VERO BEACH, Fla. — A jury convicted a Vero Beach man of a lesser charge of manslaughter with a firearm in the shooting and drug-related robbery of a woman in 2017.
Keith “Egbert” Taylor, 26, was found guilty Friday in Indian River County after originally being charged with first-degree murder and robbery of Sharon Sewell, an Indian River County resident whose body was found on a rural road, an unpaved section of 61st Street in the county, on Oct. 30, 2017. He was arrested Nov. 9, 2017.
Circuit Judge Robert Meadows has set sentencing for 1:30 p.m. on July 13.
Assistant State Attorney William Long told TCPalmhe could be sentenced to a maximum of two life terms.
The jury also convicted Taylor of robbery with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury and guilty of tampering with evidence.
His cousin, Antonio McNeal, now 34, of Sebastian, was charged with providing false information concerning a capital felony and three counts of sexual activity with a minor in another case. No trial date has been set in his case.
Initially both men were charged with second-degree murder but were later indicted by a grand jury on charges of first-degree murder, armed robbery and tampering with evidence.
On the day Sewell’s died, McNeal was wearing a court-ordered GPS monitor that investigators said linked him to the site where her body was found, sheriff's officials reported. McNeal had only been out of prison six months after four years behind bars.
Surveillance video captured Sewell and McNeal at a Brevard County pharmacy, north of Vero Beach.
Taylor, McNeal and Sewell ended up on a stretch of dirt road. Taylor and McNeal said they had car trouble so they got Sewell to get out of the passenger seat and asked her to help them put water in the radiator.
But it was a trick. Sewell was shot and left on the road.
Deputies reported that after Sewall’s murder, the cousins sold the drugs in Gifford for $600.
Sewell left behind a son, daughter, three grandchildren and brother.
“I miss her so much. I miss her," Dave Kievit told WPTV in 2017. "She was the most giving, loving person you could meet. She would do anything for anybody,"
