This episode may contain content of a graphic nature, including descriptions of physical and sexual violence against adults, children, and animals. Listener discretion is advised. Hi everyone, I'm Talia and I'm Tanya, and together we are Crimes and Consequences, a true crime podcast. Hi everyone, I am Talia and is Tanya my lovely co host. We are two attorneys that like true crime a lot, like discussing it. Yeah we do. Yeah, we don't like to commit it, right, but we like discussing it. And I have
a story today that I'm gonna tell. And she doesn't know this story. This was suggested by a fan of ours is named Chanelle b. Thank you, Chanelle, Yes, thank you for it. It is a really interesting case. I spent a lot of time researching it. It was written by a lovely friend of mine named Rachel, but I added to it too. So I'm gonna give you a little background. Okay, this is about Alexis Tierra Murphy and she's seventeen when the story takes place. She was born on
June fifth of nineteen ninety six in Charlottesville, Virgina. She had three brothers. They were younger. She was the captain of the football team, and she was beautiful. Who's captain of the football team. I'm sorry, fyball team you released? I mean, you go girl. She could she could have been good, Thank you. Yes, I'm a little tired. I have allergies really bad in its allergy season and palinas high. So I'm a little bit like a zombie. And everybody always comments how I talk so slow.
Well, sorry, that's what you get. I'm a little bit of a zombie. She played, Yeah, she was hoping to play volleyball in college too, and she was looking at colleges because she's getting ready to graduate. She considered a career in accounting after high school. But she was your typical This story takes place in about twenty thirteen, and she was like your typical seventeen year old. She had social media all over it. She liked
vine. I remember Vine. Yes, she had over ten thousand followers, wow, right, And she lived in a very small town that had less than ten thousand people, so she was very popular. Oh, I gotta put them in glasses. She was described as joyful, vibrant, athletic, stunningly beautiful, with an infectious personality and a warm heart. She's about five seven weigh one hundred and fifty pounds. The story takes place August third of twenty thirteen. Alexis had left her home in Shipman, Virginia. Okay,
mall, mall town. There's not a lot going on in Shipman, like a McDonald's and probably guess at gas station. Probably some bars, yeah, and probably that's it. Some churches. There might be a Walmart nearby, yeah, maybe nearby. Maybe she was going to leave on that night, August third, to travel to Lynchburg to get hair extensions, but she was getting ready for her senior photos. So fine, did she want to look?
Yeah? Of course right. The drive from her home and Shipman to where she was going to get the hair extensions was about forty minutes, but she never made it to her appointment. Oh. Before leaving her home, Alexis tweeted on Twitter quote, I actually look cute right now. And that was about five point forty. She was always on her phone. You know how their thumbs go, oh yeah, yeah. My daughter's like, how
can you even do that? I can't even see the letters? I know that that glasses And just so you know, this was a Saturday evening. The last time her family saw her was about seven seven fifteen pm. She was driving her dad's two thousand and three Nissan Maxima. He let her borrow the car. She was last seen at Liberty gas Station. And that's a popular gas station that has McDonald's, oh right next to it, and it's on US twenty nine in Lovingston, Virginia. And again this is Saturday evening,
August twenty thirteen. Alexis. His family stated she often went to that gas station because there was that a McDonald's and she absolutely loved their carmel rabbit. Oh yeah, those are goods, are good. Those are really good. So many calories for me. Yeah, I know. Alessa's family became concerned when she stopped answering her cell phone because she's again right, I can understand being concerned when you're a child who is constantly on their phone. Was
annor yes, and it was starting to go right to voicemail. Oh no, which is that's not good good. This was out a character for Alexis, as her family described her cell phone as her sixth finger. Yeah, it never left her her hand. In the early morning of August fourth, Alexis's grandmother, because she lived her she lived with her mom and she lived with her grandparents. Had contacted her mother, who worked the night shift, in said Alexis, she didn't come home, and there's obviously very concerned.
