well as all other investigators.” Dr. Bader Cassin said.
The court transcript shows that Taylor was seen on surveillance footage walking in Laura’s dorm early in the morning around the time of her death. The police said Taylor admitted to entering an opened dorm room and described the room that matched Dickinson’s. He said he was looking for something to steal and did see her.
During the preliminary hearing it was said that Dickinson died of asphyxiation. She was found with a pillow over her face and bruising on the side of her neck. DNA matching Taylor’s was found on Dickinson’s inner thigh, the pillow and a bed sheet. Defense lawyer Alvin Keel said Taylor found Dickinson lying on the floor partially naked and, thinking she was someone else, ejaculated on her.
In his lawyers words during the opening of the trial “He (Taylor) finds Laura Dickenson in a compromised position, nude from the waist down, on the floor and as fate would have it, unfortunately, as Mr. Taylor is inside of her room, the 20-year-old ejaculates.”
Keel also conceded that Taylor was roaming around Hilton Hall searching for marijuana early on the morning of Dec. 13, 2006.
Prosecutors promised jurors that sweatshirt fibers found on Dickinson’s body would prove that Taylor came into close physical contact with her.
The investigators testified that the only sign of a struggle was that the sheets under Dickinson’s body appeared to have been dragged off the bed with her. They also noticed a used tampon tossed in a corner of the room. Prosecutors brought on a witness Maria Clary, who described her as a “very clean” person who would never dispose of a tampon in such a way. Other witnesses verified her cleanliness, also.
A Michigan judge declared a mistrial Tuesday after jurors said they could not reach a verdict in the case of a man accused of killing a college student in her dorm room.
The panel of two men and 10 women announced they were hopelessly deadlocked in the murder trial of former Eastern Michigan University student Orange Taylor III.
Researched by Cloey 10-16-07
Updates
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05/07/08
Orange Taylor III Sentencing
Orange Taylor III said, Wednesday morning, that he was sorry his family and the family of a slain Eastern Michigan University student endured an emotional roller coaster.
But the 21-year-old Southfield man maintained his innocence in the death of Laura Dickinson, minutes before he was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, without parole, by Washtenaw Circuit Court Judge Archie Brown.
"I did not kill Ms. Dickinson," Taylor said, his first public remarks since his April conviction for first-degree felony murder.
Read story details...
http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/05/orange_taylor_apologizes_to_fa.html
Watch video of sentencing...
http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews_multimedia/2008/05/orange_taylor_iii_sentencing_1.html
04/07/08
Guilty as charged
Looks like the jury finally got it right this time!
A jury, in Washtenaw County, found Orange Taylor III guilty on all counts this afternoon in the December 2006 slaying of Eastern Michigan University student, Laura Dickinson, that triggered a federal probe of how the school responded to the death.
The jury deliberated for about four-and-a-half hours before returning the verdict in the December 2006 killing.
The jury also said Taylor was guilty of all counts against him.
Read resource stories...
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/04/orange_taylor_iii_guilty_in_sl.html
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=90250
04/04/08
Cases are rested
Most of us who watched this trial the first time were shocked when the defense rested without calling any witnesses. Well, the same thing happened today. The prosecution had rested and the defense rested their case.
The prosecution had 30 witnesses and more than 200 exhibits of evidence. The defense team asked for one photograph, taken by the crime scene investigators, to be admitted as their single piece of evidence.
The lack of witnesses was somewhat of a surprise, especially since Washtenaw Circuit Judge Archie Brown granted the public defender's office funds for an expert medical examiner and cardiologist.
Jury deliberations start Monday morning, April 7th.
Resource....
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/04/prosecution_defense_rest_in_ea.html
04/04/08
Trial Day Four
Testimony continued with EMU officer Michael Arntz showing videos of Taylor entering and exiting the dormitories in the morning hours of December 13, 2006. He said that Taylor was dressed in black and his face was covered with a hood and showed a clip of Taylor with what looked like gloves on his hands.
Taylors attorney Laura Graham reviewed the clip and said abruptly, "I'll leave it to the jury to decide if he's wearing gloves."
Four friends of Taylors testified that they identified Taylor by his clothes and distinct walk.
Assistant Prosecutor Blaine Longsworth also intends to introduce the taped interviews of Taylor's statements to police. The interviews, nearly five hours long, will likely be played in their entirety, as they were during the first trial.
Read resource details...
http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/04/investigators_layout_thier_cas.html
04/03/08
Trial Day Three
Testimony was delayed by about 30 minutes this morning as the court waited on a juror's arrival. Just before 9:00 am Washtenaw County Circuit Judge Archie Brown announced the male juror called and said he was ill and needed to go to the hospital. He was released from duty.
