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Murder suspect, 40-year fugitive captured in NC

A man wanted for his involvement in a scheme to murder a Florida mayor was captured in Reidsville, N.C., by the FBI Thursday, nearly 40 years after the crime.

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WILLIAM CLAYBOURNE TAYLOR
REIDSVILLE, N.C. — A man wanted for his involvement in a scheme to murder a Florida mayor was captured in Reidsville, N.C., by the FBI Thursday, nearly 40 years after the crime.

William Claybourne Taylor was living in the north-central North Carolina town under a false name, agents said.

Taylor, now 67, was wanted for his alleged involvement in the January 1977 murder of a former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) official. According to authorities, Taylor fired into a car carrying the official and a former mayor of Williston, Florida, killing the official.

He was indicted in the crime in 1980, arrested in Tennessee and released on bond on an order to return to Florida. He had been a fugitive ever since.

“William Claybourne Taylor thought he could avoid taking responsibility for this horrible crime, but our agents continued an exhaustive search year after year,” said Michelle S. Klimt, special agent in charge of the FBI Jacksonville division.

She thanked FBI agents in North Carolina, along with the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office, Greensboro Police Department, Eden Police Department, Winston-Salem Police Department, Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Ocala Police Department Safe Streets Task Force and the United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of North Carolina for their assistance.

Taylor was being held in the Guilford County jail.

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