- Hello. - Hello.
This is Lauren. - And Taylor.
- This man both of the kids.
I work at the school.
The kids know me.
Y'all told me, y'all told me that Taylor's dead.
- I just, I.
I gotta know what happened to Taylor.
Can you tell me anything about how she died?
- [Narrator] What is up, EW crew?
Today, we're covering the disturbing case
of Taylor McAllister.
Even in December, St. Petersburg, Florida
can be warm and humid.
It was late at night, just three days
before Christmas 2016.
A sharp squeal of tires broke the quiet
that had settled over the city.
A white Toyota Tundra revved away from an alley,
speeding off into the darkness.
Left behind was the body of 22 year old Taylor McAllister,
wearing only a gray t-shirt.
- Hi.
Hi.
Hello.
- Hi. - Hello there.
- We're going to sing a song for you.
- Yes, we are.
- [Narrator] Later, when the police arrived
on the scene, they would note that she
had tire tracks on her legs.
They would discover that she had been asphyxiated.
On her autopsy, the coroner would rule it a homicide.
Three men would face charges
for leaving her dead body in that alleyway a year later
but no murder charges would ever be filed.
To this day, the McAllister family is still waiting
for justice for their daughter.
Taylor.
Taylor was born on July the 21st, 1994.
From a young age, she had loved singing and dancing
and grew into a talented vocalist and guitarist.
- I'ma gonna cover, attempt to cover Creep by Radiohead.
Yeah.
Let me know what you think.
- [Narrator] Family and friends remember her
not just for her love of music and her talent
but for her kind, generous presence in their lives.
- Hey, it's Taylor and Lauren here.
- Hi.
- We're gonna sing a song called Story.
- [Narrator] But Taylor's life was hard.
Throughout 2015 and 2016, she and her husband,
Joshua, had developed an addiction
to prescription pain killers and crack cocaine.
Taylor had begun to place Backpage ads,
looking for a sugar daddy.
According to the Tampa Bay Times,
in 2016 she found one.
Robert Butler III, age 52.
Three months before her death,
Butler saw her advertisement
and the two began to meet up frequently.
Allegedly, it would be at Robert Butler's home
that she was last seen alive.
December 22nd.
The following events are as described
in official police records.
Though, it is important to note
that no murder charges have been filed
and all parties are considered innocent
until proven guilty.
On December 22nd, Taylor received a phone call
from Robert Butler, asking if she wanted to come over.
Christmas was coming up
and Taylor and Joshua had a pair
of 18 month old twins who were eager for presents.
This would be a good opportunity for Taylor
to make a little extra money.
She agreed.
She'd meet up with Butler dozen of times by this point.
As the de facto heir to one of St. Petersburg's
largest businesses, Bob's Carpet and Flooring,
Butler had plenty of money to exchange.
What exactly happens next is murky
but what is known is that later that evening,
Butler called two of his friends,
Deonte Baker and Quran Archer
to come pick up Taylor's barely conscious body
from his house.
- Do you think she was dead at the house?
- She wasn't. - Okay, she was still alive.
- She was alive.
She was like (groaning) like going crazy.
- Okay. - So then she
comes walking and she was cursing.
- I mean, wailing I mean.
- She wasn't really doing like that
but she was just like she could tell she high.
She was like, she was doing this on the bed,
she cursing and stuff.
- [Narrator] They loaded her, bruised,
clearly fading, into a white Toyota Tundra
and drove towards the nearest hospital
until Baker told the police Taylor died.
- Okay.
Where did she die?
Okay, so let's back up.
'Cause you're going from in the house
where she's high, laying on the bed,
moving around. - Yeah, yeah.
- Okay.
Okay, so, how did she get in the truck?
Okay, who's we?
How does the girl get from the bed to inside the truck?
And she's still alive right?
Okay, all right.
So if she's alive, does she walk at all,
or do, who carries her?
Do you carry her?
Okay, does D carry her?
Does D carry her?
She's alive right?
- Yes.
- Okay so she's obviously too high on drugs
to walk herself, right?
So somebody's got to carry her, right?
Nobody's in trouble.
Right?
To carry a girl, who's alive, to a truck, right?
Okay, so who carries her to the truck?
Does D carry her to the truck
or does that other guy carry her to the truck?
- [Narrator] When it was clear that she was dead,
Baker and Archer didn't know what to do.
- Okay.
- She laying down all the way or leaning against the door?
- No, she was like.
Oh no, oh no.
- Was she on her side or her back?
- She was sitting, laid down like this.
So I thought she doo-dooed on herself.
Just be nasty.
- She what?
- I thought she doo-dooed on herself.
