Murderer gets day parole

By Tom Zytaruk

A man responsible for one of the most gruesome murders Surrey RCMP had ever seen has been granted day parole and residency in a halfway house.

National Parole Board officials won't say where Steven Taylor, 29, will stay but he will reportedly reside in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside starting this week.

Taylor was 17 years old when he murdered Karen Black, 35, in her Newton home in 1993.

At the time, Insp. Larry Gallagher, now retired, called the killing "probably one of the worst most police investigators have seen."

During Taylor's sentencing the court heard that Taylor went over to Black's home and they argued about him being a bad influence over her 16-year-old daughter, who had dated him for a short time earlier.

Taylor hit Black over the head with a coffee mug and the pair tumbled down a staircase. At the bottom, Taylor choked her into unconsciousness, then raped her. Police discovered a Vaseline-covered hammer at the scene.

After raping Black, Taylor carried her to the bathtub, held her head under water for three minutes, then grabbed a knife from the kitchen and cut her throat.

"This is not a short-lived problem that will go away in a few years," Crown prosecutor Ron Caryer, who is now a provincial court judge, told sentencing Justice Ross Lander. Lander said at the time of sentencing in 1994 that the crime scene photographs in this case were "perhaps the most grisly I have ever seen" in his 19 years as a judge.

Taylor was raised to adult court and charged with first-degree murder but pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. As Taylor was initially charged as a young offender, 10 years is the maximum time he could spend in prison before getting parole.

On April 15 all three parole board members agreed Taylor should be denied full parole but the majority - two out of three - granted him day parole, enabling him to live in a halfway home for at least six months.

A National Parole Board document states he has been in minimum security for five years now and had two unescorted temporary absences over the past two years.

A psychiatric assessment in 1999 diagnosed Taylor as a sexual sadist and "indicated a need to further clarify the issue of necrophilia" in his "sexual arousal pattern," the document states.

A psychological risk assessment in 2004 indicated that "also of concern is your fantasy of raping older women."

The document also said Taylor demonstrated at this latest parole hearing a "true sense of remorse."

posted on 04/25/2005