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foreign [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who is that Twist of lime that you absolutely needed
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but not necessarily asked for he is the captain it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for listening
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thanks for telling a friend [Music] today we are drinking up some blueberry thrill from our friends at saskahana
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Brewing Company this Rattler is zesty sweet bright and refreshing ABV 4.2 percent garage grade three and three
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quarter bottle caps out of five and this week we are giving cheers to our good friends here first up we have Catherine
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in Dallas Texas and the big shouts of Vanessa in the party room in Parts Unknown
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here we go Captain we have a shout out to Fatty Patty and Oviedo Florida and a big shout out to Ashton in Knoxville
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Tennessee next up we have Natalie in Portland Maine and last but certainly not least we have Aldi in Charlotte
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North Carolina thanks to everyone for contributing to this week's beer fund if you want to fill up the beer truck for
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garage give me more I need some more let me get through the announcements please go download the
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you can get off the record our bonus show and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a
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chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime thank you foreign [Music] so thanks to Taylor beale's online post
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investigators knew that Taylor and Ben folley had a past and continue to talk online and possibly even see each
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other but the more troubling thing here Captain is Ben Foley online claims to be
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an ex-con which absolutely turns out to be true so what did this uh doucheburger
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do well he had some charges for assault and breaking and entering and I think it
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goes even beyond that one thing that I find extra troubling here is statements we have from some of her
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friends that say that Taylor had gotten into this habit of parking her car on Ben
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Folly Street on the street that he lived on because there were no parking meters
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there for her to worry about so what I'm getting at here with this Captain is we have this situation where
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there seems to be some kind of friendship between the two it looks to me like Ben folley thinks
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that it is the Friendship is one thing that it is not and then we also have the situation of
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he he's got a violent past A History of Violence and he also probably could know when
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she's coming and going because he could visually see her vehicle parked on his Street
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well yeah and and again the ruse of I'll I'll take some photos for you and and we
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know that he's involved in these odd pornographic sites well and regardless of whatever their
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relationship was or their friendship I should say friendship because relationship makes it sound like
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something that it was not regardless of what their friendship was the the thing is her friends that knew
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about Folly all really say hey I think that she was starting to realize that Ben folley was more screwed up than she
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really wanted to deal with [Music] but again it appears that they may still have been hanging out now when
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questioned by police about this friendship with Taylor Ben Farley said that he had no idea where she was and he
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was worried about her he said the last time he saw her was around 9 30 p.m on that Monday night when she left his
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apartment after they he said after they hooked up police didn't believe him in fact they named him as one of several
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Persons of Interest in the case on October 3rd but the problem was Ben Folly maintained
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that he had an alibi but before Taylor had even been reported missing Ben folley went to the police
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station and filed a report alleging that he had been assaulted on the street by several guys the time frame that he
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cited for the attack was around 5 a.m on September 6th this occurred in an alley
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near Franklin Street and Monument Avenue Folly alleged that he was hit with an unknown object in a bag placed over his
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head and then he was thrown in a car and driven around by several men before being released on a dirt road and he had
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to hitch a ride home do we have evidence of this do we have the person that he hitched a ride from