She's just going to get hair extensions, right, so, and her phone's going right to voicemail. So the family contacts the police and on August fourth, they begin their investigation into her disappearance. They knew something was wrong. This just did not fit this great student, you know, it didn't fit anything about her. And this isn't nineteen seventies where they're like, oh,
she's a runaway. Yeah, she probably ran away. No, no, no. On August fifth, the FBI and the Virginia State Police joined the search for Alexis. So they took this extremely serious. And they found where her phone was last pinked. It was about seventeen minutes away from the gas station and then it died. Investigators searched a property on Canary Loop off of US twenty nine in Lovingston because that's where our phone was. So they're looking
and they're actually using helicopters now too. There were hundreds of tweets with a hashtag find Alexis Murphy. Everybody they put missing person posters up, which we have one here, and one of her friends was able to convince a popular rapper named Whale I don't know wa l e. Nope, listen, I'm too old, yeah, to keep up on the new stuff, and he retreated. He retweeted the message to more than three million people. Wow. On August sixth of twenty thirteen, so we're three days in, the FBI
issued a statewide bulletin seeking information about Alexi's disappearances. And when they were looking for her, they started going to the area where her phone like less things, right, Yeah, of course they like, that's logical. And one of the people they met with was a man named Randy Taylor, and he's
in Nelson County. He got on the radar because first of all, his phone pinged in that area, and second of all, they had CCTV footage from Liberty Gas Station that showed her talking to a white male with a lot of tattoos and he had one on his neck. It's like, I don't know, tweety bird or something like that. That really stood out, and her phone was pined by him. So he gets on the radar. She's seen talking to him also on the on the CCTV. It shows that Alexis
is talking to this man. He holds the door open for her. She has filled up her gas tank and her dad's white car, and she follows this camouflage truck kind of like a Bronco looking truck. And you can see it on the camera that it appears she's intentionally following this truck. Well, Randy Taylor happened to have camouflage truck. They go and then you try to talk to Randy and he's like, what are you talking? I don't know her? Yeah, right now. They show him a picture and he's like,
not first seen her before in my whole life. Sure, Randy's forty eight years old. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about Randy. He worked off and on for the in the past five years, previously as a used car salesman at a dealership in Rutgersville, Virginia. It's kind of rough looking. I don't think i'd buy a car from Randy. I'm just throwing that out there. He was the father of a teenage son and he was
never married. He didn't really even spend any time with his son for a while, but then the boy ended up living with Randy for a few years and then moved back with his mom. Okay, he is a criminal history. It's mostly nonviolent crimes that span over twenty years. He got I'll just I'll give you a little bit of background, not to bore you too much with him, because he's a piece of shit. Yeah, I was guessing, yeah, he's a piece of I was assuming that he had some burglary,
grand larceny. He was sentenced to ten years in jail, but was released after four and a half years. He was convicted of arson. Oh, and he got a two year suspended sentence, some restitution, and he failed to pay his restitution, so suspended sentence got invoked and he ended up getting out on good behavior after not very long. I don't know what he burned. I don't know. He's just doing petty things. He paid a
total eight one hundred and fifty five dollars first restitution whatever. Who knows what he burned. In twenty thirteen, he had a petty larsening conviction in a nearby Green County. And he's also a person of interest. There's some other girls that really aird, but we'll get to that later. Shady character. Oh a girl yeah, yeah, yeah, And I should have showed you pictures because we're putting the pictures on. I should have showed you where you
lived. Have sorry. Then you see your stand, I'll say you would never buy a car, and I don't think he's sold many cars. If you saw his home, well he must not be making a lot of money at the job because he's committing larcenye and burglary and camper Oh no, and it's not a mobile home. It's a camper that you'd put like you'd hitch to your chouck and go camping it. But then he made a tarp over it for like a porch. You're getting an idea? Yeah, oh nice,
