A Nashville Date Turns Tragic as Last-Minute Phone Call Raises Suspicion
On the night of Feb. 25, 2023, outside Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, Blaise Taylor spoke with police about a date that had spiraled into a medical emergency. Inside the hospital, 24-year-old professional chef Jade Benning lay unresponsive. What began as an evening of cooking dinner and painting pictures in Jade’s apartment quickly unraveled into a tragedy that would draw intense scrutiny from investigators, grieving family members, and the wider community.
The relationship between Jade and Blaise had been casual for about three months before Jade discovered she was pregnant in November 2022. Expecting a baby girl she planned to name Ivy, Jade looked forward to motherhood. However, according to Jade’s family, Blaise expressed unhappiness about the prospect of fatherhood. Despite the tension, the two resumed dating around New Year’s Eve 2022.
The Frightening Phone Call That Sparked Desperate Questions
Hours before Jade was rushed to the hospital, Nijaiha Jackson received a frantic phone call from her best friend. Nijaiha recalled that Jade sounded uniquely terrified, accusing Blaise of putting something into her drink. The call lasted a little more than six minutes before Jade’s voice faded and the line disconnected. Alarmed, Nijaiha raced to the apartment and alerted Jade’s mother, Bridget Benning Burks.
When Bridget arrived at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, doctors delivered devastating news. Jade had gone approximately 45 minutes without oxygen, leaving her brain dead and hooked up to life support. Because Jade was roughly 24 weeks pregnant, doctors indicated the unborn baby had suffered the same oxygen deprivation and would not survive.
Independent Investigation Inside the Apartment
In the initial hours following Jade’s hospitalization, her apartment had not yet been sealed off as a crime scene. Driven by the contents of the phone call, Nijaiha and three friends entered the residence wearing hospital gloves to record video and look for clues. Inside the bedroom, Nijaiha noticed a Blink security camera had been moved from its original location in the kitchen. Suspecting the device had been repositioned to avoid recording the evening’s events, Nijaiha moved the camera back.
The group also found vomit on Jade’s comforter and placed it in a garbage bag to give to Bridget. Law enforcement subsequently secured the apartment, collecting drinks and other items for testing, while Bridget provided the recovered comforter to investigators.
Lab Tests Find Cocaine Traces in Hospitalized Patient
Two days after admission, hospital lab results revealed positive traces of cocaine in Jade’s blood and urine. Her parents, Bridget Benning Burks and Dennis Browning, maintained that Jade had completely stopped using substances once she learned she was pregnant, noting she sometimes drank and used marijuana prior to the pregnancy but never touched cocaine.
While Blaise Taylor cooperated with police at the hospital on the night of the incident and placed the initial 911 call after consulting his father—a college football coach—authorities faced a complex evidentiary path. Aside from Nijaiha’s account of the unrecorded phone call in which Jade accused Blaise of tampering with her drink, investigators worked to piece together the exact sequence of events that led to the catastrophic medical emergency.
