Former Titans scout Blaise Taylor receives consecutive life sentences

A judge on Wednesday sentenced former Arkansas State football player and Tennessee Titans scout Blaise Taylor to consecutive life sentences after he was convicted of poisoning his pregnant girlfriend in 2023, killing both her and their unborn child.

Taylor, who pleaded not guilty in the case in June, was convicted on one count of second-degree murder, one count of first-degree murder and two counts of first-degree felony murder. Prosecutors argued that Taylor poisoned the drink of his girlfriend Jade Benning with a fatal dose of cocaine on Feb. 25, 2023, when Benning was five months pregnant. The unborn fetus died two days later, on Feb. 27, and Benning died of acute cocaine poisoning on March 6, her 25th birthday.

At the sentencing Wednesday, Nashville Assistant District Attorney Jan Norman pointed out that Taylor received 87 character witness letters, adding: “The person described in these character letters, the authors themselves, not one mentioned Jade Benning, not one of them mentioned baby Ivy, and not one single letter out of the 87 letters mentioned anything about what Blaise Taylor did.”

Taylor was a defensive back at Arkansas State from 2014 through 2017, serving as a team captain and earning first-team All-Sun Belt honors. He later worked in the Titans’ scouting department until 2023, when he left to join Utah State as a senior defensive analyst. He spent one year with USU, then took a job as a defensive analyst at Texas A&M, but was arrested less than a week after his hiring was first reported.