Autopsy report contradicts police narrative in Cornelius Taylor case

The Fulton County Medical Examiner released Cornelius Taylor’s autopsy report Wednesday, finding blunt force trauma to his abdomen and pelvis and ruling his death was accidental.

Taylor, a homeless man living in the Old Wheat Street encampment, died Jan. 16 after an Atlanta Department of Public Works construction vehicle struck him while clearing tents and other debris from the area.

The findings in the report undermine an initial police incident narrative suggesting Taylor may have overdosed on drugs and that there were no obvious signs of serious injury when a responding officer found him in his tent.

“There was complete separation of the pelvis, and there were some large abrasions on the hips and abdomen and some crush injury of the liver and spleen internally with hemorrhage,” attending pathologist Shamaya Creagh-Winters said in an interview Thursday. “All of which are consistent with being struck or partially crushed or run over by something as large as a bulldozer.”

Toxicology results from the Georgia State Crime Laboratory showed the 46-year-old had cocaine in his system, but drug toxicity is not listed as a cause of death.

Police Officer Jonathan Allen’s Jan. 16 incident report said Taylor had a bloody nose but that the officer “did not see any other obvious signs of physical hurt.”

The Atlanta Police Department has said previously that detectives had not yet completed a final death investigation report and that no conclusions should be drawn from the early police narrative. Police officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the findings of the autopsy report or the status of the investigation.

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Earlier this year, attorneys for Taylor’s family interviewed Creagh-Winters and said the incident report had downplayed the extent of Taylor’s injuries. Taylor’s surviving cousin, Darlene Chaney, expressed outrage at the police report.

“When you first hear about it, he’s crushed, you can’t accept it,” Chaney said. “But you try to process it. Then you read the report that says it was just a nosebleed.

“I’ve seen nosebleeds, and you don’t die from that type of blood.”

Attorney Harold W. Spence added during a January press conference: “Would an overdose produce a lacerated spleen or liver? No, it would not.”

Another family attorney, Mawuli Davis, of the Decatur, Georgia, law firm Davis Bozeman Law, said Thursday that the report confirmed what they already knew: It was the full force of heavy machinery that broke Taylor’s body and took his life — not a drug overdose.

“We’re glad that this report has finally come out so any mischaracterization of his cause of death can finally be put to rest,” Davis said. “This was a torturous death that didn’t need to happen. It should not have happened.”

Davis said his firm would continue its investigation. Now that it had the autopsy report, the law firm will follow up with the city and ask to view police body camera footage of the incident with the family, he said.

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez

According to the report, a postmortem X-ray showed that Taylor’s pelvic bone was completely separated — split diagonally across his body. In addition, the report found an abrasion on Taylor’s right hip and bleeding around the whites of his eyes and in the muscles beneath the scalp and near his temples.

“Hemorrhage into that muscle can be as a result of blunt force injuries,” Creagh-Winters told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The toxicology report found no alcohol or amphetamines in Taylor’s system but said cocaine and the inactive cocaine metabolite benzoylecgonine indicated recent drug use.

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Creagh-Winters refused to comment on what the concentrations indicated in terms of light, heavy or moderate drug use but confirmed that it was her office’s opinion a drug overdose did not contribute to his death.

“Per eyewitnesses, per investigations, the decedent, Mr. Taylor, seemed to have been, or was, in fact, conscious after this incident, in that he was indicating that he needed help,” Creagh-Winters said. “So, I’m not going to make any comments on the significance or insignificance of the presence of cocaine in his blood.”