Teen convicted of murdering dad’s girlfriend

A teenager who was 14 when he shot and stabbed the woman he considered to be his mother faces life in prison after a jury convicted him Wednesday of charges of aggravated murder and murder.

Donovan Nicholas, who turned 16 this month, took the stand in his trial this week in Champaign County Common Pleas Court and still maintained that an alternate personality he called “Jeff” who lives inside of him — one modeled after a popular internet horror character known as “Jeff the Killer” — was responsible for the murder.

The jury deliberated less than three hours before convicting Nicholas of killing 40-year-old Heidi Fay Taylor last year. Taylor was the longtime, live-in girlfriend of Nicholas’s father, and the teen called her “Mom.”

Nicholas had originally pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His trial started Monday, but prosecutors and the defense had agreed on much of the evidence so things sped right along. Judge Nick Selvaggio will sentence Nicholas on Tuesday.

Champaign County Prosecutor Kevin Talebi said he would not comment on the case until after the sentencing.

On April 6, 2017, Nicholas called 911 and told the dispatcher: “I just killed my mother. I just killed my mother and I need to go to the hospital.”

The then-eighth-grader went on: “It wasn’t me who killed her. It was Jeff. I’m sorry, this will come out really hard to explain, but I kind of have another person inside me.”

Nicholas was originally charged in juvenile court, but that judge sent the case along to common pleas court to have him tried as an adult.

Defense attorney Darrell Heckman said Thursday that he will appeal the jury’s verdict and will argue that the case never should have left juvenile court. “We still believe that Donovan is amenable to rehabilitation,” he said.

Heckman said Nicholas told jurors “that he was in a trance, that the Jeff character completely overtook his will and that what he did was involuntary.”

After the killings and the 911 call, authorities arrested Nicholas without incident inside the family’s rural Champaign County home. He told investigators that he had taken a nap after school that day, and then while he was cleaning his room, “Jeff” took over. He said he used a lancet to carve an exaggerated smile from his lips and up his cheeks the way the “Jeff the Killer” character is portrayed online, and then called his mother downstairs and stabbed her.

The doctor who performed the autopsy testified that Taylor had been stabbed more than 60 times. Detectives have called it an ambush.

Taylor fought back and ran upstairs. Nicholas pursued her. When she collapsed on her bed, the teen pulled his father’s 9 mm handgun from the nightstand and shot her in the head.

Near the end of his 911 call, Nicholas told the dispatcher he hadn’t wanted to kill his mom.

“I hate Jeff so much,” he said. “He, he, he is going to make me die in prison.”