Queensland man Rodney Wayne Williams has been found guilty of murdering pregnant teen sex worker Tiffany Taylor, who was last seen in July 2015.

March 20, 2020

A Queensland man who agreed to pay pregnant teen prostitute Tiffany Taylor for sex on the day she disappeared has been found guilty of her murder.

Rodney Wayne Williams, 65, picked the 16-year-old up from a Logan motel in July 2015 after meeting her on the Oasis dating website.

The pair drove to an isolated industrial area where “something happened”, his Brisbane Supreme Court trial heard.

Traces of Tiffany’s blood were found in Williams’ Hyundai sedan, prosecutor Philip McCarthy QC told the jury during the three-and a-half-week trial.

“On the glove box, on the headrest of the passenger seat … on the front passenger seat, on the gear stick,” he said.

Williams told police Tiffany had suffered a nose bleed.

He denied having sex with the teen and said he simply gave her lift to Redbank Plains, where she jumped out of his car at an intersection.

He later changed that story, saying he dropped Tiffany off at a truck stop on the Warrego Highway west of Brisbane, which was the last time he saw her.

But a witness told the jury she had seen Williams’ car on the same day near Esk, about 100km north of Logan, where police have searched bushland for Tiffany’s body without success.

Later in the day, Williams set about laying a false trail of communication with the teen on the Oasis website.

One message read: “Sorry I didn’t turn up, decided I wasn’t going to pay for it.”

The trial was told Tiffany was a “worldly” young woman who started living with a man 25 years older than her when she was just 12.

The pair lived in motels, which Tiffany paid for through her prostitution work.

After eight hours of deliberation, the jury found Williams intentionally killed the teen.

Justice Anne Lyons is expected to sentence him later on Friday.