Ex-Titans Scout Blaise Taylor on Trial in Jade Benning's Poisoning Death, a Teen Killer Out of Appeals, a Sidewalk-Push Murder Charge

0:03 Caalaroga Shark Media. Good morning. I'm Garrett Fisher and this is Daily Crime and Justice for Tuesday, June twenty third, twenty twenty six. Let me tell you what we're working with today. Three cases, three states, and one thread running through all of them, the distance between what somebody did and whether the law is going to make them answer for it. In Nashville, Tennessee, a jury is being seated right now in the trial of a former pro football scout named Blaze Taylor. Prosecutors say he poisoned his pregnant girlfriend in her own apartment without her knowing, and that she spent ten days dying in a hospital bed, while the baby girl she was carrying didn't make it at all.

0:46 He says he's innocent. A jury is about to decide in Fort Myers, Florida. We're going back to a case we sat with you on back in May, the murder of a fifteen year old named Kayla ringcon Mill walking home from the movies with her friends. The young man convicted of killing her just asked a judge for a new trial. The judge said no, And now the only thing left on the calendar is the day he gets sentenced and in Miami, a story that's going to test your patience. A seventy two year old man is charged with murder after a sixty five year old woman he didn't know ended up dead on his sidewalk. His lawyers aren't arguing he didn't do it. They're arguing the prosecutors took too long and that a clock on the wall should make the whole murder charge go away. Three cases, Stay with me, the facts upfront. Blaize Taylor, aged thirty, is a former Tennessee Titans pro scout charged in Nashville with two counts of first degree murder and two counts of felony murder in the deaths of his girlfriend, Jade Benning, twenty five, and her unborn daughter. Prosecutors allege he poisoned Benning without her knowledge in Jebruary of twenty twenty three.

2:02 He is pleaded not guilty. Jury selection began Monday, June twenty second. The state is seeking life in prison without parole. Thomas Stein, eighteen, was convicted in Fort Myers, Florida, a felony murder with a firearm and three counts of attempted murder in the death of fifteen year old Kayla Rinkin Miller shot during an attempted robbery in Cape Coral on March of seventeenth, twenty twenty four. A judge denied his motion for a new trial. His sentencing is set for July tenth, where Florida law requires a mandatory life sentence. Jacob Cooljas, seventy two, is charged in Miami with second degree murder in the death of sixty five year old Elisa Toth, who died after he allegedly pushed her on a public sidewalk in October of twenty twenty five. He has pleaded not guilty. His attorneys have asked a judge to throw out the charge on speedy trial grounds. I start with Jade Benning, before the football, before the indictment, before any of it. I want you to know her name first. Jade Benning was twenty four years old. She was from Little Rock, Arkansas. Her family has described her as a radiant soul, a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, a sister, and in their words, a soon to be mother.

3:20 She was pregnant five months along carrying a baby girl, and on February twenty fifth, twenty twenty three, she was in her apartment on Lebanon Pike in Nashville, when something went very wrong. At nine thirty eight that night, her boyfriend called nine one one. He told the dispatcher that Jade appeared to be having an allergic reaction, and he asked for paramedics. She was rushed to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and almost immediately her condition became critical. Two days later, on February twenty seventh, her unborn daughter died. Jade held on. Prosecutors say she lingered, She languished for days, and then on March sixth, twenty twenty three, her twenty fifth birthday, Jade Benning died. She was never able to speak to investigators.

4:07 By the time anyone could ask her what happened, she was already gone. So the question of what happened in that apartment had to be answered by other people, by scientists, by doctors, by a homicide detective, and eventually by a grand jury. That boyfriend is a man named Blaze Taylor, and here's the part that put this case on the national radar. Taylor wasn't a stranger to a certain kind of spotlight. He played college football at Arkansas State, where he was a defensive back and a punt returner and a team captain. He earned a bachelor's degree and a master's in business administration there in under four years. He went on to work for the Tennessee Titans, first as a scouting assistant, then as a pro scout from twenty nineteen until twenty twenty three. He left the Titan shortly after Jade's death. He briefly took a job as a defensive analyst at Utah State, and then, nearly a year after Jade died, Deputy US Marshals arrested him in Utah on a Nashville grand jury indictment. Here is what the prosecution alleges. They say, Blaze Taylor poisoned Jade Benning without her knowledge while he was visiting her apartment the night she got sick. Two counts of first degree murder, two counts of felony murder, and the State of Tennessee has filed a notice that if he's convicted, they intend to seek life in prison without the possibility of parole. Now, the most haunting piece of evidence we know about so far came out at a bond hearing back in twenty twenty four. Jade's best friend testified that she got a

5:39 late night phone call from Jade the night she got sick, and on that call, the friend says she heard Jade say something to Taylor. She heard her say, and I'm quoting the testimony, my drink tasted funny. I can't even walk straight. You did this to do something to the baby. Sit with that for a second. If that testimony holds up in front of a jury, it is Jade Benning in something close to real time, naming what she believed was happening to her. That's not a detective's theory. That's the alleged victim's own voice. But I told you I'd be honest with you, and honesty cuts both ways. This is not a clean, simple case, and the defense is going to fight hard. A toxicology report reviewed by Court TV showed Jade had cocaine in her system when she died.