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saying you know cooperating the story do we have any markings on his individual well so police looked carefully at this
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claim trying to determine like you said Captain whether this was true or not the problem is if it is true then it
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seems very likely that Folly could not have been responsible for abducting Taylor
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Folly filed this report around 4 pm on Tuesday he made vague references to the attack likely being a result of a
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long-running altercation with with an X or another photographer over writes to some photographs which all seems a
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little loosey-goosey to me well you know those photographers they like to they're
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a bad Bunch they they have they have a gang of people and they're going to abduct you and place a bag over your
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head and hit you with objects the police officer whose name appears on the incident report did note that Folly
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admitted that he was extremely he says he was extremely intoxicated when the alleged attack took
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place he also said that he took medication for bipolar disorder now yeah okay when let's dive into that real
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quick because most of the the medication that you would be on for bipolar are not things that you would one want
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to drink on but they could also cause you death if you do drink on those medications
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again though you are a level-headed individual who makes good decisions we once again find ourselves discussing a
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guy who does not make good decisions I would be taking this uh report as the officer and when I would say officer's
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name I'd put silly goose so the thing that I have trouble with here I don't know really why
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this would be considered any type of alibi because Folly says that he last Saw Taylor if we are to believe him at 9 30
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pm and then maintain that the attack happened at 5am right hours hours later seems to me like
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you had plenty of time to abduct or kill or do whatever during that that time frame well and we have
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footage of her leaving her dorm but they're going to find footage of him outside her dorm room
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yeah so but again he's not denying that they hung out that night well and the thing is I think what we
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have here is really kind of a front a bit of a tactic by police we saw how smart they were with the vehicle
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situation right surveillance of the vehicle yeah I think they thought hey this Ben folly
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he's pretty dumb he's pretty stupid we we had a meeting all right all of us investigators and police officers we got
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together and we took a vote and we decided this guy's a real idiot so here's how the meeting went hey uh raise
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your hand if you think this guy's a dumbass and there's like 19 hands went up and then one guy was just kind of
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sitting there playing on his phone he for he wasn't paying attention no one guy was one guy was like but I really
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like his van right you know when I saw it on the news it's pretty cool um so I think they all kind of agree
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this guy's an idiot and they're like publicly let's go out and say hey we we understand he's somebody that
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we're interested in we understand that there was some kind of friendship going on but we have to clear we have to
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figure this whole he was allegedly attacked situation out we have to figure out if he actually has
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an alibi or not make him think that you're kind of falling for it right and see if he does
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something dumb because this guy has nothing but a history of 30 some years of doing dumb things so
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it he may he may give you whatever you need he may give you that Smoking Gun so you can figure out what he has actually
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been up to because even though we have them on record saying that I don't believe that they were falling
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for anything that he was saying and I also like you said where's the evidence of this do where's the person that gave
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you the ride home yeah I'm trying to see where you're going with this because in my timeline I
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know what cops do next but I'm wondering if I'm missing something well I really think that it was just a
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to me it looks just like a front that they were putting on at the time I think behind closed doors they didn't think
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anything of this alleged attack other than it was a false Alibi that it was something that he created to explain
