A man wanted for his involvement in a scheme to murder a Florida mayor was captured by the FBI on Thursday, almost 40 years after the crime.
- William Taylor, 67, was arrested in North Carolina
- FBI thinks he was responsible for 1977 murder, attempted murder in Florida
- He's accused of murdering a government official and conspiring to murder a FL mayor
The FBI recently got new information that William Claybourne Taylor was living in Reidsville, North Carolina under a false name. Special agents took Taylor into custody Thursday.
Taylor, now 67, was wanted for his alleged involvement in the January 8, 1977 murder of a former Immigration and Naturalization Service official and the shooting of a former mayor of Williston.
On the night of the murder, Taylor and an accomplice, now dead, are said to have pulled alongside a car that was occupied by the victims. Authorities think Taylor shot and killed the official during an attempt to murder the mayor.
On May 15, 1980, Taylor was indicted by a Marion County grand jury in Ocala for murder and aggravated battery.
He was arrested on May 20, 1980, in Chattanooga, Tennessee and subsequently released on a $20,000 personal recognizance bond returnable to Ocala. But Taylor never appeared in Ocala to surrender. On August 6, 1980, a federal arrest warrant was issued by the U.S. Middle District of Florida after Taylor was charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
“William Claybourne Taylor thought he could avoid taking responsibility for this horrible crime, but our agents continued an exhaustive search year after year,” said Michelle S. Klimt, special agent in charge of the FBI Jacksonville Division. “To echo the words of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, 'The FBI always gets its man.’”
Taylor is being held in the Guilford County, North Carolina detention center.