Taylor Behl /// Part 1 /// 396 | Forensic Files

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[Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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app so thank you so much for that and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair
grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] every parent feels torn when they send
their child off to college torn between between feeling excited for their son or daughter for
the education and Adventures that lie ahead and feeling anxious about their newly independent child's safety choices
and well-being for most parents the anxiety lessens as they see their son or daughter settling into college thriving
making a new life but for one family the parents' worst fears came true their beautiful smart beloved daughter
went off to college and never came home how did this co-ed disappear just 2 weeks into her first
semester this is true crime garage and this is the case of Taylor Beal [Music] Taylor Beal was a 17 18-year-old girl
who lived with her mom Janet pelasara in Vienna Virginia Vienna is an upper middle class suburb of Washington DC
with the small town feel despite its population of 15,000 people Vienna was ranked third in Money magazine's list of
top 100 places to live in 2013 Taylor was very close with her mother and the two lived in various
places around the world including London in Belgium with Janet's husband at the time Janet's husband was an officer in
the Royal Air Force eventually settling back in Virginia when Taylor was 11 Taylor was used to traveling of course
and even flew alone internationally at the age of five this under the care of the airline this is a a really unique
kind of experience for a young child I remember when I was 10 I flew by myself without Parents Without family it's
something I will always remember cuz it seemed like a really big deal to me at the time when I was just 10 but well
that smelly guy you sat next to of course I wasn't um flying internationally that would have been
weird my flight was like 1 hour long but it was really neat Captain because they
did like a special check-in for me you know when they were boarding the plane I got to get on the plane
early and the flight attendant introduced me to the pilot or some guy pretending to be the pilot and cleaning
the plane yeah and then they sat me right in the front row so they could keep an eye on me I guess but Taylor was
close to her mother that's like an understatement but she was also close with her father Matt even though her
parents divorced before she even turned 2 years old Taylor graduated from James Madison High School in Vienna the 15th
school she had attended in her life that shows you how much she had moved around
at just a young age and one of the colleges she was interested in was Virginia Commonwealth University known
as VCU which is a great College great basketball program uh the VCU Rams shout out to the Rowdy Rams VCU is located on
the west side of Richmond Virginia and the school focuses on biotech and life sciences Taylor visited VCU twice in the
spring of her senior year in high school one visit was in February of 2005 with her father Matt when the two of them
made their 2-hour drive to check out the campus Matt dropped Taylor off at the apartment of a friend of hers from
Vienna so she could experience a little Campus Life at VCU this was the apartment of upper
classman Mike Ceno and his roommate Ben FY Taylor Made a second visit to the same place in April of that same year
now she must have liked VCU because she enrolled in the large school of 31,000 students and started her freshman year
on August 19th 2005 her departure for college was hard on Taylor's mom Janet even though she
was only 2 hours away this was very difficult for for Janet as I said they were very tight even would give the
appearance of almost best friends at times well and she was the only daughter so they had a pretty strong bond because
of that only child and Janet says that Taylor was not the only you know she's not one of these teens who wants nothing
to do with her parents in fact she would still hold hands with her mom when they
went places together the two of them even volunteered as elves every Christmas for a local charity and spent
a lot of time together while Janet was nervous about her daughter heading off to college in the large city of Richmond
Virginia of course she knew that it was the best thing for Taylor BCU is a good school and Taylor was very excited for
the next chapter in her Young Life Taylor has been described in articles about her as quite mature for her age
she was working at Starbucks and choosing to hang out at jaming java coffee house sipping cappuccino and
listening to local Indie bands that sounds like something the captain would have been caught doing in his when he
was just 16 years old yeah I don't know about Indie bands but didn't you go to the coffee shop
yeah I think a lot of kids went to coffee shops I did I did as well I didn't go there to like listen to the
the latest you know I don't remember any at at the coffee shop we had I went there and just kind of sat around yeah
picked our nose right drinking uh sipping cappuccino friend of mine used to just say hey that's just $3
coffee so she never missed a curfew this was a good kid she didn't do drugs or drink uh she was Savvy and smart so
Janet took comfort that her daughter would make good choices even not under her roof Taylor was very she wasn't a
very Avid user of social media keep in mind this is 2005 so social media looked quite different than it does today yeah
Facebook wasn't probably even in VCU yet well the platforms that she was using to
post her daily musings and blog and about her life were a little dated to say the least she used Myspace her photo
is still visible on there if you can even get there I don't know how one would get there uh she used an internet
