MAN SENTENCED TO LIFE FOR A 40 YEAR OLD COLD CASE MURDER

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Cold Cases Solved Podcast, a podcast that
shares the most recent solved cold cases. Our purpose is
to help bring closure to the victims' families and hope
for those waiting for justice. Let's begin.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Ray Taylor, sixty three years old, was sentenced to life
in prison for the first degree murder of Vicky Lynn
Belk Tony. Covington State's Attorney announced Friday. This brings a
definitive end to a nineteen seventy nine killing that went
unsolved for years. Over forty years. Belk was first reported
missing to Prince George's County on August twenty eighth, nineteen
seventy nine, by Belk's then boyfriend. She never returned to

(00:41):
her suit Land apartment she was lasting in the day
before at their shared place of work in Washington, d C.
The next day, a teenager called nine one one when
he found a body on the ground in a wooded area.
Belk was found with a gunshot wound to the right
side of her head, undressed from the waist down. With
no leads, the case eventually went cold. The search was

(01:02):
aided by new forensics technology. In twenty twenty two, the
CCCO Forensic Science section reevaluated the evidence and submitted Belk's clothing.
A couple months later, investigators were alerted to a DNA match.
Taylor had no known address since twenty nineteen. However, the
US Homeland Security Investigation and the DC Homicide and the
Secret Service were able to track down Taylor in Washington, DC.

(01:27):
That don't show how they tracked him down, but they
got them. Taylor admitted to the detectives that he did
rate Belk, but he denied murdering her. When the crime occurred,
Belk was twenty eight and Taylor was eighteen. No evidence
indicse that Belk and trailer knew each other. Assistant State
Attorney John Stackhouse had the incident caused generational trauma because
it went on for forty five years. Belk's son grew
up without a mother. Her parents had to bury their daughter.

(01:48):
Her parents had to lay on their deathbed not knowing
who killed their daughter. Her grandchildren never got a chance
to meet their grandmother. All throughout the case, they've never
seen a family with so much grit and determination before.
The crime is a horrific loss of life, and the
violence was extreme, but justice is finally getting to be done.
I wish it would have known how they found Andre Taylor,

(02:10):
but I'm sure they don't want to release their secrets
to help anybody else in the future escape from them.
But either way, finally this case is closed.