The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to review the case of one of two men convicted of the kidnapping, carjacking and murder of a Woodland Hills resident who had just arrived home from the grocery store in his luxury Bentley automobile.
Kirell Francis Taylor — who is serving a life prison sentence without the possibility of parole for the 1999 attack on Christopher Rawlings — had unsuccessfully sought re-sentencing in a Van Nuys courtroom.
In a Feb. 26 ruling, a three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal wrote that Taylor “targeted” Rawlings and “punched or pushed him into submission alongside the co-perpetrator and placed Rawlings in the trunk rather than, say, allowing him to ride in the passenger compartment or simply leaving him in the garage.”
The panel noted that “substantial” evidence supports the trial court’s findings that Taylor fled from a subsequent crash scene with items looted from Rawlings’ home “without even a cursory attempt to check on Rawlings and proceeded to violently carjack another victim.”
The 30-year-old victim died two days after the Feb. 8, 1999, attack.
Taylor was convicted in October 2001 of charges including first-degree murder, carjacking, kidnapping, robbery, burglary and evading an officer causing death. Jurors also found true the special-circumstance allegations of murder during the commission of a carjacking, kidnapping, burglary and robbery.
Co-defendant Boris George Graham, now 55, was tried separately and sentenced in October 2007 to life in prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted of the same charges. Jurors also found true the same four special circumstance allegations against him.
Rawlings was abducted from the garage of his home and forced into the trunk of his luxury automobile.
The victim’s wife thought something was wrong and saw her husband being robbed by two men in ski masks, then ran back inside to grab the couple’s two young children and call police.
Officers caught up nearby with the Bentley, which crashed into a small car and then struck a power pole and a tree nearby, according to the appellate court panel’s 36-page ruling. Rawlings, who had been thrown from the trunk, was found unconscious with serious injuries to his head and face and ultimately died at a hospital, the justices noted.
As his luxury car caught fire, the abductors fled in different directions in the dark. Taylor offered $1,000 for a ride and eventually carjacked a woman to get out of the area, a prosecutor said soon after his conviction.
Taylor was in county jail for a probation violation when he was linked to the crimes against Rawlings.
Graham was taken into custody in January 2004 in Hollywood, Fla. He had been profiled twice on the television show “America’s Most Wanted,” prompting a tipster to report that Graham was living somewhere in south Florida.
Both defendants claimed that they were wrongly implicated in the slaying. Taylor contended that police planted saliva from a DNA sample taken from him onto a ski mask recovered from the Bentley, according to the appellate court panel’s ruling in his case.