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away a big window of time that he needs to be accounted for well it seems like our thoughts about
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their investigation Captain are correct I mean they seem to be suspicious of folly and this did not come out until
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later but what we do know took place is that police did review that security camera surveillance footage
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from Taylor's dorm on the last night that she was seen and as said she is seen entering the building around 10 20
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p.m she walks through the lobby to the doors on the right hand side of the frame presumably to head up to her room
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but someone else then enters the lobby at 10 21 and paces around for a few minutes clearly waiting for someone and
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who is this person boner sniffer so his statement of hey I last saw her in the nine o'clock hour
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can't be true you followed her in we have video surveillance footage of you following
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her into the lobby of her residence at 10 20 in the 10 o'clock hour right and then she's going to come back
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out to hang out with them so again we know he's lying about the time frame or just misremembering but
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it's almost like he knew that he was caught on tape so he has to admit that he was hanging
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out with her that night I don't understand this whole I was attacked and that's setting up an alibi
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but the time frame would be early morning hours and not around that 10 P.M to 12 p.m window
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but I think where he really messed up is when he was telling the cops well and uh we hooked up that night now we
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have her friends saying yes they were intimate before but she didn't want to do that again that's not to say that she
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wouldn't have been intimate with him again I mean we we have proof that she was intimate with him before so I would
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actually argue that that would mean there's more of a possibility just because she told her friends that she
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didn't want to do it again but that leads to please to go well she's 17. and this is going to be enough
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for us to get a search warrant to search his apartment well you are exactly right because
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what's going on here I believe reading between the lines I think that police had an idea that Folly was with her at a
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time that he did not give to them I think they knew that for a while I think there are they are trying to figure out
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what else was he involved in and I also think that just because they didn't ask him about that 10 o'clock hour
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he may be unaware of the security camera footage that he was seen on camera they
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were seen on camera together at 10 24 and then they both leave now their joint departure is not actually caught on
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camera but neither of them are seen on camera again so we can assume that they left together well here's why I'm saying
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not not maybe the footage that the cops actually had but here's this guy that's been around campus long enough to know
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the campus is heavily secure there's tons of security cameras everywhere so knowing that you met her on campus you
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could just assume that at some point they have you on video footage right and maybe the 9 30 thing is his way of
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trying to explain that away right but also by just saying knowing that you met her on campus
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this is why you have to tell the police well I was with her that night for a little bit we hooked up and then she
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left and I don't know what happened to her so the security surveillance footage plus the fact that he willingly tells
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police we hooked up she's under age this is enough to allow officers to obtain a
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certain search warrant for Ben Farley's apartment which was located at 407 Hancock Street
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on September 16th they went in and searched this apartment and the search warrant must have included you know you
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have to specifically State what you are seeking in this war it must have included electronic devices
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because we know that police left carrying some computers after this first search
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and what they found on those computers led to the arrest of Ben Foley on September 23rd Captain would you like to
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do the honors and inform us as to what was found on these computers well what's interesting I don't think it's just on
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the computers I think maybe also on disk and things like that there was a lot of
