Clay Taylor

Clay Taylor

Real Name: William Claybourne Taylor
Aliases: William Clay Taylor, Clay Taylor, Michael A. Cauley, Michael Ferris Cawley, Michael Ferris Cauley, William C. Taylor, Robert J. Cudone, William Claybrourne Taylor
Wanted For: Murder, Attempted Murder
Missing Since: August 6, 1980

Walter Scott (left) and Eugene Bailey

Ray Taylor (left) and Paul Allen

Case

Details: William Claybourne "Clay" Taylor is wanted for the murder of sixty-four-year-old Walter Scott and the attempted murder of Eugene Bailey. Walter was a retired INS customs official. Eugene was a wealthy real estate tycoon and civil leader. At approximately 9pm on the night of January 8, 1977, Walter, Eugene, two of their friends, and their wives were leaving a local restaurant in Ocala, Florida, after one of their weekly dinners together. As they approached Walter's car, they noticed that it had a flat tire. The men sent their wives home in a different car. Twenty-five minutes later, they headed home themselves after having the tire repaired at a local garage.
Little did the men know, this delay was no accident, but rather the key element in a cunning and lethal trap. As they drove down rural Route 27, another car pulled up next to them. A passenger in that car fired at Walter, who was driving his car. He was killed instantly from a shotgun blast to the head. His car went off the road into a nearby field. However, the gunman was not finished. He went to the car, shooed two of the passengers away, and then fired at Eugene. He was shot three times at close range, once in the face and twice in the abdomen. Miraculously, he survived; the other two passengers escaped unharmed.
The more police learned about the circumstances of the shooting, the more troubling the case became. One of the survivors told police that the gunman had waved him away and then coolly pumped three shots into Eugene. It appeared that Eugene, not Walter, had been the intended target. Walter was brutally murdered because, as the driver of the car, he had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But why would anyone go to such horrible lengths to get to Eugene?
Eugene was the mayor of Williston, Florida, for sixteen terms. According to his son, Tom, he would talk to anybody; nobody was a stranger to him. He was just as comfortable talking to a “common laborer” as he was with the governor. Tom could not think of anyone who would have been an “enemy” to Eugene or their family.
There was little physical evidence found at the crime scene. All that was recovered were three .32 caliber shell casings and a small appointment book, apparently dropped by the gunman. Despite a thorough search, its owner could not be traced. Gerard King, Chief Investigator for the Florida State Attorney’s Office, says that they had no suspects at all initially. They investigated any lead that came in; most were people saying who they thought committed the crime. However, everything came to a dead end.
Eugene recovered from his wounds, but the investigation was stalled for three years. Then, in 1980, the Opelika, Alabama Sheriff’s Department informed Investigator King about a woman who had been beaten by her boyfriend, Paul Allen, and had a “curious” story to tell. She told them that she had overheard a conversation between Allen and Raymond Ellis "Ray" Taylor about how they “murdered that guy about three years ago out on Route 27.” She also heard Ray tell Allen to “get rid of those guns…to dump them in the river the next time he went fishing.”
Ray and Allen were friends. Ray was a local attorney who had once been a respected Tennessee state prosecutor. His brother, Clay, was also implicated in the woman’s statement. Ray, Clay, and Allen became the focus of the investigation. The woman also linked the three men to the murder weapon. She told police that she and Allen loaded the weapons into a boat, and he told her to look around and make sure nobody saw them do this. She also told police that she knew where they had dumped the guns.
The woman led the investigators to an isolated cove on Florida’s Withlacoochee River, approximately twenty-five miles from Ocala. For two days, a team of divers searched the river bottom but found nothing. Undaunted, Investigator King canvassed area residents. He learned that three guns had been found in the river shortly after the shooting, and were now in the custody of local police. The registered owner of the guns was Ray. Six days before the shooting, he had reported them as stolen. Ballistics tests soon revealed that one of these guns had been fired at Eugene.
Investigator King says that he and the investigators had to decide what the next move was: do they interview Allen, Ray, or Clay? They decided to interview Allen first. They told him that they had already spoken to his girlfriend. He claimed that she was a “wacko” and laughed it off. However, they told him that there was “more to it.” They then told him that they had the guns that were used in the shooting. They told him that they had compared the evidence from the scene to the guns and got a match. They demanded that he tell them the truth.
Allen subsequently confessed to his participation in the shooting. He claimed that he “just drove.” He said that Ray “thought of the whole thing.” He said that at the time of the shooting, Ray was $40,000 in debt and facing a bitter divorce. In Allen’s version, Ray was Eugene’s business attorney, and assumed that if Eugene died, the family would appoint him to the lucrative position of executor of Eugene’s $3.5 million estate. He believed that he would make a large amount of money in legal fees as a result. But according to Allen, Ray was not content to wait for Eugene to die of natural causes.
Allen told police that he and Clay got the guns from Ray. He and Clay then went and got Clay’s girlfriend’s car. As Allen continued his confession, the details of the shooting began to emerge for the first time. That night, Allen and Clay had followed Eugene, his wife, and the other couples to the local restaurant where they met for their regular Friday dinner. Clay deliberately flattened one of their tires, hoping the men would send their wives home in the other car, thus removing four potential witnesses from the scene of the crime. His hunch proved correct.
Clay and Allen proceeded to Route 27 and lay in wait for the men to drive by. When the men did pass them, they followed them. After putting on a ski mask, Clay attached a flashlight to the barrel of a shotgun. Allen told police that as he and Clay pulled up next to Walter’s car, Clay fired and the car veered off the side of the road. Clay told Allen to pull over and he complied. Clay ran up to the car and fired the shots at Eugene. Clay and Allen then left the scene.
Allen told police that Clay gave the guns back to Ray. About a week after the shooting, Ray showed up at Allen’s house with the guns. He told him to dump them in the river the next time he went fishing. Allen confirmed to police that he had done this. Allen’s story was further corroborated when it was discovered that the appointment book found at the crime scene belonged to Clay’s girlfriend. The girlfriend told police that he was supposed to go to a concert with her that night, but he never showed up.
Allen volunteered to testify against Clay and Ray. As a result, he was granted immunity from prosecution. He was sentenced to fifteen years' probation. He died of natural causes in 1981. Ray was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Because the jury in his original trial had not been properly sequestered, he was recently granted a new trial.
The intended victim, Eugene, passed away in 1983. The alleged triggerman, Clay, was arrested in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on May 20, 1980. He was later released on a $20,000 personal recognizance bond and ordered to return to Ocala. However, he never arrived there and has not been seen since. He has a degree in advertising and may be working in radio.
Extra Notes:

