Federal prosecutors announced last week they had charged five men in connection to the 2006 kidnapping and murder of a 38-year-old West Philadelphia man.
According to a May 2 statement from the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, an indictment was filed in federal court against 45-year-old Kevin Halloway, 50-year-old Linton Mathis, 48-year-old Mark Scott, 51-year-old Kenneth Tuck, and 47-year-old Atiba Wicker.
The five men are accused of posing as police officers to kidnap Shamari Taylor, the son of former state Rep. John Myers, and his girlfriend 18 years ago to steal Taylor’s cocaine and drug money.
The men have been charged with kidnapping resulting in death, conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death, as well as aiding and abetting.
Taylor and his girlfriend were parked in the Overbrook neighborhood of Philadelphia on August 26, 2006, when the five armed men, using police lights and fake badges, kidnapped the couple and took them to a warehouse.
The girlfriend was released a short time later but Taylor remained missing for years.
The following day, someone broke into the Taylor family’s West Philadelphia home and shot both his sister and mother in the head. Both survived.
Kenneth Tuck was initially arrested in connection to the kidnapping in September 2006 but was acquitted in 2008 after two trials. Since then, the case remained cold until Taylor’s remains were finally found on August 21, 2018, buried in a shallow grave in a vacant lot in North Philadelphia.
According to the US Attorney’s Office, Taylor, who was identified using dental records, had been suffocated after being tortured.
US Attorney Jacqueline Romero vowed that her office and its law enforcement partners would “doggedly pursue justice” “no matter how long it may take.”
If convicted, the five men face a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
