Tay-K Hit With 80 Year Prison Sentence For Murder Conviction

Tay-K has been sentenced to 80 years in prison after a jury found him guilty in the 2017 murder of 23-year-old Mark Anthony Saldivar, earlier this week. 187th District Court Judge Stephanie Boyd announced the determination on Tuesday night. “I do realize that while this is a lot of time, you’re still alive. You can still better yourself,” Boyd told the rapper. “But the complainant in this case is deceased, and you need to internalize that the complainant in this case is deceased. You’re going to have to make changes.”

Boyd also brought up Tay-K’s upbringing. His sister had testified during the trial that their foster mother was both physically and mentally abusive towards them. Boyd said: “From what I can tell, his mother wasn’t a good parent to him. His father wasn’t a good parent to him. Child Protective Services was not good, and if you believe the testimony, I don’t know why Child Protective Services would place children back with a father who put the children’s mother in a hospital.”

In the trial, Tay-K ended up dodging a more serious sentence of capital murder, which would have positioned him with an automatic life sentence without the chance of parole. Instead, jurors decided to convict him on the lesser charge of murder. Regardless, Tay-K’s lawyer, John Hunter, said during closing arguments: “Taymor McIntyre [Tay-K] is not guilty of capital murder, murder, or manslaughter, and the reason for that is very simple. You have to do it right. You have to do the work. And this case clearly demonstrates the work wasn’t done.”

When DJ Akademiks shared the sentence on Instagram, hip-hop fans didn’t appear to feel too bad for the rapper. “Ngl he got nothing to lose i know it ain’t easy but bro might as well try to escape,” one user wrote. Another criticized him, writing: “Tried to be gangsta to impress some suburban kids now look at ya.” The conviction came after Tay-K was already behind bars in connection with the killing of Ethan Walker in 2016.