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child pornography he tries to explain that away by saying well some of this was left
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by the tenant before me I I didn't even know it was there but that kind of explain away the child
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pornography that was actually found on the hard drives and that he had multiple uh computers
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with extremely large amounts of hard drive space I mean especially for that time
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2005. that's right there so there wasn't really anything on the computer's linking Folly directly to Taylor's
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disappearance although there were those pictures of her that we we discussed hundreds of pictures of her yeah and
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hundreds of pictures hundreds of images of child pornography well not just what it's described but in
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the media release yeah I mean not just that but also just tons of very no I I don't know what the correct term
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would be but you have pornography and then you have this more like this uh demonic uh
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pornography okay so this next bit's going to the next 90 seconds might get a little difficult to listen to but here's
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what I have in my notes okay so police said they discovered a massive quote a massive amount of extremely graphic
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child pornography featuring children as young as three and four years old being raped by some reports as many as seven
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computers loaded with pornography were confiscated from the apartment according to the Richmond Times Dispatch senior
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assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Mike jaggles later told judge Kimberly O'Donnell that there were as many as 30
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movie files discovered on computers that were removed from Folly's apartment some
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depicting acts with minors as young as one this is this is it just tough to even read
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miners as young as one or two years old and others featuring individuals 10 to 14 years old Folly of course maintained
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that the computers were not his as you pointed out he says they belong to a former resident of the apartment no one
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was buying this load of crap that he was trying to shovel uh right but this is just proves how
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this guy's story changes constantly he's always has some excuse for things and and so that's when you really know that
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most likely whatever happened to her was at the hands of this individual so like we said this results in his
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arrest it also results in a second more comprehensive search of his apartment well that but here's what's great we can
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put him in jail for these charges and then because of these charges we can go back and look for more evidence
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we can build our case and know exactly where he is and hold him and he can't do anything to
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get rid of evidence in the process [Music] so the things that they were looking for
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in the second search many of the items that were listed on the search warrant included
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things that would belong to Taylor you know her clothing her her jeans a black hoodie sneakers black
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watch bracelets Saint Francis necklace student ID Nokia cell phone and car keys all of that's listed on the warrant also
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listed were skateboards sometimes you want to put a generic term out there so you can take any skateboard that you
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find burglary tools this would probably go back to his previous convictions they were also looking for
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knives hammers shovels and pry bars and I found this to be strange there's always something strange listed on these
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search warrants on here we have the ever suspicious Pepperidge Farm cookie boxes
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what yeah I couldn't figure out I have no idea why this would be on the warrant the cops were hungry I don't know if if
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they had a reason to believe that she would have had one of these cookie boxes in her possession at the time that she
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went missing and maybe that then they can go okay is it it might be a coincidence but it also
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might be a sign that she was here right later that night I don't have a complete and complete
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list of what was found in the apartment but here's what we do know was taken out
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of the house pursuant to the search warrants uh women's white underwear a laptop
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computer a Macintosh computer a digital camera sex toys including two dildos and
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spiked bracelets a knife two bags of clothes from a garbage can outside of the house a beaded necklace with a cross
