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[Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:47
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who famously knows a lot of mothers he is the captain
00:01:55
yeah my friend Jen was saying we should make a shirt that says I'm the mother you should know no it's good to be seen
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and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend this week we are very happy to be
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featuring blueberry thrill by the creative minds over at susah Hana Brewing Company this is a beautiful
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thanks to all of you out there in listener land I want to give a special cheers and thank you to our friend cat
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over at Harvey's Lake Pennsylvania and a big shout out to an in Dallas Texas next
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up we have Jenny and Georgetown Ontario Canada and a big we like your jib to Jason and Jinx Oklahoma next up we have
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mentioned went to True Crim garage.com and clicked on the Donate button and donated to this week's beer fund and for
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that we we thank you very much yeah BW r n beer run and if you need more of the garage download the Stitcher app it is
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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
00:03:32
grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime [Music] every parent feels torn when they send
00:04:26
their child off to college torn between between feeling excited for their son or daughter for
00:04:32
the education and Adventures that lie ahead and feeling anxious about their newly independent child's safety choices
00:04:42
and well-being for most parents the anxiety lessens as they see their son or daughter settling into college thriving
00:04:52
making a new life but for one family the parents' worst fears came true their beautiful smart beloved daughter
00:05:04
went off to college and never came home how did this co-ed disappear just 2 weeks into her first
00:05:16
semester this is true crime garage and this is the case of Taylor Beal [Music] Taylor Beal was a 17 18-year-old girl
00:06:00
who lived with her mom Janet pelasara in Vienna Virginia Vienna is an upper middle class suburb of Washington DC
00:06:09
with the small town feel despite its population of 15,000 people Vienna was ranked third in Money magazine's list of
00:06:18
top 100 places to live in 2013 Taylor was very close with her mother and the two lived in various
00:06:26
places around the world including London in Belgium with Janet's husband at the time Janet's husband was an officer in
00:06:35
the Royal Air Force eventually settling back in Virginia when Taylor was 11 Taylor was used to traveling of course
00:06:44
and even flew alone internationally at the age of five this under the care of the airline this is a a really unique
00:06:53
kind of experience for a young child I remember when I was 10 I flew by myself without Parents Without family it's
00:07:01
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
00:07:06
that smelly guy you sat next to of course I wasn't um flying internationally that would have been
00:07:12
weird my flight was like 1 hour long but it was really neat Captain because they
00:07:17
did like a special check-in for me you know when they were boarding the plane I got to get on the plane
00:07:23
early and the flight attendant introduced me to the pilot or some guy pretending to be the pilot and cleaning
00:07:32
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
00:07:38
close to her mother that's like an understatement but she was also close with her father Matt even though her
00:07:45
parents divorced before she even turned 2 years old Taylor graduated from James Madison High School in Vienna the 15th
00:07:54
school she had attended in her life that shows you how much she had moved around
00:08:00
at just a young age and one of the colleges she was interested in was Virginia Commonwealth University known
00:08:08
as VCU which is a great College great basketball program uh the VCU Rams shout out to the Rowdy Rams VCU is located on
00:08:20
the west side of Richmond Virginia and the school focuses on biotech and life sciences Taylor visited VCU twice in the
00:08:32
spring of her senior year in high school one visit was in February of 2005 with her father Matt when the two of them
00:08:42
made their 2-hour drive to check out the campus Matt dropped Taylor off at the apartment of a friend of hers from
00:08:50
Vienna so she could experience a little Campus Life at VCU this was the apartment of upper
00:08:58
classman Mike Ceno and his roommate Ben FY Taylor Made a second visit to the same place in April of that same year
00:09:09
now she must have liked VCU because she enrolled in the large school of 31,000 students and started her freshman year
00:09:17
on August 19th 2005 her departure for college was hard on Taylor's mom Janet even though she
00:09:26
was only 2 hours away this was very difficult for for Janet as I said they were very tight even would give the
00:09:34
appearance of almost best friends at times well and she was the only daughter so they had a pretty strong bond because
00:09:41
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
00:09:49
to do with her parents in fact she would still hold hands with her mom when they
00:09:54
went places together the two of them even volunteered as elves every Christmas for a local charity and spent
00:10:01
