Jury hears last words of ex-college football stars pregnant girlfriend before alleged poisoning

A jury heard the heartbreaking last words of a former college football star’s pregnant girlfriend Wednesday during his murder trial for allegedly poisoning her and their unborn baby to death. Ex-Arkansas State player Blaise Taylor, 30, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder after prosecutors say he intentionally poisoned Jade Benning and their unborn daughter with a fatal dose of cocaine at the girlfriend’s Tennessee apartment on Feb.25, 2023. Day two of Taylor’s trial kicked off with Nashville Assistant District Attorney Jan Norman describing a phone call that Benning made to her best friend – in which she accused Taylor of spiking her drink – shortly before she became unresponsive that night. “‘What did you put in my drink?’” Norman said, recounting Benning’s alleged last words.

“‘I knew my drink tasted funny.You did this because you didn’t want the baby.’”Her best friend, Nijaiha Jackson, had similarly recalled the fateful phone call during Taylor’s bond hearing in April 2024. “She was saying, ‘My drink tasted funny, I can’t even walk straight, you did this to do something to the baby,’” Jackson told the court at the time. “I was like, ‘Jade, Jade,’ and she stopped responding,” the friend added through tears, according to News Channel 5. Taylor, then 27, called 911 as Benning – who was five months pregnant – lost consciousness in another room, according to prosecutors and dispatch audio played for the jury Wednesday. “I don’t know, I think she is having an allergic reaction.

We were eating, cooking and hanging, and then she said she wasn’t feeling good,” an audibly breathless Taylor could be heard saying in the call, which came in at around 9:38 p.m.that night. “Everything was fine and then…I don’t know what’s happening,” he continued, while the police operator repeatedly asked him for the apartment building address and what Benning was allergic to. “I don’t think she...