HEARD COUNTY, Ga. — A can of Great Value brand potatoes, brass knuckles and a rope tied tightly around a woman's neck found along a dirt road became key evidence in convincing a Heard County jury to convict an Alabama man for murder, prosecutors said.
The jury found Micah Blake Taylor, 30, guilty of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and concealing the death of another on Thursday. Taylor, who is from Lincoln, Ala., is accused of brutally killing Regina Trotter and leaving her for dead two miles from the Georgia-Alabama line in February 2021.
Two hunters found Trotter's body along a deserted dirt road in Heard County on February 1, 2021. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime scene specialist, along with local investigators, found some sort of rope tied tightly in a knot around the 47-year-old's neck and noticed two stab wounds to her neck and face, according to officials.
"Next to the body, they recovered brass knuckles and a can of Great Value bran potatoes," prosecutors said in a news release. "GBI crime lab analysts later located Taylor's DNA on the brass knuckles."
Investigators said Trotter was found on her back but had no dirt on the soles of her shoes, suggesting she had been thrown from a vehicle, a news release from the District Attorney Coweta Judicial Circuit detailed.
After piecing together evidence, investigators learned that weeks before Trotter's murder, she had allowed Taylor to live in her trailer with her and her roommate in Heflin, Ala. On the morning of January 31, 2021, Taylor took the keys to Trotter's van and drove it to a residence in Roanoke, Ala.
Text messages between Taylor and Trotter, according to prosecutors, revealed that he took the van without permission. Several witnesses, including Trotter's roommate, testified Trotter had stolen her van, according to prosecutors.
Taylor and a friend drove the van back that evening, prosecutors said. He also told Taylor he could not live in her trailer anymore. Taylor's friend, who didn't know Trotter, asked her for a ride back home, and she agreed, a news release details.
In Trotter's last series of text messages to friends, Trotter said Taylor had returned in the van. She communicated to friends that she was giving Taylor and his friend a ride home, prosecutors said.
Along the way, Taylor had instructed Trotter to make a turn that would guide them into Heard County, Ga. -- that's when Taylor "put a rope around Trotter's neck" and told his friend to put the van in park, prosecutors said. The friend drove the van down the road until Taylor pulled the woman's body from the van onto the road, where it would be found the next day, according to the investigative timeline.
After the jury delivered its verdict, a judge promptly sentenced Taylor to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus ten years in prison.