a lot of time together while Janet was nervous about her daughter heading off to college in the large city of Richmond
00:10:08
Virginia of course she knew that it was the best thing for Taylor BCU is a good school and Taylor was very excited for
00:10:18
the next chapter in her Young Life Taylor has been described in articles about her as quite mature for her age
00:10:26
she was working at Starbucks and choosing to hang out at jaming java coffee house sipping cappuccino and
00:10:34
listening to local Indie bands that sounds like something the captain would have been caught doing in his when he
00:10:42
was just 16 years old yeah I don't know about Indie bands but didn't you go to the coffee shop
00:10:49
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
00:10:55
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
00:11:05
picked our nose right drinking uh sipping cappuccino friend of mine used to just say hey that's just $3
00:11:12
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
00:11:21
Janet took comfort that her daughter would make good choices even not under her roof Taylor was very she wasn't a
00:11:30
very Avid user of social media keep in mind this is 2005 so social media looked quite different than it does today yeah
00:11:38
Facebook wasn't probably even in VCU yet well the platforms that she was using to
00:11:46
post her daily musings and blog and about her life were a little dated to say the least she used Myspace her photo
00:11:56
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
00:12:03
meeting site called myplace.com and used a site called live Journal as well well my space was like pre Facebook
00:12:14
it was the Facebook before the Facebook became the Facebook but oh yeah but it was also it was wildly popular too yeah
00:12:22
and different than Facebook because you could actually create a page change the colors it it was weird because I was a
00:12:30
big Myspace user and when Facebook came around it became well why are we going to this other thing that gives us less
00:12:38
options like there was more fun things to do and you could customize uh your your Myspace a lot
00:12:46
more yeah I remember that being a weird time too because it was like there there
00:12:49
was nothing wrong with Myspace but somehow we transition to Facebook we're going to bring it back we'll bring back
00:12:56
Myspace yeah we're starting with the garage on myplace.com we're talking about her
00:13:03
social media she wrote Under the name bitter her online post and photos show that she was a little naive I don't know
00:13:13
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
00:13:23
journaling on some of these things and I and I took quite a bit of time and read
00:13:27
through them and it was a little sad and tragic just even reading through them cuz they still exist to this day and you
00:13:35
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
00:13:44
time well you're right that's like the coffee shop thing that's a very you know typical you know quote
00:13:50
unquote like college thing to do let's go get some cappuccino listen to some singer songwriter music like and so so
00:13:59
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
00:14:06
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
00:14:13
wrote in early summer of 2005 it says quote I just graduated from high school and now
00:14:20
I'm off to Richmond I'm looking forward to meeting people that are in Richmond because I only know a few people down
00:14:27
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
00:14:35
open invitation to um that's something that we probably would steer away from but um she's outgoing and Taylor had a
00:14:45
relationship of sorts that was going on at the time in fact she detailed that on
00:14:51
her online Journal uhuh talking about her budding relationship with a fellow VCU student this is a boy named Jacob
00:15:01
Cunningham she loved that he was into the same things right he didn't drink he didn't
00:15:08
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
00:15:18
things between Taylor and Jacob weren't going the way Taylor wanted and another friend of Taylor said that Jacob had
00:15:25
dumped her online and Taylor was up about this that's very mature of him I'm going to
00:15:31
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
00:15:38
dating this individual before she left for school it looks to me like as soon as she you know mind you February and
00:15:46
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
00:15:53
attend right VCU it seems to me like as soon as she has decided on that college that she's openly on
00:16:02
social media sending out invites to chat with people and get to know people in the area so that once she arrives she's
00:16:08
going to hit the ground running and already have a little bit of a uh you know solid base of friends going on yeah
00:16:16
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
00:16:22
freshman week of getting to know people and getting getting familiar with the col but that's a that was a small
00:16:31
College this is a lot bigger they might not have programs like that um that would be very difficult yeah it's only 2
00:16:37
hours away but you're also a little bit younger than everybody and so getting that Community around you would be
00:16:46
definitely important what's interesting to me is it it seems like we talked about her moving around a lot as a
00:16:54
younger child she's already kind of adapted to this you know she's already figured out how
00:17:01
to set up shop in a new town a new city New State sometimes new country yeah like you said 15 times 15 different
00:17:09
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
00:17:17
