Tests on baseball bat focus of hearing

Taylor, 24, charged in death of homeless man, 51, on land owned by UA

FAYETTEVILLE — Crime lab testing of a baseball bat was discussed Thursday at a pre-trial hearing for a 24-year-old man charged in the death of a homeless man found on undeveloped land owned by the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

Quinton Lamar Taylor’s trial is scheduled for March 5 in Washington County Circuit Court.

He has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of George Irving Morrison, 51. Taylor was booked into the Washington County jail on May 26, according to online records.

An attorney for Taylor in a motion filed Feb. 8 asked for state Crime Lab testing of a “partially destroyed” bat “identified as the weapon used to murder George Morrison by two witnesses,” the court filing states.

The defense of Taylor will involve self-defense and “evidence that points directly to third party culprits,” another court filing states. Taylor is being represented by Matthew Bender, a deputy public defender.

Testing of the bat for blood and DNA was begun but results are not yet complete, Brian Lamb, a deputy prosecuting attorney, said Thursday. He said the bat was “brought to the attention of police almost in mid-January.”

Lamb also said the state Crime Lab’s medical examiner had not yet said whether injuries sustained by Morrison could possibly have been caused by a bat like the item being tested.

Bender said he was “most concerned about what progress we can make in the case without that analysis.” Lamb said he would follow-up and

share testing results and information.

Taylor was at the hearing but did not speak to Fourth Judicial Circuit Judge Joanna Taylor.

Online jail records list Taylor as “homeless.” Bender on Thursday stated Taylor should not be referred to as homeless during the trial, however.

“I don’t intend to use that characterization,” Lamb said.

Before any ruling on a motion to exclude references to Taylor being homeless, the judge said she would need more evidence.

University police found Morrison shortly after midnight on May 3, more than a mile from the main UA campus on land in a South Fayetteville area with several homeless encampments. He was pronounced dead at a Fayetteville hospital.

The university in August gave people in the encampments — some 80-100 people, according to a May 2018 estimate from 7 Hills Homeless Center — a deadline of Sept. 6 to leave the property. “No Trespassing” signs have since been posted.

A small portion of the land, about 4.69 acres, has been sold to nonprofit Serve NWA, which plans to build wooden shelters at the site.