- Five months pregnant and excited about her future, Jade Benning was preparing for the arrival of her baby girl, Ivy
- But after a chilling phone call to her best friend, Jade collapsed and never recovered
- What investigators uncovered led to a heartbreaking murder case that shocked her family and community
For Jade Benning life was beginning to feel wonderfully full.
She was 24 and building a life, with work as a chef that she loved, friends who were close enough to drop in, and a relationship that, despite its complications, seemed to be settling into something more hopeful.
And then there was the baby… By early 2023, Jade was five months pregnant with a little girl. Thrilled, she’d already chosen her baby’s name – Ivy.
Jade was excited for the next chapter of her life.
Her relationship with the baby’s father, Blaise Taylor, hadn’t always been smooth. They’d met through the dating app Hinge in 2022, initially dating casually.
Somewhere along the way, things became more serious. But news of the pregnancy complicated things. It seemed Blaise initially did not want to become a father. Jade, however, was determined to have the baby.
For a time, Blaise pulled away.
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But by January 2023, the two were communicating again and, as they tried to work out what their relationship might look like, Jade was hopeful.
The following month, the pair were at home together for a date night, when Jade’s best friend Nijaiha Jackson, who she’d known since she was just six years old, stopped by to visit, along with another friend.
The three women chatted about Jade’s plans for decorating the nursery.
After her visitors left, Jade and Blaise spent time cooking dinner and painting artwork for their daughter’s room.
While Jade’s was a colourful piece, with positive words, like ‘love’, ‘hope’ and ‘peace’, Blaise’s was much darker in black and grey tones.
He described it as a ‘black hole’, stating ‘the further you look, the deeper you go’.
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After finishing their art, the couple took snaps of their handiwork, smiling for the camera.
A few minutes later, just after 9.25pm, Nijaiha received a phone call from Jade. She could hear her friend talking to Blaise.
‘You did this to me,’ Jade could be heard saying, adding that her drink tasted ‘funny’ and she couldn’t feel her legs.
‘You did this so something would happen to the baby,’ she said.
The phone call lasted around six minutes, Nijaiha later told the court.
At 9.38pm, Blaise made a phone call to emergency services. He told the operator he believed his girlfriend was having an allergic reaction.
When paramedics arrived at the apartment, they found Jade unresponsive and without a pulse. She was lying face down across a bed.
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They rushed her to hospital, where it was discovered Jade had suffered devastating brain damage, and the condition of her unborn daughter was also critical.
Doctors found high levels of cocaine in Jade’s system.
It didn’t make sense – Jade was a devoted mum-to-be who was doing all the right things to keep her baby safe and healthy.
Surely she wouldn’t have done something to jeopardise her girl’s future.
Two days after Jade was hospitalised, Ivy died.
Jade remained alive, but a week later, on her 25th birthday, her family made the agonising decision to turn off her life support.
Nijaiha thought back to the troubling phone call she’d received the night her friend fell ill. Could Blaise have been behind Jade’s death?
A medical examiner determined that Jade had died from acute cocaine toxicity, stating it looked like the drug was dissolved in a drink. The amount was extraordinarily high and the manner of death was ruled as ‘suspicious’.
Damningly, a cup that had appeared in photographs of Jade before she became ill, was missing when police searched the scene. And it appeared that a clean-up had taken place.
For more than a year, the question of whether Jade’s death had been anything other than a terrible accident remained unanswered.
Then in March 2024, Blaise Taylor was arrested and charged with murder. He denied killing Jade and their baby daughter.
In June this year, Taylor’s trial began in Nashville, US, with his defence team arguing Jade had taken drugs and that her death was an overdose, not a poisoning.
However prosecutors offered a very different explanation.
They said Taylor had deliberately laced Jade’s pink lemonade with cocaine because he didn’t want her to have the baby.
The following month, a jury convicted Blaise Taylor of killing Jade and their unborn daughter.
He was found guilty of second-degree murder in Jade’s death and first-degree premeditated murder in the death of Ivy, along with felony-murder convictions.
In September, at Taylor’s sentencing hearing, Jade’s mum Bridget delivered a powerful victim impact statement.
‘What haunts me most is knowing Jade was aware something was wrong. She knew she was losing control of her body, and before help arrived, she knew something terrible had been done to her and her baby.
‘No parent should have to imagine their child spending their final moments in fear and betrayal from the person she trusted,’ she said.
Blaise Taylor, 30, was given two consecutive life sentences, plus 22 years. He will be eligible for parole after serving 51 years.
His lawyer stated Taylor would appeal.
For Jade’s family, nothing could undo the extraordinary promise of the life their beautiful girl had been building.
Speaking to news outlet Kark, Bridget remembered Jade as ‘an amazing person, full of life, who could light up a room.
‘Knowing that justice has been done has taken a small weight off my shoulder.
