Tiffany Taylor disappearance: Rodney Wayne Williams, 65, charged with teen’s murder
A Brisbane court has heard the mother of an allegedly murdered pregnant teenage girl was “disgusted” after she left home at 12 to move in with a 38-year-old man. The shocking details have come to light in the trial of another man accused of killing her.
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THE mother of allegedly slain pregnant teenager Tiffany Taylor has told a court she was that “disgusted” her daughter left home at the age of 12 to live with their 38-year-old neighbour, who she had begun dating.
Rodney Wayne Williams, 65, is on trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court over the murder of the 16-year-old at Waterford West on July 12, 2015.
He has pleaded not guilty to the murder of the girl, who was 15 weeks pregnant when she was allegedly killed.
Her body has never been found.
Crown prosecutor Phil McCarthy QC told the court Williams was alleged to have murdered the teen after meeting her for paid sex almost five years ago.
Chat records show Tiffany agreed to have sex with Williams in a car for $500 the day she went missing.
The court heard Ms Taylor’s blood was found in Williams’ car after it was later examined by police.
Williams told officers he never had sex with the girl but met with her in his car.
He also said to police Ms Taylor got into the car with a bloody nose.
Ms Taylor’s mother Leanne Dillon on Tuesday took the stand in her daughter’s murder trial.
She broke down in the witness box when shown a picture of Ms Taylor, who she said she used to call Gwyneth after the actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
“That’s my Tiffany,” she said.
Ms Dillon later told the court: “My favourite actress was Gwyneth Paltrow and Tiffany reminded me of her because she was such a bubbly person so I nicknamed her that”.
She told the court her daughter met a man named Gregory Hill when she began cleaning the house of another neighbour, Don, at age 11.
Ms Taylor and Mr Hill commenced a relationship.
Ms Taylor was aged 12 and Mr Hill was 38 years old, the jury heard.
The teen soon dropped out of school and left home to live with the man, her mother told the court.
“I was disgusted,” Ms Dillon told the court.
She said Ms Taylor later moved back into the family home with her boyfriend but Ms Dillon moved out.
“I think it’s disgusting,” she said.
“Sometimes he’d be violent but Tiffany always loved Greg and she forgave him all the time.
“(I moved out because) Greg and were I arguing all the time because as you can understand me waking up and seeing them together in the same room it was terrible.”
Ms Dillon earlier said: “Sometimes Tiffany was really happy, sometimes she wasn’t. Like for instance, Greg would give her a black eye I would ask her about it she would say her dog did it, or she fell over, I knew exactly what was going on”.
The court heard Mr Hill was also violent with Ms Dillon.
Under cross-examination the mother said she approached child services and the police for help regarding the relationship after she saw her daughter giving the man a lap dance but authorities allegedly did nothing.
Ms Dillon said Mr Hill became violent when his possession of her daughter was challenged.
The court heard the man spat on his 12-year-old girlfriend’s mother and tried to run over with a car.
The court heard Ms Dillon knew her daughter did not have permanent accommodation prior to her death.
She left a Waterford West Hotel to meet Williams on the day she vanished.
“They were just living in and out of hotels, she was only 16 and he (Greg Hill) had no job,” she said.
The court heard Ms Taylor was showing off her “baby bump” and trying on clothes with her sister in the days before she went missing.
“Tiffany was only a thin girl and her baby bump stood out,” Ms Dillon said.
“She was so happy to be pregnant. She said she was 20-weeks. She said she was having a girl and she was even going to name her Isabella, she was really happy.
“Tiffany was so proud of being pregnant and I was happy, disappointed who the father was but (happy).”
In a short opening, defence barrister Eoin Mac Giolla Ri told the jury to “look for things that weren’t in the trial”.
He said the prosecution had asked the jury to consider some things in detail but “ignore other aspects of the case, such as the near impossibility of him killing her and disposing of the body” within the time police allege he had.
