Trial begins in Captain D's triple-murder case

One of two suspects accused of killing three people at a fast food restaurant in Smyrna four years is going on trial this week.
    A 16-member jury from Chattanooga is being transported to hear the case against LaTonya Taylor, 27, of Nashville, who is charged with three counts of first-degree murder.
    Attorneys in the case and Rutherford County Circuit Court Judge Don Ash spent last week in Chattanooga selecting the jury and four alternates due to extensive publicity about the case in Rutherford County.
    Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
    Also charged with three counts of murder in the slayings is Percy Lee Palmer, 24 originally of San Bernardino, Calif. Palmer will be tried separately, but a trial date has not been scheduled.
    Both Taylor and Palmer have been jailed since being arrested in 2001, more than a year after the killings. 
    Neither defense attorneys nor the prosecution would comment on details of the case.
    Taylor and Palmer are accused of killing Captain D's employees Scott Myers, Brian Speight and Troy Snell just after the restaurant was closed on July 12, 2000.
    Meyers was a Memphian when he was murdered.
    Statements made earlier by witnesses and suspects to police say the men were killed when the pair went there to collect a $400 drug debt from Snell.
    The bodies of Speight and Myers were found in the restaurant freezer.
    Snell was found dead in his car parked behind a nearby strip mall. All three had been shot in the head.
    Rutherford County will pay for the transportation of the jurors from Chattanooga to Murfreesboro and for housing and food during the trial, officials said. Ash told the jurors last week to prepare for a two-week stay. The trial is set to begin at 9 a.m. Monday, and Ash has said he will convene court on Saturdays but not Sundays to keep the case moving.
    Taylor's attorneys say she is mentally retarded and should not be executed if convicted, but Ash has ruled that she is not retarded. Taylor was convicted in late August of aggravated robbery and kidnapping for her part in a robbery at an Arby's restaurant in Donelson, a suburb of Nashville, in 2001.
    Rutherford County prosecutors said it was important that she was convicted in Nashville before being tried in Murfreesboro. If Taylor is found guilty in the Smyrna case, jurors will be able to consider the Arby's case when they sentence her because previous convictions can be admitted in the sentencing phase of the trial, court officials said.
    The Davidson County jurors were unaware of the Captain D's case in Rutherford County. Judge Randall Wyatt is scheduled to sentence Taylor on Oct. 8 in the Arby's case.

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)