Jury Deliberates Fate Of Georgia Teen Charged With Murder

CLAYTON COUNTY, GEORGIA - A jury was expected to continue deliberations today in the case of a teen accused of bludgeoning and strangling to death his best friend with a video game cord after he claimed the friend demanded sex from him.
Adrian Mitchell Taylor, 19, is charged with felony murder in the Oct. 14, 2004, death of Joshua Layne Cook, 23. The two had been friends since they were young boys.
Closing arguments in the trial were held Dec. 2 before Clayton Superior Court Judge Albert Collier.
Taylor, claiming insanity as a defense, said he killed his friend only after he said Cook propositioned him for oral sex by pulling down his boxer shorts and demanding Taylor to "suck my dick" in the early morning hours of Oct. 14. The two had been playing video games and shared a marijuana joint.
That alleged sexual advance triggered Taylor to recall the time he was sexually molested by an adult male when he was eight and induced him to act out violently against Cook, according to court testimony.
James Powell, a psychologist testifying on Taylor’s behalf, said earlier in the trial last week that Taylor suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his childhood molestation.
According to police accounts, Taylor left Cook’s house after Cook proposition him, walked to his house down the street and returned to Cook’s house with a bumper jack. He sneaked back into Cook’s room, where Cook was sitting at the computer with his back toward Taylor. Taylor then struck Cook five times in the head with the bumper jack, swinging it like a baseball bat.
Cook fell to the floor, still alive, police said. Taylor allegedly then took the video game cord, wrapped it around Cook’s neck and drug him through the house and into the yard where he left his bloody body. The strangulation with the cord is what ultimately killed Cook, according to prosecutors.
Richard Brown, an assistant district attorney in Clayton County, stressed to jurors Dec. 2 that Mitchell was a chronic drug user and that likely contributed to his violent behavior toward his best friend. Brown also pointed out there was no police documentation of Taylor’s alleged rape as a child.
During his closing argument, Brown showed numerous graphic photos of Cook’s injuries, which prompted some of Cook’s family members to cry. Taylor also wiped tears away as the photos were shown.
The day before the killing, Mary Espisito, Cook’s mother, told her son to stop giving Taylor money because Taylor was "killing himself" through his substance abuse.
After closing arguments Dec. 2, Espisito told Southern Voice that she knew Taylor had been using crystal meth all summer and looked like "death" when she saw him on Oct. 13.
"This is not a gay case — neither of them [Cook or Taylor] were gay," she said. But she added that Taylor’s drug habit had become so bad he was allegedly giving sexual favors to others in exchange for drugs.
"I think he propositioned my son and my son said no and forced him out. That’s why he got angry. He stole his money for drugs — because that’s all that was missing from his room," she said.
from Houston Voice