A Florida man who served 33 years for a crime he didn't commit is heading back to prison after a jury found him guilty of shooting a man in the chest.
Edward Clayton Taylor, 60, was wrongly convicted of a 1986 rape involving a 4-year-old and served 33 years. He was later exonerated and freed after the victim came forward and said he was innocent. Taylor was paroled in 2019 and the case was vacated in May 2022, First Coast News reported.
In June of 2022, just about a month after having his record cleared, Taylor shot a man in the chest. A jury found him guilty of attempted second-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a felon.
Taylor will face sentencing on the convictions on Jan. 13, the Florida Times-Union reported.
"I am so numb, I am just numb. I don't know what to say. I fought so long to get him home, something he did not do, and he came out and spent this time with obviously the wrong people," his mother, Agnes Anderson, previously told the Times-Union.
On the night of the shooting, surveillance video showed a man who looked like Taylor get out of a vehicle and walk up to another man. The video shows the assailant shoot the man in the chest and then chase another man before returning to the vehicle. At that point, a crowd formed, and several people in the crowd opened fire on the vehicle as it drove away, the newspaper reported.
Police later found Taylor, who resembled the assailant in the video, standing next to his bullet-riddled car, First Coast News reported. Taylor said he felt threatened that night, and his prison "instincts" took over.
