What happened to Taylor Behl?

Edie Magnus Correspondent • Profile

VIENNA, Virginia - Taylor Behl, like so many young people headed for college, was excited about going to Virginia Commonwealth University—and nervous too. Like so many young people today, she was writing about this and many other things online, in her own personal blog:

“I just graduated from high school and now I’m off to Richmond... I’m looking forward to meeting people that are in Richmond because I only know a few people down there.  But I love to meet new people in general so feel free to message me whenever to chat!”

The 17-year-old was eager to embrace the world and her new school and new friends.  Her virtual diary of poems, pictures, and personal reflections posted, now forms a kind of requiem for a life lost.       

Reporter Jim Nolan covered the Taylor Behl story for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Nolan: What’s so sad and tragic about this story and why it resonates with so many people is because every August, every September, thousands of mothers and fathers send their sons and daughters off to school for the first time. It’s an adventure.  It’s kind of a rite of passage.  And everyone hopes when you close the door and wave goodbye and drive off campus, that their child is going to be okay, that where you left them is where you’re going to find them. 

Taylor’s mother, Janet Pelasara, certainly thought her daughter was savvy enough take care of herself. She’d raised Taylor as a single working mom— through a couple of failed marriages and moves around the world.  They’d settled in Vienna, Virginia where Taylor graduated from James Madison High School, got a summer job at coffee shop Jammin’ Java, then started at VCU August 19^th.

Pelasara: Her roommate was great. They got along fine. And her suite mates were very nice.

What Taylor's mother didn’t know was that, along with meeting all those new people at the big urban VCU campus, Taylor had immediately sought out one of the few people she already knew— someone she’d met back in February when she was a high-schooler checking out the campus as a prospective student.  He wasn’t a college student, but a 38-year-old amateur photographer named Ben Fawley.

Nolan: He seemed to be one of these people who hang around the periphery of college campuses. We know that he dated a number of women who seemed to be much younger than he was.

He portrayed himself on Web sites in very dark romantic terms: as a photographic artist and even former nude model, and as a goth master fascinated by the study of skulls and bones. 

But the real Ben Fawley? There was a lot about him and about his past that the teenager may not have known.

Nolan: It’s our understanding that at some point later, he had photographs taken of her, and they became intimate on at least one or two occasions.

There were inklings of a sexual relationship in their postings on line. In April, Fawley, writing under the name “Skulz”, wrote: “This very attractive girl climbed up into my bunk @ 407.”

Taylor, using a screen name that spells “Jailbait” backwards, replied: “Well, I was curious.”

"Skulz" replied: “So was I...fact I still am....” 

Nolan:  What’s interesting about Ben Fawley, and you look at him— to some people who might create a sort of Johnny Depp sort of look. And what’s interesting is if you go on Taylor’s Web site on her MySpace.com page, she lists a number of movies that she likes and a number of actors that she likes. One of them is Johnny Depp.

Taylor had told friends about Fawley— but not her mother, with whom she spent part of Labor Day weekend before heading back to college. 

Pelasara: I kissed her and hugged her. And as she walked away, I did double over in pain— physical pain. I hadn’t been dealing with her being gone very well. I don’t know if all of that was a premonition, or you know, just that maternal gut feeling. But yeah, I did double over in pain. But you have to let ‘em go.

By the evening of Monday, September 5^th, Taylor was back at school.  According to what police have reconstructed about her whereabouts that night, she had dinner at the Village Cafe with a friend— and then at some point, she apparently went to be with Ben Fawley.

Nolan: Benjamin Fawley has told police that at 9:30 p.m., he had been with Taylor Behl.

Edie Magnus, Dateline correspondent:  And they had sex?

Nolan:  Benjamin Fawley told police that they had sex that night she returns to her dorm room at that time by herself.

Taylor entered her room at the VCU's Gladding Residence Hall at 10:20 p.m., according to the police. She found her roommate entertaining a male friend.

Nolan: According to VCU police, the roommate asked Taylor if she could go away for a few hours, and Taylor said fine.

So Taylor said she’d be out for a few hours skateboarding with her friends. She grabbed her car keys, cell phone, and a bit of cash.  

Nolan:  She didn’t take her purse. She didn’t take her credit cards. She didn’t take a change of clothes.

Magnus:  Things that would indicate she was going away for some longer period of time.

Nolan:  Nothing that would indicate that. 

After 10:20 p.m. that Monday night September 5^th, Taylor Behl was never seen again. It would be nearly two days before her roommates grew concerned enough to alert the police.

How unusual is it when a college student goes missing?  Not as much as you might expect. Every year, campus authorities say some of the 30,000 students at VCU “appear to disappear” and don’t call their families for days— maybe they’ve gone to the beach, or maybe for a freshman the stress of starting college is too much. There were any number of reasons why Taylor Behl had gone missing, and the odds were it wasn’t foul play.

But by Wednesday morning, Taylor’s roommates (who didn’t know her all that well yet) grew concerned enough to tell somebody. The campus security force, says VCU's Pam Lepley, began to search.

Pam Lepley, campus security: They identified Taylor’s associates and friends, and started talking to them. They found out her car was missing.

Fellow students started putting up “missing” posters around campus. Taylor’s mom meanwhile had immediately come to the school, driving around with investigators as they questioned people who knew Taylor, including 38-year-old Ben Fawley.

Pelasara: I listened while the police talked to him. But I couldn’t stand looking at him. I was sickened, absolutely sickened. I couldn’t listen to him.

Magnus: Why? What was it about him?

Pelasara:  Knowing that this 38-year-old man had taken advantage of my 17-year-old daughter.

But Fawley claimed he too was concerned about Taylor— and didn’t know where she was. So the police moved on: They kept interviewing and kept looking. Janet Pelasara turned to the media to turn up the heat.

Six days after Taylor’s disappearance, on September 11^th, VCU announced it was bringing the FBI in on the case. But after 10 days, there was still no sign of her. 

Nolan: There was no contact from her. No cell phone. No credit card indication.  No posting on a Web site. No response to any Web posts to her. Absolutely nothing.  She dropped off the face of the earth.

It now looked ominous— and it was. The “missing person” case was about to become a criminal investigation.

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