Prosecutors seeking death penalty for wife killer

Jurors must decide whether a man convicted last week in the 2013 murder of his estranged wife in West Palm Beach should be sentenced to death or life in prison.

“Elton Taylor’s actions were shockingly evil,” Assistant State Attorney Chrichet Mixon said Monday, starting the trial’s punishment phase before Circuit Judge Laura Johnson.

The prosecutor said Taylor chose “to execute” Watisha Wallace, 41, a mother of three who had left the couple’s home in Palm Springs when their marriage of two years fell apart.

Mixon called the killing “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel,” one of four “aggravating factors” she listed as justification for the death penalty.

Prosecutors also said it was a “cold, calculated and premeditated” act by a previously convicted violent felon, who showed up with two guns at Wallace’s parents’ home and dragged her outside to kill her.

Anastasia Dexter, the victim’s daughter, told the jury that her mother was also her best friend, and she lamented missing her at family celebrations, including the birth of her two children in recent years.

“They will never be able to meet their grandmother and see what a wonderful person she was,” Dexter said.

LaFonda Wallace, Watisha’s younger sister, said the loss has been extremely painful and hard on her close-knit family.

“A piece of my heart is missing,” Wallace said, sobbing on the witness stand.

Attorneys for Taylor, 39, say his life is worth saving, despite