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from this was removed from the garbage as well a bicycle chain necklace a watch from the garbage can a 35 millimeter
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camera a box containing bones he collected weird things like that everybody has a right to have weird [ __ ]
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oh yeah yeah we we we all probably own some weird [ __ ] uh rolls of film I mean
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we probably don't have a bunch of dildos laying around uh a black bra a machete cigarette butts
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a prescription bottle skateboards they did find skateboards a yearbook a hatchet a
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hammer a pry bar a 32 caliber cartridge and a partridge in a pear tree I mean it just goes on
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and on and on the one thing that was rather interesting of note here Captain police also removed a section from a box
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spring that was stained with some kind of reddish brown substance they did include
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and executed a warrant for Follies hair and DNA samples not found or Taylor cell phone that they were
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looking for her college ID her car keys again anything linking Folly Ben Folly directly to Taylor's disappearance does
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not seem to have been found just on the child porn possession alone police had enough to charge Folly with a
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felony and as you said hold him while they continue to build a case against him regarding Taylor's
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disappearance and they also charged him with a possession of a firearm because remember
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he's a convicted felon he's not legally permitted to be in possession of a gun but their investigation takes a pretty
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interesting turn as far as because you you collected all this stuff but but where do you go from that I mean
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that none of this other than the child porn pornography can you charge them with or like you
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said the the gun possession charge so you can add that on top of things but well they're going to go to the public
00:23:56
for help okay because on October 11th police announced that they were specifically interested
00:24:04
in the sightings of the following items between the dates of September 5th and September 17th
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they want to know had anybody seen a white Ford Escort that's remember that's the vehicle Virginia license plate
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JPC 2848 and they asked the public to call in sightings of the vehicle and a description of whomever may have been
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driving the vehicle at the time they wanted to know who had been driving Taylor's car around Richmond during that
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time that they can't figure out where it was they also wanted people to report any
00:24:40
sightings of of Virginia personalized license plates grn e-r-t-h this was a plate stolen from a
00:24:52
vehicle around the time Taylor disappeared and police believed it might have been in Folly's possession
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and they also sought information about that Ohio state license plate as well right
00:25:06
so what's interesting to me is while they need the Public's help it seems like they have a general idea of what
00:25:14
was going on at the time he abducted he did something to Taylor and was moving her vehicle around during
00:25:21
the time that it was unaccounted for and he may have been switching out the plates multiple times along the way
00:25:28
right because if you know this girl's missing you you see what kind of car she has
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how many people saw that car looked at the license plates and went well that's not her car yeah yeah it also came out
00:25:42
around the same time the media reported that Folly used his credit card to buy gas in New Kent County
00:25:49
between Matthews County and Richmond on the night that Taylor disappeared so this really kind of to me
00:25:58
would suggest that his later claim that he was attacked there doesn't seem to be any time left
00:26:04
for that to actually have taken place it's the old Jesse Smollett jumped farce we got going on there
00:26:12
meanwhile Taylor's family lawyer cleaned out Taylor's dorm room taking all of her possessions back to
00:26:20
her hometown of Vienna and they stated Taylor's family basically stated even if she is found alive
00:26:28
she's not going to be returning to VCU at this time there's too much going on here and because at this point you have
00:26:36
to believe that she's abducted and so if you do find her alive there's no way that you're going to want as her parents
00:26:44
for her to be around that vicinity to have any of those bad memories well things are looking very very Bleak by
00:26:52
this time and now they're really honing in on Folly and he's locked up and they can
00:26:59
start they want to start going through his Social Circles now we're going to publicly ask the public for help but
00:27:05
we're going to get into his Social Circles and ask these people for help and one of the people that they come
00:27:11
across is this young woman named Aaron who was also a VCU student and somewhat of a friend or acquaintance of Taylor's
00:27:20
an oddly kind of looks like she could be related to Taylor and definitely looks like uh Taylor's mother like there's a
00:27:29
lot of similarities there and she's a little older than Taylor um she's 23 at the time
00:27:37
