Murder of Thelma Taylor

Thelma Anne Taylor (December 12, 1933 - August 6, 1949) was an American murder victim who was kidnapped, beaten, and stabbed to death in the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. Taylor's kidnapping and murder became a public obsession in the city, and her killer, Morris Leland, was executed for the crime in 1953. Taylor's murder occurred on land that later became part of Cathedral Park. Background: On August 5, 1949, Thelma Taylor, a sophomore at Roosevelt High School, was waiting for a bus in the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, heading to Hillsboro for her summer job picking beans. While waiting for the bus, Taylor was accosted by twenty-two-year-old Morris Leland, an ex-convict, who asked Taylor to accompany him to a spot by the Willamette River under the St. Johns Bridge. Upon arriving to the secluded area, Leland held Taylor captive and attempted to rape her, but desisted upon finding that Taylor was a virgin. The two slept that night under the bridge in an area full of underbrush. On the morning of August 6, Taylor began screaming for help after hearing freight workers switching cars on the nearby railroad track connecting to the Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge. Leland then struck Taylor in the head with a steel bar multiple times before stabbing her to death with a long knife.Leland disposed of the bar and knife in the river, wiped his fingerprints from Taylor's lunch pail, gathered his cigarette butts, and buried Taylor in a shallow grave under a pile of driftwood and logs on the bank of the river. Arrest and conviction: On August 11, 1949, Leland was arrested for theft of an automobile, and was brought in by the Portland Police Bureau, where he subsequently confessed to Taylor's kidnapping and murder. Leland was indicted for first-degree murder, and pled not guilty, with intention of proving insanity. Leland's trial began on October 4, 1950. On February 7, 1951, Leland was convicted of Taylor's murder and sentenced to death. He was executed in a gas chamber on January 9, 1953 at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, Oregon.