A Canyon Country man pleaded no contest Wednesday to second-degree murder in connection with his 2 1/2-month-old daughter’s death nearly four years ago.

Marcel James Taylor, now 30, was immediately sentenced to 15 years to life in state prison, according to Assistant Head Deputy Jonathan Hatami with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office’s Complex Child Abuse unit.

Taylor was charged in the September 2021 death of his daughter, Jelani.

Authorities concluded that the girl died from blunt force trauma.

In court papers filed shortly after Taylor was charged, Hatami wrote that the defendant told Los Angeles County Sheriff’s homicide detectives, “I shook her. I know I shouldn’t have shook her … I know I’m a terrible father, a horrible father. I live with that the rest of my life.

See Full Page