before things start to go weird right so on Labor Day weekend 2005 when Taylor had been at school for just two weeks
00:17:28
she met up with some guys on Saturday night to go skateboarding according to one of these guys his name is Kevin the
00:17:35
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
00:17:46
Taylor three or four times but described her as a normal girl who was very trusting Kevin said that Taylor was
00:17:54
heading home to vien the next day to spend some time with her mom this was correct after spending Sunday and most
00:18:02
of Monday at home Taylor returned to campus on Monday afternoon she called her father at 6:45 to say she was back
00:18:13
safely on campus and she had dinner with the guy that she was sort of dating his
00:18:18
name again Jacob yeah but this wasn't a normal dinner they they met uh to discuss their relationship apparently
00:18:28
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
00:18:36
makeup and we're going to be boyfriend girlfriend I think it was this is going to
00:18:42
end am I correct on that well there are some differing stories speculations but I I believe that's his comments today is
00:18:51
that they they left on friendly terms yes yes you're absolutely right Kevin her skateboarding buddy later said that
00:18:59
he saw her alone around 8:45 p.m. that night and said that Taylor was excited for her upcoming birthday which would be
00:19:07
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
00:19:18
planning on doing something quote unquote illegal what that was Kevin does not know what that was I do not know
00:19:28
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
00:19:38
campus turning 18 years old it kind of feels like drinking might be the thing she
00:19:44
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
00:19:52
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
00:20:00
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
00:20:11
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
00:20:20
later questioned and there were no additional calls to or from her phone at this time notee that time again was
00:20:30
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
00:20:44
found that her roommate was entertaining a Young Man Taylor had to vacate the was
00:20:50
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
00:20:57
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
00:21:05
the door I I keep running into these naked people uh she grabbed her keys her car
00:21:12
keys her phone and some cash and took off telling Emma that she was going to go skateboarding and that she would be
00:21:19
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
00:21:25
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
00:21:33
see you're with somebody I'm going to go skateboard do some stuff I'll be gone for a few hours
00:21:40
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
00:21:47
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
00:21:54
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
00:22:02
day yeah so the glading residence Center security cameras show footage of Taylor
00:22:09
walking out of her lobby at 10:24 p.m. these security cameras do not show Taylor returning in fact she was not
00:22:19
seen again after this time that was 10:24 p.m. Taylor's roommate Emma went about her day on Tuesday September 6th
00:22:30
but then that evening she noticed that Taylor had still not come back and none of her things had been touched by this
00:22:37
point and on Wednesday morning she informed the VCU Campus Police that her roommate had never returned to their
00:22:45
dorm and had been gone close to 36 hours the VCU Campus Police started looking for Taylor and guess that she
00:22:56
had left the dorm and gone somewhere in her car as the vehicle is missing as well campus police called Janet her
00:23:05
mother at home to tell her that both her daughter and her daughter's vehicle are
00:23:11
missing there was no response on Taylor's cell phone to Janet's calls and Janet and Matt Taylor's father
00:23:21
immediately came down to VCU and joined the campus police the campus security officers in their search for their
00:23:29
daughter the campus police officer spoke to Taylor's friends and acquaintances and try to track her movements on that
00:23:38
night that she disappeared they knew that often young people just go off on these Benders or leave town without
00:23:45
really telling anybody but nobody thought that that was likely not you're right it's a Monday it's a holiday so
00:23:55
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
00:24:03
a Thursday or a Friday MH yeah and if she did go somewhere she she left without telling anyone but really I know
00:24:12
that it's 36 hours and there are some people on the very Inner Circle that are probably panicking at this point but the
00:24:19
masses the majority of the people really think that it's likely that Taylor will
00:24:24
surface at some point well it's a really big campus she could hung out with some people spent the
00:24:30
night you know but I guess my concern is that we know that she told her roommates
00:24:36
hey I'm I'm going to go skateboarding so where does that put her at does that put
00:24:40
her at on campus off campus what kind of bad area yeah that's true that's true the students started posting missing
00:24:51
Flyers featuring Taylor's photo and her personal information around and up on uh
00:24:58
you know around campus this to me very reminiscent of the Brian Schaefer case when when I think about all the activity
00:25:06
that I Envision going on at this time yeah a lot smaller school but in fact Brian would go missing from OSU
00:25:15