But you know what.
(bleeping)
She probably did have.
I don't know if she had, I don't,
but I know I was like.
Miss, you, and I'm, I promise you on my momma,
I said, Miss, you puke on yourself?
So I was like, oh my god, why would you do that?
I turned around, I was like.
I didn't touch that lady.
- You didn't touch her at all?
- I didn't touch that lady.
We can get a polygraph,
I didn't touch that lady.
- As soon as Archer touched her arm, she was (groaning).
I mean she was moaning and groaning.
- [Narrator] For a moment, they considered
continuing their journey to the hospital,
they could leave her there eon the sidewalk.
Maybe it was not too late to save her
but that is not what they did.
- I was in the truck.
I was, I was spooked.
So I said, damn.
I'm like bro what the (bleep).
I said, y'all finna get me in trouble, bruh.
And that's why, I said, I said, bro this lady.
I hoped out, they came in, they came and said.
- That's when you got out the truck?
- I hoped out the truck, I said hell no.
- Now, who told you she was dead?
D?
- So they were like that.
So.
- [Narrator] Instead, when they realized
that Taylor was no longer breathing,
when she no longer had a pulse,
they turned around and drove back to Butler's house.
Butler would have been furious
that they brought her back.
Reportedly, he told the pair
that they could not bring her back inside his house.
- I called him again, she had to come back.
We have to do what's right.
She have to come back.
No, no she can't come back here.
That's what he told me.
She can't come back here.
You know what I mean?
So, Archer said, okay we have to bury a hole,
you know what I mean, or (mumbles) here.
No, y'all can't do this.
Just leave her.
Just (bleep) leave her.
That's what I told him to do.
- I kept saying, call the police, bro.
I was like, please.
So I was like, bro.
I was like.
(bleep)
- [Narrator] They would have to find somewhere else
to dispose of her and that is exactly what they did.
After night fell, they drove to an alleyway.
They removed her body from the truck
and they left here there, alone.
At least, that's what they reported happened.
- When you guys got her out of the truck,
how did that happen?
Explain to me how that happened.
Well, let me ask you this.
How did you pick the area that you guys?
Did you pick the area or did you follow somebody there?
Or did you all get in the car together, or what?
- Well.
- So you guys argued outside the truck, right?
Well you didn't, the other guys did, right?
Okay.
So when you guys realized--
- Okay what I can tell you is it was...
- You guys stopped somewhere?
- Yes.
- [Narrator] Almost a year passed after Taylor's death
before the police made an arrest.
While friends and family pointed their finger at Butler,
detectives said they did not have enough information
to make an arrest or even to issue a search warrant
for his home.
Instead, they surveilled the property.
They followed the cleaning crew.
They even tracked down some of the women
Butler was sleeping with and tracked their cellphones.
After just a few months,
the detectives had amassed a huge case file
but they claimed they still did not have enough
to issue a search warrant,
much less to charge anyone with murder.
The police also said that while the coroner
had filed Taylor's death as a homicide,
it was difficult to be sure.
In addition to the bruising, the tire marks,
the lack of clothes, Taylor also had kidney failure
and hepatitis.
There were bacteria growing in her heart
that made it difficult for it to pump properly.
Her drug use had created lung abscesses
and at some point, she had a stroke.
All of this trauma had severely weakened her body.
They postulated that maybe she had just overdosed,
that maybe Butler simply panicked
as her body started to fail her.
Maybe this wasn't a homicide at all.
When they determined that there was not enough evidence
to file murder charges,
the detectives opted instead
for charges of failing to report a death.
Anyone convicted on this charge
would serve a maximum of three years in prison.
- [Man] So the last time you and I talked
a friend of yours had passed away.
Okay and we're trying to figure out what happened to her.
- [Narrator] The theories.
There was a problem though,
there were three 911 one calls the night Taylor
was found dead in that alleyway.
The last was of an abandoned body.
The two others were of a woman screaming
and a man exiting the alleyway
carrying a woman's purse
and if the men had just left Taylor's dead body
there on the cold, damp street,
why did she have tire tracks on her legs?
- They just put her out.
- Where they put her out?
- This was the second half of the alleyway.
- Okay, they just lay her down or?
- Lay her down, like a gentle baby.
Like no, they just laid her like a baby, just.
'Cause everybody was scared.
- [Man] You didn't open the door and just push her out?
- Nobody kicked her out?
Who drove the truck away?
- That's who I'm telling you.
That you seem to understand last time,
that's what was said.
I guess it was said that I kicked her out.
- [Man] Nobody said she was kicked out.
- [Narrator] These facts did not align
with the story that Taylor's family
was hearing from Butler, Baker, and Archer.
