A jury heard the heartbreaking last words of a former college football star’s pregnant girlfriend Wednesday during his murder trial for allegedly poisoning her and their unborn baby to death.
Ex-Arkansas State player Blaise Taylor, 30, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder after prosecutors say he intentionally poisoned Jade Benning and their unborn daughter with a fatal dose of cocaine at the girlfriend’s Tennessee apartment on Feb. 25, 2023.
Day two of Taylor’s trial kicked off with Nashville Assistant District Attorney Jan Norman describing a phone call that Benning made to her best friend – in which she accused Taylor of spiking her drink – shortly before she became unresponsive that night.
“‘What did you put in my drink?’” Norman said, recounting Benning’s alleged last words. “‘I knew my drink tasted funny. You did this because you didn’t want the baby.’”
Her best friend, Nijaiha Jackson, had similarly recalled the fateful phone call during Taylor’s bond hearing in April 2024.
“She was saying, ‘My drink tasted funny, I can’t even walk straight, you did this to do something to the baby,’” Jackson told the court at the time.
“I was like, ‘Jade, Jade,’ and she stopped responding,” the friend added through tears, according to News Channel 5.
Taylor, then 27, called 911 as Benning – who was five months pregnant – lost consciousness in another room, according to prosecutors and dispatch audio played for the jury Wednesday.
“I don’t know, I think she is having an allergic reaction. We were eating, cooking and hanging, and then she said she wasn’t feeling good,” an audibly breathless Taylor could be heard saying in the call, which came in at around 9:38 p.m. that night.
“Everything was fine and then…I don’t know what’s happening,” he continued, while the police operator repeatedly asked him for the apartment building address and what Benning was allergic to.
“I don’t think she’s allergic to anything – I don’t know,” he replied, according to the recording.
EMTs reportedly found a pulseless Benning face down in her bed when they arrived about 20 minutes later.
She was put on life support at a local hospital, where her unborn daughter, who would have been named Ivy, died on Feb. 27, 2023.
Benning died on March 6, 2023 – her 25th birthday.
Prosecutors – who claim the former Tennessee Titans scout didn’t want the baby – told the jury that Benning’s toxicology results were unlike anything previously seen by the Nashville medical examiner’s office, according to local news outlet WKRN.com.
Taylor’s defense attorney, however, painted him as an excited father-to-be and claimed that Benning abused drugs and alcohol, the outlet reported.
Additionally, “There was only one person that night that called 911,” lawyer Letitia Quinones-Hollins told jurors.
“With all of this medical emergency, all of these things that were going on with this young lady, there was only one person who called the police, who called for help, and that was Blaise,” she said of her client.
Taylor, who has been required to wear a GPS monitor since posting the $2.5 million bond set by a judge during the April 2024 hearing, faces life in prison without parole if he’s convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of felony murder.
His trial is expected to continue this week with testimony from experts and witnesses.
Taylor starred on Arkansas State’s football team as a defensive back and punt returner from 2014 to 2017. He is the school’s all-time record holder in pass breakups and punt return yards.
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