Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby says the man who has confessed to the murder for which Greg Taylor was convicted is mentally ill and has a long history of confessing to other murders he couldn't have committed.
Last month, the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission voted unanimously that Taylor did not murder Jacquetta Thomas in 1991. The decision was based in part on the confession of another man, Craig Taylor, a convicted drug dealer who was obsessed with Thomas that year.
"The confessions of Craig Taylor are neither reliable, nor credible," Willoughby said in a court filing in which he alerted the court that he wished to be heard during a three-judge panel hearing to consider Greg Taylor's innocence.
Greg Taylor and Craig Taylor are not related. Both are inmates in state prison.
Willoughby's motion cast doubt on Craig Taylor's believability. According to affidavits filed by law enforcement officers along the east coast, Craig Taylor has confessed to dozens of murders. In several, officers determined Craig Taylor could not be a suspect because he was incarcerated at the time of the murder. In another, DNA linked another suspect to the crime.
Craig Taylor's statements to an innocence commission investigator shifted through the summer. His final statement, however, was validated by crime scene experts and a law professor specializing in false confessions. In the end, Craig Taylor said that he beat Thomas with a bat, then stabbed her with a pocket knife. He then stripped her nearly naked to lead officers to believe she had been raped.
Craig Taylor was free the night of Thomas' murder and had sold drugs to Greg Thomas and a friend in Southeast Raleigh.
Willoughby said that the commission's evidence "fails to show by clear and convincing evidence that Greg Taylor is innocent of the murder of Jacquetta Thomas."
Christine Mumma, director of the N.C. Center for Actual Innocence who began reviewing Greg Taylor's claim of innocence several years ago, acknowledged that there is work to do to better understand Craig Taylor's confession to Thomas' murder.
Mumma said Willoughby's motion, however, doesn't address what evidence still exists to tie Greg Taylor to Thomas' murder.
"It doesn't change my belief in Greg Taylor's innocence," Mumma said. "Every piece of evidence used to convict him has been discredited."
