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Updated: 5/7/2008 3:09:57 PM
Taylor maintains innocence, vows for appeal
Even as the judge sentenced him to life in prison without possibility of parole, Orange Amir Taylor III maintained he did not kill fellow EMU student Laura Dickinson.

“Yes, I may have done some things that are inappropriate and I take full responsibility for those things, but one thing I am not is a murderer,” Taylor said this morning at his sentencing. “I am fully incapable of such and act and I did not kill Ms. Dickinson.”

However, a jury of his peers convicted Taylor of first degree felony murder, home invasion, larceny in a building and assault with intent to commit criminal sexual conduct April 7.

Dickinson was discovered on the floor of her dorm room in Hill Hall Dec. 15, 2006 naked from the chest down with pillow covering her face. More than two months later Taylor was arrested after test results from the Michigan state crime lab confirmed DNA found on Dickinson's right thigh matched his.

The jury in Taylor's first trial, which began Oct. 15, 2007, never reached a unanimous vote and after five days of trial and approximately 17 hours of deliberation it declared itself as "hopelessly deadlocked" Oct. 23, 2007.

In a victim impact statement Dickinson’s father Bob told Taylor a conviction of larceny will always be with him as taxpayers fund his existence in prison.

“Without wearing dark clothes and prowling through dorms at 4 in the morning, you are still taking from a total stranger what you did not earn,” Bob wrote.

Laura’s mother Deb also wrote a victim impact statement. Prosecuting attorney Blaine Longsworth read both letters.
“I still wake up in the middle of the night and my mind goes over and over what you did to Laura,” Deb wrote. “Our family is incomplete because Laura is no longer here.”

Taylor, who did not take the stand for either his first or his second trial apologized to the Dickinson family as well as his own.

“I want both sides to know how profoundly and sincerely sorry I am that any of us had to go through this at all,” Taylor said. “Now obviously I am deeply disappointed in the outcome of this trial and I will be looking forward to an appeal as soon as possible.”