apparently she dated Ben folley for some time I guess they only dated for a couple of months before Aaron broke up
00:27:45
with him well and she she probably didn't want to come forward because it was such an embarrassment
00:27:52
that she dated this douche and in the first place well I think she was the one that the charges some of his previous
00:28:00
convictions stem from so well he had a history of me crazy after these girls after a while
00:28:07
well yeah but oddly he would he would start dating them and because oh let me take pictures of you you're so beautiful
00:28:15
and he would make these girls feel like they're the best thing in the world but then that became oh well now I'm
00:28:24
jealous of everybody else and I just love you so much that I'm jealous of everybody else and then become
00:28:30
aggressive almost like self-sabotaging the relationship like well and here's the thing too Captain what we got going
00:28:37
on now we've seen a lot of these types of cases anytime detectives think that we have somebody who needs to hide
00:28:44
something that they never ever want anyone to find they start asking the people that know
00:28:50
them best okay is there anywhere that he like to Camp or go fishing or go hunting
00:28:57
you know outdoor activities what does he do and where does he go so they start talking to Aaron
00:29:04
they start showing her picture after picture from his photography web page because they need her to identify some
00:29:15
of these locations here's a picture tell us where you think this area is yeah he'd take pictures of girls and things
00:29:21
like that but he would also take pictures of like old rundown sheds and you know just fields and in random items
00:29:30
and locations so one photo that caught her eye you know she's looking at photo after photo finally she sees one and
00:29:38
she's like holy moly this might be something here this is a photo of an old abandoned house with like a tin lean-to
00:29:46
attached to it the house was oddly enough located on her family farm which was about 90 miles away from
00:29:56
Richmond in Matthews County right and I think he she took him there at some point maybe they even
00:30:02
shot shot those photos together well and remember we talked about Folly purchasing gas with his credit card
00:30:10
right out that night now all of a sudden this photo of an old abandoned house 90
00:30:16
miles away out in the middle of nowhere seems very important [Music] foreign [Music]
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comfortable life [Music] [Music] all right we're back cheers mates thank you so much for donating to the Beer fun
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I am sipping on some nice Brew because of you thank you for subscribing thank you for telling a friend about our
00:34:28
little garage show too and thanks for telling your friends not to listen to and thank you to you captain and thank
00:34:34
you and thank you and thank you to our friends that lesson all right we might have might have had a few too many yeah
00:34:40
I love you man on October sober up right on October 5th police headed out to the site where that
00:34:48
photo was taken this accompanied by Aaron they creepy photo yeah and they're going to be searching this whole area
00:34:56
and before too long they identified a body and a plastic bag in a ditch off the side of a wooded Road The Remains
00:35:05
were very decomposed but were wearing clothing that was similar to what Taylor was wearing when she disappeared sure
00:35:13
enough the medical examiner soon identified the remains as Taylor Beale based on dental records one thing about
00:35:22
this girl that's helping out the police there she goes out to her family's property she doesn't know what she's
00:35:28
going to find they've they find Taylor she then has to think about the relationship she had with this person
00:35:38
and how that possibly could have been her uh that would be a very traumatic um experience
00:35:45
there are several theories as to why this area may have been chosen for the the dump site
00:35:55
you know they seem a little odd who knows what was going on in the mind of the person who placed her there
00:36:02
so there there's one theory that I do find this interesting I don't think it has anything really to do with the case
00:36:08
but there's a thought that maybe Ben Foley thought if he put her on Aaron's family's property that maybe
00:36:17
it would get confusing to investigators and Aaron could somehow be involved in Taylor's disappearance possibly we
00:36:25
know he lies about everything I think what likely happened is this is just unfortunately maybe a place that popped
00:36:34
into his mind when he thought of like we said earlier hey I got something I don't
00:36:38
want anybody to ever find and he thought this was a good place to put it well they're going to go back
00:36:45
with this information this is basically now the cops have a loaded gun that they
00:36:50
can point at him and he's going to start confessing to what he claims happened that night yeah and one thing that they
00:36:59
will be equipped with when they go in to talk with folly is they took some soil samples from the
00:37:09
undercarriage of Taylor's vehicle and they were able to match those two soil samples taken from the area where the
00:37:16
body was found so they are able to piece a lot of this together before they even talk to them
00:37:22
they know where she was found they have a general idea of what happened to her being that she was either abducted or
00:37:28
killed and then transported in her own vehicle out to that location and then we know the vehicle came back to the VCU
00:37:36
Campus area and was was placed there now Taylor died in a manner that did not leave
00:37:44
visible marks on her body so they were unable to determine the exact cause of death there was no broken
00:37:52
bones or obvious signs of death now mind you she rather decomposed at this time Folly continued to deny that he had
00:38:01
anything to do with this but that's not going to last very long Captain just like you pointed out because he will
00:38:09
