BYRON TOWNSHIP, MI — Grand Rapids Police led a funeral procession to Kent Memorial Gardens on Wednesday, Aug. 6, for the mother of an officer slain in 1986.

Josephine Taylor, 93, will now rest alongside her late husband, Johnnie Taylor Sr., and the couple’s son, former GRPD Officer Joseph Floyd Taylor.

Johnnie Taylor Sr. was laid to rest in June 2014, just shy of the couple’s 57th wedding anniversary. He was 86.

At her husband’s interment, Josephine Taylor told the Grand Rapids Press that her son’s widow — who had since been remarried — had given two cemetery plots to Josephine and Johnnie Taylor so the couple could be buried next to their son.

She said she had been overwhelmed by the gesture.

The couple’s son died on Nov. 17, 1986, after being shot twice by a murder suspect. Officer

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