Former Arkansas State football player and NFL scout Blaise Taylor is facing serious criminal charges in a case that has shocked both the sports world and the public.
Prosecutors allege that Taylor intentionally poisoned his pregnant girlfriend, Jade Benning, by secretly putting cocaine into her pink lemonade in February 2023. Benning, who was five months pregnant with the couple’s unborn child, later died after being hospitalized. Authorities also say the unborn baby did not survive.
Taylor was arrested in March 2024 and has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder. He has pleaded not guilty, and the case is moving through the court system.
During a recent court hearing, prosecutors revealed additional details about the relationship between Taylor and Benning. According to the prosecution, Taylor had allegedly pressured Benning to have an abortion in the months leading up to her death.
The 30-year-old, who worked in the scouting department of the Tennessee Titans, is currently on trial in Nashville and jurors this week heard the case for the prosecution as he waits to learn his fate.
They allege that Benning sent a heartbreaking text to her close female friend in the months before she died, in which she appeared to reference Taylor’s desire for her to terminate the pregnancy.
‘I’m going to tell him today that I’m not having the abortion… so he can just get it out of his head,’ the message stated, according to an investigator who read it aloud to the court on Thursday.
In a separate message to Taylor himself three months before her death, she said: ‘You said how you felt and stated that moving forward you want no part, so I will let it be that.
‘I will not involve you at any point. I will love this child unconditionally with or without you.’
The tragic case has drawn widespread attention because it combines allegations of intimate partner violence, the death of a pregnant woman, and the fall of a former football standout.
On February 25, 2023, Taylor allegedly called 911 and reported that Benning was having an allergic reaction.
Benning’s fetus – who was going to be named Ivy – died two days later on February 27, while Benning herself passed away on March 6, her 25th birthday.
Following months of investigations by police, scientists, and the medical examiner, local authorities determined Benning had been ‘poisoned without her knowledge’ after Taylor visited her home.
In the courtroom on Friday, a medical examiner broke down the autopsy report and told the court she had never before seen the levels of cocaine that were found in Benning’s body.
‘I could not recall anything this high,’ Dr Erin Carney said of the sample, which revealed 1,787 nanograms of cocaine per milliliter of blood.
‘The circumstances surrounding [Benning’s] ingestion of cocaine were very concerning, that she ingested this unknowingly. Acute cocaine toxicity caused Miss Benning to die.’
As legal proceedings continue, many questions remain unanswered. A jury will ultimately determine whether prosecutors have proven the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Until then, the case remains one of the most closely watched criminal trials involving a former football figure.