meeting site called myplace.com and used a site called live Journal as well well my space was like pre Facebook
it was the Facebook before the Facebook became the Facebook but oh yeah but it was also it was wildly popular too yeah
and different than Facebook because you could actually create a page change the colors it it was weird because I was a
big Myspace user and when Facebook came around it became well why are we going to this other thing that gives us less
options like there was more fun things to do and you could customize uh your your Myspace a lot
more yeah I remember that being a weird time too because it was like there there
was nothing wrong with Myspace but somehow we transition to Facebook we're going to bring it back we'll bring back
Myspace yeah we're starting with the garage on myplace.com we're talking about her
social media she wrote Under the name bitter her online post and photos show that she was a little naive I don't know
much about this site so do you know what this site is about my my well it looks like it looks like she's almost
journaling on some of these things and I and I took quite a bit of time and read
through them and it was a little sad and tragic just even reading through them cuz they still exist to this day and you
know you really get the vibe of who she is and what she was into but also reminding yourself that she's 17 at this
time well you're right that's like the coffee shop thing that's a very you know typical you know quote
unquote like college thing to do let's go get some cappuccino listen to some singer songwriter music like and so so
yeah being 17 and going to school early you're probably going to do a bunch of things that are very cliche well and we
can get into her social media a little bit to give you a little flavor of what was going on in fact here is a post she
wrote in early summer of 2005 it says quote I just graduated from high school and now
I'm off to Richmond I'm looking forward to meeting people that are in Richmond because I only know a few people down
there but I love to meet new people in general so feel free to message me whenever to chat that's kind of like an
open invitation to um that's something that we probably would steer away from but um she's outgoing and Taylor had a
relationship of sorts that was going on at the time in fact she detailed that on
her online Journal uhuh talking about her budding relationship with a fellow VCU student this is a boy named Jacob
Cunningham she loved that he was into the same things right he didn't drink he didn't
do drugs but the two it seems like they were off to somewhat of a of a rocky start Taylor's roommate Emma says that
things between Taylor and Jacob weren't going the way Taylor wanted and another friend of Taylor said that Jacob had
dumped her online and Taylor was up about this that's very mature of him I'm going to
break up with you online uh but this is kind of weird because she's not at school that long so she did she start
dating this individual before she left for school it looks to me like as soon as she you know mind you February and
April she's already making trips out the VCU to see if she's going to like VCU and and to see if she actually wants to
attend right VCU it seems to me like as soon as she has decided on that college that she's openly on
social media sending out invites to chat with people and get to know people in the area so that once she arrives she's
going to hit the ground running and already have a little bit of a uh you know solid base of friends going on yeah
and my my college and I know not every college does this but the college I went to did a a bunch of this like
freshman week of getting to know people and getting getting familiar with the col but that's a that was a small
College this is a lot bigger they might not have programs like that um that would be very difficult yeah it's only 2
hours away but you're also a little bit younger than everybody and so getting that Community around you would be
definitely important what's interesting to me is it it seems like we talked about her moving around a lot as a
younger child she's already kind of adapted to this you know she's already figured out how
to set up shop in a new town a new city New State sometimes new country yeah like you said 15 times 15 different
schools this would be she'd be an expert at this and as you said Captain she's only at school for a very brief time
before things start to go weird right so on Labor Day weekend 2005 when Taylor had been at school for just two weeks
she met up with some guys on Saturday night to go skateboarding according to one of these guys his name is Kevin the
group boarded for an hour around 2:45 a.m. so early morning that's what I call the small hours Kevin had only met
Taylor three or four times but described her as a normal girl who was very trusting Kevin said that Taylor was
heading home to vien the next day to spend some time with her mom this was correct after spending Sunday and most
of Monday at home Taylor returned to campus on Monday afternoon she called her father at 6:45 to say she was back
safely on campus and she had dinner with the guy that she was sort of dating his
name again Jacob yeah but this wasn't a normal dinner they they met uh to discuss their relationship apparently
yes that they they made up and had a nice dinner at the Village Cafe yeah but I don't think it was like make it wasn't
makeup and we're going to be boyfriend girlfriend I think it was this is going to
end am I correct on that well there are some differing stories speculations but I I believe that's his comments today is
that they they left on friendly terms yes yes you're absolutely right Kevin her skateboarding buddy later said that
he saw her alone around 8:45 p.m. that night and said that Taylor was excited for her upcoming birthday which would be
October 13th yeah she'd finally be able to vote mhm yeah she would be 18 years old and she told Kevin that she was
