A Nashville jury has found Blaise Taylor guilty on all four counts he faced in connection with the 2023 deaths of his girlfriend, Jade Benning, and their unborn daughter, closing out a case that has drawn national attention since his arrest more than two years ago.
The verdict came down Wednesday, July 1, after jurors deliberated for roughly two and a half hours following a trial that stretched across nine days, including jury selection, testimony from medical experts and investigators, and closing arguments that pitted two starkly different versions of what happened inside Benning’s Nashville apartment against each other.
Taylor, 30, a former Arkansas State defensive back who went on to work as a scout for the Tennessee Titans, was convicted of second-degree murder in Benning’s death, a charge that had been reduced from first-degree murder, along with first-degree premeditated murder in the death of their unborn child and two counts of felony murder tied to both deaths.
Jurors later recommended Taylor serve life in prison, and his formal sentencing on the remaining counts is scheduled for September 9, since the first-degree murder conviction already carries an automatic life sentence under Tennessee law.
What Prosecutors Told the Jury Happened That Night
According to prosecutors, the case centered on a date night gone catastrophically wrong on February 25, 2023, when Taylor allegedly placed a lethal dose of cocaine dissolved in alcohol into Benning’s pink lemonade because he did not want to become a father.
Benning was roughly five months pregnant at the time, and prosecutors told jurors she had been very happy about the pregnancy despite reported pressure from Taylor to consider an abortion.
Text messages read into evidence from Benning’s phone appeared to support that narrative, including one message to a friend in which Benning wrote that she planned to tell Taylor she wasn’t having the abortion “so he can just get it out of his head.”
Nashville Assistant District Attorney Jan Norman built much of her case around a phone call Benning made to her close friend, Nijaiha Jackson, in the moments after she began feeling ill, telling jurors during opening statements that some of Benning’s last coherent words were captured on that call.
“What did you put in my drink? I knew my drink tasted funny. You did this because you didn’t want the baby,” Norman told the jury, describing the exchange Jackson overheard.
Jackson herself testified that she heard Benning growing increasingly distressed on the phone that night, telling the jury that Benning said she couldn’t feel her legs and directly accused Taylor of tampering with her drink.
“I know you put something in my drink because I can’t even walk straight,” Jackson recalled Benning saying, adding that Benning went on to accuse Taylor of trying to cause harm to the baby.
Medical testimony from Davidson County Medical Examiner Dr. Erin Carney reinforced the prosecution’s theory that something highly unusual had entered Benning’s system that night, though Carney testified she could not say with certainty how the drug was actually ingested.
Paramedics who responded to the scene described finding Benning unresponsive and face down on her bed.
Nashville Fire Paramedic Marisol Baldwin told the court that Benning “didn’t respond to us flipping her over on her back,” and that first responders noticed fluid around her mouth when they arrived.
Prosecutors also presented evidence suggesting Taylor cleaned up the apartment after calling 911, and pointed to the 911 call itself, in which Taylor told dispatchers he believed Benning was having an allergic reaction rather than describing any of the more alarming symptoms she was reportedly experiencing.
The Defense Pushed Back, and the Families Spoke After the Verdict
Taylor’s defense team, led by attorney Letitia Quinones-Hollins, argued throughout the trial that Benning’s death was the result of her own recreational drug use rather than any deliberate act by Taylor, and that prosecutors had failed to prove he was the one who introduced cocaine into her system.
During closing arguments, Quinones-Hollins pushed back hard on the state’s timeline, arguing it was implausible for Taylor to have concocted an elaborate poisoning plan in the narrow window prosecutors described. “So now the spontaneous plan is 3:50.
He has three hours to cook up the elaborate plan to kill her,” she told jurors, framing the state’s theory as rushed and speculative.
She also leaned on Dr. Carney’s inability to definitively determine a manner of death, arguing that uncertainty should have carried more weight with jurors, and maintained more broadly that the tragedy of Benning’s death did not automatically translate into proof of Taylor’s guilt.
Prosecutors disputed that framing directly, with Norman telling the jury plainly, “Jay Benning did not want to harm herself or her baby,” a line aimed squarely at undercutting the defense’s suggestion that Benning’s own choices were responsible for what happened.
The jury ultimately sided with the prosecution, and the emotional weight of that decision was immediately visible in the courtroom, where Benning’s family reportedly embraced and cried as the verdict was read.
During the sentencing phase, Benning’s mother, Bridgette Burks, addressed the court directly about the toll her daughter’s death has taken on her since 2023.
“Most of the time people ask ‘Are you okay?’ I say ‘Yes,’ but behind closed doors, I’m not,” Burks said, offering a glimpse into the grief that has followed her family well beyond the headlines.
Taylor’s mother, Dr. Evelyn Taylor, also addressed the court, though she chose not to speak to the specifics of the case itself. Instead, she spoke about the son she raised, describing him as a respectful, trouble-free young man whom other parents admired.
“A lot of parents would come to me and tell me how much respect they had for him,” she said. “He was a good student in the classroom and in sports. He was the type of boy they wanted their children to hang around. He never got into any trouble. He was very respectful.”
Following the verdict, Taylor’s defense team released a statement making clear they intend to appeal, writing that while they respect the jury system, they “must also respectfully disagree with today’s verdict and plan to appeal the decision because Blaise did not do this.”
The statement added that Taylor “maintains that he is innocent and we will continue working to prove that,” while also acknowledging the pain felt by Benning’s family and friends.
The timeline of what happened to Benning after that February night has remained consistent throughout the case.
She was rushed to Vanderbilt University Medical Center after Taylor called 911; her condition deteriorated rapidly, and her unborn daughter, whom the family had planned to name Ivy, died two days later.
Benning herself never regained consciousness and died on March 6, 2023, which happened to be her 25th birthday.
Taylor was not arrested until March 2024, following what Metro Nashville Police described at the time as months of investigation, and he was taken into custody in Logan, Utah, where he had relocated and was working as a senior defensive analyst at Utah State after leaving his position with the Titans.
He was released on a $2.5 million bond ahead of trial and required to wear a GPS monitor, though that bond was revoked following Wednesday’s guilty verdict.
The district attorney’s office has said it is pursuing a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, and that question, along with the final sentencing on Taylor’s second-degree murder and felony murder convictions, will be resolved when he returns to court on September 9.
