London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Sep 19, 2025

Leonard “Raheem” Taylor at Potosi Correctional Center near Mineral Point, Mo., on Jan. 18, 2023.

“An Irreversible Injustice”: Missouri Executes Leonard “Raheem” Taylor Despite Doubts Over His Guilt

Judges and prosecutors who recklessly send a person to death without fully proving their guilt are nothing less than psychopaths and enemies of the public. By carrying out such an act of murder, they are just as guilty not less than the people they execute. The Nuremberg Trials set a precedent: murder is murder, regardless of who commits it, even if it's under the guise of government authority. This principle applies to all courts, including those in America. Executing a person without fair trial proceedings and a final appeal is a gross violation of human rights and a stain on justice. All the chain of command who are involved in such an act, committed crime against humanity.
Tricia Rojo Bushnell was on hold with the prison in Bonne Terre, Missouri, waiting to talk to Leonard “Raheem” Taylor. Executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project, Rojo Bushnell was calling to update Taylor on litigation related to his execution, which was scheduled for 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

Taylor had been in a holding cell, the prison official told Rojo Bushnell, but now she couldn’t get through. Rojo Bushnell could hear someone talking in the background just before the prison official came back on the line “and said, ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s done.’ And I said, ‘Done?’ And she said yes. And I clarified, ‘You mean the execution process is done?’ And she said yes.”

Rojo Bushnell was sitting in a Huddle House diner down the street from the prison. She’d been there all day with Megan Crane, co-director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Missouri office, working on Taylor’s case. Rojo Bushnell realized that as she was waiting on hold, the execution was already underway. At 6:16 p.m. Taylor was pronounced dead.

Taylor was executed for the 2004 murder of his girlfriend, Angela Rowe, and her three young children in Jennings, a suburb of St. Louis. Taylor had always maintained his innocence. He was nearly 2,000 miles away when the bodies were found inside the home he shared with Rowe, shot in the head. Police seized on Taylor as their sole suspect, pursuing witnesses to confirm their theory of the crime while ignoring evidence to the contrary. At Taylor’s trial, the prosecution relied on a dubious statement provided by Taylor’s brother, Perry — a statement Perry had vociferously recanted — and on testimony from a medical examiner who dramatically changed his estimated time of death in order to implicate Taylor.

Despite lingering questions over Taylor’s guilt, his innocence claim was never fully investigated nor considered by any court. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell declined to avail himself of a Missouri law that allows prosecutors to reopen possible wrongful convictions, saying there were no facts “to support a credible claim of innocence” in Taylor’s case. The office maintained its stance even as Taylor’s daughter, Deja, flew to St. Louis days before the execution to share crucial information supporting her father’s alibi, which could have confirmed that the victims were still alive several days after Taylor had left the state.

“They know that people have other avenues to vindicate their rights, but it doesn’t matter to them.”

As Taylor’s execution loomed, attorneys sought to stop it, asking Gov. Mike Parson to convene a Board of Inquiry: an independent panel tasked with vetting Taylor’s innocence claim. The governor declined to do so. As it became clear the execution would likely proceed, attorneys learned that the state was denying Taylor’s request to have a spiritual adviser and two witnesses, Rojo Bushnell and Crane, present during the execution.

After the Missouri Supreme Court and the federal district court in St. Louis declined to intervene, Rojo Bushnell and Crane were sitting in the diner working on an appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court. Rojo Bushnell was calling to tell Taylor about the appeal when she was informed that it was too late.

It is not the first time that Missouri has executed a person in the face of a compelling claim of innocence, nor is it the first time the state has executed someone while litigation was still pending. “I think that’s something we were all thinking about,” Rojo Bushnell said. “They know that people are continuing to litigate; they know that people have other avenues to vindicate their rights, but it doesn’t matter to them.”

During her last visit with Taylor on Tuesday morning, Rojo Bushnell talked to him about his love of music. His favorite song, he told her, was The O’Jays’ “Family Reunion.” Rojo Bushnell and Crane listened to the song as they drove from Bonne Terre back to St. Louis after the execution. Taylor, a devout Muslim, “accepted his fate, that whatever was Allah’s will was Allah’s will,” Rojo Bushnell said. “He was positive up to the last time I talked to him.”

Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty held rallies in support of Taylor across the state on Tuesday, from Kansas City to Bonne Terre. “One day the truth will be uncovered, and Raheem Taylor will be vindicated and posthumously exonerated,” the organization’s co-director Michelle Smith said.

“This is an undeniable and irreversible injustice,” Crane said. “But in the words of Raheem, he will ‘live eternally in the hearts of family and friends.’”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×