Dante Taylor & Sarah Goode: Trial, Erased Conviction, and Sarah’s Law

The Dante Taylor and Sarah Goode case is a Long Island murder prosecution that ended with a guilty verdict, a life sentence, and then something unusual: after Taylor died by suicide in prison in 2017 while his appeal was pending, a New York legal doctrine called abatement ab initio automatically erased his conviction for raping and killing the 21-year-old single mother from Medford. Her family has since pushed to change that rule.

What Happened to Sarah Goode

Sarah Goode was a 21-year-old medical technician and the mother of a four-year-old daughter, Jocelyn. On the evening of June 6, 2014, she left her Medford home for a night out, stopping first at a small gathering of about a dozen people before heading to a friend’s house to watch a movie. She left around 1:00 a.m., apparently headed home.¹

She never made it. On June 12, 2014, volunteer searchers found her body in a wooded area less than a mile from her home, near Camden Court in Medford. She had been stabbed more than 40 times. Prosecutor Janet Albertson later told the court that her attacker “set upon her with such brutality that he broke the tip of a cutting instrument off and it embedded in her skull.” Investigators concluded Taylor killed Goode after she rejected his sexual advances at the party.²

How Police Identified Dante Taylor

Detectives first looked at the last men to see Goode alive and at an ex-boyfriend, all of whom voluntarily gave DNA samples and palm prints. The focus turned to Dante Taylor, a 19-year-old from Mastic, after Goode’s family noticed his number appearing repeatedly in her call history from that night.³

The physical evidence piled up. A bloody handprint was found on the hood of Goode’s BMW. Cell-site data placed Taylor’s phone traveling from Mastic toward Medford while the two were talking. DNA from Goode’s body matched Taylor, and a clump of her hair was stuck in the passenger doorjamb of her car.³

Taylor was a former U.S. Marine who had entered the Corps in September 2013 and left active service in April 2014 for undisclosed reasons. He was also wanted on an unrelated warrant for an alleged attempted knifepoint rape of an 18-year-old woman in his bedroom in June 2011.⁴

An Illegal First Arrest

On June 10, 2014, before Goode’s body had been found, detectives brought Taylor to the Seventh Precinct for questioning. A Suffolk County judge later ruled that the encounter was an illegal arrest because Taylor was handcuffed and never advised of his rights. The DNA samples, palm prints, and bloody clothing seized from his home during that detention were all suppressed.³

Taylor’s mother helped him flee to Florida, reportedly sending money until it was “safe to come back.”⁵ About a month after the first arrest, he was lawfully arrested in Vero Beach, Florida. Police collected fresh DNA and palm prints, and those samples matched the evidence from Goode’s body and vehicle.³

The Trial and Conviction

Taylor was tried in Suffolk County before state Supreme Court Justice John Collins on charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and attempted first-degree rape.⁶ The proceedings were shadowed by disputes over police conduct. Justice Collins instructed the jury that law enforcement had violated Taylor’s right to a fair trial by withholding substantial evidence from the defense.⁷ Police had also destroyed items found during a search of Smith Point Park, including men’s boxer briefs, socks, and pieces of a blue sweatshirt, without disclosing the findings to the defense.⁸

Defense attorney John Lewis Jr. argued the case was built on “incompetence and deceit,” contending that Taylor’s DNA on Goode’s body was consistent with consensual sex given the absence of genital injuries, and pointing to an alternative suspect in Goode’s former boyfriend.⁷

On June 16, 2016, the jury found Taylor guilty on all three counts. On July 29, 2016, Justice Collins sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole, telling him from the bench: “You may circle dates on the calendar but they will mean nothing because there is no date for you to get out. There shall be no hope for you.”²

Taylor’s Death in Prison

Dante Taylor died by suicide on October 7, 2017, at age 22, at the Wende Correctional Facility in Erie County, New York.⁹ He was serving a 120-day stint in solitary confinement, known in New York’s prison system as “Keeplock,” for using a synthetic drug.¹⁰

In February 2020, Taylor’s mother, Darlene McDay, and his grandmother, Temple McDay, filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York against dozens of Wende officials, correctional officers, and medical staff. The complaint alleged that prison staff beat Taylor in his cell on the night of October 6, 2017, leaving him unconscious and requiring hospitalization, and that no mental health assessment was performed when he was returned to solitary confinement despite his documented history of suicide attempts. His clinical records reportedly noted that Keeplock time was a specific trigger for suicidal thoughts.¹⁰ The case, McDay v. Eckert, remained active as of mid-2026.¹¹

Why the Conviction Was Erased

Taylor’s death while his appeal was pending triggered a New York doctrine called abatement ab initio. When a convicted defendant dies before their appeal is resolved, the conviction is automatically vacated, treated as though it never happened.¹² Months after Taylor’s October 2017 death, his convictions for the murder and rape of Sarah Goode were formally erased.

“It erased accountability. It erased justice. It erased Sarah,” said Jennifer Driver, one of Goode’s sisters. State Senator Dean Murray put it this way: “If you look up the record right now to see how Sarah Goode died, you will not have his name there. He’s not guilty. But he is! He is guilty!”¹³

Sarah’s Law

The vacated conviction pushed the Goode family to seek legislation abolishing abatement ab initio in New York. The resulting proposal, called Sarah’s Law, was introduced by Senator Dean Murray as Senate Bill S8890, with a companion measure, Assembly Bill A10035.¹⁴ The bill drew co-sponsorship from several Republican senators and public support from Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.¹⁵

Under the proposal, if a defendant died while a direct appeal was pending, the appeal would be dismissed and the trial court’s judgment of conviction would remain intact. The bill would also let district attorneys retroactively seek reinstatement of convictions previously vacated under the doctrine, including Taylor’s.¹⁴¹⁵

On May 18, 2026, Sarah’s Law was defeated in the Senate Codes Committee by a vote of four in favor, seven opposed, and two voting yes with reservations.¹⁴ As things stand, the New York record still shows no living person convicted of Sarah Goode’s murder.

1
Oxygen. Sarah Goode, New York Single Mom, Murdered by Friend
2
ABC 7 New York. Dante Taylor Gets Life Without Parole in Murder of Sarah Goode
3
Newsday. Dante Taylor Murder Case: Suffolk Judge Tosses Out Some Evidence
4
Newsday. Dante Taylor of Mastic Arrested in Florida, Accused of Killing Sarah Goode
5
CBS News New York. Dante Taylor Found Guilty in Sarah Goode Murder
6
Newsday. Suffolk Judge Bars Gun Evidence in Dante Taylor Murder Trial
7
Newsday. Defense Gives Closing Argument to Jury in Dante Taylor Case
8
Newsday. Judge Irked by Late Police Evidence in Dante Taylor Murder Case
9
Corrections1. Dante Taylor, Convicted Killer, Dies in Prison
10
NBC New York. Lawsuit Filed Over Suicide Death of New York Prisoner
11
CourtListener. McDay v. Eckert
12
Greater Long Island. Sarah’s Law: Medford Murder Conviction Erased
13
News 12 Long Island. Victim’s Family Pushes for Sarah’s Law After Killer’s Conviction Vacated Upon Death
14
New York State Senate. S8890
15
Newsday. Sarah’s Law: Criminal Convictions Vacated