lovely h jinks you owe me a coke. We hang out. We hang out way too much. On August sixth of twenty thirteen, at around nine pm, a passerby spotted what looked like Alexis's vehicle or her dad's car in a parking lot. There was about fifteen twenty police officers. They surrounded this white sedan in Charlottesville and it was Alexis's car. It was found at the Carmike Imax Movie Theater and that was about a half a mile out from
where Alexis worked. She worked at a consignment shop called Kid to Kid okay used kids close. Yeah, these dogs traced ascent from the car to these Arden Place apartments in East Rio on East Rio Road, which was less than
a mile from where Alexis car was found. Now we're into August seventh, it's day four and there's about fifty law enforcement officers searching thirty mile area north and south of Lovingston, and they're paying really close attention to US Highway twenty nine because that is where the route she would have taken and close to where her phone was. They gathered all this information, they talked to everybody try to figure out who Alexis might have been with. And again, Alexis family
knew like she didn't run away. They said she's a good girl, and this whole thing is just really unbelievable, and they were all over the media and it's really sad to see them on the news. Investigators were pursuing leads, but they kept it very hush hush, you know, they didn't want
to reveal what they knew. On August eighth of twenty thirteen, five days into her disappearance, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children added Alexis information to it, and the FBI updated their bulletins and confirm that her phone is not at There was a visual held, hundreds of people came and it was at the football field, so that's where I got the football. Apart from
the family stated at the visual, this has been the longest week. Oh, we were just stuck on last Saturday Sunday, and Alexis's aunt, Angela Taylor added, it just feels like my heart's stuck and hasn't started up again. They put pink ribbons all over in honor of her. So on August ninth, twenty thirteen, the FBI had moved their investigation from the state level to the national level. They began canvassing businesses on a road called Angus Road
in Charlottesville, Virginia. They were looking to identify photos of individuals that were it had been seen on their surveillance footage, and they announced that they were trying to identify one particular person, the one with the tattoos all over her, which was fine, tattoos are lovely, but he's got like a big bird right there, which is going to stand out. If you commit a
crime, that's true. On August eleventh, twenty thirteen, they went to Randy D. Hailer's trailer, his camper, it's a camp and they officially identified him as a suspect. And when they got there they noticed something. The first time they were there, remember he said, oh, like I didn't I don't know her, blah blah blah. Well, when they got there, they they had with search warrant and they found a broken fingernail in the carpet and what looked like a nose ring which she had, and one
long piece of hair that was African American all on the floor. Hmm. Not a good sign. No, So, okay, obviously there's something going on with Randy. They do DNA, they do DNA testing and it matted. The hair had a hair follicle. Thank you, you're welcome, and the DNA matched elect and so did the fingernail. So they're trying to figure out what happened. Did they go to They were looking at CCTV footage and they can see that Randy Taylor had went to a novelty store we'll call it
okay for adults, okay, And forty five minutes before Alexis disappeared. He rented two pornos. Okay, it's a daffy duck tattoo. Daffy duck. Okay, he rented two pornos before she disappeared. It's August twelfth, now in twenty thirteen. Investigators are continuing to search the grounds near Canary Loop where Taylor was living. And there was a press conference how then they actually gave
some information about the case. They coned the area around Randy's camper and they hauled away his camper was so you know, it was filled with shite. It's gross. Yeah, And I mean it's almost a week later when they visit and he hasn't cleaned up. So you bet it will tell you something, right, it's gross. So he didn't run a vacuum or anything. No, and I think he stole electricity from oh lovely some something to get it going. So Margaret, they're back. They're back there at his camera.
Margaret Turner, that's a grandmother of Randy's son, and she owned the property where they've been living, stated that Randy lived in this camper trailer and he ran the electricity from an abandoned home nearby. Oh, an abandon home. I guessing that electric bill. Yeah, huh, maybe somebody was running it. Nobody was running at the time. I don't know. He figured it out, tom Asks managed to figure it out, right, hmm.