planning on doing something quote unquote illegal what that was Kevin does not know what that was I do not know
um my guess if I if I had to guess would be it would be a weird way to to describe it to me but being on a college
campus turning 18 years old it kind of feels like drinking might be the thing she
might have been referencing there or maybe it was to get a fake ID cuz she's going to get a new ID at being 18 years
old get a fake ID so she could go into you know oh yeah overage clubs that that would technically be illegal I think you
might be more right than me so at 9:45 p.m. Taylor spoke on her cell phone to a male to a a guy this is according
to Crime Library I couldn't figure out who this guy was his name that she spoke with but Crime Library says this guy was
later questioned and there were no additional calls to or from her phone at this time notee that time again was
9:45 p.m. as the news reports from 205 when Taylor got back to her dorm room that Monday night at 10:20 p.m. she
found that her roommate was entertaining a Young Man Taylor had to vacate the was
like a sock on the door that's what my mind went to the Old Tie on the door yeah I didn't live on campus but the
amount of times I like just opened up friends doors and stuff was going on I kept on going why wouldn't you just lock
the door I I keep running into these naked people uh she grabbed her keys her car
keys her phone and some cash and took off telling Emma that she was going to go skateboarding and that she would be
back in about 3 hours you know that's the polite thing to do to the roommate you tell them exactly how long you can
stay gone for right and that's I didn't want to speculate too much on that but that's the way I took it was like Hey I
see you're with somebody I'm going to go skateboard do some stuff I'll be gone for a few hours
right but you know but we also have class in the morning you're giving them a time limit I have to return at some
time to go to sleep to get up the next day I got things to do I'm being courteous here you got three hours the
place is yours right and but that still puts you in around one 2 o'l in the morning correct you got class the next
day yeah so the glading residence Center security cameras show footage of Taylor
walking out of her lobby at 10:24 p.m. these security cameras do not show Taylor returning in fact she was not
seen again after this time that was 10:24 p.m. Taylor's roommate Emma went about her day on Tuesday September 6th
but then that evening she noticed that Taylor had still not come back and none of her things had been touched by this
point and on Wednesday morning she informed the VCU Campus Police that her roommate had never returned to their
dorm and had been gone close to 36 hours the VCU Campus Police started looking for Taylor and guess that she
had left the dorm and gone somewhere in her car as the vehicle is missing as well campus police called Janet her
mother at home to tell her that both her daughter and her daughter's vehicle are
missing there was no response on Taylor's cell phone to Janet's calls and Janet and Matt Taylor's father
immediately came down to VCU and joined the campus police the campus security officers in their search for their
daughter the campus police officer spoke to Taylor's friends and acquaintances and try to track her movements on that
night that she disappeared they knew that often young people just go off on these Benders or leave town without
really telling anybody but nobody thought that that was likely not you're right it's a Monday it's a holiday so
it's very typical to a Sunday and it's like it's not who who would do that it makes more sense if she went missing on
a Thursday or a Friday MH yeah and if she did go somewhere she she left without telling anyone but really I know
that it's 36 hours and there are some people on the very Inner Circle that are probably panicking at this point but the
masses the majority of the people really think that it's likely that Taylor will
surface at some point well it's a really big campus she could hung out with some people spent the
night you know but I guess my concern is that we know that she told her roommates
hey I'm I'm going to go skateboarding so where does that put her at does that put
her at on campus off campus what kind of bad area yeah that's true that's true the students started posting missing
Flyers featuring Taylor's photo and her personal information around and up on uh
you know around campus this to me very reminiscent of the Brian Schaefer case when when I think about all the activity
that I Envision going on at this time yeah a lot smaller school but in fact Brian would go missing from OSU
campus what six months later yeah seven months later Taylor's mother Janet resorted to talking to the media hoping
that publicity would generate leads into Taylor's Ware abouts she knew that Taylor would not have just left school
or skipped classes since it was only the second week and she was you know she had
been so excited to start college Janet strategy worked the media strategy worked and Taylor's disappearance
received national news coverage from Nancy Grace and from others on September 11th VCU announced that it was insulting
with the FBI on Taylor's case then 10 days into the investigation on September 15th the richond police department took
over the case issuing an amber alert for Taylor and her vehicle again note Taylor
was only 17 so still yet a minor so she did qualify for an amber alert the Richmond Police Department put together
an an 11 member task force of local University and federal investigators to try to locate Taylor in what was now
considered a criminal case two of the investigators on the task force were one was the Richmond Police Department's
Captain and the other was the State Attorney General Offices investigator so we have some pretty highlevel
individuals on this task force police said that they had no evidence of Foul Play but tailor a minor and now missing