“He is the person who is here, he’s here to blame, perhaps for the horrible experiences Ms Taylor had in his life,” Mr Mac Giolla Re said.
The trial continues.
EARLIER: PREGNANT teenager Tiffany Taylor did not simply “disappear without leaving a trace”, but was killed by a man she met for sex, prosecutors allege.
Rodney Wayne Williams, 65, is on trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court over the murder of the 16-year-old at Waterford West on July 12, 2015.
He has pleaded not guilty the murder of the girl, who was 15-weeks pregnant when she was allegedly killed.
Crown Prosecutor Phil McCarthy QC today told a Queensland jury Tiffany Taylor’s body has never been found, her bank accounts have not been touched and she has not made a Medicare claim since before July 2015, despite her pregnancy.
“Tiffany did not disappear without leaving any trace,” he said.
The court heard girl’s blood was later found in Williams car on the glovebox, gearstick and front passenger seat.
“Traces of her blood were found in this car when examined by a forensic scientist on the 4th August 2015,” Mr McCarthy said.
“It is … the car owned by Rodney Williams and it was driven by him on July 12, 2015.
“It was this car that Rodney Williams used to collect Tiffany for a paid sexual liaison that was meant to take place … and she has never been seen again.
“The crown contend that Rodney Williams murdered Tiffany during this liaison.”
The court heard Ms Taylor had met Williams for sex the night she went missing.
Williams was later seen on traffic cameras with a woman in his car as he merged onto the Logan Motorway, the court was told.
Chat logs between the pair, that were today shown to the jury, show Williams had agreed to pay the teen $500 for sex in a car during a conversation which began around 11am on the day she went missing.
More than 12 hours after they made the agreement to meet, chat logs show Williams wrote again: “Sorry I didn’t turn up, I decided I wasn’t going to pay for it”.
The crown allege he sent this after being contacted after police about the girl’s disappearance as a “false trail”.
Williams would later tell police Ms Taylor wanted to meet up with him not for sex but because “she told me I sounded interesting”, the court heard.
Mr McCarthy told the court Ms Taylor was in a “desperate financial position” and had been “supporting herself financially by selling her body”.
“Tiffany had left school at a young age and taken up with a man much older than her,” the court heard.
Ms Taylor was living with the man in a hotel at Waterford West when she went missing.
Mr McCarthy said she was excited about being a mother and had told her then partner about the pregnancy one month before she went missing.
He said she had also made a list of things to do including to purchase “baby things”, which indicated was planning for her future.
“She simply wasn’t going to walk off from her family and her loved ones, in short something significant has happened,” Mr McCarthy said.
The court heard Ms Taylor, who claimed she was age 23 online, would not have agreed to have sex with someone who could not pay as she was “constantly in need of funds”
“Tiffany was no shrinking violent when it came to dealing with the men she met, despite her tiny physique,” Mr McCarthy said.
He said witnesses told police: “She certainly would not be providing sexual services for free without some resistance”.
The court heard after Williams provided a statement to police, his car and home was raided in August.
On August 13, 2015, detectives arranged with Williams to conduct an interview about Ms Taylor’s disappearance the next day.
He was allegedly spotted later that day at Roma St Station with an overnight bag and asked another man “how to get to Darwin”, the crown allege.
“The crown contend the bag was clearly packed for travel,” Mr McCarthy said.
“He was intending to leave the state knowing police were going to question him.”
He was arrested that day.
Williams told police he met Ms Taylor but did not have sex with her.
He said she got into his car with a bloody nose.
Williams also told he stopped in the car at Logistics Place at Larapinta for about 20 minutes with the girl in the car but they had just talked about her age.
More than 70 witnesses will give evidence in the trial, including Ms Taylor’s family, former clients, her partner, police and forensic officers.
The trial continues.
Originally published as Tiffany Taylor disappearance: Rodney Wayne Williams, 65, charged with teen’s murder
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