• This case first aired on the September 26, 1990 episode.
• It was excluded from the FilmRise release of the Robert Stack episodes.
• Although not mentioned in the segment, Ray was also charged with the 1967 murder of his wife Marilee. She drowned in South Carolina; her death was originally ruled an accident. The outcome of that trial is not known.
  

Clay after his 2016 arrest

Results: Captured. In October 1990, Ray pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. In 1991, he was released on parole.
In July 2016, the FBI learned from an Unsolved Mysteries viewer that Clay was married and living in Reidsville, North Carolina, under the assumed name James Emmett "Jay" Manion. He also ran a wallpaper store in the area. He was arrested on July 28; when brought into custody, he denied that he was Clay. However, fingerprints confirmed his identity.
In January 2018, Clay went on trial for Walter's murder. The jury convicted him of second-degree murder and aggravated battery. In March, he was sentenced to life in prison. In April, Ray was arrested and charged with being an accessory after the fact to second-degree murder, for helping Clay hide from authorities.
Links:

• Taylor's FBI Wanted Poster
• Taylor Trial Prosecution Rests Case - October 2, 1980
• Jury deliberates former prosecutor's fate - October 8, 1980
• Jurors Fail To Reach Verdict In Taylor First-Degree Murder Case - October 9, 1980
• Prosecutor Now On The Other Side - October 12, 1980
• Taylor gets life sentence - December 9, 1980
• Tv Show To Ask Help In Tracking Suspect - September 26, 1990
• 13 Years Later, Taylor Pleads Guilty In Death - October 3, 1990
• A mystery, 36 years later - January 8, 2013
• Captured: Suspect in ’77 murder, attempted murder of Williston mayor - July 28, 2016
• FBI Murder Suspect Captured After Decades as Fugitive - July 28, 2016
• Fugitive arrested decades later - July 28, 2016
• Police say he killed the wrong man nearly 40 years ago. The FBI caught him Thursday. - July 29, 2016
• 40 years later, fugitive appears before N. Carolina judge - July 30, 2016
• Bailey family 'starting to see end of story' with William Claybourne Taylor's arrest - August 6, 2016
• January trial set in 1977 murder, attempted hit on Williston mayor - May 12, 2017
• Reidsville wife set to testify against fugitive in 1977 Florida murder case - December 14, 2017
• Witnesses describe day, circumstances of 1977 murder - January 17, 2018
• Taylor found guilty of second degree murder - January 20, 2018
• Life for defendant in 1977 murder, assassination attempt - March 2, 2018
• William Taylor sentenced to life in prison for 1977 Florida murder plot - March 12, 2018
• Ray Taylor charged with helping brother elude FBI for decades - April 9, 2018

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