Copyright Reading Eagle
For information on submitting an obituary, please contact Reading Eagle by phone at 610-371-5018, or email at obituaries@readingeagle.com or fax at 610-371-5193. Most obituaries published in the Reading Eagle are submitted through funeral homes and cremation services, but we will accept submissions from families. Obituaries can be emailed to obituaries@readingeagle.com. In addition to the text of the obituary, any photographs that you wish to include can be attached to this email. Please put the text of the obituary in a Word document, a Google document or in the body of the email. The Reading Eagle also requires a way to verify the death, so please include either the phone number of the funeral home or cremation service that is in charge of the deceased's care or a photo of his/her death certificate. We also request that your full name, phone number and address are all included in this email. All payments by families must be made with a credit card. We will send a proof of the completed obituary before we require payment. The obituary cannot run, however, until we receive payment in full. Obituaries can be submitted for any future date, but they must be received no later than 3:00 p.m. the day prior to its running for it to be published. Please call the obituary desk, at 610-371-5018, for information on pricing. A New York man has been sentenced in federal court to life in prison for kidnapping a 13-year-old girl from her Reading home and taking her to his apartment in 2022. Duane Taylor, 50, of Brooklyn was sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court and ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution and $3,500 in fines and assessments, officials said. Taylor pleaded guilty in June before U.S. District Court Judge John M. Gallagher to charges of kidnapping, travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, production of child pornography, possessing child pornography and transporting child pornography. According to prosecutors and previous reports: Reading police responded Aug. 31, 2022, to a call from the girl’s mother that the girl was missing from her bedroom, where the mother had last seen her daughter around 10:30 p.m. the previous night. The mother searched for her daughter and found the back door of the home was wide open. Investigators found the chain lock on the door had been broken. Investigators reviewed video surveillance footage from the home’s security system that showed Taylor entering the living room about 2 a.m. and going to the stairs that lead to the second floor. A short time later, the victim is seen walking down the stairs and through the living room, followed by Taylor, who was the mother’s former boyfriend. Footage showed Taylor carrying the girl to his vehicle and putting her in the rear cargo area. Reading investigators contacted New York City police. Taylor was traced to his Brooklyn apartment and taken into custody around 6:30 p.m., but the girl was not there. The girl was found later that day in a different area of Brooklyn when a citizen called 911 to report a child was alone and asking for help because she had been kidnapped from Pennsylvania. Police took the girl to a hospital for observation, where she was reunited with her mother. According to the indictment, Taylor transported visual depictions showing a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
