Riehl World View

A Note re Taylor Behl

Just received a note informing me that the 48 Hours program dealing with Taylor Behl didn't run as scheduled. But it will be airing tonight (Dec 16th) if you want to see it.

Remembering Taylor Behl

There's a category here for Taylor Behl. While doing some maintenance today I saw this comment come in on an older thread:

HAPPY 19TH BIRTHDAY TAYLOR !  I LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU SO MUCH.

Realizing it was Taylor's Mother, Janet Pelasara, I wrote and we exchanged a few emails. It's strange being behind a keyboard, not always knowing who is coming and going. But I wanted to tell her that I doubted she was alone, as such a lovely girl was sure to be missed by many.

Janet has invested her emotional energy into writing a book - Love You More, The Taylor Behl Story, which she characterizes as the story of "my life/our life and how it came to a crashing halt". 

The book is due out on November 7th and apparently 48 Hours has been working on a story/documentary on Taylor's story which will air Dec 2nd.

I believe Janet can be reached through Friends of Taylor Behl

Discussion Thread

Discussion Thread

This thread is for open, unmoderated discussion for anyone, including those following the Taylor Behl case.

Taylor Behl Ben Fawley Update

Evidently Ben Fawley thinks the tragic murder of Taylor Behl is some kind of a joke.

While Ben Fawley awaits trial on charges of killing Taylor Behl, lawyers learn he’s written nearly 50 letters to a female friend expressing his thoughts while in jail. His lawyers are a little worried about how he signed them: “Killerly yours, Ben.”

Taylor Behl - Ben Fawley Prosecution

Apparently Fawley has written approximately fifty letters from his jail cell, one is said to detail what happened to Taylor Behl the last night of her life. Fawley's lawyers are trying to have them thrown out. Video here

More details on the letter issue here via TheTimesDispatch.

Taylor Behl Update - No Death Penalty For Fawley

Looks like no death penalty for Fawley.

The prosecutor in the case of an amateur photographer charged with killing 17-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University student Taylor Behl agreed Monday to amend the indictment against him.

Mathews County Commonwealth's Attorney Jack Gill agreed to change the language of the murder indictment against Benjamin Fawley, 38, charging him with second-degree murder in Behl's death.

In a brief hearing in Mathews Circuit Court, defense attorneys argued that, as originally worded, the indictment was flawed because it offered multiple options to how Behl died.

The original indictment charged Fawley of first-degree murder while committing another felony, such as rape, sodomy or abduction. Under that indictment, Fawley could have been tried to capital murder and sentenced to death if convicted.

Ben Fawley Roomate Waterfield Pens Article

Benjamin W. Fawley has admitted to police that he killed Taylor Marie Behl, saying it was an accident during a sexual encounter in which he restricted her breathing. In January a grand jury indicted him on a charge of first-degree murder. Last week authorities transferred him from the Richmond City Jail to Mathews County Circuit Court — in the jurisdiction where Behl’s body was found. A judge appointed an attorney to his case. He is now back at the city jail, awaiting a trial scheduled for May 30.

Ben Fawley took photographs of everything, including young women. I don’t know where he preferred to meet his subjects, and in the figurative pictures I recall, they appeared to be different adherents to a broadly defined subculture that valued expression and idiosyncratic lifestyles — nothing that alone could fairly be said to signal danger or social dysfunction. The photographs, however, share a weird similarity, a creepiness owed only to what we now know of Ben. His chosen backdrops were abandoned buildings amid decay or destruction — crumbling rafters, bulldozed facades, walls hammered by age — setting off the vulnerability and sexuality of a young woman.

Full article and perhaps a bit of additional insight into Ben Fawley and events immediately after Taylor Behl was strangled here.

Taylor Behl - Security Tightened For Hearing

CourtTV's Crime Library is reporting that security will be beefed up at the Mathews County Court House for the pending hearing for suspect Ben Fawley. Fawley is not expected to enter a plea and some legal authorities are predicting an uphill battle for the prosecution in the case.

Mathews County, Va. Authorities at the Mathews County courthouse are bracing for a media onslaught later this week when Benjamin Fawley makes his first court appearance in the slaying of Virginia Commonwealth University freshman Taylor Behl.

Additionally, the TimesDispatch offers up an account of the mood around Mathews in the face of the Taylor Behl murder and the pending trial.

MATHEWS It's 7:45 a.m. at Country Cuts just off Route 198 in Mathews, and barber/county supervisor Charlie Ingram and the old boys have been at it now for nearly an hour.

Mostly it's the conversation, not the $11 haircuts (price change effective Oct. 18, 2005) that brings them to the shop, where the barber chairs face away from the mirror, time is told by a clock with a Viagra logo, and a framed picture of fisherman's waders is accompanied by the warning, "It Gets Pretty Deep Around Here."

Taylor Behl Suspect Fawley Indicted For First Degree Murder

It appears as though the trial won't be starting for about 5 months. h/t TD

Amatuer photographer Ben Fawley faces first degree murder charges in connection with the death of Taylor Behl.

The charge of murder in the first degree means the Grand Jury believes the murder was premeditated.

Fawley admitted that he killed Taylor Behl, however, he said her death was an accident during rough sex.

17-year-old Behl was a freshman at VCU when she disappeared in September.  Her body was found several weeks later in Mathews County.

The case should go to trial in about 5 months