Robert Langley—white, age 27 (re-sentence after appellate reversal)
Sentenced to death in Marion County, Oregon
By: a jury
Date of crime: 12/1987 and 4/13/88
Prosecution case defense response: Langley bound and strangled Anne Gray and buried her body. Four months later he bludgeoned Larry Rockenbrant to death with a baseball bat in order to keep him quiet about the Gray murder and buried his body. The defense argued that a death sentence was unnecessary because Langley had been an unproblematic inmate for many years. This was at least the fourth time Langley had been sentenced to death for Gray’s murder, with all the other sentences overturned on appeal. (Along the way, he had received a life sentence for Rockebrant’s murder.)
Sources: Statesman Journal (Salem, Ore.) 5/22/14
By: a jury
Date of crime: 12/1987 and 4/13/88
Prosecution case defense response: Langley bound and strangled Anne Gray and buried her body. Four months later he bludgeoned Larry Rockenbrant to death with a baseball bat in order to keep him quiet about the Gray murder and buried his body. The defense argued that a death sentence was unnecessary because Langley had been an unproblematic inmate for many years. This was at least the fourth time Langley had been sentenced to death for Gray’s murder, with all the other sentences overturned on appeal. (Along the way, he had received a life sentence for Rockebrant’s murder.)
Sources: Statesman Journal (Salem, Ore.) 5/22/14
David Taylor—white, age 56
Sentenced to death in Lane County, Oregon
By: A jury
Date of crime: 8/2012
Prosecution case/defense response: In need of a getaway car as part of a bank robbery scheme (that resulted in two robberies), Taylor lured Celestino Gutierrez, Jr. to Taylor’s home by having one of Taylor’s accomplices posing as a stranded woman in need of a ride. Gutierrez’s body was dismembered and buried in a forest. Taylor had a prior murder conviction for which he had served 27 years in prison. The defense argued that Taylor was too old to be dangerous in prison.
Sources: Register-Guardian (Eugene, Ore.) 5/13/14, 5/16/14
By: A jury
Date of crime: 8/2012
Prosecution case/defense response: In need of a getaway car as part of a bank robbery scheme (that resulted in two robberies), Taylor lured Celestino Gutierrez, Jr. to Taylor’s home by having one of Taylor’s accomplices posing as a stranded woman in need of a ride. Gutierrez’s body was dismembered and buried in a forest. Taylor had a prior murder conviction for which he had served 27 years in prison. The defense argued that Taylor was too old to be dangerous in prison.
Sources: Register-Guardian (Eugene, Ore.) 5/13/14, 5/16/14