ALBANY N.Y. More than a month after his death sentence was overturned, John B. Taylor — who was convicted in the murders of five Wendy’s employees in Queens during a robbery seven years ago — was resentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Taylor, now 43, originally had been sentenced to death in 2002 for committing one of the bloodiest rampage killings in the foodservice industry's history.
On the night of May 24, 2000, Taylor and an accomplice broke into the rear of the Wendy's unit at about 11 p.m., just as six crewmembers and the manager were going through their closing procedure.
Brandishing handguns, they herded the staff into a basement walk-in freezer, bound and gagged them with duct tape and shot each at close range.
They fled with $2,400.
Four of the workers were found dead on the premises and a fifth died in the hospital. The victims ranged in age from 18 to 44. Two of them broke free and called the police, who used a surveillance tape and other evidence at the scene to arrest Taylor and his accomplice, Craig Godineaux, within a few days.
The incident would be one of three similar rampage killings that year that resulted in the deaths of 14 foodservice workers nationwide.
At the time of the murders, Taylor had been free on a $3,500 bond following a string of robberies at fast-food restaurants throughout Queens.
Four years earlier, Taylor had been a McDonald's manager at the Empire State Building location on 42nd Street in 1996, but was fired and convicted of stealing from the safe. He was given five years probation.
Godineaux, 38, who testified against Taylor, had already been sentenced to life without parole.
New York's Court of Appeals threw out Taylor's death sentence last month in complying with an unrelated, but landmark 2004 decision that invalidated the state's death penalty.
Nevertheless, Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney who prosecuted Taylor and Godineaux, told The New York Times: "Neither will ever again see the light of day. I hope that [Thursday's] decision brings some closure to the families of those who died."
Pamela Truman, a grandmother of Anita C. Smith, a 22-year-old cashier slain in the attack, told the paper: "He got life -- well, that's the law. Let him rot in jail. Maybe it's better."