for days all without being in contact with anyone was of great concern investigators confirmed that Taylor had
not used her credit card or cell phone since she went missing and this is never good and always really I mean we know
this Captain a bad bad sign the task force set out to use a relatively new tool available to them in assembling the
victimology and get a list of Persons of Interest and this was social media Taylor's prolific online writings and
posts gave investigators a glimpse into her life and a place to start compiling a list of her contacts friends and
acquaintances well you could control your top eight I think at some point you can even make it bigger than top eight
you could have a like top 16 mhm so you would control who was in that group so there's your closest Pals right there on
the internet this is also helpful because they're able to determine what she had been doing and where she had
been going in the days leading up to her disappearance and then they're able to reach out to people that Taylor's family
was not aware of that she was hanging out with one of the first people the task force question was this jacob
Cunningham the the sort of boyfriend right uh that they they just met when school started Jake told police that
things were good when they had dinner as you said Captain with Taylor and they left the restaurant holding hands he
also told investigators that they parted ways that Monday evening and when they did so Taylor told him that she was
going to go skateboarding another reference to the skateboarding thing she was into boarding as we know and this
would have been a normal activity it seems for her even at night remember we know that she went skateboarding after
midnight just days earlier however police were not able to track down anyone who had been
skateboarding with her on the night that she disappeared or even seen her skateboarding that night well we know
that she took her keys with her when she left her room but on that video footage
I don't see her with a skateboard correct correct now one thing that they the investigators were going
to start looking at and this there's not much mention of this in the media but police looked at Taylor's
father's girlfriend's son okay I'll say that again because it's a little difficult Taylor's father's girlfriend's
son and I don't know this guy's name or really anything about him but what we do
know is that Taylor did blog about him in her online live Journal saying that he was creepy and he hit on her and it
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[Music] [Music] information all right we are back we are back and I want to give a special shout
out and cheers to a great man Dwight Radcliffe was Sheriff of Pickaway County in Ohio from
1965 all the way up to 2013 he is the longest serving sheriff in the United States he was reelected 12
times unfortunately Dwight passed away last week on May 6th so thank you to sheriff Dwight Radcliffe for a lifetime
of service to the community I'll pour a little out for the good Sheriff may he rest in peace a big cheers mates to you
big cheers on September 17th 2005 Taylor has now been missing for about 12 days there was a break in the
case Taylor's white 1997 Ford Escort sedan was located it was parked on a quiet residential street this is North
malberry Street has about three blocks from campus that's correct about a mile and a half from her dorm so not far away
at all what was disturbing was that the car had different license plates on it the license plates were from
Ohio and these plates had been stolen or reported stolen 2 months earlier they were lifted off of a vehicle of an Ohio
resident who lived in Richmond while attending VCU residents said said that the vehicle
had not been parked there for the duration of Taylor's of the time that she had been missing so we have a
situation here Captain she goes missing her car goes missing at the same time this car her car magically appears in
this spot and it's not there for much of the time that she's been missing well we
can only assume that somebody switched the tags to throw people off from finding her car they put the captain's
plates on that car mhm this next part is really really smart on the behalf of the
police I think this is an absolutely great tactic what what they did was they did a
Stakeout job on this car I mean what what a genius idea that's a great idea if you know that
it's if you suspect that something may have happened to her very early on in the period that she's been missing and
you believe had have good reason to believe that this vehicle has been moved since then
who's not to say that this this this guy's going to come back and move the vehicle again we know people get nervous
when they Place bodies or evidence or cars places and sometimes they SEC they have second thoughts and think oh I
better move it to a different place or it's going to be found sooner or maybe I didn't move it far away enough from me
well then you also you have no evidence that she's dead yeah so is she using her
vehicle is she the one that changed the license plates this we got to figure out what's going
on with her yeah if you get some type of activity in or around the vehicle it may
be the lead that you so desperately need because by this point Captain we've already discussed this and you have to
believe this is what went down they are using social media they're talking to her friends her roommate her parents
everybody that knows her to figure out what her Social Circles are and then interview everybody that they can
possibly think of within those circles and it sounds to me like at this point they really got a whole lot of nothing
going on until you find the car let's let's be smart that what a genius idea yeah but like you said before though oh
she she's going to go skateboarding that's a normal thing for her and I was bringing up the point on break well