campus what six months later yeah seven months later Taylor's mother Janet resorted to talking to the media hoping
00:25:24
that publicity would generate leads into Taylor's Ware abouts she knew that Taylor would not have just left school
00:25:32
or skipped classes since it was only the second week and she was you know she had
00:25:39
been so excited to start college Janet strategy worked the media strategy worked and Taylor's disappearance
00:25:47
received national news coverage from Nancy Grace and from others on September 11th VCU announced that it was insulting
00:25:58
with the FBI on Taylor's case then 10 days into the investigation on September 15th the richond police department took
00:26:07
over the case issuing an amber alert for Taylor and her vehicle again note Taylor
00:26:14
was only 17 so still yet a minor so she did qualify for an amber alert the Richmond Police Department put together
00:26:24
an an 11 member task force of local University and federal investigators to try to locate Taylor in what was now
00:26:34
considered a criminal case two of the investigators on the task force were one was the Richmond Police Department's
00:26:43
Captain and the other was the State Attorney General Offices investigator so we have some pretty highlevel
00:26:51
individuals on this task force police said that they had no evidence of Foul Play but tailor a minor and now missing
00:26:58
for days all without being in contact with anyone was of great concern investigators confirmed that Taylor had
00:27:07
not used her credit card or cell phone since she went missing and this is never good and always really I mean we know
00:27:16
this Captain a bad bad sign the task force set out to use a relatively new tool available to them in assembling the
00:27:26
victimology and get a list of Persons of Interest and this was social media Taylor's prolific online writings and
00:27:34
posts gave investigators a glimpse into her life and a place to start compiling a list of her contacts friends and
00:27:42
acquaintances well you could control your top eight I think at some point you can even make it bigger than top eight
00:27:49
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
00:28:00
the internet this is also helpful because they're able to determine what she had been doing and where she had
00:28:07
been going in the days leading up to her disappearance and then they're able to reach out to people that Taylor's family
00:28:15
was not aware of that she was hanging out with one of the first people the task force question was this jacob
00:28:23
Cunningham the the sort of boyfriend right uh that they they just met when school started Jake told police that
00:28:31
things were good when they had dinner as you said Captain with Taylor and they left the restaurant holding hands he
00:28:38
also told investigators that they parted ways that Monday evening and when they did so Taylor told him that she was
00:28:46
going to go skateboarding another reference to the skateboarding thing she was into boarding as we know and this
00:28:52
would have been a normal activity it seems for her even at night remember we know that she went skateboarding after
00:28:59
midnight just days earlier however police were not able to track down anyone who had been
00:29:06
skateboarding with her on the night that she disappeared or even seen her skateboarding that night well we know
00:29:13
that she took her keys with her when she left her room but on that video footage
00:29:17
I don't see her with a skateboard correct correct now one thing that they the investigators were going
00:29:25
to start looking at and this there's not much mention of this in the media but police looked at Taylor's
00:29:32
father's girlfriend's son okay I'll say that again because it's a little difficult Taylor's father's girlfriend's
00:29:39
son and I don't know this guy's name or really anything about him but what we do
00:29:46
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
00:29:57
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[Music] [Music] information all right we are back we are back and I want to give a special shout
00:34:57
out and cheers to a great man Dwight Radcliffe was Sheriff of Pickaway County in Ohio from
00:35:05
1965 all the way up to 2013 he is the longest serving sheriff in the United States he was reelected 12
00:35:15
times unfortunately Dwight passed away last week on May 6th so thank you to sheriff Dwight Radcliffe for a lifetime
00:35:24
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
00:35:32
big cheers on September 17th 2005 Taylor has now been missing for about 12 days there was a break in the
00:35:43
case Taylor's white 1997 Ford Escort sedan was located it was parked on a quiet residential street this is North
00:35:54
malberry Street has about three blocks from campus that's correct about a mile and a half from her dorm so not far away
00:36:02
at all what was disturbing was that the car had different license plates on it the license plates were from
00:36:12
Ohio and these plates had been stolen or reported stolen 2 months earlier they were lifted off of a vehicle of an Ohio
00:36:21
resident who lived in Richmond while attending VCU residents said said that the vehicle
00:36:28
had not been parked there for the duration of Taylor's of the time that she had been missing so we have a
00:36:34
situation here Captain she goes missing her car goes missing at the same time this car her car magically appears in
00:36:42
this spot and it's not there for much of the time that she's been missing well we
00:36:47
can only assume that somebody switched the tags to throw people off from finding her car they put the captain's
00:36:54
