HOUSE OF HORROR

California Personal Trainer Charged With Decapitating Two of His Kids

His clients asked police to check on the family, fearing a gas leak. What they found was much worse.

When Howard Kern had not heard from his personal trainer, Maurice Taylor, for about a week, he became concerned that maybe some tragedy had befallen him and his family—maybe a gas or carbon monoxide leak. But when police showed up to the Lancaster, California, home they found something much more horrific: two children in the home had been decapitated. Now, the Los Angeles Times reports, Taylor, 34, is under arrest, charged in the deaths of his 12-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter. His wife and two children in the home were unharmed. Taylor’s clients were reeling from the news about their trainer. “Think of the nicest person that you know, then multiply that by five,” Kern told the Times. “He worked so hard to support himself. Unfortunately, we don’t know enough to say what happened or what didn’t happen.”