Georgia Supreme Court Upholds Murder Conviction in 2019 Beating, Strangulation Case

ATLANTA, GA – On November 18, 2025, the Supreme Court of Georgia issued a ruling in the case of Antonio Taylor v. The State, affirming Taylor’s conviction for the malice murder of his girlfriend, Aisha Dixon.

The court’s decision centered on a complex jurisdictional dispute regarding where the crime was committed, as the violence spanned across two different counties in the metro-Atlanta area.

The Crime: A Multi-County Tragedy

The evidence at trial revealed a brutal sequence of events that began in April 2019.

• DeKalb County: At an apartment in Decatur, Taylor severely beat and strangled Dixon. A 12-year-old witness testified that Taylor “hit, kicked, stomped on, and choked” Dixon until she appeared to be “asleep.”
• Fulton County: Taylor then moved Dixon to his daughter’s apartment in East Point. Upon arrival, he dragged her up concrete stairs by her hair, slamming her head against the steps.
• The Outcome: Dixon was eventually taken to a hospital where she was declared dead. Medical experts found that she suffered from massive internal bleeding and nearly 50 documented injuries, which required a “great amount of force” inconsistent with Taylor’s claim that she had simply fallen.

Key Legal Challenge: Venue and Jurisdiction

Taylor’s primary defense on appeal was that the case was tried in the wrong county (DeKalb County). He argued that since the final “slammings” and her death occurred in Fulton County, DeKalb lacked proper venue.

The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed, clarifying two major points:

1. Cause of Death: While Dixon was further injured in Fulton County, the medical examiner testified that the fatal injuries, internal bleeding and strangulation, were inflicted during the initial assault in DeKalb County.
2. Statutory “Flexibility”: The court upheld the use of OCGA § 17-2-2 (h), which states that if it cannot be determined exactly where a crime was committed, venue is proper in any county where it might have been committed.

Constitutional Impact

Taylor challenged the constitutionality of the Georgia venue statute, arguing it violated both state and federal rights to a trial in the district where the crime occurred.

The Court ruled that the statute remains constitutional, noting that it had rejected similar arguments in the past. They concluded that because the statute ensures a trial takes place in a county linked to the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, it satisfies the requirements of both the Georgia Constitution and the United States Constitution (Sixth Amendment).