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Loved ones awaiting justice in 2012 Houston murders
You may remember the horrific murder of a Bellaire police officer and a Good Samaritan on Christmas Eve back in 2012. FOX 26's Damali Keith spoke to loved ones who are still awaiting justice all these years later.
BELLAIRE, Texas - You likely remember the horrific murder of a Bellaire police officer and a good Samaritan on Christmas Eve back in 2012. Well, loved ones say all these years later and they're still awaiting justice.
We're coming up on the 11th anniversary of the murders of Bellaire Police Officer Jimmie Norman and business owner Terry Taylor who tried to help the officer, and the legal battle is still dragging on in court.
"In this case, justice has been delayed and justice is being denied," says Taylor's son Kevin Taylor.
When Harlem Lewis was sentenced to die for the 2012 Christmas Eve Capital Murders in 2014, "We were told when this was done it would be 6 to 8 years, and it would all be resolved," Taylor explains.
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Eleven years after the brutal killings, the court hearings continue. The defense is trying to prove Lewis, who was 18 years old when he committed the double murder, is Intellectually Disabled, a group that can't be put to death.
"This feels political because the individual that killed Officer Norman and my dad was a B student, taking AP classes, and he graduates in the top 25% of his class," says Taylor.
According to court documents, a defense expert testing Lewis' IQ wrote "malinger", meaning faking or pretending, but what will the Court of Criminal Appeals say? We won't know until Judge Natalia Cornelio sends the case to the appellate court, accompanied by her recommendation. Prosecutors asked the judge to do so by Oct. 30, then Nov. 30. Two deadlines have come and gone.
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So Prosecuting Attorneys requested the record sent without her recommendation "to consider the continued toll these proceedings have had on the victims' (loved ones)...making the upcoming...Christmas holidays particularly difficult."
Judge Cornelio just responded saying she will not send the case until her recommendation is complete.
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Terry Taylor, who was a retired US Army Colonel, leaves behind two children and his wife who is now 77 years old. "She saw the whole thing. She walked outside and watched it in person happen, her husband getting killed in a very gruesome way. Eleven years later, we're still stuck in purgatory because the judge in this case is not letting it move along," says Kevin Taylor.
Lewis, who had an outstanding warrant, led Officer Norman on a chase that ended outside Taylor's auto body shop and Taylor came out to help. He was a new grandfather and a "workaholic" who was set to take his first day off work for his grandbaby's first birthday party.
"Which we had to cancel, so we could bury my dad and I could give the eulogy that day," Taylor explains.
Kevin Taylor, who followed his dad into the auto body repair business, says their hearts are broken entering yet another Christmas season with the case still unresolved.
"Not only does it bring more pain, it seems like it's a way to just kick it down the road, so there's no resolution ever. it just stays here in purgatory," says the grieving son.
Prosecutors plan to file an emergency motion with the court of criminal appeals asking the court to order the clerk to send the case without the judge's recommendation.