there is no normaly it's not like she's been at school for a year and now we have all these times that we know hey
Sunday night she likes to go skateboarding you know I mean like she's been at school for a couple weeks there
is no normal H you that's not even long enough to form a bunch of habits well I think that it's not abnormal is what I
would point out there no no no I agree so after staking out the vehicle for 24 hours to see if anyone would return to
it police called in the dogs the sniffer dogs and impounded the car it was sent off to the FBI for forensic analysis
police blood hounds tracked a scent from her car to a home on Shephard Street this house was about five blocks away
from Taylor's car yeah this is pretty interesting the home belonged to the aunt and uncle of a 23-year-old guy
named Jesse Schultz Jesse was not a VCU student but he frequented VCU Hangouts to try to meet the ladies he Also may
have been a skateboarder Jesse had visited his aunt and uncle's home within the past 24
hours and had left one of his work shirts at this house at their home the couple was very cooperative and allowed
police to look through their house the house where Jesse lived was down the street and it was search as well during
that search they found a razor blade with c pain residue on it and this led to Jesse's arrest although we should in
all fairness we should point out the razor blade could belong to Jesse but he also had a roommate could belong to the
roommate right right police clearly wanted to they wanted to sweat Jesse a bit see
what he knew see if he was guilty of anything so so they just put a bunch of cocaine on the table had him do a bunch
of lines and then question him turn the thermostat up to 104 yeah so they feel about that Jessie they interrogated
Jesse at the station for several hours about Taylor about her being missing he did agree to take a polygraph test which
indicated some deception according to the detective in charge yeah he failed on two questions uh one what what's your
name is this your cocaine yes your uh he failed on two questions and what is cited in the media reports is one of
those questions was whether he knew Taylor at all and two whether he had been in her car he answered no to both
of those and this shows deception the police are not believing it it that's that's difficult because
for someone to say I don't even know this person and show deception and then to say I've never been in this vehicle
show deception now you have reason to believe not only why does he not want us to know that that he knows her right why
what else is he covering up if he's saying that he was not in her vehicle but and we have the scent dog leading
you from the car right to his aunt and uncle's house the trouble is both of these
tactics are not perfect like everything else right they're not 100% why I really
question because and and this is kind of gross and you got to watch out for certain campuses
but especially at that time late '90s early 2000s especially college guys they get
drunk they wee everywhere it's a wee wee Fest peeing on the side of the houses oh
just creep between these two cars and pee real quick is it possible that he just was taken a leak and then he took a
leak by her car and then walked to his aunt and uncle's house it's also possible that the dogs were wrong and
the test is not scored properly right the other thing too is if this young man is just nervous about being questioned
anyway you know that test is reacting to him not it's not actually detecting if he's lying or not it's detecting if
there's any change in his in him physically well right again and if I ask you a question hey what were you doing
the other night hey I was at this bar there there's no tension there I I can ask all these questions but I know that
there's a missing girl I know this was her car right I know that they have a scent from her car to my house once you
bring her up even if I don't know her the nervousness of that could fail those tests I mean I don't like these tests
like 100% I just like when people are willing to take them because I I do think it gives us somewhat of a
barometer and also when they let you know which I don't like it when they just say oh well well he seemed to be
deceptive so he failed the test M I like when they come back and they go well look he passed everything but these two
questions there's some deception there okay well give me that and that gives me more to go on yeah despite the test
failure despite the Unexplained dog tracking or maybe they believe the do dog tracking I don't know but what we do
know is this Jesse continued to deny that he had any involved so much so to the point where he continued to tell
officers and detectives I don't even know this person I don't you know I I get that she's missing and I get that
you're looking for and I wish I could help but I don't know who she is I never met her I don't know what that vehicle
is and eventually police they do clear him of any involvement at all because they looked at this dude pretty tough
and pretty hard and they were unable to link him in any way to her right and that that's also becomes another problem
do you know this person remember Brian Schaefer a lot of people didn't know who Brian Schaefer was but if I would have
showed you a picture of him people would have been like I know that guy from somewhere yeah cuz of the hund and some
thousand Flyers we put everywhere right you know what I mean so how many Flyers were out there with her face on it how
much news coverage was there he could be sitting there going I I you know if I think his answer uh I think it was a 48
hours or something was really good when he said look if if I knew her I wasn't aware that I knew
her right and when looking at this Jesse Schultz guy what this leads investigators to is they start they they
take a look at a skateboarder friend of Jess his name is Ian and they also impounded a Nissan Ultima which may have
