Few mistakes change one's life like being charged with a murder one didn't commit.
Willard Dale Taylor discovered that when he was charged last year with the 1972 murder of Gregory Nickell. Taylor languished in jail for seven weeks, awaiting the blood tests that would set him free. He had been publicly pegged a murderer and a rapist, and a prosecutor was talking about the death penalty.During those seven weeks, his wife divorced him; his sons wrestled with the possibility that their father had done the unthinkable, and his unpaid bills mounted.
"It has ruined my whole life. Everywhere I go, people still turn around and stare," Taylor said.
He wants Uintah County to pay him $1 million for that damaged life. Taylor filed a lawsuit in federal court against Uintah County Sheriff Lloyd Meacham and the county, claiming they recklessly disregarded the truth when they arrested him last year for one of the county's most haunting unsolved murders.
Nickell, 21, had just returned from Vietnam and was on a date with a Vernal woman when the couple was accosted at a scenic overlook west of Vernal. Two men repeatedly shot Nickell and raped his date.
Taylor was released from jail when DNA tests showed he didn't commit the crime. But those seven weeks scarred him.
"I can't get it out of my mind. It's all I ever think about. I'm constantly looking over my shoulder. Whenever I drive, I'm always looking in the rearview mirror. Even though I've been proven innocent, I'm still afraid they are going to come down on me."
Taylor was stunned when police came to his Salt Lake home Aug. 12, 1992, and arrested him. "I couldn't believe it. I asked what I was being arrested for. The sheriff said, `Think back.' I couldn't think of anything. He said, `Think back 20 years ago.' I still couldn't figure out what he was talking about.
"Then he told me I was being arrested for murder. I said, `You've got to be kidding me.' "
While Taylor was being arrested, Uintah County Attorney Harry Souvall held a news conference here announcing that what he called Utah's oldest unsolved homicide had been solved. Souvall said he believed new forensic techniques would prove that Taylor had been the triggerman.
Those techniques saved Taylor from death row, said Gregory Sanders, Taylor's attorney. The wheels of justice moved so resolutely against Taylor that he could have been convicted of a murder he didn't commit if DNA tests hadn't proved his innocence.
Now Taylor wants the wheels of justice to move against Uintah County officials.
He believes Meacham and Souvall should have at least questioned him about the crime before charging him. They could have arrested him and detained him in jail while getting blood test results, he said. "No one ever, ever contacted me about this. Never."
Instead, he was arrested, charged with murder, denied bail and bound over for trial.
Souvall said the county promptly jailed Taylor to protect witnesses, particularly Taylor's former stepdaughter who testified against Taylor at his preliminary hearing. "Our evidence suggested Taylor had committed the murder. Anyone capable of committing a murder like that was capable of retaliating against witnesses. Witnesses were afraid there would be retaliation."
The county acted reasonably and properly, Souvall and Meacham said. District court judges approved arresting Taylor, charging him, jailing him and binding him over for trial, Souvall said.
"This isn't the case of a cowboy sheriff running wild," he said. "We feel like we have no liability in this matter."
But Sanders believes politics drove Taylor's arrest. When Meacham ran for sheriff, he vowed to solve the county's unsolved murders, Sanders said.
The 1972 Nickell murder was the most prominent unsolved murder. Two men repeatedly shot Nickell while he and his date sat in his truck at a scenic overlook west of Vernal. The two men then raped Nickell's date and held her hostage for nearly six hours.
The county launched a massive but futile manhunt following the murders.
People still avoid Taylor, he said. "I have lost a best friend that I've fished with all of my life. His wife is really religious and she's told him that he can't fish with me or anything else.
"No leaders from my church ever come around. They don't want nothing to do with me now. I just know that's the reason."
Taylor doubts he will ever put this behind him.
"To me, murder is the worst thing in the entire world. Even the word `murder' is a sickening word. And that is something I'm going to be marked with for the rest of my life."