Tanner Mark Boyer was driving his gray 2020 Hyundai Sonata sedan southbound on Interstate 15 in the Nevada border town of Mesquite last July when he rear-ended a black Harley Davidson low-rider motorcycle.
Boyer called 911. The Harley’s female rider was taken by Mercy Air helicopter to St. George Regional Hospital 40 miles away in Utah, where she was declared dead.
On Wednesday, after receiving details of his vehicular manslaughter case, I called Boyer and asked if he were aware that the victim, Rebecca Lynn Taylor, had been chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party.
Boyer, 25, didn’t know that.
His reaction to killing a local political celebrity — known as Becca?
“Regardless of what people do as a career or their hobbies, people’s lives matter,” he told me.
Eight months after the accident — and six weeks since Boyer was sentenced after pleading no contest and getting no jail time — info on Taylor’s accident is a public record.
Ironically, details of the early morning crash of July 16 were disseminated in a July 23 media release by the Nevada State Police Highway Patrol.
“The rider of the motorcycle, Rebecca Lynn Taylor, a 41-year-old female from San Diego, California, succumbed to injuries sustained in the crash and was pronounced deceased at a local area hospital,” it said. (She was actually 40.)
“The investigation is being conducted by the Nevada State Police Highway Patrol — Southern Command M.I.R.T (Multidisciplinary Investigation & Reconstruction Team).”
No Nevada news outlet realized that this Taylor was the leader of San Diego Democrats, and no San Diego outlet got the memo of the Nevada crash — after being told it was somewhere in Utah as she was returning home from a trip.
Typical of the Nevada coverage was this TV account 81 miles southwest of Mesquite:
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) — A 41-year-old woman is dead after a motorcycle crash in Mesquite along Interstate 15.
Nevada State Police responded to the crash around 2:41 a.m. on southbound I-15 near mile marker 123, at the Arizona-Nevada state line.
Troopers revealed that a gray 2020 Hyundai Sonata was traveling southbound on I-15 behind a black Harley Davidson low-rider motorcycle. The Hyundai’s driver failed to slow down and struck the Harley from behind, ejecting the rider from the bike and causing it to leave the roadway.
The motorcycle came to rest in the dirt center median, while the Hyundai rotated counter-clockwise and also exited the roadway.
In an 8-minute chat, Boyer told me he wasn’t driving distracted as court records indicate. He said he was driving 5 miles over the 70 mph speed limit and, at 2:30 a.m., had low visibility. He wasn’t drunk.
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But as part of his sentence, Boyer agreed to make a YouTube video warning about the hazards of distracted driving.
“I haven’t made much progress on it yet,” he said of the video, but “I still have a bunch of ideas.”
Boyer — an electrician living in St. George, Utah — has already paid restitution of $2,269 to Tim Cook, Taylor’s father. (Her parents are divorced.)
And if Boyer follows through on the YouTube video by an April 1 status hearing in Mesquite Municipal Court, his community service will be reduced from 200 hours to 100 hours, according to court records.
Boyer has already begun doing his service — at a thrift store in St. George, a city of 110,000.
“They just have me help around the back — organize things, clean up the store a bit,” he said.
Boyer, a Dixie High School graduate who played tennis as a teen, had two speeding tickets in 2016 (when he was 17) and one in 2019. He also was cited, in 2018, for failure to provide a child restraint device for a child under 8.
He had a lawyer in the Mesquite case, but didn’t go to trial after pleading no contest. His sentencing was Feb. 4 before Judge Ryan Toone in Mesquite court.
San Diego County Democratic officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
But local Democratic activist Laurie Black said via email: “I am stunned that someone can run into another AND KILL HER, and not pay the price. Becca Taylor was a beautiful bright light, a true public service leader whose life was snuffed out. She deserves better than this. Incredible.”
