A “career criminal” has been arrested in the nearly 40-year-old cold-case murder of a Florida real estate broker based on fingerprint evidence that was poverlooked at the time, authorities said.
Jeffrey Taylor, 64, has been arrested for the murder of Shirley Brant, a 49-year-old mother and owner of Brant Realty Corporation, who was shot and killed in her office during an attempted robbery on June 13, 1986, North Miami Beach police announced Friday, according to CBS News.
Taylor was identified and arrested after a fingerprint that previously didn’t meet the criteria for evidence was recovered from the crime scene, North Miami Beach Police Chief Juan Pinillos said.
The fingerprint was run through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System during a 2023 cold case review of one of the city’s longest unsolved murders, cops said.
It came through as a match for Taylor, cops said, calling him a “career criminal.”
A coworker of Brant’s saw two men enter the office on the day of her murder — and then heard her scream, “Don’t shoot!”
Taylor was the one to pull the trigger, cops now allege. He was arrested Thursday and charged with second-degree murder with a firearm.
Two retired sergeants, Pam Denham and Yvette Darden, returned to work on the case, one of the city’s longest unsolved murders, cops said.
Brant’s family expressed gratitude toward detectives for “all the hours they tirelessly worked to solve this case,” at a news conference Friday afternoon.
“It affected everyone, I was working with her at the time,” her son, Ben Brant, told the press conference, the outlet reported.
“She was ahead of her time… breaking the glass ceiling, and she gave her money to philanthropy,” he said.
Brant’s husband died before Taylor could be caught, according to the outlet.
“He missed my mom terribly, terribly. He hired a private eye to look over things and to see that everything was done,” their son told People.
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