Laura Graham, assistant Public Defender alleged that the evidence the investigation collection team found surrounding Laura Dickinson's body was less about science and more about proving that Orange Taylor lll was a murderer.
Graham noted, among his previous conclusions was a statement that no individual source of the fibers could be determined because it would be indistinguishable from other sweatshirts just like it.
Nutter said he still believed that to be true, but added that the fibers he analyzed from Taylor's sweatshirt were similar in every aspect to those found at the crime scene.
Police investigators continued to testify about how they built their case against Taylor.
Michael Arntz, a former EMU police officer, testified for a second time this week about video images he pieced together during a two-week review of footage from campus surveillance cameras.
The images, played repeatedly on a projector screen Wednesday, show a man identified by several people as Taylor leaving Buell Hall shortly after 4 a.m. Dec. 13 - the last night Dickinson was seen. The man is shown walking across campus and standing outside the locked outer doors to the Hill and Hoyt residence halls.
The man, covered in dark clothing with a hood pulled over his face, eventually follows another student into Hill Hall and is seen walking empty-handed up the same stairwell Dickinson entered a few hours earlier. The same man is seen on the tapes exiting more than an hour later with a bag that appears to be the same one Dickinson had when she arrived at the dormitory
Read full resource details...
By ART AISNER
The Ann Arbor News
http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/04/juror_bounced_for_illness_tria.html
http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/04/_assistant_public_defender_lau.html
http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/04/orange_taylor_iiis_attorney_at.html
04/02/08
Trial moving quickly
Public Defender, Laura Graham took over where Alvin Keel left off after the funds for the Detroit-based attorney ran out.
The defense will try to show that Laura Dickinson was not murdered, but died of natural causes due to a previously diagnosed irregular heartbeat and the stress of finals week. The prosecution's case will center on surveillance videotape of Taylor entering Hill Hall the night Dickinson was last seen alive and then exiting later. His DNA was found on her body.
"This case is about a chilling disregard for life," said Washtenaw County Assistant Prosecutor Blaine Longsworth, who handled the first trial.
The trial at Washtenaw Circuit Court began after about four hours of jury selection with questions focusing on the potential jurors' knowledge of the case as well as the previous trial. The court dismissed 24 jurors for various reasons before both prosecution and defense agreed on a jury of 14, which consists of eight women and six men.
This morning, eight witnesses discussed their roles in finding the body and securing Dickinson's Hill Hall dorm room on the Eastern Michigan University campus.
Testimony this afternoon at Orange Taylor's second trial focused on the detailed collection of forensic evidence from Laura Dickinson's body and the dorm room in which her body was found in December 2006.
Crime scene investigators with the Michigan State Police spent seven hours scouring her fifth floor room at Hill Hall for clues after her body was discovered by a custodian
Read details of the last 2 days of the trial from these links...
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080401/METRO/804010363/1409/METRO
http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/04/orange_taylor_trial_testimony.html
http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/04/orange_taylor_trial_testimony.html#more
http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/04/scientific_evidence_introduced.html
04/01/08
Jurors Seated
There will be panel of 8 women and 6 men that will hear the second trial of Orange Taylor, charged with killing a fellow EMU student, in 2006, in Washtenaw County Circuit Court.
In addition to the usual queries about personal experience with the criminal justice system and potential ties to the case or people involved, lawyers from both sides focused on the jury pools' exposure to media coverage of Taylor's first trial and its impact.
Jury selection in the trial of Orange Taylor III was delayed about an hour this morning as attorneys haggled over what to call Dickinson throughout the trial.
Read full resource stories...
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/03/jurors_seated_in_second_trail.html
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/03/opening_statements_to_start_in.html
03/31/08
Jury Selection Today
Jury selection begins today for the re-trial of Orange Talor III. Taylor is accused of killing Laura Dickinson of Hastings in her Eastern Michigan University dorm room in December 2006.
Orange Taylor's first trial ended in a mistrial after the jury could not reach a decision.
Earlier this year, he got a new public defender and the new trial was postponed to Monday.
Resources...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23867223/ No longer available
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=89899
More in depth reading...
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/03/2nd_trial_starts_today_in_emu.html
01/17/08
New trial for Taylor set in March
It will be more than a year since Orange Amir Taylor III was arrested for murder when he stands trial again on March 31.
Facing charges of murder, criminal sexual conduct, home invasion and larceny, Taylor was arrested in March 2006 and went to trial in October. However, a dead-locked jury led to a mistrial last year.