plates on that car mhm this next part is really really smart on the behalf of the
00:37:01
police I think this is an absolutely great tactic what what they did was they did a
00:37:08
Stakeout job on this car I mean what what a genius idea that's a great idea if you know that
00:37:15
it's if you suspect that something may have happened to her very early on in the period that she's been missing and
00:37:21
you believe had have good reason to believe that this vehicle has been moved since then
00:37:27
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
00:37:34
when they Place bodies or evidence or cars places and sometimes they SEC they have second thoughts and think oh I
00:37:40
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
00:37:47
well then you also you have no evidence that she's dead yeah so is she using her
00:37:53
vehicle is she the one that changed the license plates this we got to figure out what's going
00:38:00
on with her yeah if you get some type of activity in or around the vehicle it may
00:38:05
be the lead that you so desperately need because by this point Captain we've already discussed this and you have to
00:38:13
believe this is what went down they are using social media they're talking to her friends her roommate her parents
00:38:19
everybody that knows her to figure out what her Social Circles are and then interview everybody that they can
00:38:26
possibly think of within those circles and it sounds to me like at this point they really got a whole lot of nothing
00:38:33
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
00:38:40
she she's going to go skateboarding that's a normal thing for her and I was bringing up the point on break well
00:38:48
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
00:38:56
Sunday night she likes to go skateboarding you know I mean like she's been at school for a couple weeks there
00:39:01
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
00:39:11
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
00:39:18
it police called in the dogs the sniffer dogs and impounded the car it was sent off to the FBI for forensic analysis
00:39:29
police blood hounds tracked a scent from her car to a home on Shephard Street this house was about five blocks away
00:39:38
from Taylor's car yeah this is pretty interesting the home belonged to the aunt and uncle of a 23-year-old guy
00:39:46
named Jesse Schultz Jesse was not a VCU student but he frequented VCU Hangouts to try to meet the ladies he Also may
00:39:57
have been a skateboarder Jesse had visited his aunt and uncle's home within the past 24
00:40:03
hours and had left one of his work shirts at this house at their home the couple was very cooperative and allowed
00:40:12
police to look through their house the house where Jesse lived was down the street and it was search as well during
00:40:22
that search they found a razor blade with c pain residue on it and this led to Jesse's arrest although we should in
00:40:33
all fairness we should point out the razor blade could belong to Jesse but he also had a roommate could belong to the
00:40:40
roommate right right police clearly wanted to they wanted to sweat Jesse a bit see
00:40:46
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
00:40:53
of lines and then question him turn the thermostat up to 104 yeah so they feel about that Jessie they interrogated
00:41:01
Jesse at the station for several hours about Taylor about her being missing he did agree to take a polygraph test which
00:41:10
indicated some deception according to the detective in charge yeah he failed on two questions uh one what what's your
00:41:20
name is this your cocaine yes your uh he failed on two questions and what is cited in the media reports is one of
00:41:29
those questions was whether he knew Taylor at all and two whether he had been in her car he answered no to both
00:41:37
of those and this shows deception the police are not believing it it that's that's difficult because
00:41:46
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
00:41:53
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
00:42:01
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
00:42:07
you from the car right to his aunt and uncle's house the trouble is both of these
00:42:15
tactics are not perfect like everything else right they're not 100% why I really
00:42:20
question because and and this is kind of gross and you got to watch out for certain campuses
00:42:26
but especially at that time late '90s early 2000s especially college guys they get
00:42:33
drunk they wee everywhere it's a wee wee Fest peeing on the side of the houses oh
00:42:41
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
00:42:49
leak by her car and then walked to his aunt and uncle's house it's also possible that the dogs were wrong and
00:42:56
the test is not scored properly right the other thing too is if this young man is just nervous about being questioned
00:43:05
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
00:43:13
there's any change in his in him physically well right again and if I ask you a question hey what were you doing
00:43:20
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
00:43:27
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
00:43:34
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
00:43:43
like 100% I just like when people are willing to take them because I I do think it gives us somewhat of a
00:43:50
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
00:43:58
deceptive so he failed the test M I like when they come back and they go well look he passed everything but these two
00:44:04
questions there's some deception there okay well give me that and that gives me more to go on yeah despite the test
00:44:13
