The Shadow
Taylor
Taylor
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CHARLOTTESVILLE (AP) — Details are emerging about the man arrested in the case of a missing Nelson County teenager.
Authorities on Sunday arrested Randy Allen Taylor, 48, of Loving-ston in connect-ion with the disappearance of 17-year-old Alexis Murphy. He’s charged with abduction and remains in jail.
Murphy was last seen Aug. 3 by her family. Her car was found in the parking lot of a multiplex in Charlottesville three days later. The investigation and search for Murphy continues.
The Daily Progress reports that court records show Taylor’s criminal record stretches back more than 20 years.
Virginia Beach court records show Taylor was convicted of statutory burglary and grand larceny in 1992 and sentenced to 10 years behind bars, with all but 4½ years suspended.
Albemarle County court records show Taylor was convicted of arson in February 2005. He was given a two-year suspended sentence and ordered to pay about $6,300 in restitution. His suspended sentence was revoked in June 2011, after he failed to pay restitution. His sentence was immediately re-suspended on conditions of good behavior and that he pay at least $50 a month toward his restitution.A
An employer and acquaintances of Taylor’s described him as a quiet, hardworking man, who kept mostly to himself, working off and on at a local used car lot and odd jobs in the area.
Tere Vann, Taylor’s employer at the Ruckersville car lot where he’s worked off and on for the past five years, said: “We knew he had a past, because he’d been honest with us.”
“I would’ve never dreamed it,” neighbor Jim Matheny told the newspaper while watching from his front porch as investigators worked on Taylor’s property.
FBI agents on Monday combed the area near Taylor’s home carrying shovels. A sport utility vehicle and camper were also hauled from the property.
Among those at Taylor’s home Monday was Evans Oakerson, the lead investigator in the unsolved September 2010 disappearance of 19-year-old Samantha Ann Clarke of Orange, said Orange County Commonwealth’s Attorney Diana Wheeler.
Like Murphy, Clarke went out one night and never came back. Neither Wheeler nor other authorities working the two cases would say whether they are connected.
During a news conference at the Lovingston Fire Department Monday, the FBI and local authorities said the investigation and search for Murphy continues.
They did not take questions from the media.
“I want to assure her family and the Nelson County community that we will keep looking as long as it takes to find her,” Nelson County Commonwealth’s Attorney Anthony Martin said.
Jeff Mazanec, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Richmond Division, said authorities continue to follow leads in the case to “find Alexis very soon.”
Alexis’ mother, Laura Murphy, issued a tearful plea, asking the community to let authorities know if they have any information about her daughter’s whereabouts.
“I want her to come home because today would’ve been her first day of school,” Murphy said. “I carried my youngest son to school this morning but I didn’t have my daughter to take.”
Media outlets report that authorities on Sunday used a laser scanning machine to map the parking lot at the Carmike Cinemas movie theater where Murphy’s car was found.