6:25 The medical examiner testified at a hearing that there were more drugs in her system than recreational use could account for. And you can already see where two sides take a fact like that in opposite directions. The defense is also moving to limit the prosecution's forensic evidence before the jury ever hears it, challenging the chain of custody on the biological samples and arguing that the actual analyst who did the lab testing should have to testify, not just someone who reviewed the results. Those are real legal questions and a judge will rule on them. So here's where we actually are. Jury selection began Monday in Davidson County Criminal Court. This trial was supposed to start back in January, but it got pushed by a winter storm. Taylor has been free this whole time on a two and a half million dollar bond. He is pleaded not guilty. He is presumed innocent. And I mean that a jury is being seated as we speak, and they are the ones who decide this, not me and not a headline. But I'll tell you what I'm going to be watching for. A woman called nine one one's worth of paramedics into her own apartment, and the person who made that call is the person now charged with putting her there. Jade Benning spent the last ten days of her life in a hospital, and she spent her twenty fifth birthday dying. Somebody is going to have to explain that to twelve people in Nashville.

7:47 Will be on it. Cape Coral, Kayla Rink and Miller and the end of the road for Thomas Stein. If you've been with us a while, you already know this name because we sat with you on this one back on May fourth, the day Thomas Stein took the witness stand in his own murder trial. A lot has happened since then, so let me bring you all the way up to date, but first the same way we did it in May. I want to start with Kayla. Kayla Rincone Miller was fifteen years old on March seventeenth, twenty twenty four, Saint Patrick's Day. She went to the movies in Cape Coral, Florida with two of her friends. They got out late. They got hungry. They decided to walk to get something to eat, and on the way, the three of them were filming each other on their phones, just being teenagers. They had Kayla pretend to walk a runway, strutting down the sidewalk while her friends laughed behind the camera.

8:55 That is what she was doing in the last hour of her life. A car pulled up, two young men got out. They wanted to rob the girls. There was an altercation, A gun went off and Kayla fell to the ground. She was the one who got hit and the two young men ran. Here's what's changed since May. The jury came back. They found Thomas Stein, now eighteen years old, guilty of felony murder with a firearm and guilty of three counts of attempted murder. Stein had testified in his own defense. He admitted he was at the scene with his co defendant, but he told the jury there were other people in the car, that he never fired a gun, and that he was, in his words, shocked when the gun went off. The jury did not buy it. His co defendant, a young man named Christopher Horn, took a different road. Horn pleaded guilty to second degree murder and agreed to testify against Stein as part of his deal. And when he got on that stand, he was a reluctant witness, at one point pushing back with you're trying to say I did it. Horn was sentenced last month to twenty five years in prison for context second degree murder in Florida normally carries a minimum of twenty seven years, so his cooperation bought him a slightly shorter number. Now here's the part that brings us to today.

10:16 The moment Stein was convicted, his lawyers filed a motion for a new trial. Their argument was that the prosecution committed a discovery violation, that one of the eyewitnesses gave testimony a trial that differed from what she'd told investigators earlier, and that the defense got in their word ambushed. Prosecutors pushed back hard. They told the judge that claim was false and not supported by the evidence. And they said something interesting. They said they never relied on that eyewitness in the first place. They said their case was built on circumstantial evidence they described as extremely strong. So even if you took that one witness out entirely, they argued, the conviction stands. Last Thursday, Judge Nicholas Thompson agreed with the prosecution n the motion for a new trial, and that's the end of the road. Stein's sentencing is now scheduled for July tenth, and under Florida law, a conviction for felony murder carries a mandatory life sentence. There is no negotiating that number. The judge doesn't get to feel generous.

11:19 Thomas Stein is going to prison for the rest of his life, and the only thing left to happen is for someone to say it out loud in a courtroom. Kayla rinkn Miller was fifteen. She was walking home from a movie, pretending to be on a runway for her friends. She should be getting ready for her senior year. Instead, two people are headed to prison, and the longer of those two sentences belongs to the one who pulled the trigger on a child for the contents of her bag. Will cover the sentencing on July tenth. Welcome back. Last story today, and this is the one I want you to really pay attention to, because it's less about what happened on the street and more about what's happening in the courtroom. Alisa Toth was sixty five years old. On October twenty first, twenty twenty five. She was standing on a public sidewalk in Miami outside a house that belonged to a man she did not know, a seventy two year old man named Jacob Coljas, and by the prosecution's account, Coljas came out of his house, told her to leave, and pushed her. She fell backward. She hit her head on the concrete. Cole has called nine one one to report that someone had fallen on the sidewalk outside his home.

