Florida fugitive wanted for 1977 murder arrested in North Carolina

The FBI’s release doesn’t give details but said the agency recently discovered he was living under a false name and confirmed his identity once he was in custody. An FBI wanted poster described Taylor as a dance instructor, trumpet player, convenience store clerk and welder. Authorities say he was using the name James Emmet Manion, and that he was the triggerman in an attempt to assassinate the then-mayor of Williston, Florida, in January 1977.

Taylor was apprehended in Reidsville, N.C., where he’d been living under an alias, according to an Federal Bureau of Investigation news release.

The report says the shooting occurred as they were driving along USA 27 about 18 miles west of Ocala when another auto pulled alongside their vehicle.

Early reports said the auto veered into a nearby marsh. A suspect approached the back of the vehicle and shot Bailey, the newspaper reported. Two other men in the auto escaped unharmed.

The mayor was a successful businessman with a $2.5 million estate, according to news reports.

Ray Taylor, the older brother, was convicted as the plot’s chief planner. A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Charlotte, North Carolina, said in an email Friday morning that a court hearing for Taylor hasn’t been arranged yet.

The FBI said Taylor and a now-deceased accomplice were involved in a scheme to murder Eugene Bailey, who was the mayor of Williston at the time.

After police arrested Clay Taylor in 1980 in Chattanooga, a judge agreed to let the man post bail as long as he returned to Florida for his court date.

A federal arrest warrant was issued on August 6, 1980, after Taylor was charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

Alberta Morris said Friday that she saw William Taylor work in his tree-shaded front yard occasionally, but never talked to him. “This gentleman has been looking over his shoulder for 40 years”.

“I sat through the two week trial, in 1980, just to convince myself it was him. and I was convinced”.

“To echo the words of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, ‘the FBI always gets its man.'” Taylor is being held in the Guilford County, N.C. Detention Center. Taylor’s warrant is now the oldest warrant active in the MCSO warrants database.