Alabama put Michael Shannon Taylor to death by lethal injection Thursday evening, closing a 35-year-old case over the beating deaths of an elderly Gadsden couple who had welcomed him into their home in 1991.
Taylor, 54, was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. CST at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, the state Department of Corrections said. The Alabama Supreme Court had turned down his request for a stay the evening before.
His last legal fight centered on how he would die, not whether. Taylor had opted for nitrogen gas under a 2018 state law, and he contended that choice left the state no authority to use lethal injection. Under his reading, the statute permits swapping out lethal injection when it becomes unavailable, but not the other way around.
Alabama shifted to lethal injection after courts halted its nitrogen protocol. A three-judge 11th Circuit panel found the method violated the Eighth Amendment rights of inmate Jeffery Lee, and a federal court then permanently barred it in his case. Lee pressed the same statutory argument Taylor later raised, but U.S. District Judge Emily Marks refused to stretch the injunction to cover lethal injection, citing changed circumstances. Lee was executed in September.
The crime itself began with an act of kindness. Taylor had left the Navy without approval when Ivan and Lucille Moore gave him a lift. At their house he asked to use the phone, and they offered him food. He struck Ivan Moore, 83, with a metal bar as the man cooked for him in the kitchen, then killed Lucille Moore, 79, when she came to investigate. He left with cash and the couple's car and went on a shopping trip.
Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement after the execution that Taylor killed the Moores to get money for clothes and jewelry, calling his conduct reprehensible.
The Moores' relatives thanked the state attorney general's office for seeing the case through but said they struggled to accept a wait of more than three decades, describing years of delays and uncertainty.
We know that a person has a right to appeal, but there should come a time when the jury’s decision is final.
Family of Ivan and Lucille Moore
Taylor's lawyers at the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama, who took his case in 2017, said the man they knew was far removed from the 19-year-old who committed the killings. They described a trivia buff and sports-statistics fan who followed Notre Dame and the Pittsburgh Steelers and who found deep religious faith after years of struggle.
Witnesses reported no complications. The procedure began at 5:51 p.m., and Taylor appeared to thank his spiritual adviser and his attorney. Two minutes later his eyes rolled back and his breathing grew labored; his feet moved for the last time at 5:56 p.m. Corrections officials said he refused food all day, declined a final meal, and had four visitors and one phone call.
Taylor was the third person Alabama has executed this year, following Jeremy Tremaine Williams in August and Lee. Ivey has also spared two condemned men this year, commuting the sentences of Charles Burton and Toforest Johnson.
Indiana and Florida also carried out executions Thursday, putting Jeffrey Weisheit and Jesse Guardado to death and pushing the national total for the year to 35. The Death Penalty Information Center said it was the second day this year with three executions, after Aug. 13; before 2026, the last such day was Jan. 7, 2010.