Again, Randy was seen with you know, with Alexis following him. And something that's really strange is that Alexis's aunt recognized Randy when the police showed her a photo. I mean, it's got daffy duck there. He had sold her a car three years earlier. It's my world, yeah, right, and she found him to be really creepy, but I guess it was a really good deal on the car. She couldn't resist it. Right, it's
such a good deal, I'll buy it anyway. The police end up getting a second search warrant, and when they do, underneath Randy's gross discussing Nancy se couch, they find a shirt of his and then they open up the shirt. There are a pair of fake eyelashes and tons of what is it? Hair extensions? Yes, thank you, you're welcome hair extensions in its eyelashes and hair extensions. Yeah, it's really sad, that is It's terrible,
Like, it's really really sad. So they have broken nail. They have a strand of hair, they have her nose ring and then hair extensions and fake eyelashes, And why would he keep it? I know that's the second time they're searching, so fucking weird. Yeah, there's a second time, and you're just out right just clean under your couch or not? He probably who knows? Did he forget about it? I think that he wanted
to keep it as a trophy. Randy appears in court on August thirteenth, and he's got this hearing for felony abduction, and it was handled by the prosecutor. Of course, again he started he denied knowing her, No, no, no, but eventually he admitted that Alexis had been in his camper. I mean, what's he's gonna Yeah, of course, like really, we've got her hair, her eyelashes, we have all that. Of course
he does. Said she came there with a man he didn't know, and he claimed not to know the man's name, but the man bought sixty dollars worth of marijuana from him. He stated that while they were there, the man in him had some beer, but Alexis didn't drink any beer, and the man in him smoked weed, but Alexis didn't smoke any weed. So she's on her way to get her hair done for her senior pictures, and she went alone and she just all of a sudden shows up at his trailer
with some guy to buy weed. Yes, okay, that's the story. That's his story, Okay. Randy claims that Alexis and this man went and went their own way in separate view gulls, and he maintained his innocence. Sure, he said the man was It was a black man with Alexis, and they should be really looking for him. Oh, of course. Yeah, he's the real perpetrator. He was in his early twenties, he had corn rows and was driving in nineteen ninety sedan with twenty two inch rims.
Oh nice, he's got the details. Yeah he does. Didn't remember Alexis, didn't remember a bit else, but he remembered those. But then he remembered Alexis and oh the rims okay, and all that. So I told you they got that search warrant. They found all the stuff. His attorneys said. Finding a hare in the residence doesn't mean he killed her or abducted her, and finding his hair actually, yes, and the eyelashes. She just left them there right under. She decided she had had enough with the
eyelashes and the hair sensions, and she left them behind. Her family did not believe that she went there with some unknown black male with corn rolls. It didn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense to me. And I don't even know this poor girl. They said, it's a big fat pack of lies. Yeah, and she wasn't the kind of kid that would hang out at a camper with Randy. I just came nasty ass, Randy.
I'm just stuck on the fact she had an appointment to be somewhere, right, Like she wasn't just out and within seventeen minutes of being at the gas station, her phone is off right, and like she's not out, just like fucking around, you know, driving around in her dad's car, like looking for something to do. She had something and somewhere to be, so her family stated that she would have considered someone like Randy Taylor to look like some sort of freak yeah, and not go with them. So tell
you a little bit more about Randy Taylor. He is a suspect in the murder of Samantha Clark, who disappeared in twenty ten. He Samantha lived at the same trailer park area as him, and she disappeared somewhat in the middle of the night and during the day and at night. He had called her six times, so she was like neighbors with him, and she just disappeared and he was the last person to talk to her six times that night.
Was she a teenager as well? Yes, she was nineteen nineteen. Very very interesting, right, right, Like, why do they keep picking on poor Randy? Right? I know I'm being sarcastic, but hmmm. They ended up putting a GPS on his car. There's a whole lot of stuff that's just really not worth talking about. But on August twentieth of twenty thirteen, he was ordered to stand trial. And they'd gotten all their search warrants and everything was found to be deemed appropriate. They had, but they still
didn't have Alexis's body. Right, where is Alexis? They searched everywhere. Randy lived by a river, so dive teams searched the river a ten mile span and they were on canoes, kayaks, rafts, everybody's looking. They never found her, but they did find a red sweater that was caught beneath rock and they investigated it, but it had no it had no connection. On September third, twenty thirteen, investigators announced that they had found Alexis's cell
phone in the search in searching Randy's residence. And it was really interesting. Did you know that they used dogs and dogs can smell some sort of glue on cell phones. No, I didn't know that really, uh huh? And so the dogs found the phone in the woods by Randy's house. Sniffer dogs for cell phones. Those dogs are amazing. Who knew? I know there's an answer too. Huh oh, yeah, that's right. They can,
so they can. It's amazing. They looked at her phone. It was smashed, it was destroyed, and they were hoping to get coordinates from it and helped see her precise location, and basically they couldn't. But it was only fifty feet from Randy's place, fifty feet But he didn't do it. He didn't do it. No, she decided when she left to smash her phone and throw it in the woods fifty feet away. She was never there. Oh wait, she was there there. He gets so confusing.
