Post by LadyBlue on Jun 20, 2007 22:18:42 GMT -5
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-Ya2Fztb-A
Seventeen-year-old Virginia college student disappeared on Labor Day, 2005, without a trace, until her remains were found a month later. A former friend, Ben W. Fawley, claimed he killed her accidentally. Fawley, a 38-year-old amateur photographer, was indicted by a Mathews County grand jury Jan.17, 2006 for first degree murder.
Going off to college, going away from home for the first time, is heady stuff for a 17-year-old. And pretty, outgoing Taylor Behl was excited. Thrilled really — well, maybe just a little nervous.
Graduating from Madison High School in the comfortable Washington, D.C., bedroom community of Vienna, Virginia, she had everything to look forward to at Virginia Commonwealth University, an hour and a half from her home in Richmond, Virginia. Not too far from mom and dad if some moral support was necessary. Close enough to visit whenever it seemed right.
Taylor's mother, Janet Plesara, said "She was quite excited, happy to be on own, and looking forward to the college life."
But something happened in Taylor Behl's life. Something very traumatic.
In the evening of September 5, Labor Day, Taylor had dinner at the Village Cafe at 1001 W. Grace Street with a former boyfriend, then met up with former lover Ben W. Fawley who says that he walked her back to her Gladdings Residence dorm on West Main St. from his apartment at 407 Han Street and lent her a skateboard. This was about 10 p.m.
When Taylor got to her dorm, she found that her roommate and roommate's boyfriend were there. In order to give her roommate some privacy, Taylor left them alone together and headed out by herself with only her car keys, cellphone and $40 around 10:30, saying she'd be back in a few hours.
But hours turned into days and Taylor did not return. She was reported missing September 7, 2005.
Since then there has been no activity on Taylor's cell phone and she had no credit cards. None of her family or friends has been contacted.
Finally, an Amber Alert was issued 11 days after she went missing, resulting in nationwide alerts of various kinds. Still nothing turned up and it wasn't until Sept 16, 2005, the disappearance turned into a criminal investigation.
A major breakthrough occurred on September 17th, when Taylor's white 1997 Ford Escort was found by an off-duty policeman walking his dog. The car, which was discovered in the 500 block of North Mulberry Street in the Fan District, a quiet, well-maintained residential area a couple of miles from her dormitory, was kept under surveillance for 12 hours to see if anyone approached it. After that, the car was turned over to the FBI for forensic analysis.
The police made a troubling discovery: the car had Ohio license plates that had been stolen almost two months before Taylor disappeared. This strongly suggests that someone with far more sophistication than Taylor was tampering with the car and, perhaps, wanted to use it while police were looking for a car with Virginia tags.
The plates belong to a former Ohio resident who lives in Richmond. This former VCU student reported them stolen two months before Behl disappeared. The theft of license plates from out-of-state cars is not an unusual occurrence.
Canines were brought into the investigation of Taylor's car. While police chief Rodney Monroe would not say what the dogs had discovered, he suggested that they uncovered some promising leads.
The people in the Taylor Behl case are part of the generation that communicates intensively through the Internet. There is a fascinating and insightful record available on two of the key individuals: Taylor herself and Ben W. Fawley, the photographer, who has been named a "person-of-interest." This chapter will take a look at Taylor's own site on myspace.com, what she says about herself and what her friends and well-wishers have said.