A Nashville jury has found former Arkansas State football player and NFL scout Blaise Taylor guilty of murdering his pregnant girlfriend, Jade Benning, and their unborn child. The verdict brings an end to a closely watched trial that lasted eight days and centered on disturbing allegations.
Taylor, 30, was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of felony murder. Prosecutors argued that he intentionally caused the deaths of Benning and her unborn baby by giving her a lethal dose of cocaine in 2023.
The case shocked both the football community and the public because of the nature of the allegations. Taylor was once viewed as a promising football figure. After playing at Arkansas State, he went on to work as an NFL scout. His career appeared to be moving in the right direction before the criminal investigation changed everything.
Taylor, who last worked for the Tennessee Titans, was arrested in March 2024 on four counts of murder. Prosecutors say he intentionally gave Jade Benning a fatal dose of cocaine by slipping it into her pink lemonade while she was five months pregnant with their child in February 2023.
Benning died on her 25th birth in March of 2023, days after the unborn child passed away. She had planned to name the child Ivy.
Defense attorneys suggested Benning may have overdosed herself, but were ultimately unconvincing. The jury deliberated for less than three hours, according to multiple reports.
Taylor is facing a potential life sentence for the murders.
As detailed by prosectors, 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 last week.
Jade Benning’s death was especially heartbreaking because she was expecting a child. The loss of both a young mother and her unborn baby made the case even more tragic.
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.’
Taylor’s defense team allege that he later reached back out to Benning and said he wanted to work on their relationship, but prosecutors argue his lack of desire to father the child ultimately led to his decision to poison the victim in early 2023.
On February 25, 2023, Taylor allegedly called 911 and reported that Benning was having an allergic reaction.
The football world will remember Blaise Taylor for far different reasons than anyone expected. More importantly, this case should keep the focus on Jade Benning and her unborn child, whose lives were cut short far too soon.
