Jim Taylor bio

James Randolph Taylor was born March 30, 1991, in Hernando, Mississippi, where his father was a mechanic and his mother a secretary.

Jim was a high school baseball star and attended the University of Mississippi on an athletic scholarship. Baseball players didn't get the same adulation as football players, but it helped him get dates with popular sorority girls.

Jim and one of those girls, Helen Hope, clicked immediately, and within a few weeks, they were an exclusive couple. No one was surprised when Jim and Helen got married right after graduation.

The couple settled in Oxford, where Jim worked as a supermarket manager while Helen studied for her master's degree at Ole Miss and worked part-time.

When their daughter was born in 2016, Jim doted on young Leslie from the moment he saw her. To care for the newborn, Helen quit her job and cut back on her studies, so Jim picked up extra shifts to make ends meet. The long hours apart put a strain on the marriage.

When Leslie was a year old, Helen wanted to increase her course load to finish her master's, but Jim said they couldn't afford it. They were at loggerheads, and a stony silence took over their relationship.

A few months later, Helen started paying a neighbor to watch Leslie for a few hours every day. When Jim asked where she was going, she said he should be able to figure it out.

The tension built until Helen begged Jim to put aside their differences and take her on a date. As angry as he was, Jim was delighted that she wanted to rekindle their relationship, and their date night was everything they'd hoped for. All the hard feelings dissipated, and the couple reconnected in every way.

A month later, when Helen announced she was expecting their second child, Jim was ecstatic. But as the pregnancy progressed more quickly than the last one, Jim started to have questions, and when Helen went into labor several weeks before her due date, his suspicions grew.

Once their son Nathan was born, everyone mentioned how much he looked like Helen. Jim took that to mean Nathan didn't look like him, and he agreed.

He focused on looking after Leslie while Helen took care of the baby. When Helen asked him to hold Nathan or change his diaper, Jim always found a reason not to. Helen demanded to know why Jim refused to bond with his son, and Jim said as soon as she proved Nathan was his son, he'd be thrilled to bond with him.

Helen was outraged and told Jim to get out if he was going to deny his son, but Jim refused to leave his daughter. That night, Jim started sleeping on the daybed in two-year-old Leslie's bedroom.

The standoff continued for weeks until Jim came home to divorce papers and a court order to vacate the premises immediately. He was furious but held his tongue because of the sheriff's deputies there to enforce the court order.

The next morning, he hired an attorney. That afternoon he was dealt the harshest blow he could imagine: Helen was accusing him of sexually abusing Leslie, and he wouldn't be allowed to see his daughter until the investigation was complete.

His divorce attorney urged him to be patient and referred him to a second attorney, Pamela Lipscomb, who could handle any criminal charges.

The physical evidence in the abuse case was inconclusive, and Leslie was too young to testify. Still, Pam Lipscomb urged Jim to plead to misdemeanor child neglect and pay a fine to avoid the possibility that a jury would convict him of the felony charges. But Jim was adamant that he'd done nothing wrong and refused to admit to a crime he didn't commit.

Jim was astounded when the jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and a $5,000 fine. Helen was awarded full custody of both kids and moved them away from Oxford while Jim was incarcerated. When Jim got out after serving two years, he couldn't find them, and he couldn't leave Yoknapatawpha County to look for them.

As a convicted felon and a registered sex offender, Jim had difficulty finding work when he was paroled. He currently works as a clerk in Pam Lipscomb's office while he tries to get back on his feet.