he will offer up some kind of confession well of sorts and this was against the recommendation of his attorney
00:38:19
Folly told investigators that on the night of September 5th he and Taylor had driven out to a beach in the Matthews
00:38:28
County area to hook up he said he was very drunk and high at the time and was off his meds the two engaged in what he
00:38:38
called rough sex and he said Taylor accidentally died according to him the two had played a sex game and it was all
00:38:47
Taylor's idea she wanted to try erotic asphyxiation but it backfired and when she died he panicked and dumped her body
00:38:56
in that ravine although he tried to spin this off as some type of accident Folly himself may have made mention of
00:39:07
what he planned to do to Taylor in one journal entry by skalls 67 in a journal subtitled playing with fire
00:39:18
the trash of a crazy ex-con he wrote about his sexual Conquest with Partners referred to by their initials like K and
00:39:27
E he also talked about someone with the initials t and said that there was something he
00:39:35
quote still wanted to try with her this was before Taylor died Taylor's mother was quick to dispute
00:39:43
Folly's version of the events of course she says let's be clear Ben Folly murdered my daughter
00:39:51
she said in a news conference his claim that it was accidental is just one more perversion of the truth and his
00:39:59
ever-changing Web of Lies yeah he he claims that there they went out to this location they're trying to hook up
00:40:06
they're in the backseat of the car that he was drunk and and high in an office medication all that stuff
00:40:13
they were trying to put a bag over her head during sex that wasn't really working because she wanted to pass out
00:40:21
this is what he's claiming and so then he took the bag off her head but then put it around her nose and mouth now
00:40:28
once she stopped breathing here's a strange thing is during his confession he doesn't dump the body that night he
00:40:35
doesn't he doesn't just go oh I gotta get rid of her and take the car back he claims that he comes back to VCU
00:40:44
with her body in the back seat and and that the cars parked there for a day or so then he drives back out to
00:40:53
that same location and then and dumps her there um but again this guy will lie about
00:41:01
everything yeah and as you pointed out earlier his story changes when it needs to
00:41:06
you know he has an excuse he has a story he has an alibi until boom you present him with facts with truthful evidence
00:41:14
and facts that you know to be true and then he says well here's a different story for you
00:41:21
well I'll be here's the thing though is he already has more and more charges that are mounting against him
00:41:28
yeah and what's difficult though for the prosecution and for the state Captain is
00:41:33
that we do have this while it does not seem likely it is a plausible defense of this was an
00:41:41
accident and maybe he shouldn't be charged with murder we also have the problem that we really have very little
00:41:48
forensic evidence in this case at all so it's going to take a good amount of time
00:41:53
in fact it was not until January 17th of 2006 that a grand jury handed down an indictment of folly this was for first
00:42:04
degree murder I would love I would have loved to try this case once the uh grand jury was
00:42:14
told and it was explained that the medical examiner could not have identified an exact cause of death
00:42:22
because of the decomposition then we have an indictment that was amended to second-degree murder
00:42:30
the death penalty obviously going to be off the table at this point now despite holes in their case prosecutors went
00:42:37
full steam ahead preparing for a trial working with investigators trying to build a circumstantial case to prove
00:42:45
that Taylor was not the initiator of this so-called sex game that she was not into bondage or erotic
00:42:54
affixiation or really that she would not have consented to any of this crap and that that Folly killed her and probably
00:43:03
deliberately killed her it was not an accident by any stretch of the imagination well on his defense team is
00:43:09
saying well she was she wanted to try this because he had tons of pornography on his computer and showed her some
00:43:16
different things and she was like oh I'd like to try that yeah that's what he claims but but it
00:43:23
doesn't matter I mean the the idea that that uh anybody female or male would be on trial for wanting to try something
00:43:31
sexually that's her right to that doesn't equal being murdered right you know so it doesn't matter how you
00:43:41
slice it doesn't matter if it was his idea or her idea that does that should never equal murder
00:43:48
so what we have here Captain is in August of 2006 the murder trial is about to begin
00:43:57
but what we get and I man I so love this we get a gift for the prosecution because Folly opens up his big fat mouth
00:44:08
that's right Folly made the mistake of talking and his defense attorneys got wind of this and a jailhouse
00:44:14
conversation with an officer Folly described he has set it up a little bit better because
00:44:21
he is coming back to his cell after after this like um there was a meeting and and basically this
00:44:32
this Web of Lies that he's been casting he claims that it's the ultimate chess move
00:44:39
right he says he's playing a chess game and really this story that he came up about Taylor's accidental death was
00:44:47
really just that just a story designed to clear him to take the heat off of him explain away what happened but it's not
00:44:56
what actually happened um and then we have a little bit more but holy okay because you you know this
00:45:04
better than me this is the part that's kind of confusing to me because he makes that a mission to
00:45:10
uh this officer and then the officer lets the defense team know they can't they can't represent that
00:45:20
idea because they know it's a lie is that right no I think the thought here is we have people that are going to
00:45:30
testify that he was lying about this story right and and then we have this weird thing where he's writing letters
