Laura Jeanne Taylor was born on January 31, 1976, in Dayton, Ohio. By the time she was a teenager, Taylor’s life was marked by instability and rebellion. At only sixteen years old, she fell into the influence of older companions who introduced her to crime and violence. She became romantically involved with nineteen-year-old Marvallous Keene, who would later become the leader of the group responsible for the 1992 Dayton Christmas killings.

Taylor was the youngest member of the four-person gang known as the Downtown Posse, which also included Heather Matthews, age twenty, and DeMarcus Smith, age seventeen. Despite her age, Taylor played an active role in the murders. She was directly involved in several killings, lured victims into traps, and participated in the planning of robberies.

Her youth and impressionability did not make her less dangerous. Instead, she showed a level of ruthlessness that stunned the Dayton community. During the short crime spree, she not only participated in robberies and shootings but also executed her own ex-boyfriend.

On December 24, 1992, Laura Taylor set the stage for the group’s first killing. She targeted Joseph Wilkerson, a thirty-four-year-old acquaintance, under the pretense of arranging a sexual encounter with him. Together with Heather Matthews and Marvallous Keene, she visited his home. After gaining his trust, the trio tied him to his bed with electrical cords and searched the house for valuables. Keene shot Wilkerson in the chest with a Derringer pistol, and Taylor followed with a second shot to the head. Wilkerson’s body was concealed under blankets while the group fled the scene in his car.

That same evening, Taylor participated in the murder of Danita Gullette, an eighteen-year-old high school senior and mother of a two-year-old child. Gullette was using a payphone when Taylor, Keene, and Smith approached her. Smith and Keene demanded her shoes and jacket at gunpoint. After Gullette complied, she was shot repeatedly and killed. Later, Taylor wore Gullette’s jacket while Smith carried away her shoes, flaunting the stolen items.

On the night of December 24, the group also attempted to kill Jeffrey Wright, the former boyfriend of Heather Matthews. Smith shot Wright in the legs four times, but Wright managed to escape and survive.

The following day, December 25, 1992, Taylor lured her nineteen-year-old former boyfriend Richmond Maddox out of his parents’ house. As he drove her through Dayton, Taylor pulled out a pistol and shot him in the temple at point-blank range. Maddox died instantly, and the car crashed on Benton Avenue. Taylor escaped the wreck and rejoined her accomplices, further proving her willingness to murder someone she once loved.

On December 26, 1992, the group turned to robbing a small grocery store, the Short Stop Mini Market. Taylor first entered the store to count the number of people inside and then reported back to her companions. Keene and Smith stormed in with handguns, demanding money from the register. Sarah Abraham, a thirty-eight-year-old mother, handed them forty dollars. In response, Keene shot her in the head while Smith fired into the store, wounding Jones Pettus and narrowly missing Edward Thompson. Abraham died four days later from her injuries.

Later that evening, the group became paranoid that others might betray them. Taylor and Matthews discussed attacking sixteen-year-old Wendy Cottrill, who they suspected of planning to “snitch.” Smith was equally concerned about Marvin Washington, age eighteen, who knew about his involvement in Jeffrey Wright’s shooting. The four lured Cottrill and Washington to a gravel pit, where they were forced out of the car at gunpoint. Cottrill and Washington begged for their lives, insisting they had not gone to the police. Despite their pleas, Keene executed Cottrill and Smith killed Washington. Cottrill was reportedly three months pregnant at the time.

The group’s crime spree ended the same night. After robbing a woman named Kathie Henderson and stealing her car, they returned to a friend’s home where they had left Wilkerson’s vehicle. Police, who had been surveilling the stolen car, quickly surrounded the house. Taylor was arrested along with Keene and Matthews while trying to leave. Smith fled on foot but was captured shortly afterward.

As Taylor was only sixteen years old during the murders, she was initially charged in juvenile court. Prosecutors, however, petitioned successfully to have her tried as an adult. In 1994, she was convicted of multiple counts of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, and kidnapping. Because of her age at the time of the crimes, she was not eligible for the death penalty. Instead, she received a sentence of life in prison with parole eligibility after serving more than one hundred years.

Her three accomplices received varying sentences. Heather Matthews avoided the death penalty through a plea bargain and received two life sentences plus 194 years. DeMarcus Smith was sentenced to life without parole eligibility for more than one hundred years. Marvallous Keene, the ringleader, was sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection on July 21, 2009.

Laura Taylor has remained incarcerated in Ohio for more than thirty years. She has been housed at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville and later at the Dayton Correctional Institution, where she remains as of 2025.

Because she was a juvenile at the time of the crimes, Taylor became eligible for a parole hearing after decades in prison. In December 2021, she appeared before the parole board, but the state strongly opposed her release, citing the brutality of her crimes. Her parole request was denied, and her next scheduled hearing is set for October 2026.