A man serving two life sentences, including one for kidnapping and killing his stepdaughter in 1987 in Jackson, has died in prison.
C.W. Taylor, was housed at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County, died Tuesday at Merit Health Rivers Regions Hospital in Vicksburg. Taylor was 72-years-old.
Taylor was convicted of capital murder in Hinds County for the death of 22-year-old Mildred Spires. Spires had been reported missing for about two months in 1987 when two children came upon her body in her abandoned car in a wooded area of west Jackson.
Taylor initially received the death penalty, but after the state Supreme Court granted him a new sentencing hearing on an appeal, he received life without parole. He also was serving 20 years for aggravated assault on Spires’ mother, who was his estranged wife at the time. Taylor was also serving a life sentence for a previous Leflore County homicide for which he was on parole at the time of his stepdaughter’s murder.
The MDOC says the cause and manner of Taylor’s death are pending an autopsy.