failure despite the Unexplained dog tracking or maybe they believe the do dog tracking I don't know but what we do
00:44:20
know is this Jesse continued to deny that he had any involved so much so to the point where he continued to tell
00:44:28
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
00:44:35
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
00:44:41
is and eventually police they do clear him of any involvement at all because they looked at this dude pretty tough
00:44:49
and pretty hard and they were unable to link him in any way to her right and that that's also becomes another problem
00:44:57
do you know this person remember Brian Schaefer a lot of people didn't know who Brian Schaefer was but if I would have
00:45:04
showed you a picture of him people would have been like I know that guy from somewhere yeah cuz of the hund and some
00:45:11
thousand Flyers we put everywhere right you know what I mean so how many Flyers were out there with her face on it how
00:45:18
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
00:45:28
hours or something was really good when he said look if if I knew her I wasn't aware that I knew
00:45:36
her right and when looking at this Jesse Schultz guy what this leads investigators to is they start they they
00:45:47
take a look at a skateboarder friend of Jess his name is Ian and they also impounded a Nissan Ultima which may have
00:45:56
been Ian looking for evidence they apparently had reason to believe that maybe Taylor had been in the Ultima at
00:46:04
some point is my guess here Ian reportedly refused to take a polygraph test he's not as Cooperative as what
00:46:13
Jesse was was buddy just failed that's what you have to wonder about like if you know that your buddy didn't know
00:46:19
this girl and the police are telling him hey you failed your your poly you're not
00:46:25
going to be so excited to sit down for one yourself and we've talked about that many times like what good would come
00:46:33
from you taking one because if you pass it people go well that the test is [ __ ] but if you fail it most people
00:46:40
don't follow up with the test is [ __ ] well and if you want to be like uber cooperative and if you really want
00:46:47
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
00:46:54
do a bunch of cocaine get an attorney and then have your attorney set up a polygraph test and those results can
00:47:03
then be sent to investigators from from that I I like that process but again yeah after you take it a few times learn
00:47:10
how to beat the system you have to pay for the test you have to pay for the attorney all things that can be
00:47:15
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
00:47:24
Jesse I think them being skateboarders and then a possible connection to Jesse even
00:47:31
though they couldn't find one this goes back to the thought of maybe she was planning to go skateboarding with them
00:47:39
or maybe she actually did know them right but it seems like they couldn't make that they being the investigator
00:47:46
investigators could not make that connection well I don't think you ever told us what happened as far as her
00:47:53
dad's her dad's girlfriend's son son he was questioned and looked at acting a little creepy cuz that that' be
00:48:00
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
00:48:09
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
00:48:17
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
00:48:24
guy or right yeah cuz he could it was 35 yeah I mean I don't really know anything
00:48:30
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
00:48:38
the investigation anywhere or it would have been reported on in the media what what's clear though is I mean especially
00:48:45
like her friends from high school and then her family members these are almost a little bit
00:48:51
easier to investigate on some level because you can start eliminating people quickly because of the distance yeah so
00:48:59
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
00:49:08
establish aliis it's a lot easier and the other thing too I would think with the with her colleagues at school at VCU
00:49:16
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
00:49:23
active and they're out and about and they're hanging out with other people it's real easy to establish as you said
00:49:29
an alibi for who was doing what and when right but here's here's the tough thing
00:49:35
though and and anybody would know this I mean you'd know this by even going to high
00:49:41
school when you get to a new school everybody's new you you're not forming your click yet so she was still
00:49:51
in the process if you would have told me she went missing at the end of her freshman
00:49:57
year again schedule habits routine the the people that she would be in daily contact weekly contact monthly
00:50:08
contact would be all those habits would be formed but because it's so early in the school
00:50:14
year a lot of those things are just not formed yet but you do have roommates like it's a situation where people
00:50:22
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
00:50:27
because he was 20 mil away well what was his Alibi he he didn't feel well he had
00:50:33
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
00:50:41
campus they held a vigil for Taylor this was on the night of September 19th but but hold on one one second with that
00:50:48
point though is yes when you have a college campus of 30 some thousand you normally have on that campus maybe a
00:50:58
half a million people that live on that campus most of them not going to that school if you go to the Ohio State
00:51:05
campus yeah there's hundred and some thousand kids that attend Ohio State campus but there's roughly like a