She was with that guy and sure, so now there's a new person of interest, believe it or not really, because Randy is like, I didn't do it, and he says, there's this black guy with a corn roads right yep. In late September of twenty thirteen, authorities identified a new person. They contacted the man that Randy described to them as the person with Alexis and he was a real guy. He was a real guy. Okay, he was a real guy. I was thinking he just made him up.
Well, it was a guy that he knew, okay. And this guy, yes, his name was Damien. And this guy was one hundreds of miles away. So Randy actually said I I did know the guy. So his story changes again. I knew the guy. His name is Damien. These are all red flags to the police. Damien had an alibi. He was in Alabama, hundreds of miles for the wayness yeah right, otherwise you look into Damien, right, And they did start so there's a gag order.
They searched his property again. He ends up going to trials. Trial starts May first, twenty fourteen, and took eight hours to find a jury. And this is a tiny place. Everybody knows everybody. Yeah, I got to find somebody who's like, oh no, I don't know anything about it. I don't know this case. Or even though I know a little bit, I can still be impartial, Right, pan are not guilty, But I mean they had the DNA evidence, right, a lot of it.
His navy blue shirt had some bloodstains on it that matched her DNA. Really, I know, come on, so with a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, they could say she was there, and then the human finger, nail fragment, her diamonds studded nose ringing, a strand of her hair. It's just gross. Anyway. They said there was signs of violence in the camper, but they didn't describe exactly what the violence was. But I'm assuming when you have broken nails that is a sign of violence and blood it's a
sign of definitely. Yes, I gotta tell you something really fucked up. Oh no, what When they searched his camper they found a scrap book. It was a scrap book of nude women. K Okay, their heads have been cut off, and instead a picture of his coworkers daughter's head was placed where these women's head should be. Really, imagine that your daughter cut off the heads of the pictures and put in this other woman's head. That's very disturbing, extremely weird. That's so weird, that's so weird. Cuckoo.
Yeah, there's something wrong with Randy that is putting it really lightly. Why are people like this? I mean Randy described the photos as glamour shots, glamor shots photos. He's superimposed the blondhaired female who was identified later as the daughter of the used car dealerships of a coworker there where he worked. A creep. He's a complete Maybe if you're her, I know, and your
head is super imposed? If she ever met him or did he He just see a picture on like this woman's desk and decide to like take it and who knows, right, I don't, I think about the stupidest shit,
but yeah, fucking weirdo. So. At the trial of the cashier at the Liberty gas station testified against Randy, saying he saw him talking with Alexis for a few minutes before they both ended up leaving the station and he held the door open for Alexis, and then video surveillance of the movie theater parking lot showed Alexus's car pulling into the parking lot at around ten PM, but
they tried to enhance it to see who's driving it and they couldn't. Roughly thirty minutes after that, at around ten thirty PM, and Applebee's bartender reported seeing Randy looking sweaty as he asked for a if he asked, he asked if he could use their phone to a cab. Oh, okay, he's hoofing it to Applebee's and then getting a cab right like. He said he needed a ride. He told the bartender his friend had passed out. Okay,
sure, that's nice. And I'm just gonna leave my friend wherever they are, you know, from passed out and I guess I can't drive their car home. Okay, just gonna leave Tanya passed out. I need to get home, So I'm gonna leave her in her car, in her car, and I'm gonna take a tick. I'll stick a little note on you. Yeah, Randy's not too bright. So cab driver identified Randy and said
he took him home. They found inside the camp or or. They also found a pellet gun and a buck knife overholt Oh he's one of the sheriff. Stepanies collected two beer bottles for an all assis and again Randy is sticking to the story that Damien Bradley did it. He did it, he did it, but they're like he couldn't have done it. Bradley testified on the stand that he'd never been at Randy's residence with Alexis, stating, Alexis and I have never even been in the same room together. Like, why the
