Defendant killed his wife, but didn’t plan to, lawyer tells jury

Elton Taylor’s murder trial began Thursday with his lawyers telling the jury that he shot and killed his estranged wife Watisha Wallace in 2013.

“He didn’t think he would ever wind up killing her but that is indeed what happened,” Assistant Public Defender Christine Geraghty said of the marriage that began happily in 2011 but ended in tragedy.

Taylor told the judge he agreed with the defense strategy, which is a claim that the slaying was not a planned act deserving of a first-degree murder charge, with a possible death sentence.

Prosecutors say Taylor showed up at Wallace’s parents’ West Palm Beach home with two guns to carry out his desire to end her life. They will seek the death penalty if the jury agrees and convicts Taylor, 39, as charged.

Relatives of both families filled Circuit Judge Laura Johnson’s courtroom as the trial began with the story of how Taylor, a truck driver, met Wallace, a Palm Tran Connection bus driver, in 2010.

They began a relationship and the next year, his three children and her two daughters moved into a home in Palm Springs with them.

But by the fall of 2013, Wallace and her kids moved out and she sought a divorce. She began sleeping in a bedroom on the second-floor of her parents’ house in the 1000 block of 36th Street.

Wallace, 41, also went to a judge and obtained a restraining order against Taylor, according to court records and testimony from her father, Herman Wallace.

Late on the night of Oct. 21, Taylor showed up at the home demanding to see his wife, said Assistant State Attorney Chrichet Mixon.

He forced his way upstairs, found Watisha Wallace and took her at gunpoint outside to a back patio and shot her multiple times, as her terrified loved ones heard the fatal rounds, the prosecutor said.

Taylor’s attorney said there is no dispute he pulled the trigger.

“There is not a question Watisha Wallace died because she was shot by Elton Taylor,” Geraghty said.

After the killing, Taylor turned a gun on himself and fired a shot in the back of his head and was unconscious when police and an ambulance arrived.

Thanks to life-saving measures, he survived and recovered, his attorney said.

The trial continues Friday with more witnesses for the prosecution.

MARC FREEMAN/STAFF Elton Taylor, 39, listens to the prosecutor’s opening statement in his murder trial on Thursday.