00:51:11
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
00:51:20
September 19th and the investigators still don't have any real strong leads and mind you they're they're
00:51:29
really diving into every aspect of Taylor's life that they can find this being through friends this being through
00:51:36
her activities on social media they noted that there was another guy who was involved in Taylor's life this was not
00:51:45
Jacob this was not Jesse it was Ben Folly you might recall that this was the roommate of Taylor's friend Mike Cino
00:51:57
whom she stayed with on her two trips to VCU in the spring of 2005 while she was a senior in high
00:52:05
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
00:52:15
known around town because he was a quirky flamboyant character a self-proclaimed goth skater he always
00:52:24
had died Surfer style hair that changed colors regularly he drove what many would describe as a creeper van that was
00:52:33
completely covered with bumper stickers and old license plates yeah it was very strange they actually did a couple news
00:52:41
stories on his van because he would take it was a big creeper van but I think it
00:52:47
was painted black and then it was just covered from top to bottom with stickers and bumper stickers and every kind of
00:52:54
sticker and almost no paint visible on this thing yeah I mean when you saw it going down the road it it looked almost
00:53:01
like something from Mad Max or something so it's a novelty you know and that was
00:53:06
kind of neat that it was featured on couple local stories there news stories I guess maybe it's not technically a
00:53:13
creeper van maybe you don't describe it as that because it might have the size and shape of the traditional creeper van
00:53:19
but when you're when you're covered in bumper stickers and license plates you don't really blend in very well do you
00:53:26
right Folly was once a student at VCU he attended for seven years um do you think
00:53:35
he was studying to be a doctor probably or something he looks like a doctor he never graduated but when Taylor met him
00:53:44
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
00:53:54
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
00:54:01
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
00:54:08
he's like yeah I just like stickers man he was like one of those guys right well
00:54:14
he had two children as well the children didn't live with him in fact they lived
00:54:18
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
00:54:26
father of two I don't know that Taylor knew any of this we can't say CU we we don't know
00:54:35
what their conversations were but we're talking about a relationship a friendship for a few months you know at
00:54:44
at some point you know the truth will come out but this girl is coming um two hours away to come visit this college
00:54:53
campus you can be whoever you want or whoever you think she wants you to be because you're you're
00:55:03
spinning not as much time with her if that makes sense yeah and as the captain said you can see Ben Folly in these
00:55:12
interviews he actually gave an interview to 48 hours in a 2019 piece by Aaron moriori on the case he said that when he
00:55:21
first saw Taylor standing in the doorway of the apartment that he shared with Mike you know when she came to visit
00:55:29
that he thought she was extremely beautiful he said that they spent the entire weekend talking when they first
00:55:37
met and they shared so much in common including many opinions and feelings about different things Matt Beal
00:55:45
Taylor's father said that when he dropped Taylor off there in April he did meet he actually met this Ben Folly
00:55:54
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
00:56:02
assumed Folly was a student and was in his mid 20s at the oldest and just like you pointed out Captain he looked that
00:56:12
part uh we know now that neither of these assumptions were correct well there's a big difference I mean if you
00:56:18
look him up on Google images for example once they once his hair is chopped and and of a natural color then you go
00:56:29
oh okay yeah mid-30s pushing pushing 40 but with the pink hair or sometimes it's green hair
00:56:37
they I saw footage where he had purple hair you know it just makes him look especially his attitude like I said he
00:56:46
has that you know I'm just you know love dyeing my hair bro you right right paully and Taylor stayed in touch
00:56:54
apparently after Taylor's first visit to to VCU on her second visit she slept with him she told her friends that she
00:57:03
was curious about him and wanted to see what it would be like yeah now this is in spite of but
00:57:11
this is a look this individual there's plenty of women that you come in contact with that are
00:57:22
attractive you could tell that she is 17 18 years old and look maybe you know I don't want
00:57:31
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
00:57:38
many levels yes yes 100% she's look she's a very attractive young lady very photogenic but you're absolutely right
00:57:48
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
00:57:57
her friends though even regardless of this whatever was going on between Taylor and this Ben Folly her friends at the
00:58:09
time say she's not very Taylor's not very sexually experienced and we do have some evidence
00:58:17
of Taylor and Folly's hookup from the digital banter between the two Folly commented online on live Journal posting
00:58:27
under his online name skulls that this very attractive girl CL hold on a second go ahead you're pushing
00:58:35
