*Prev. Deputy for The Gates Police
Chad Taylor was a deputy on the The Gates Police Force when former Gates Police Chief David Phelps was in office. Taylor became a member of the force starting sometime in late 2007 early 2008 and was on staff for over a year before he was fired sometime in early 2009 for finding out the truth about the Old Chief's dealings with the residents at The Gates. After Taylor was fired the former Chief supposedly "retired to Mexico" a euphemism that he was corrupt and on the run about a year later. However the very day the new chief Nick Monohan replaced Phelps Phelps's body was found by a river with a gunshot wound to the head. After a investigation Chad Taylor was arrested for his murder.
Season One[]
When first interviewed for his familiarity of Chief Phelps by his successor Chief Monohan Taylor stated that he had worked for the old Chief for over a year year but hadn't been in touch with him for even longer since he left the force. He was asked if Phelps had any problems with the residents and said not really. He was ostensibly fired for insubordination, something Taylor was not aware of including that cause was in his file. He called "insubordination" another term for "...knowing the Chief's business". Taylor would write up incident reports but Phelps would make them "disappear". Taylor never saw any money change hands but he did drive a $70,000 SUV on a Chief's salary, the implication of financial corruption being clear. He recalled that among others the McAllisters and Claire Radcliff were some of the times who reports were made to disappear. After the interview Monohan looked up other deputy's reports and note in one that it was Claire Radcliff that was pulled over for erratic driving in October 2009. The Deputy at the time noticed "copious amount of blood on the right sleeve and front of the blouse". When in an interview with her husband Dylan Radcliff Monohan brought this up including the fact that Phelps got rid of the file, he explained it away that it was his wife suffering from a nose bleed and the Chief likely didn't deem it worthy of further investigation. Monohan didn't believe the explanation by way of saying his daughter once had nose bleeds but the doctor cured them in one visit and "knowing" looks and left. Dylan would later confront his wife about the incident, which he had no prior knowledge and Claire would admit to paying off Chief Phelps when he subtlety implied that a bribe would set things right. She said she was carrying bood bags from his biotech firm and they spilled somehow.
Monohan ran down some of the incident reports that weren't followed up on including one with Lukas Ford's father Simon Ford raising suspicions about him. Lukas would physically assault the Chief's son Charlie Monohan at school for it. Taylor would later come down to the station and aid Deputy Leigh Turner in going over phone logs of complaints-the one record that the old Chief couldn't erase-that corresponded with the suppressed incident reports ie no matching file to go with the phone logs then it was to be followed up on. However, Turner and Taylor didn't find any that didn't match up. Taylor came up with the suggestion of running the resident's fingerprints against the six unknown prints found on the old Chief's SUV when they came up with no matches on the local and national databases. Deputy Marcus Jordan who was currently the longest serving deputy on the force with just over a years experience, said they didn't fingerprint the residents of the Gates. Taylor countered that they did when he was there apparently another thing Phelps ended. Monohan would tell his staff to go with Taylors suggestion and complement Chad for the suggestion. As Jordan was doing as Taylor suggested one of the unknown prints popped with the name Simon Ford, who previously told the Chief he had no contact with the old Chief. When confronted Simon Ford would admit to direct contact but the reason was the old Chief's extortion. For $10,000 he would make his son's police report go away. Simon paid it but that gave him motive to kill the Chief but Ford said it was his son's behavior he was angry at for having to cover for him and not the Chief. Apparently this satisfied Monohan enough not to question him again.
Later Deputy Turner would report on her progress over her investigation into the old Chief's financial records as per orders of Monohan and among other things she found was that Phelps had bought a new SUV three months before. This immediately made Monohan order Turner to run the fingerprints found on the SUV against the employee database. He would get a hit, that of former Deputy Chad Taylor contradicting his statement that he had no contact with the former Chief for over a year.
As Turner and Jordan searched Taylor's apartment Taylor would reiterate to Monohan that statement of no contact for a year and pointed out that he was aiding their investigation. Monohan then told him that his prints were found in Phelps's SUV, a vehicle that Phelps didn't own until three months ago. This bewildered Taylor pointing out that he wasn't even allowed on The Gates's property until the investigation. Then Deputy Turner found a gun that was the same caliber as the murder weapon. A increasingly agitated Chad admitted that it was his gun. His demeanor was one of apparent bewilderment. He emphatically and desperately said he did not kill Phelps. Chief Monohan ordered Taylor arrested and cuffed anyway. As a resigned to his fate Taylor was being lead away a bag of Devon's Day Spa "Vine of the Soul" Tea was found on the apartment by Chief Monohan.
Later Chief Monohan visited Devon at her business under the pretext of getting Tea for his wife. Devon commented that she only knew Chad in passing and he seemed like a nice young man. Monohan noted that Taylor had a bag of her tea in his apartment despite the fact that it is very expensive tea and he had been out of work for most of the past year. Additionally, Taylor wasn't even permitted to enter The Gates, blocking access to Devon's store. She said "spadevon.com", her website. She stated she shipped all over the world. This appeared to flummox the Chief a bit as if he never considered that possibility and he seemed to leave satisfied with her explanation. He accepted a complementary box of tea from Devon in his wife's name. (What Lies Beneath)
It has since been shown in the episode Digging the Dirt that the effect of the tea on a person is similar to that of a truth serum, were the person who drinks the tea will recount any secret when asked then will forget the revelation when commanded to do so. This has raised the possibility that Taylor could had been under some sort of hypnotic suggestion by Devon.
It would be later revealed that Frank Buckley had a security DVD video of Taylor and his ex wife about to have clandestine sex in a storage room of some kind, possibly while Frank and Devon were still married (they divorced in May 2008 perhaps a few weeks or months after Taylor became a Gates police officer). This contradicted Devon's claim that she only knew Chad in passing. Devon stole the DVD of the illicit meeting from Frank's wall safe on the night of Chief Monohan's official welcoming to his job on May 20, 2010 at the home of Buckley (and hers when they were married). She replaced the DVD with another she brought that had the same label "DEVON". (Repercussions)
This and the now known effects of the tea suggest a possible framing of Taylor for Phelps's murder or, alternatively he was not in control of his faculties at the time he committed the crime. The contents of that DVD is unknown and her former husband hasn't detected the swap as of the episode Digging the Dirt.