12:37 When officers arrived, Alisa wasn't responsive. First responders noted she appeared to be under the influence of a stimulant, and I want to be careful and fair here. That's an observation at the scene, not the cause of her death. The cause of her death was a CT scan that showed internal bleeding, a traumatic brain injury, and a subdural heman toma. She was declared brain dead on November first. She passed away on November sixth. The medical examiner ruled it a homicide, the result of blunt force trauma of hitting her head on a sidewalk after prosecutors say being pushed. Now watch how the charges move, because this is the whole story. Colejas was first charged back in December with battery.

13:24 Then in April, prosecutors filed a notice saying they would not prosecute that charge. They let it go. And here's the detail that matters. If they'd kept pursuing that original battery charge, the speedy trial clock would have run out on June tenth. Then on June twelfth, two days after that deadline, prosecutors came back and filed a brand new charge second degree murder. He was arrested, he's being held without bond, and this is where the defense makes its move. Colas's attorneys have filed a motion that says, in effect, you can't do this. They can see the murder charge is a different charge, but they argue that because it stems from the same alleged action, the same push, the same fall, the same sidewalk, the speedy trial limit that ran out on June tenth should apply to the new charge too. In their words, at no point was there a delay attributable to the defendant, So they argue the clock ran out and the murder charge is barred period. Look, I'm gonna be honest with you. Speedy trial rules exist for a real reason. They exist so the government can't leave somebody charged in twisting forever, can't hold an accusation over a person's head for years without ever taking them to trial. That is a genuine protection, and it protects innocent people. I'm not gonna stand here and tell you the rule is garbage, because it isn't. But there's a playbook for this, and the playbook says, if you can't win on what happened, win on when it was filed, find the deadline, find the technicality, run out the clock,

14:56 and walk through the gap. A sixty five year old woman is dead on a sidewalk. The medical examiner called it a homicide. And the argument on the table right now isn't whether Jacob Cole has pushed her. It's whether a calendar should make that question disappear before a jury ever gets to hear it. A judge, Michelle Delancey, was scheduled to hear that motion on June twenty second, which is yesterday as you're hearing this. So by the time these words reach you, there may already be a ruling, and we'll bring it to you the moment it's confirmed. But I'll leave you with the thing I keep coming back to. Accountability doesn't have a legal department. Alisa Toff doesn't get a do over, and a clock on a courthouse wall shouldn't get to decide whether she ever mattered.

15:42 So that's today, And before I let you go, let's do what we always do. Let's say their names. Jade Benning was twenty five. She was carrying a baby girl who never got a name at all. She spent the last ten days of her life in a hospital and she died on her own birthday. A jury Bashville is going to decide what happened to her, But whatever they decide, she deserves to be more than a footnote to a football resume. Kayla Ringcone Miller was fifteen. She was walking home from a movie, pretending to be on a runway, laughing with her friends. The young man who killed her is going to spend his life in prison, and there's nothing in that sentence that gives her family a single day back. And Alisa Toth was sixty five. She was standing on a public sidewalk. She had every right to be there. And right now the fight isn't over who pushed her. It's over whether a deadline gets to bury the question. Three people, three families, and three different ways the system can either show up or look away. We'll be watching all of it. I'm Garrett Fisher until tomorrow.

16:49 Do better before you go. If today's episode hit you the way it hit me, do me a favor, share it, send it to one person who follows these cases the way you do. Word of mouth is the entire reason this show grows, and it costs you nothing but a tap. And if you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment and tell me what you think. Which of these cases you want us to stay on, What you want to hear more about I read though, if you're watching on YouTube or catching us anywhere else, let us know there too. The following is a spoken disclaimer regarding today's cases. Blaize Taylor has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first degree murder and two counts of felony murder in the depths of Jade Benning and her unborn child, and is presumed innocent as of this recording. Jury selection in his Nashville trial began Monday, June twenty second. Proceedings may have advanced by the time you hear this. Taylor's age has been reported as twenty seven and twenty eight in earlier coverage, and as thirty more recently. We have used the most recent figure. Testimony about a late night phone call and toxicology findings, including the presence of cocaine, come from pre trial hearings and reporting reviewed by Court TV. None of it has yet been weighed by a trial jury, and the defense is contesting the forensic evidence. These are allegations, not verdicts. Thomas Stein has been convicted of felony murder with a firearm and three counts of attempted murder in the death of Kayla Rinkin Miller. A judge has denied his motion for a new trial. He has not yet

18:20 been sentenced. Sentencing is scheduled for July tenth, where Florida law provides for a mandatory life sentence. Co defendant Christopher Horn's resolution has been reported in some accounts as a guilty plea and in others as a no contest plea to second degree murder. He was sentenced to twenty five years. Details may be updated as the sentencing approaches. Jacob Coljas has pleaded not guilty to second degree murder in the death of Elisa Tooth and is presumed innocent. The defense motion to bar the charge on speedy trial grounds was set for a hearing before Judge Michelle Delancey on June twenty second. As of this recording, we do not have a ruling and the outcome may differ by the time you hear this. The observation that the victim appeared to be under the influence of a stimulant was a first responder note at the scene and was not the ruled cause of death, which the medical examiner determined to be blunt force trauma. Some details in today's episode derived from single news outlets and court filings, and may be updated as each case proceeds.