Kendrick “Skrilla” Taylor, the 23-year-old Lubbock murder suspect who made the Texas Top 10 Most Wanted list last month, has finally been arrested — not in some dramatic standoff, but quietly at a Tulsa hotel. U.S. Marshals picked him up around 11:30 p.m., likely interrupting whatever extremely chill evening he was having.
Taylor was wanted for the August 18 shooting death of 18-year-old Lawrence Brantley near 44th and Avenue S. According to police, the two were at a house party with “about a dozen” other people when an argument escalated into a fight, which escalated into gunfire, which escalated into yet another tragic headline from a city where conflict resolution skills begin and end at “who’s packing.”
This was not Taylor’s first encounter with the law — his resume includes aggravated robbery, firearm possession charges, assault, and enough weapons-related offenses to build a gun-themed LinkedIn page. He was added to the Most Wanted list in September, presumably because the state finally realized, “Hey, maybe we should go find this guy.”
But don’t worry — Lubbock authorities absolutely had this under control. That’s why Tulsa had to handle it.
At this point, should we just build an extradition shuttle between Lubbock and Oklahoma, or is that too “public transit” for West Texas?
