Paul Corbett

Paul M. Corbett was a 67-year-old retired insurance executive who lived with his wife, Marion, in a secluded 14-room home on a wooded 30-acre estate in Barrington Hills, Illinois, an affluent suburb of Chicago. He was a White man known to enjoy the peace and privacy of his luxurious property.

The tranquility of the Corbett home was shattered on the evening of Friday, August 4, 1972. Four young men, later identified as Donald Taylor, Reuben Taylor, Michael Clark, and Nathaniel Burse, arrived at the residence pretending to ask for directions. All four were Black Vietnam War veterans in their early twenties who were associated with a militant group known as "De Mau Mau." Once at the door, they forced their way inside, holding Paul and his family at gunpoint. Also in the home that evening were Paul’s 58-year-old wife Marion, her 22-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, Barbara Boand, and Marion’s 60-year-old sister, Dorothy Derry. Mrs. Derry had reportedly declined a dinner invitation with other friends because she did not like driving home in the dark.

The intruders herded the four family members into a pantry, where they ripped the phone cord from the wall and demanded money and jewelry. At some point, the family's dog began to bark, prompting Donald Taylor to throw a knife at it. When Barbara Boand cried out in protest, Reuben Taylor shot her in the chest with a .30-caliber weapon. The assailants then executed Paul Corbett, Marion Corbett, and Dorothy Derry, shooting each in the back of the head with a .25-caliber gun. The killers took about $100 from Paul's wallet but left behind other valuables, including jewelry and six expensive cars in the garage.

The gruesome discovery was made later that night by Barbara’s brother, Anthony Boand, when he arrived at the home to return a car. He first noticed his aunt's car parked outside with a door ajar and the interior light on. Inside the house, he found a horrific scene, later describing the pantry as “flowing with blood.” The sheer brutality of the crime, which law enforcement called “wholesale slaughter,” shocked the community and was compared by the press to the Manson Family killings of 1969. The murders instilled a deep fear in the Chicago suburbs, with some residents reportedly taking extreme security measures.

The investigation, led by the Cook County Sheriff's Office, initially struggled for leads. Police noted that several panic buttons inside the house, including one in the pantry, had not been pushed. A break in the case came as ballistics tests connected the weapons used in the Corbett murders to other unsolved killings in Illinois. These included the murders of Stephen Hawtree, his wife, and their teenage son in Monee a month later, as well as the slayings of Southern Illinois University student Michael Gerchenson in May and Army Specialist William Richter in September.

In October 1972, police arrested nine young Black men who were members of the "De Mau Mau" group, charging four of them with the Corbett family murders. Cook County Sheriff Richard Elrod described the group as being composed of disgruntled Vietnam veterans and suggested that racial hatred was a primary motive for the slayings, as no other clear reason was apparent. During their arraignment, some of the suspects gave a Black Power salute.

In 1974, Donald Taylor, Reuben Taylor, and Michael Clark were convicted for their roles in the murders. Donald Taylor, who admitted to shooting three of the victims, received a sentence of 100 to 300 years. Reuben Taylor and Michael Clark also received sentences of over 100 years. The fourth suspect, Nathaniel Burse, was killed in the Lake County Jail before he could be tried. Donald Taylor died in prison in 1991. After serving more than four decades, Reuben Taylor was paroled in 2018, and Michael Clark was paroled in 2019. The case remains a dark chapter in the history of the Chicago area, a random and brutal act of violence that left a lasting scar on a community once thought to be immune from such horrors.