Erin Taylor, 20, was given a 50-year jail sentence on Thursday. She and her co-defendants got smoothies at McDonald’s after brutally killing 17-year-old Lesley Luna Pantaleon.
As Law&Crime noted before, Taylor was one of three young women charged as adults in Alabama with Pantaleon’s death in 2020. He was 16 years old when he killed Pantaleon. Along with Ta’Niya Merriweather, Tyeshia Whisenant, and Keontae Davidson, she was charged as an adult.
The lesser charge of murder was dropped against Whisenant in June. The first charge against her was deadly murder. She has not yet been given a sentencing date. Davidson, who is now 20 years old, also admitted to murder and will be heard in court on September 12. According to local NBC station WFSA, Merriweather, who is also 20, is waiting to go to court.
Pantaleon went lost for the first time on June 24, 2020. After a few days, on July 4, 2020, her body was found in Catoma Creek. Pantaleon had been hit with a metal pipe and cut many times. Her truck and phone were both taken.
Investigators said the horrible event began when Taylor’s cousin reportedly stole a gun from Pantaleon. Pantaleon “put out a hit” on Whisenant’s house, but not on Taylor’s or her cousin’s. Pantaleon and Whisenant got into a fight, which turned into a group attack on the 17-year-old girl.
Law & Crime said that Pantaleon was badly beaten in the back seat of Taylor’s car. The beating continued after the teens pulled over, but this time Pantaleon was hit with a metal pole and stabbed over and over again.
At first, it was said to be hard to do an autopsy on Pantaleon because her face and body were so badly damaged that it was hard to tell who she was.
Cops say the teens left Pantaleon’s body and drove off. They went back to Whisenant’s house, woke up another girl, and told her they were going to take her to see Pantaleon’s body. Pantaleon was still living and her feet were moving when they went back to where the girl was.
The attackers put Pantaleon back in the car, drove her to a nearby creek on a short but rough trip, and then dumped her body and the metal pole in the creek. Whisenant told the cops that Pantaleon looked like she was still alive and trying to swim in the creek.
They left her there, got in Pantaleon’s car, and went to McDonald’s. It was around 6 a.m. In court, officials showed surveillance video and receipts that showed the teens buying smoothies and then parking their car at a nearby church.
The prosecutors said the capital murder charge was appropriate because Pantaleon’s phone and truck were also stolen. According to the prosecutors, the defendants “tortured” Pantaleon in the back car to get her cellphone passcode. They also killed the victims for those two things.
During a preliminary hearing in October 2020, attorneys told the Montgomery Advertiser that Pantaleon’s killers said some of her last words, which were, “Just take me home, you can have my truck.”