40 and your online name is skulls you know like come on with something better the but the thing with this dude man it
00:58:43
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
00:58:49
this guy his one day his brain turned 18 and it stayed there right so skulls our
00:58:57
friend skulls here posted this very attractive girl climbed up into my bunk at 407 and then Taylor whose online name
00:59:08
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
00:59:16
it's supposed to be jailbait spelled backwards okay she replied well I was curious to which schulls then replies
00:59:25
so was I in fact I still am uh Folly told 48 Hours That Taylor appreciated that he didn't treat her
00:59:34
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
00:59:42
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
00:59:49
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
00:59:56
that no no that she wasn't that naive that she didn't understand that this guy's older you just wonder how much
01:00:03
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
01:00:15
children that you're not telling the person about you again you have that ability
01:00:22
you're on an island especially with those college campuses you're on an island you can pretend to be whoever you
01:00:29
want to be well Folly he goes on to tell 48 Hours about his game how he planned to
01:00:40
flatter Taylor telling her that he's an amateur photographer uhuh and that he wanted to
01:00:49
take pictures with her and this did happen you know he took some photographs of Taylor now we can
01:00:57
only assume that Taylor fell for Folly fell for his carefully constructed online Persona of this you know cool
01:01:08
dude who was into goth stuff like skulls photography and had had been he says he
01:01:15
even he even says that he had been a nude model at one time yeah he specialized in small p
01:01:25
Folly loved to post about himself and his Interest online obviously detailing his romantic Conquest goad hold on a
01:01:32
second CU here here's what I think happened I think she's going to go to the school
01:01:39
she knows she's going to go there she meets this meets up with somebody that from her hometown that goes to VCU his
01:01:46
roommate is there okay cool you're my friend by association now this guy is Smitten by the 17-year-old
01:01:55
they make plans to hang out he's taken pictures of her which a lot of times with these cases you can start googling
01:02:04
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
01:02:11
videos you can have yep but a lot of the pictures go in Google Images are stuff that this guy
01:02:19
took that's what you'll find of her and I think that as far as the sexual experience I think it was probably
01:02:29
simply a 17-year-old that probably drank a little bit and it was something that happened
01:02:39
because she later is telling her friends well yes we were physical but I I don't
01:02:47
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
01:02:56
guy he if you weren't already dialing into this already he has a bit of a dark side you
01:03:06
know he maintained websites with titles like dark evil goth in skulls. deviantart.com
01:03:15
featuring articles uh described as goth nude porn these included images of death and
01:03:23
Decay as well as photos of very young women we should probably say girls really right in all sorts of
01:03:30
compromising nude or scantily clad shots he also blogged about Taylor's visit in
01:03:37
April on his live Journal under his screen name uh this portion of my notes says screen name skulls
01:03:46
67 then Taylor came down to Richmond to visit for the weekend got out to Bell aisle amongst
01:03:55
other things I got some photos not as many as I would have liked but Taylor looked
01:04:02
cold from earlier posts about other women it seemed that taking photos on B Isle was a sort of a like a foreplay for
01:04:12
Folly mhm and Taylor for her part seemed to have a somewhat moodier darker Persona than she L on to many in her
01:04:22
life she had recently picked up smoking some of her online journals reflect a girl who didn't feel she had real
01:04:30
friends and who wanted something more out of her young life and her friends from the Starbucks where she worked in
01:04:38
Vienna before College said that she was always interested in older men and was known for flirting with them rather than
01:04:46
guys her own age it's possible that this Ben fol older Maybe maybe exotic seeming was just what possibly a
01:04:59
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
01:05:07
second that she did not know or did not understand that he was older it's just what kind
01:05:13
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
01:05:23
schools 15 she understands the idea that when you're going into a new situation like
01:05:30
that especially when you're on an island it's not like you go into the school and
01:05:35
10% of those people know who you are going into the school where nobody knows who you are
01:05:41
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
01:05:50
all that stuff as this is a Time time for her her to try things uh to experiment with things and discover who
01:05:59
she really is and who she wants to be so I I don't know if I would necess necessarily say that
01:06:08
she was darker sometimes people just need an Avenue to to vent about things and I think your spot on there Captain I
01:06:15
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
01:06:22
college so there's probably a lot of things going on with Taylor what my suspicions are is that
01:06:30
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
01:06:39
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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