Zachary Drey (left), who allegedly murdered his roommate, Clifton Taylor, fled Las Vegas after the incident. (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department/UNLV National Society of Black Engineers Facebook)
Family, friends and classmates gathered at a memorial Friday for Black UNLV engineering student Clifton Taylor one week after his roommate, Zachary Drey, was arrested for allegedly murdering him.
“My legs trembled,” Charles Bynum, one of Taylor’s closest friends told 13 Action News of how he reacted to the death of the president of the school’s National Society of Black Engineers. “I consider him a brother. It’s just so heartbreaking.”
On Wednesday, June 14, Xavier Morgan-Lange, now president of the NSBE who referred to Taylor as his mentor, lamented that Taylor won’t be able to take the job he had waiting for him at aerospace and defense technology company Northrop Grumman, Corp.
“It’s a huge loss. He honestly served as my inspiration. He definitely stood out above the rest,” Morgan-Lange added of Taylor, who worked two jobs and maintained high grades. “So many of us talk about how we want to do these things and what we’re trying to do. But he actually did them.”
Morgan-Lange said he remembered Taylor saying he didn’t like Drey.
“He just said [Drey] was pretty difficult to live with at times,” Morgan-Lange told News 3 the week Taylor’s body was found in May. “But he wouldn’t go into detail. He would usually just shake his head.”
Drey, 25, was wanted since Wednesday, May 31, for allegedly fatally stabbing Taylor, also 25, the day before. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Drey, who was arrested Friday, June 9, in California after fleeing Vegas, left Taylor to die in the apartment they shared. A relative of Drey’s reported the news to police after he apparently confessed to the murder.
California authorities located Drey off Interstate 10 at a gas station, according to the Las Vegas-Review Journal. He is being held without bail on a charge of being a fugitive from justice as he awaits extradition to Las Vegas.
Taylor was discovered May 31, in a bathtub covered in multiple stab wounds. Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Dan McGrath suspected Taylor was murdered in another room and dragged to the bathroom in an attempt to clean up the scene.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has not responded to requests for more information surrounding the case.
