ST. LUCIE COUNTY A more than 30-year-old cold case homicide involving a stormy relationship and shotgun blasts has been solved as a DNA match allowed St. Lucie County sheriff’s investigators to identify the deceased.
Detective Paul Taylor, the agency’s cold case detective, last month closed the 1988 case against Michael Lewis Akins in the death of 25-year-old Rocky Lane Taylor. The detective and the deceased aren’t related.
Investigators at the time had a strong idea Akins was responsible, but the remains, found under a citrus tree, were decomposed and they couldn’t conclusively identify the body. Prosecutors denied a warrant because the medical examiner’s office couldn’t make the identification.