Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991                   TAG: 9102080835
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: JACKSONVILLE, FLA.                                LENGTH: Short

SALEM SAILOR GUILTY OF MURDER IN FLORIDA

The jury deliberated for seven hours before returning the verdict against Walter Thomas Taylor Jr., who was aboard the Stark when an Iraqi missile killed 37 sailors aboard the frigate in 1987.

A jury will now decide whether Taylor should be given the death penalty.

Taylor's defense was that he was suffering from post-combat stress when he raped and killed 21-year-old Paula Smits and killed her daughter, Amanda.

The ship returned home just days before the two killings on Aug. 8, 1987.

Defense attorney Ann Finnell had claimed that Taylor, who met Smits the day before, went to her apartment to have sex, then began suffering delusions that she was an Iraqi agent out to harm him.

"He's having flashbacks to the missile attacks," Finnell said. "His dead friends are with him. He's living a nightmare."

Assistant State Attorney Angela Corey argued Thomas was not insane. She said Taylor tried to hide the murder weapons, a hammer and knife, and a bottle of wine he drank.

"He raped her and he killed her and he killed the only other living witness that could testify against him," Corey said.

A second child, an infant, was unharmed in the attack, but suffered dehydration before the bodies were found two days later.