been Ian looking for evidence they apparently had reason to believe that maybe Taylor had been in the Ultima at
some point is my guess here Ian reportedly refused to take a polygraph test he's not as Cooperative as what
Jesse was was buddy just failed that's what you have to wonder about like if you know that your buddy didn't know
this girl and the police are telling him hey you failed your your poly you're not
going to be so excited to sit down for one yourself and we've talked about that many times like what good would come
from you taking one because if you pass it people go well that the test is [ __ ] but if you fail it most people
don't follow up with the test is [ __ ] well and if you want to be like uber cooperative and if you really want
to help the best way to do it and it's not cheap so a lot of people don't do this the best way to do it is to to you
do a bunch of cocaine get an attorney and then have your attorney set up a polygraph test and those results can
then be sent to investigators from from that I I like that process but again yeah after you take it a few times learn
how to beat the system you have to pay for the test you have to pay for the attorney all things that can be
expensive if you want good ones right uh they did look like we said police were looking at both of these guys uh Ian and
Jesse I think them being skateboarders and then a possible connection to Jesse even
though they couldn't find one this goes back to the thought of maybe she was planning to go skateboarding with them
or maybe she actually did know them right but it seems like they couldn't make that they being the investigator
investigators could not make that connection well I don't think you ever told us what happened as far as her
dad's her dad's girlfriend's son son he was questioned and looked at acting a little creepy cuz that that' be
very awkward oh my dad is now dating this girl and you you meet her kid for the first time and you're you're
attractive female so he's like well she's not she's not bad to look at that that would be a very awkward situation
well and who knows like I said I know very little about it because it wasn't reported on who knows the age of this
guy or right yeah cuz he could it was 35 yeah I mean I don't really know anything
about him I do know he was looked at and I have to believe that there was no connection couldn't take that portion of
the investigation anywhere or it would have been reported on in the media what what's clear though is I mean especially
like her friends from high school and then her family members these are almost a little bit
easier to investigate on some level because you can start eliminating people quickly because of the distance yeah so
even if oh the mom and daughter is close but well maybe they had a fight okay well the mom's two hours away so to to
establish aliis it's a lot easier and the other thing too I would think with the with her colleagues at school at VCU
it be easy to to clear people as well because this we're talking about people that are at an age where they're very
active and they're out and about and they're hanging out with other people it's real easy to establish as you said
an alibi for who was doing what and when right but here's here's the tough thing
though and and anybody would know this I mean you'd know this by even going to high
school when you get to a new school everybody's new you you're not forming your click yet so she was still
in the process if you would have told me she went missing at the end of her freshman
year again schedule habits routine the the people that she would be in daily contact weekly contact monthly
contact would be all those habits would be formed but because it's so early in the school
year a lot of those things are just not formed yet but you do have roommates like it's a situation where people
aren't living alone you know we cover so many of these cases it's like this guy says well he couldn't have done it
because he was 20 mil away well what was his Alibi he he didn't feel well he had
a headache he lives alone he sat at home watching some TV and went to bed early that night so the students at VCU at the
campus they held a vigil for Taylor this was on the night of September 19th but but hold on one one second with that
point though is yes when you have a college campus of 30 some thousand you normally have on that campus maybe a
half a million people that live on that campus most of them not going to that school if you go to the Ohio State
campus yeah there's hundred and some thousand kids that attend Ohio State campus but there's roughly like a
million in that area that don't go to school the while this this whole thing's going on here Captain so we're now at
September 19th and the investigators still don't have any real strong leads and mind you they're they're
really diving into every aspect of Taylor's life that they can find this being through friends this being through
her activities on social media they noted that there was another guy who was involved in Taylor's life this was not
Jacob this was not Jesse it was Ben Folly you might recall that this was the roommate of Taylor's friend Mike Cino
whom she stayed with on her two trips to VCU in the spring of 2005 while she was a senior in high
school so let's discuss this Benjamin Folly shall we yeah it'd be one of her oldest friends at VCU yep Ben Folly was
known around town because he was a quirky flamboyant character a self-proclaimed goth skater he always
had died Surfer style hair that changed colors regularly he drove what many would describe as a creeper van that was
completely covered with bumper stickers and old license plates yeah it was very strange they actually did a couple news
stories on his van because he would take it was a big creeper van but I think it
was painted black and then it was just covered from top to bottom with stickers and bumper stickers and every kind of
