Houston County Sheriff's Office reopens Ricki Taylor case

The Houston County Sheriff’s Office has reopened the Ricki Taylor Homicide and sent additional evidence, not previously processed, to the lab Wednesday, Aug. 30.

According to Houston County Sheriff Randy Hargrove, he has been working with Texas Ranger Andres De La Garza on this case who is able to expedite the additional evidence.

“There is one piece of evidence we need in order to make an arrest in this case,” Hargrove said. “We believe that we may have the complete DNA of our suspect in the evidence submitted today and if so, it’s just a matter of time until we can make an arrest in this case.”

Six years ago, on June 21, 2017, Ricki Deann Taylor, 46, was murdered.

According to her family and co-workers Ricki had a normal day that day. She got up, went to work at the radio station, Pine Country 93.5, spent a few hours moving furniture into storage with her father, Rickey Garner, before heading out into the night.

Leaving Security Storage on Crockett Road, Taylor headed east on Colorado Street before turning south on South Magnolia Street. Garner, who was driving behind her, turned north on South Magnolia Street. When he saw Taylor’s truck stop on Magnolia Street, near West Colorado Street, he believed that she was on her cell phone and he continued to drive home. Less than 6 hours later she would be dead.

Ricki's father recalls getting woken early by Ricki's fiancé, Donny Malone, on June 22, 2017.

Donny, a former police officer, was working in the Denton area the night Taylor went missing. He was one of the last people to speak with her over the phone before her death. Ricki's family and co-workers recall Donny calling her a lot.

When Ricki didn't answer their typical late night call before bed, Ricki's cousin, Marilyn, who lived with them, said he began to worry and called her looking for Ricki, but Ricki had not made it home.

Her family remembers Donny ended up coming home early to look for Ricki. He drove out to her father's house and called around looking for her. Family members reported it was Donny who found Ricki's truck abandoned and damaged at Willie Meyers Park, near Colorado and Magnolia Streets in Palestine just after 7 a.m. on June 21, 2017. The truck’s passenger side-view mirror was missing the back cover and a tree branch was stuck in the hinge of the passenger mirror. There were numerous scratches found on the passenger side of the truck. The passenger seat was pushed back to suit a taller person.

The Palestine Police Department received the reports that Taylor was missing, that her truck had been found abandoned and damaged and followed the cell phone tower pings of her cell phone to a remote location on County Road 2120 in Houston County where they found her body, two days after she was killed, on June 23, 2017. Believing that her body was dumped, the Palestine PD called and requested permission from the Houston County District Attorney’s Office to begin working the evidence of the case, despite there being no murder scene or evidence that Ricki was killed in Palestine or Anderson County.

Since Taylor was actually killed at that location where her body was found the jurisdiction of the case was the Houston County Sheriff's Office; however, the Palestine PD did not notify the sheriff’s office and did their own investigation, collecting evidence, bagging the body and working the scene.

The Houston County Sheriff's Office was notified later of what the Palestine Police Department had found, but was never responsible for the evidence collection, the investigation or the case in any way.

Taylor's body was sent by the Palestine Police Department to Dallas for autopsy. According to the medical examiner, Taylor had no defensive wounds on her body, and nothing under her nail beds. There was no struggle. She had bruising on her knees where she knelt before her killer shot her execution-style in the back of the head.

The evidence suggests that the suspect then left the scene in a hurry, breaking the rearview mirror on Taylor's truck. The glass from the mirror on the ground is what helped investigators locate her body. The suspect then drove the truck back to Palestine and dumped it near Colorado and Magnolia Street.

The evidence and nature of the crime seems to indicate that Ricki knew her assailant and that that person got into her truck and drove with her to a spot in Houston County and then used Ricki’s own gun, a .380 caliber handgun, to kill her.

As in every crime, police began to look for motives for her murder and consider those closest to her as suspects. Ricki’s father, who was the last person known to be with her, was quickly ruled out. Her fiancé was working out of town at the time Ricki is believed to have been killed.

Ricki's ex-husband, Andrew Taylor, became the prime suspect early on in the Palestine Police Department's investigation and was arrested on June 30, 2017.

The Houston County Grand Jury "passed" the case against Andrew Taylor due to insufficient evidence, insufficient lab results and an alibi he provided based on evidence he produced.

After 90 days in the Anderson County Jail without being indicted for a crime, Andrew Taylor was released, in October 2017, on a $50,000 PR bond. He has been living a quiet life in Palestine, doing construction and raising he and Ricki's son.

According to Houston County District Attorney Donna Kaspar Wednesday, the case on Andrew Taylor has been completely closed and he is no longer a suspect.

Anyone that knows anything that might help lead to the arrest of Ricki's killer is urged to contact the office of the Houston County Sheriff’s Office at 936-544-2862. Or Sheriff Randy Hargrove at 936-222-7978.

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