Why did people report screaming
and why would a middle aged man
who described Taylor as barely conscious,
not call 911 when he started to notice
that she was fading?
Allegedly, Butler refused to call the police
because of the nature of his relationship with Taylor
and the amount of drug paraphernalia in his home.
But this expiation does not satisfy Taylor's family.
There were three adult men involved
it the dumping of her body.
Not one of them ever considered calling for help,
even while she was still alive.
To those who knew Taylor, this smacks of murder.
Even if her death really had been an accident,
they would of gotten in far less trouble
by simply reporting it,
rather than trying to cover it up.
There was also the issue of the scratches
allegedly found on Butler's face and arms.
DNA taken from under Taylor's fingernails,
has been positively matched to Butler
and still there has been no murder charge filed.
Her family claimed that the police
were slow to investigate this crime
because of the drug element.
There was evidence that investigators
never got to see, because they did not issue
a search warrant for Robert Butler's home
until nearly a year after Taylor had died.
In that time, surveillance video,
Taylor's other clothing, and property were disposed of.
The house was cleaned,
a mattress was removed from the property
and the white Toyota Tundra
had been professionally detailed.
- What did Burt do when you guys,
you guys went back to Burt's house,
all of y'all did
and Archer went and bought lighter fluid.
Did you guys like burn Taylor's clothes,
did you get rid of Taylor's clothes?
Do you know if she has anything left?
I mean, they did a search warrant on Burt's house
but they, I don't have any,
I know Taylor's stuff was there.
I don't know.
Archer went and bought lighter fluid.
I don't know, y'all burned your clothes in,
in the...
- See, I didn't burn anything.
See, that fool was crazy.
Like, you know what I mean?
He said that he, he said,
he told the police that Burt told him
to buy lighter fluid.
I didn't know nothing about that.
I still had the same clothes on
that I didn't burn, I mean, I didn't burn anything.
You know what I mean, I didn't see him burn anything.
He did have the fireplace already going
so that's why I didn't know exactly
what he bought lighter fluid for
because he got a fire place.
He keeps the little lighter fluid things already ready,
like the little, you know that you can light the wood with.
You know what I mean?
So, know what I mean?
I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't,
I don't know what made him,
you know what I mean, buy the lighter fluid.
What did he think that he needed it for.
You know, I don't know, you know what I mean.
- Burt, Burt told him to buy it.
Burt told Archer to go buy it
and Archer did. - Yeah, see.
Know what I mean?
Yeah, see I didn't know, I didn't know,
I don't know what he did or,
I don't understand what he need lighter fluid for
being that he got the little,
the little lighter things but I mean, I mean,
Archer told him that, you know Burt,
told him to buy it.
You know what I mean, I don't.
I don't know nothing about the lighter fluid.
I kept the same clothes on that I had on
because I didn't pick her up or touch her.
- [Narrator] There was a chance that any
of this evidence could have provided
the grounds the police needed to go after Butler
and his conspirators.
In the end, the police claimed
there simply were no grounds to file a murder charge,
even with Butler's DNA found under Taylor's fingernails.
Even with the documented scratches on his face and neck,
they couldn't prove that he actually caused her death
or that he had done with malicious intent.
And while that may be true,
we have seen murder charges filed
with much less incriminating evidence.
They point at cases like Lacy Peterson,
where there were almost no physical evidence
and a conviction was still secured.
Should the fact that Taylor was left
bruised and dead in an alleyway
be enough evidence that something more
than just an accident happened to her?
For those who knew Taylor, the failure
to report a death charge are too little too late.
Taylor's family called them disgusting
and still, more than three years later,
her parents wait for justice.
- High five.
- Some Taco Bell.
- Thank you guys.
- Seriously. - Bye all.
Thank you, see ya.
- Butler killed my baby
and it might not of happened right at his house
but it happened because of him
and I need anybody to remember to anything
because I'm never gonna get her back
and I got to look at her babies.
- That's right, I agree.
- I got to look at her babies and then she's gone.
- [Narrator] In a post on their Facebook page,
they wrote, none of us will ever be the same without her.
There is no healing or moving on.
- Say, I love you, Mom.
- [Girls] I love you, Mom.
- Give her kisses.
Give her one more kiss, Char.
- [Girl] Hey, can I give her a kiss?
- [Woman] Give her a kiss, too.
- [Narrator] No accepting she's in a better place,
time won't make it better.
- [Man] One, two, three.
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
- [Narrator] Losing a child is a feeling you cannot explain.
♪ Happy birthday dear Charlie ♪
♪ And Maddy ♪
Everything is a constant reminder of her.