Starr Nicole Lashua was 44 years old when her life was cut short in a quiet neighborhood in Manatee County. Neighbors along 59th Avenue East in Bradenton did not know anything was wrong until late August, when deputies pulled up to a house on the block. Behind the home, in the backyard grass, investigators found a body that had been lying out in the Florida heat for days.
The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office took several days to confirm the identity through forensic testing. By the time the autopsy came back, the medical examiner officially classified the death as a homicide caused by violent means. The news hit hard for those who knew Lashua, a Bradenton local who lived in the area for years. Friends and family were left trying to piece together her final hours while waiting for answers from law enforcement.

Detectives worked around the clock, combing through the backyard where Lashua was discovered and interviewing anyone who lived nearby. The property in the 700 block of 59th Avenue East turned out to be a key location in more ways than one. It was a duplex where people came and went, and neighbors recalled seeing unusual activity in the days before the discovery.
As deputies worked the crime scene, a separate violent incident just miles away provided the breakthrough investigators needed. Just days earlier, on August 18, a 15-year-old boy had been stabbed multiple times at a home on 33rd Avenue Drive East. That attack left the teenager severely injured and launched an intense search for a suspect named Quazone Taylor.
Investigators tracked Taylor down to the very same duplex on 59th Avenue East where Lashua’s body was later found. On August 24, deputies moved in and took the 34-year-old into custody on attempted murder charges for the attack on the teenager. He was booked straight into the Manatee County Jail, where he sat while homicide detectives kept digging into Lashua’s death.
While Taylor was behind bars for the teen stabbing, crime scene technicians processed forensic evidence collected from both scenes. Detectives interviewed witnesses who placed Taylor at the duplex around the time Lashua vanished. Bit by bit, the physical clues and witness statements tied Taylor directly to the backyard where Lashua died.
On September 11, detectives walked into the Manatee County Jail and served Taylor with a warrant for second-degree murder. Though an arrest has finally been made, deputies have kept specific details about how Lashua died quiet to protect the upcoming trial. For Lashua’s loved ones, the murder charge offers a step toward justice, but it leaves an empty space that no court verdict can fix.








