The man who triggered a five-day manhunt in Waterloo after he killed a pair of police officers in 1981 has died. James “T-Bone” Taylor died Tuesday at University Hospitals in Iowa City of what prison officials call an aortic aneurysm. He had been transferred to the hospital from the Iowa State Penitentiary, where he was serving two life sentences for the murders of officers Wayne Rice and Michael Hoing in July of 1981.
The officers had been called to a loud party, where a fight broke out that ended with Taylor taking Rice’s service revolver and using it to kill both officers. Taylor fled the scene, sparking a manhunt that lasted for five days before Taylor was found hiding in a bean field near La Porte City. Taylor was 60.
(Reporting by Jesse Gavin, KCNZ, Cedar Falls)