Defense claims ironclad alibi in 2006 slaying
(Erik Jacobs for The Boston Globe)
Rodrick Taylor conferred with his attorney this morning.
By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff
Rodrick J. Taylor has an "ironclad alibi" and did not kill Dominique Samuels inside a Dorchester rooming house in 2006 – and he was not the man who set the woman’s body on fire in Franklin Park, hoping to destroy forensic evidence, Taylor’s lawyer said today.
The 37-year-old Taylor is on trial in Suffolk Superior Court on charges of first-degree murder in the slaying of the 19-year-old Samuels, a graduate of Milton High School where she had captained the cheerleading squad.
In his opening statement to the jury today, lawyer John Swomley flatly declared that "big and bold" evidence will show Taylor to be innocent.
"Rodrick Taylor did not kill Dominique Samuels," he said. "He did not burn her body."
Swomley blamed the killing on a key prosecution witness, the man prosecutors say Taylor confessed his crime to.
Samuels was living in a rooming house on Woodbine Street along with several friends from her childhood. She was last seen alive early in the morning of April 28, 2006.
Swomley said cellphone records will show that Taylor was riding in a car between Norwood and Boston at the time when Samuels’s body was being burned. And if he did not burn the body, then he did not commit the crime, Swomley said.
Swomley acknowledged Taylor’s alibi may have a key flaw. Swomley said Taylor was with the mother of his son as both rode to Norwood to drop off a nebulizer for their asthmatic child. The mother, Swomley said, will testify that Taylor was not with her at that time.
"She's lying," Swomley said.
In his opening statement to the jury, Edmond Zabin, chief of the Suffolk County district attorney's homicide unit, said forensic evidence and witnesses inextricably link Taylor to Samuels's killing and the subsequent violation of her remains.
Zabin said he will not be able to offer a motive for the attack, but said Samuels fought for her life inside a second-floor bedroom while two other people in the apartment ignored her screams and cries for help.
"She fought, she screamed, she cried out," Zabin said. “She scratched and clawed with every single ounce of her strength, but she lost.’’
He added that the most important witness in the case against Taylor will be Samuels herself because of the scratch marks Taylor had on his arms around the time the young woman was killed.
“Her bloody signature is on the arms of her killer,’’ he said.
The trial before Judge Stephen Neel is ongoing.
