Related Articles
Tay-K has been convicted of murder for the second time. The 24-year-old was sentenced in 2019 to 55 years in prison in connection to a murder committed during a botched home invasion. Now, he has been sentenced to 80 years in prison after being found guilty for shooting and killing a photographer while fleeing authorities after the initial murder.
In 2017, an arrest warrant was issued for Tay-K, born Taymor McIntyre, in Bexar County, Texas. The document alleged that McIntyre was part of a group who picked up Mark Anthony Saldivar, a 23-year-old photographer in San Antonio, for a photo shoot that was supposed to take place at a nearby mall. While in the car, Saldivar is said to have been robbed at gunpoint for his camera equipment and fatally shot following the altercation, per theFort Worth Star-Telegram.
McIntyre was found guilty of murder, but not guilty of capital murder, which would have carried a mandatory life sentence. “I do realize that while this is a lot of time, you’re still alive. You can still better yourself,” Judge Stephanie Boyd said at the sentencing, according to San Antonio’s KENS 5. “But the complainant in this case is deceased, and you need to internalize that the complainant in this case is deceased. You’re going to have to make changes.”
When McIntyre was previously convicted of murder in the shooting death of 21-year-old Ethan Walker in Tarrant County, Texas, a judge also ruled that he would concurrently serve a 30-year prison sentence for the first of three counts of aggravated robbery and 13 years each for the remaining two counts from the same robbery.
He was 17 years old at the time, and he went viral after releasing the video for his single “The Race” — partially inspired by a real life event — in June 2017. After cutting off his ankle bracelet, he fled house arrest ahead of a court hearing for his part in the 2016 home invasion, which occurred when he was 16. “It wasn’t part of the plan. The plan was robbery. Not killing,” Jeff Kearney, one of McIntyre’s defense attorneys, told the jury in 2019.
This article was updated on April 16 at 8:35 a.m. EST to include Tay-K’s sentencing for the 2017 murder of Mark Anthony Saldivar.