hell am I involved in that? He's pissed, so passed right, Like what the fuck? Dude? He had seen her on Facebook before, but he'd never spoken to her in person. He gave his DNA, he didn't match. It didn't match anything in the camper, and yeah, he had nothing to do with it. Let's see what else is interesting? Told you the CA nine units found it. So he was found guilty on me eight, twenty fourteen. He found guilty of on the charges of first degree murder
in the commission of an abduction Wow with the intent to defile Wow. Alexis's mother, her name was Laura. Laura Murphy spoke after the verdict was read and just talked about how you know, painful it was. I feel so bad. Randy got up and tried to dart for the door. He's like, I don't want to hear the shit not disrespectful. He was then escorted out. So Alexis's high school graduation, they honored her within honorary certificate of
graduation, which is I'm sure it was very sad. It sounds like she was like well liked and popular and not that it matters, but you know, like everybody knew who she was. It sounded like Taylor ends up, Randy ends up going, you know, to prison for two life sentences and then they get them for stealing some Honda four hundred hour dirt like, and they're just going after him for everything and he does it adds a little more time to it. So he had stolen these items the day before that she
had disappeared. But time goes by, you know, he's doing he's doing his time, and eventually he says where her body is? He does he does? He admits it. Yes, the police found her body four miles away from his place, and he had buried her. And what they suspect happened is they believe that he lured her to his camper, that she went willingly just to get a small bag of weed, and she was there he brutally, statistically raped her, and he admitted he suffocated her. That's how
she died. So he confessed, Yeah, he suffocated her. As far as Samantha, she's a missing person still. And you know it's really interesting, isn't. Then authorities started looking at all the runaways and stuff, and there's eighteen girls that fit the age profile in that small area disappeared. I mean statistically, if you compare like the disappearances with probably the local population, it's probably like ten. Yeah, right, Like it's a huge statistic.
Wow, So he could be a serial killer. Yeah, they suspect that for twenty years, he's been probably really getting away with it. That's crazy. He's never admitted to anything else. No, no, no, But Samanda lived oh yeah, next to him, and he's the last person to talk to her and she's never been seen since. Terrible. God, I'm surprised. Why didn't he just come out with it. It's not like he's going anywhere. He's going to die in prison. I don't know. He
was saying he was innocent up until. Yeah, it took seven years for him to admit that he killed her. Yeah, seven years. At first, he tried to strike a deal, and you know, he's innocent of course, but he said, okay, if you give me twenty years, I'll tell you where the body is my medicent Yeah, and they were like fuck you, yeah, and they wouldn't do it, and they give him to life sentences and then eventually seven years later he said where the body was
and that he's suffocated. But I'm sure he hurt her very badly. Yeah, I'm sure for oh yeah, because there was a struggle. I mean, her nails broke her nose for this nanty campers or girl I know, only seventeen years old. I'm so sorry for her and her famamily. Her family seems very amazing and they have a foundation for her setup. So that is the story of Alexis Murphy. Well, thank you, te Leia,
thank you story. I know it's terrible, it's terrible. But on another note, you guys can follow us on our Patreon dot com slash, t NT letters, TNT crimes dot com and we released one episode a week. Besides this that our ad free and specifically just for Patreon followers, and we also do the same with our Apple subscribers AD free early release and what else. We have website Crimes and Consequences with merchandise with merchandise that you can get.
We have things that we used to be more vulgar, but we've tamed down because of the rules on YouTube. Thank you. I'm just gonna say it, the rules on YouTube. Uh or we've had to tame down. But some of them say with Tanya done inside, I hate Yeah. If you saw last week's video, I had the T shirt on because we hate people sometimes. I hate Randy. I hate Randy. I hate Randy some piece of garbage. So it makes me angry. Yeah, and don't forget
to hit the like or subscribe. Yeah, that's right. That would be really nice of you guys. Yeah, like that. We would like that a lot. I could hit like on this video and if we could, we'd hit like back to you. Yeah, we would. And I'm subscribe to whatever podcast app. Yeah, you know, whatever, whatever you want to do, tell your friends family, have a Crimes of Consequences night where you gather all friends over next line. Yeah, so, but until our next episode, don't kill each other. Bye bye