Murder of Thelma Taylor

Taylor was buried in Columbia Cemetery in the Parkrose neighborhood of Portland. The site of Taylor's murder under the St. Johns Bridge has since been developed into a public park, also called Cathedral Park, opening on May 3, 1980. The murder on the land that became Cathedral Park led to local folklore in the area that the park is supposedly haunted by Taylor.

On April 20, 1951, Morris was sentenced to be executed. He was executed by the gas chamber on January 9, 1953, at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, Oregon.

On August 5, 1949, Thelma Taylor, a 15-year-old sophomore at Roosevelt High School, was waiting for a bus in the St. Johns neighborhood in northern Portland, Oregon, intending to travel to the nearby town of Hillsboro to get a summer job picking beans.

In the early morning hours of August 11, 1949, Leland was arrested for automobile theft by the Portland police, and subsequently confessed to kidnapping and murdering Taylor, though he claimed she had gone with him "willingly." On August 19, he was indicted on charges of first-degree murder. At his trial, Leland pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His trial began on October 4, 1949, and on November 11, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Leland was initially sentenced to die January 20, 1950, but this date was moved after he filed for a new trial; however, his plea for a new trial was denied on December 18, 1949.

Thelma Anne Taylor (December 12, 1933 – August 6, 1949) was an American teenager who was abducted and murdered in Portland, Oregon in 1949, after having disappeared on August 5. Her body was discovered the following week, on August 11. Taylor's murder received national attention and became a cause célèbre. The perpetrator, Morris Leland, was executed in 1953. The site of the murder in St. Johns occurred underneath the St. Johns Bridge, on land that is now in Cathedral Park.