sticker and almost no paint visible on this thing yeah I mean when you saw it going down the road it it looked almost
like something from Mad Max or something so it's a novelty you know and that was
kind of neat that it was featured on couple local stories there news stories I guess maybe it's not technically a
creeper van maybe you don't describe it as that because it might have the size and shape of the traditional creeper van
but when you're when you're covered in bumper stickers and license plates you don't really blend in very well do you
right Folly was once a student at VCU he attended for seven years um do you think
he was studying to be a doctor probably or something he looks like a doctor he never graduated but when Taylor met him
at her friend's apartment where he was living he was no longer a student in fact he was like 38 years old yeah he
doesn't but but if you watch these interviews he didn't look that old at all I would say like early 20s you know
he dyed his hair a lot changed that up a lot but even in the interview they're like so why do you do this to your van
he's like yeah I just like stickers man he was like one of those guys right well
he had two children as well the children didn't live with him in fact they lived
rather far away with their mother well that's cuz he just likes having sex man but in regards to his age and being a
father of two I don't know that Taylor knew any of this we can't say CU we we don't know
what their conversations were but we're talking about a relationship a friendship for a few months you know at
at some point you know the truth will come out but this girl is coming um two hours away to come visit this college
campus you can be whoever you want or whoever you think she wants you to be because you're you're
spinning not as much time with her if that makes sense yeah and as the captain said you can see Ben Folly in these
interviews he actually gave an interview to 48 hours in a 2019 piece by Aaron moriori on the case he said that when he
first saw Taylor standing in the doorway of the apartment that he shared with Mike you know when she came to visit
that he thought she was extremely beautiful he said that they spent the entire weekend talking when they first
met and they shared so much in common including many opinions and feelings about different things Matt Beal
Taylor's father said that when he dropped Taylor off there in April he did meet he actually met this Ben Folly
right and he said said that Ben seemed to be to him seemed to be a very nice personable young man Matt said that he
assumed Folly was a student and was in his mid 20s at the oldest and just like you pointed out Captain he looked that
part uh we know now that neither of these assumptions were correct well there's a big difference I mean if you
look him up on Google images for example once they once his hair is chopped and and of a natural color then you go
oh okay yeah mid-30s pushing pushing 40 but with the pink hair or sometimes it's green hair
they I saw footage where he had purple hair you know it just makes him look especially his attitude like I said he
has that you know I'm just you know love dyeing my hair bro you right right paully and Taylor stayed in touch
apparently after Taylor's first visit to to VCU on her second visit she slept with him she told her friends that she
was curious about him and wanted to see what it would be like yeah now this is in spite of but
this is a look this individual there's plenty of women that you come in contact with that are
attractive you could tell that she is 17 18 years old and look maybe you know I don't want
to get into age gaps and relationships too much but it's like he he should that you know I I just find this wrong on
many levels yes yes 100% she's look she's a very attractive young lady very photogenic but you're absolutely right
there I didn't see one picture of her where I thought for a second that she was 20 21 she looked very 17 to me uh
her friends though even regardless of this whatever was going on between Taylor and this Ben Folly her friends at the
time say she's not very Taylor's not very sexually experienced and we do have some evidence
of Taylor and Folly's hookup from the digital banter between the two Folly commented online on live Journal posting
under his online name skulls that this very attractive girl CL hold on a second go ahead you're pushing
40 and your online name is skulls you know like come on with something better the but the thing with this dude man it
feels like to me the only thing that's really pushing 40 in his life is his actual age right you know what I mean
this guy his one day his brain turned 18 and it stayed there right so skulls our
friend skulls here posted this very attractive girl climbed up into my bunk at 407 and then Taylor whose online name
was I don't even know if you can say this Tia balage is what I how I would try to pronounce this but really it's
it's supposed to be jailbait spelled backwards okay she replied well I was curious to which schulls then replies
so was I in fact I still am uh Folly told 48 Hours That Taylor appreciated that he didn't treat her
like a child and that he respected her opinions yeah it's like he had sex with her but it it was like almost a con job
you know that's the way I view it do you think that here's like the vibe that I kind of get and I'm really totally
guessing here Captain but I get the vibe like she was aware that this guy was older that she that she wasn't dumb to
that no no that she wasn't that naive that she didn't understand that this guy's older you just wonder how much
older did he tell her he was you know 29 29's a lot different than than mid to late 30s right again and and if you have
children that you're not telling the person about you again you have that ability
you're on an island especially with those college campuses you're on an island you can pretend to be whoever you
want to be well Folly he goes on to tell 48 Hours about his game how he planned to
