HOUSTON – A longtime friend of Carolee Taylor, who was killed on Christmas Eve, remembers her as the “life of the party.”
“She just has one of those smiles that is just infectious and, literally, she is the life of the party, sweetest, funniest, always dancing,” Bridget Moore said Thursday.
The Harris County Sherriff’s Office is looking 52-year-old Albert Benjamin Simon, who they believe is the suspect who shot Taylor at a house party in northwest Harris County at about around 8:40 p.m. Tuesday.
Deputies say Simon went into the home on Obsidian Drive and pulled Taylor out of her birthday party at gunpoint before shooting her multiple times on the front porch.
“It was at (Taylor’s) uncle’s home,” Moore said. “They do it at the same home, every year. All of the family was there."
Moore said she’d never met Simon and had limited information about him.
“I know that (Taylor) tried to break up with him several times and that she broke up with him for good last week,” she said.
While she didn’t know how Taylor and Simon met, Moore said they dated for a few months.
Deputies say Simon fled the scene in a black Jeep Grand Cherokee with Texas license plate LYN0345. Simon is believed to be armed and remains at large.
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Fugitive Task Force confirmed Thursday that the search for Simon continues.
The family has set up a crowdfunding account to help support Taylor’s daughter’s education.