Click here to subscribe today or Login.
WILKES-BARRE — Prosecutors say they intend to use at trial the prior criminal record of an attempted homicide suspect charged with slitting a woman’s throat and leaving her for dead two years ago in Bear Creek Township.
Nygee Jamal Taylor, 26, of Carbondale, and co-defendant Jerone Andre Moore, 33, of Wilkes-Barre, face attempted homicide, aggravated assault, kidnapping and conspiracy charges related to the violent 2014 abduction police say was sparked over a stolen cellphone.
A third co-defendant, 22-year-old Chloe Amelia Issacs, of Wilkes-Barre, pleaded guilty to unlawful restraint, simple assault, reckless endangerment and false imprisonment charges in July for her role in the matter and is awaiting sentencing.
Prosecutors, in a notice filed Thursday in Luzerne County Court, say they plan to use Taylor’s past drug convictions at trial.
Court records show Taylor pleaded guilty to such charges in at least three separate cases since 2010.
“The commonwealth believes … the evidence of (Taylor’s) crimes, wrongs, or acts is probative in this matter to show proof of motive for the crimes and also to tell the complete story of what transpired between Oct. 4, 2015, and the days following,” assistant district attorneys Angela Sperrazza and Mamie Phillips wrote.
According to the affidavit, the trio kidnapped 22-year-old Dayna Williams from her Pittston home on Oct. 5, 2014, took her to a secluded area near Lake Aleeda in Bear Creek Township and slashed her throat. As the blade was put to her neck, Williams told investigators she heard a voice say, “go deeper. You’re supposed to go deeper.”
Before she was taken to the area, the affidavit says, Williams was brutally beaten inside Isaac’s residence on North Hancock Street in Wilkes-Barre, then placed in a barrel where she was kept for four hours. She was left in the woods after she was cut but survived and made her way to a nearby home.
The assault stemmed from a missing cell phone Williams’ alleged kidnappers believed she stole, according to the affidavit.
Moore and Taylor remain behind bars on $500,000 bail each.