Troyvon Taylor’s family members say he was a computer genius you couldn’t beat at video games.

The 20-year-old didn’t have a job and tended to stay close to home to take care of his disabled mother.

That’s why his family continues to be baffled by Taylor’s slaying last Halloween inside the South Tacoma apartment he shared with his mother.

“Everybody dies, but for him to die the way he died, it just doesn’t make sense,” said Taylor’s sister Latasha. “I just want to know why.”

Tacoma police detectives have been grinding away at the investigation but, after a year, have identified no suspects or established no motive for Taylor’s death.

The slaying is the city’s only unsolved homicide from last year.

“We really don’t put these cases down,” homicide detective Bob Yerbury said recently. “We don’t know for certain what the motive for this is.”

Taylor’s body was discovered Nov. 2 in his second-story apartment in the 7300 block of South Wilkeson Street. He’d been shot in the head.

His mother was home at the time but was unable to give police any useful information about what happened. She was not injured in the shooting.

Detectives determined Taylor had been killed two days earlier. Neighbors reported hearing gunshots inside an apartment about 9:30 p.m. Oct. 31 but did not call police at the time.

Three men seen running from the apartment got into a white, midsize, four-door car waiting nearby and drove off, police said. Witnesses were unable to provide any more information about the getaway car or the suspects.

Detectives found no signs of forced entry, Yerbury said. He declined to say whether anything in the apartment was missing.

Some evidence is still being examined by forensic scientists, but so far investigators have received little information and only a few tips that point to Taylor’s killers, Yerbury said.

“We believe there are people out there with information,” he said.

Taylor grew up in the Tacoma area. As a 2-year-old, he loved to play with – and destroy – Tonka trucks. His mother started calling him “Tonka” and the nickname stuck.

Marques Walker described his cousin as a giving, caring person since the time they were youngsters. He looked out for his mother and made sure no one took advantage of her.

Walker and Latasha Taylor said Troyvon Taylor was a whiz with computers.

“I don’t know how he was so good,” Walker said. “He could have every little part of a computer and put it together.”

Walker said his cousin occasionally got mixed up with the wrong crowd.

“But he wasn’t a bad person,” Walker said. “He wasn’t the type of person that should have that happened to him.”

Latasha Taylor saw her brother the day he died. She’d been over to the Wilkeson Street apartment to pick up her daughter’s backpack.

He usually went trick-or-treating with his sister and her oldest daughter. That night, though, he said he wasn’t feeling well and decided to stay home.

The siblings were supposed to talk later that night but didn’t.

Latasha Taylor said the past year without her younger brother has been difficult.

“I wouldn’t wish anybody the pain I feel,” she said.

Stacey Mulick: 253-597-8268
stacey.mulick@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/crime