REMEMBER OTIS FLAKE (DIED ON 2 APRIL 1993) (KILLER, ELKIE LEE TAYLOR WAS EXECUTED IN TEXAS ON 6 NOVEMBER 2008)

Elkie Lee Taylor

Summary: Taylor and Darryl Birdow broke into the Fort Worth home of Otis Flake. The invaders tied the mentally ill, 65-year-old victim up then strangled him with two wire coat hangers. They then stole a television and some other household items. Eleven days earlier, 87 year old Ramon Carillo was murdered in his home, seven blocks away from Flake's home. He had also been strangled with a coat hanger. A friend of Flake's later testified that she came to his home and saw Taylor and Birdow coming from the back side of the house. Taylor had a white bag in his hand. Taylor was apprehended after a four-hour chase from Fort Worth to Waco driving the cab of a stolen 18-wheel truck. At one point, he tried to ram two police cars and run over two state troopers standing on the side of the road. The chase ended when a trooper stood in front of the truck and shot out its tires with a shotgun. Upon his arrest, Taylor confessed to tying and stealing from both of the victims, but he said that Birdow killed them. Taylor had been paroled only three months prior to the murders after serving 9 months on a Burglary conviction. Accomplice Birdow was sentenced in 1994 to life in prison.

Renee Harris Toliver, Flake's niece, said she and other relatives would pray for Taylor. "But not one of us will say he's not deserving of having his life taken," she said.

AUTHOR: Family members of Otis Flake who was murdered by Elkie Lee Taylor on 2 April 1993. He was executed by lethal injection in Texas on 6 November 2008.