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A 16-year-old foster child in Morristown, Tennessee, died on Nov. 24, 2007, after his foster father held him in a chokehold during a fight that began over a cigarette, according to trial testimony and court records. Jordan Kaleb Shelton was left unconscious inside the Hamblen County home, and a 911 call with phone-guided CPR was not enough to revive him.

Taylor's wife placed the emergency call while her husband stayed with the boy, and a Hamblen County dispatcher talked her through CPR until paramedics arrived. Jordan never regained consciousness. He was placed on life support and taken off it later that same day.

The confrontation began after Kenneth Wayne Taylor caught the teenager smoking and grounded him, according to trial testimony. Taylor, a former bodybuilder who weighed well over 200 pounds, was far larger than the boy. Prosecutors said he took the discipline too far, pinning Jordan in an armlock and squeezing until the teenager stopped struggling and his face turned purple. The defense said Taylor acted in self-defense after Jordan became violent, and that he believed the boy was still breathing and let go the moment he went limp.

Taylor was first charged with reckless homicide, but a Hamblen County grand jury later returned an indictment for first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, court records show. Because of heavy pretrial publicity, the case was moved out of Morristown and tried in Rogersville, in neighboring Hawkins County. The trial opened on Oct. 6, 2009.

The state called former foster children who described earlier violent episodes in the Taylor home. After several hours of deliberation, the jury acquitted Taylor of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse and convicted him of the lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter and reckless aggravated assault.

A judge sentenced Taylor to five years in prison on Dec. 17, 2009, and he remained free on bond while he appealed. His motion for a new trial was denied. The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals heard arguments in the case in March 2012, but Taylor died on April 10, 2012, of an apparent heart attack before the court issued a ruling.