Taylor is accused of attempting to rob the Cash To Go Pawn Shop at 3694 Salem Ave. with two other men on Dec. 22, 2011. Store manager Ilya Golub, 53, and one of the other would-be robbers died of gunshot wounds. Ohio law states that guilty defendants are criminally responsible for the deaths of accomplices in such cases.
An evidence expert took the stand today to show bullets found at the pawn shop and blood located at two crime scenes. The victim’s family was visibly upset upon seeing the blood stains inside a car that investigators located in Detroit.
Surveillance footage shows a gunfire exchange between a man and Golub, the pawn shop owner.
Prosecuting attorney Kelly Madzey said during opening statements that Taylor confessed, that his cell phone was tracked from Detroit to Dayton and back and that Taylor’s van had blood in it from the robber who died.
Madzey said surveillance video showed the shootout and shows Taylor pulling his gun out first. Anthony McClain, the would-be robber who got shot, left the store on his own but was later found dead propped up against a building in Michigan.
“It went south,” Madzey said, quoting what she said Taylor told police. “As worse as it gets.”
Taylor’s defense attorney, Kate Bowling, told the nine women and five men in the jury box - including alternates - that the prosecution has the wrong man, despite Taylor’s confession.
“That third individual was not, as the state claims, Mr. Taylor,” Bowling said. “Their answer is simple, their answer is easy and their answer is wrong,” Bowling said.
Bowling said jurors need to note that no evidence will show that Taylor’s fingerprints were found at the pawn shop and that they need to dig deeper to find the truth about the third robber: “They stopped looking for anybody else,” she said. “They had their man. End of story.”
Detectives said they found Taylor thanks to two witnesses who identified the license plate and make of the van the suspects used for their getaway, Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer said.
“It’s a tragedy,” Plummer said during the investigation. “(Golub) was a mainstay in our community. We all knew him because we worked the street.”
Golub came to Dayton in the late 1980s along with his wife and two children to escape persecution in the former U.S.S.R., friends said. The Golubs were among about 200 Russian Jews who sought political asylum in the Dayton area around that time.
Golub worked in the pawn shop from around 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day except for Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, said longtime pawn shop patron and friend Michael Taylor.
Larry Baker, 28, of Detroit, also has been charged with murder, felonious assault and aggravated robbery in connection with Golub’s death. Baker has not yet gone on trial.
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