Apart from family, friends can be the best thing to happen to anyone. However, the story of Ashley McArthur is a testament that friendships can turn fatal in a blink of an eye. It is also a reminder that even the most carefully planned schemes can be unravelled and set examples to ensure accountability for those who commit such a serious crime.
This article will tell the story of McArthur who killed her best friend, Taylor Wright, for money.
Who is Ashley McArthur?
Ashley McArthur is a crime scene technician who worked at the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, the United States of America. She was born on August 22, 1977.
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What happened to Ashley McArthur?
McArthur and Wright were best friends. Wright was a private investigator and former police officer from Pensacola, Florida. She worked in the Jacksonville Police Department from 2008 to 2009, and then again from 2012 to 2013.
Wright was in the midst of a divorce from her husband, Jeff Wright. She had withdrawn $34,000 from her and her ex-husband’s joint account to give to McArthur. Investigations later discovered that McArthur was supposed to keep the money safe for her friend but it went missing, leading to a dispute between them.
On September 14, 2017, Wright was reported missing by her girlfriend, Cassandra Waller. According to CrimeandInvestigation, investigators had determined that Wright had sent a text message to Waller saying that she needed to get away for a few days, and they had received a handful of reports from people who believed that they had spotted her since she vanished. Also, Wright’s home was searched and nothing was missing. All of her items were still inside and her car was still parked in the driveway. At first, the conclusion was that Wright had indeed taken a few days off as her text message suggested.
However, her family did not buy it. They all said Wright was not the type to just up and vanish, especially not without letting her family and friends know where she was going. Waller, in particular, reportedly shared her belief that the text message she received from Wright was not actually from her. She believed that the language in the text message did not sound like the language her girlfriend would typically use.
Hence, the investigation continued and it was quickly established that the last time Wright was seen was on September 8, 2017, with McArthur. During questioning, McArthur claimed that they had stopped by her house in Pensacola and when she came back outside, Wright had disappeared.
Although investigators reported no foul play involved, they quickly scratched that when they discovered that she had deposited a cashier’s check for $34,000 in Wright’s name into her bank account on August 16. She then transferred the money into a deposit box and spent it.
Investigators also determined that Wright was trying to get her money back. When they compared the signature on the $34,000 check to the signature on other checks deposited by her, they found that they were different. On questioning, McArthur claimed that Wright was hiding large amounts of money and trying to get her son back from her ex-husband. She alleged that Wright was going from bank to bank to cash big cashier checks.
On October 19, investigators decided to search a property owned by McArthur’s family. Here, they found the body of a woman inside a ‘clandestine grave’ that had been covered in concrete in a wooded area that was located behind the McArthur property. The body was immediately discovered to be Taylor Wright and she had been shot at the back of her head.
McArthur was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. In the opening sentence during the trial, the prosecution focused on the fact that McArthur was the last person to see Wright alive and she had the motivation to kill her best friend. Prosecutors also theorised that Wright confronted McArthur about the money as she needed it for court proceedings and to cover child support costs. Also, surveillance footage showed McArthur purchasing soil and cement, which they said was used to cover Taylor’s grave.
On the hand, McArthur’s defence team said the prosecution had no physical evidence or murder weapon that connected her to Wright’s murder. They also questioned Wright’s mental stability at the time of the disappearance, citing rumours that she was taking drugs. Ultimately, the jury found McArthur guilty of first-degree murder. She was handed a mandatory minimum life sentence of 25 years in prison on October 30, 2019.
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Where is Ashley McArthur now?
McArthur is currently serving her life sentence at Lowell Annex Correctional Institution in Ocala. She had previously appealed her conviction, citing that the jury had inadvertently seen a photograph of herself pointing a shotgun. She had also argued that the court had erred in allowing certain evidence to be presented, including statements she made to investigators, cell phone records and Wright’s text messages.
However, the Florida First District Court of Appeal upheld the first-degree murder conviction and life sentence in April 2021. According to The US Sun, during McArthur’s trial, a witness who testified against her claimed the technician was planning Wright’s murder for some time.
“She said she was going to put it [cocaine] in Taylor’s beer,” witness Ashley Warne told the court.
“She said this world would be better if Taylor wasn’t here, and she wasn’t a good person, and that she was too small to hurt anybody so she’d just shoot her.”
Meanwhile, McArthur is also serving a separate seven-year sentence for racketeering and fraud.
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