00:45:38
from jail to a female friend the prosecution gets a hold of these letters they did not help Folly's case
00:45:46
I don't know exactly what was in these letters but these were mentioned during this portion of the story right and what
00:45:54
this leads to is by August 9th we have Folly Consulting with his attorneys and they decide that Folly should take an
00:46:05
Alfred plea for second-degree murder in exchange for prosecutors dropping the child pornography charges
00:46:15
out at The Plea proceedings prosecutors and defense attorneys were able to present their cases to the judge whose
00:46:22
job it is then to determine whether there was enough evidence to Warrant Folly taking such a plea
00:46:30
the confession his tapes of his confession or so-called confession were played in court and later transcripts
00:46:38
were released to the media more details about this confession came out and you went through quite a bit of that when
00:46:44
you were telling us about what happened I one thing I found weird was it cites that Taylor wanted to play a
00:46:52
game that she called drunk monkey I don't know and again it's it's almost it seems a little silly to go through
00:47:01
this confession when we know so much of it is just completely false and we can we can say that based off of
00:47:10
his plea off of his later plea where he accepts that he's going to be convicted of this
00:47:17
yeah I mean and again I I have some questions but I don't think it matters like was she alive when they went out to
00:47:26
this location I don't know did he did he bring did he actually bring the body back
00:47:32
did he bring Taylor back I don't know you know I don't think it matters I think at the end of the day no matter
00:47:41
what he States everything else again he can still say he's still staying in prison I'm not the cause of
00:47:51
her death she wanted to try something that was an accident well we know that you told people hey
00:47:57
I'm a genius I came up with this excuse but everything else points to to murder right this this happens she blacks out
00:48:11
she stops breathing you don't call 9-1-1 you then claim that you transport her body back to Camp campus not telling
00:48:20
anybody that equals murder you then changed license plates multiple times on that car that equals murder
00:48:30
you then lie to the cops about what happened that equals murder you then lie to everybody and tell her family almost
00:48:38
in a braggadocious way well we hooked up that night no you didn't you probably raped her
00:48:44
that equals murder you then constantly lie about everything and all these twists and turns and take
00:48:53
not only the police but the family members of your victim on this wild ride all that stuff equals murder
00:49:03
and then you put her out in the middle of nowhere and her and this is what her mom says
00:49:13
for her body to be eaten by animals and bugs and insects because you don't have respect for human
00:49:21
life you won't have respect for this young lady this was not your friend because all that stuff equals murder
00:49:33
well and unfortunately it seems like for Ben Folly well for those around him anyway that he was ramping up to
00:49:42
something like this probably for quite some time now I don't have those all those letters
00:49:48
that he wrote to his friend while he's in jail but well hold on for a second ladies get better friends
00:49:54
you you know who Who's the who who's the person communicating with this [ __ ] you
00:50:02
know well we do have a portion of one of those letters and this is going to be what really is going to seal the deal
00:50:09
here and they read this aloud in the uh The Plea proceedings I believe that all of them all of these
00:50:19
letters were read but the one that made its way to the media is this and this is
00:50:23
directly from Folly's Written Letter to his friend he says quote people don't like me they never do as a child I had
00:50:31
no friends I was a bother in the way a problem so I spent most my life alone I never liked the thoughts in my head
00:50:40
people are right something is wrong with me all the thoughts of killing and death
00:50:45
in my head and now it's true I've killed someone these are his own words at the conclusion of the Alfred plea hearing
00:50:54
judge William Shaw III found that there was substantial evidence that Folly was guilty of murdering Taylor Beale he
00:51:02
sentenced Folly to 40 years with 10 years suspended Folly would serve 30 years Taylor beale's case is famous because it
00:51:14
is one of the first to be solved using the victim's social media police were able to narrow down the
00:51:22
suspect list very quickly because of her postings online Taylor's funeral was held the day after
00:51:29
her 18th birthday Benjamin Foley is scheduled to be released on November 14 2031.
00:51:37
no that's just too soon Janet Taylor's mother has published a book called love you more the Taylor Beale story and has
00:51:48
become an outspoken advocate for victims Taylor's friend Aaron crabill received a
00:51:55
twenty thousand dollar reward for her assistance in locating Taylor with some of the reward money she established a
00:52:02
fund for women in crisis in honor of Taylor Beale [Music] foreign thanks for joining us here in the garage
00:52:27
Nick do we have any recommended reading yes we do my fine Captain this week we are recommending without a Prayer by
00:52:36
Susan Ashland this is without a prayer the death of Lucas Leonard and how one Church became a cult you'll want to pick
00:52:44
up this book because this is a very tragic and weird case and if you pick up without a prayer you're going to find
00:52:52
out the how but also the why and you don't have to write that title down right now no you can just go to
00:52:59
truecrimegarage.com and click on the recommended page and we will have that title amongst others right there for you
00:53:06
and make sure you sign up on our mailing list while you're at the website truecrime garage.com and until next week
00:53:12
why don't you be good be kind and please don't listen foreign [Music]