An Indiana man was arrested on Thursday for the shooting death of his father after deputies responded twice to the scene before finding the 50-year-old man dead in his room.
Joshua Taylor died from multiple gunshots to the head, WISH reported. His son, 28-year-old Wyatt Taylor, has been charged with murder.
The Decatur County Sheriff’s Office received an initial call to check on the Taylor’s welfare shortly after midnight Tuesday when his brother called. According to an affidavit of probable cause, the brother said that his nephew, who had recently moved in with Joshua Taylor, had called him and asked, “Should I do it or should I go to bed?” according to Law&Crime.
The brother was unable to reach Joshua Taylor, and shortly afterward, Wyatt called him again “asking for a ride.” When he called police, he said that he could hear smoke alarms going off in the background and that his nephew told him “he was just cooking pizza.”
The uncle asked again to speak with his brother, but was again denied.
Deputies responded to the uncle’s call for a welfare check and were met outside by Wyatt who “re-asserted that he had cooked a pizza causing the smoke detectors to go off,” saying there was no need for assistance, so the officers left.
The uncle asked the officers to go back. They returned about 20 minutes later and were again met by Wyatt Taylor in the driveway. When officers asked to speak with his father, “Wyatt told them that Joshua was sleeping,” the affidavit said.
But the younger man let the officers in and led the to a bedroom on the first floor. Taylor turned on a light, gestured toward his father in the bed, and said, “He’s right there.”
Deputies confirmed that Joshua Taylor was dead, “noting head and neck gunshot wounds.”
“They also noted multiple spent bullet casings in plain view in the bedroom,” the affidavit said.
Wyatt Taylor told the deputies there was no one else at the home and said he’d been drinking.
Deputies found no evidence of a burned pizza.
Upstairs, deputies found a firearm of the same caliber as the spent casings, WISH reported.
In an interview after he was taken into custody, Wyatt Taylor told the deputies he had moved back to Indiana from Utah two weeks ago and claiming that his father had been “throwing up gang signs” and said he had feared for his life.
Taylor has a pretrial conference set for October 7 with the murder trial expected to begin in February.
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[Featured image: Wyatt Taylor/Decatur County Jail]