flatter Taylor telling her that he's an amateur photographer uhuh and that he wanted to
take pictures with her and this did happen you know he took some photographs of Taylor now we can
only assume that Taylor fell for Folly fell for his carefully constructed online Persona of this you know cool
dude who was into goth stuff like skulls photography and had had been he says he
even he even says that he had been a nude model at one time yeah he specialized in small p
Folly loved to post about himself and his Interest online obviously detailing his romantic Conquest goad hold on a
second CU here here's what I think happened I think she's going to go to the school
she knows she's going to go there she meets this meets up with somebody that from her hometown that goes to VCU his
roommate is there okay cool you're my friend by association now this guy is Smitten by the 17-year-old
they make plans to hang out he's taken pictures of her which a lot of times with these cases you can start googling
and it it I think it's better to wrap your head around the whole situation the more pictures you can have or the more
videos you can have yep but a lot of the pictures go in Google Images are stuff that this guy
took that's what you'll find of her and I think that as far as the sexual experience I think it was probably
simply a 17-year-old that probably drank a little bit and it was something that happened
because she later is telling her friends well yes we were physical but I I don't
want that to happen again right I'm not like that's it was a it was an accident right right all right well this Folly
guy he if you weren't already dialing into this already he has a bit of a dark side you
know he maintained websites with titles like dark evil goth in skulls. deviantart.com
featuring articles uh described as goth nude porn these included images of death and
Decay as well as photos of very young women we should probably say girls really right in all sorts of
compromising nude or scantily clad shots he also blogged about Taylor's visit in
April on his live Journal under his screen name uh this portion of my notes says screen name skulls
67 then Taylor came down to Richmond to visit for the weekend got out to Bell aisle amongst
other things I got some photos not as many as I would have liked but Taylor looked
cold from earlier posts about other women it seemed that taking photos on B Isle was a sort of a like a foreplay for
Folly mhm and Taylor for her part seemed to have a somewhat moodier darker Persona than she L on to many in her
life she had recently picked up smoking some of her online journals reflect a girl who didn't feel she had real
friends and who wanted something more out of her young life and her friends from the Starbucks where she worked in
Vienna before College said that she was always interested in older men and was known for flirting with them rather than
guys her own age it's possible that this Ben fol older Maybe maybe exotic seeming was just what possibly a
Restless young Tor was kind of looking for again that's where I go back to the idea of I don't I don't believe for a
second that she did not know or did not understand that he was older it's just what kind
of how different did she know he was than her we we also have a female that or should be that has been to many
schools 15 she understands the idea that when you're going into a new situation like
that especially when you're on an island it's not like you go into the school and
10% of those people know who you are going into the school where nobody knows who you are
so for her you know is she now a smoker because she went to college and for two weeks she been smoking I would look at
all that stuff as this is a Time time for her her to try things uh to experiment with things and discover who
she really is and who she wants to be so I I don't know if I would necess necessarily say that
she was darker sometimes people just need an Avenue to to vent about things and I think your spot on there Captain I
think we have this big change in her life this is a major change in her life she's moving off and going off to
college so there's probably a lot of things going on with Taylor what my suspicions are is that
she is a good judge of character and she's good at setting herself up and fitting in in a new place I just really
think that she doesn't really know who this Ben Folly guy [Music] is with all the uncertainty and the world
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Taylor Behl /// Part 1 /// 396

Part 1 of 2

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A young woman leaves her home and family to go off to college. After just two weeks she disappears. Join us in the Garage this week so we can discuss what happened and why. Beer of the Week - Blueberry Thrill from the Susquehanna Brewing CompanyGarage Grade - 3 and 3 quarter bottle caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

Taylor Beal, a college freshman, vanished after two weeks at VCU, prompting a complex investigation into her disappearance.

Key points

A Mother's Bond. Taylor's close relationship with her mother made her departure to college especially difficult.
The Disappearance of Taylor Beal. Taylor Beal, a promising college student, vanished just two weeks into her freshman year.
The Search Begins. After Taylor's disappearance, her friends and family launched a desperate search for her.
Taylor's Disappearance Gains National Attention. Taylor's case receives extensive media coverage, raising public awareness.
Investigation Intensifies with Amber Alert. Richmond Police issue an Amber Alert for Taylor, marking a significant escalation in the case.
Mysterious Car Discovery. Taylor's car is found with stolen license plates, raising suspicions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Taylor was very close with her mother.

6:24WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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