Guilty Verdict Urged in Businessman’s Slaying

Citing a DNA saliva match and other evidence, a prosecutor urged a Van Nuys jury Friday to reject Kirell Taylor’s claims of being framed by police and find him guilty of the 1999 murder of a Woodland Hills businessman.

“This is the ski mask that had the defendant’s saliva on it,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Shellie Samuels said during closing arguments. She pointed to a black mask that the police said had been left at the crime scene by one of two killers.

Motioning to a police artist’s sketch based on witness descriptions, Samuels added: “The composite just happened to look exactly like the defendant.”

But the 26-year-old Taylor, who is representing himself, denied he had anything to do with the death of Christopher Rawlings, 30.

“I still say I’m innocent,” Taylor said in his closing argument, in which he maintained that the Los Angeles Police Department planted evidence to frame him. “I ain’t got no reason to lie.”

At one point, the Pacoima man--who faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if he is convicted--pleaded with jurors: “I’ve got my whole life on the line.”

The jury deliberated less than two hours before going home for the weekend.

Taylor is charged with kidnapping, robbery and first-degree murder. Two masked men attacked Rawlings in his Woodland Hills garage on the night of Feb. 8, 1999. The victim had just driven home in his white Bentley.

The men took jewelry from Rawlings’ house, forced him into the Bentley’s trunk and drove it away, Samuels said. After a high-speed chase by police, the Bentley crashed into a tree and Rawlings was ejected from the car. He was thrown against a brick wall and died two days later.

A second suspect, Boris Graham, has also been charged in the case but remains at large.

Taylor and the other assailant likely targeted Rawlings for robbery because of Rawlings’ opulent lifestyle, Samuels said.

“I’m sure some of you think it’s foolish to be [wearing] a Rolex like this,” Samuels said, holding up a picture of the watch, “. . . and that driving a Bentley is asking for trouble. Kirell Taylor and his accomplice wanted to have what Christopher Rawlings had.”

Rebutting Taylor’s theory--asserted mostly outside the presence of the jury--that organized crime figures killed Rawlings, Samuels added: “It’s not about the Mafia.”

Several witnesses--including a woman whose car Taylor allegedly stole when fleeing the crime scene--have identified the defendant, Samuels said.

DNA collected from the ski mask matched that of Taylor, the prosecutor also said, and the police found Cartier jewelry belonging to Rawlings’ wife in Taylor’s bedroom.

In his argument, Taylor referred to the LAPD Rampart scandal and contended the police planted the jewelry because he would not have kept around “any form of incriminating evidence.” In earlier testimony, he told jurors he would have asked someone close to him to destroy such evidence.

“This whole case is trying to make Mr. Kirell Taylor into one of America’s dumbest criminals,” he said Friday.

Taylor asked jurors to focus on his alibi witness, a woman who testified that she was with him miles from the scene when Rawlings was abducted.

“My alibi speaks for itself,” Taylor said. “I’m not omnipresent.”

Samuels scoffed at Taylor’s assertion that the police planted evidence. “All he’s done is stand up here and slander good cops,” she said.