Alexis Murphy Missing: Alleged Abductor May Have Ties to Other Missing Girl
Alexis Murphy, 17, has been missing since Aug. 3, and her alleged abductor, Randolph "Randy" Taylor has been arrested and charged with her disappearance. Now authorities believe that Taylor may have information in the disappearance of another teen girl, Samantha Clarke, who disappeared in 2010.
"I think this is some speculation if this case is related to other disappearances," Jeff Mazanec, special agent in charge of the FBI's Richmond Divison, told ABC News. "We continue to look at all possibilities."
Mazanec will not say what led them to suspect Taylor in Murphy's disappearance. They are hopeful, though, that Murphy will soon be found. Taylor, meanwhile, remains in custody and has a criminal record that goes back more than 20 years.
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"I want her to come home because today would've been her first day of school," Laura Murphy, Alexis' mother, said at a news conference. "I carried my youngest son to school this morning but I didn't have my daughter to take. Please, if the public knows anything, please, please let us know. Please."
Orange County commonwealth's attorney Diane Wheeler told the Huffington Post that Taylor was the last person to have contact with Clarke before she disappeared in September 2010. The teen told her brother that she was going out but never made it home.
"He was the person who last had contact with her … He had multiple contacts with her in the days immediately preceding her disappearance," Wheeler explained.
Police are currently investigating Taylor's vehicles and home. Authorities in Nelson and Orange counties in Virginia are working together to share information about their respective cases in the hopes of finding both girls and bringing closure to the families.
"You always want to look at those connections because you never know where your investigation will take you so law enforcement agencies do try to keep each other in contact about developments like this so everyone can sort of look at their own case again," Wheeler told WSET.com.
"If in somehow that this man was connected to that other case of the missing girl in Orange [County], I hope that he, by some grace of God, gives them that information so they can close that case because I understand how that family feels," Murphy's aunt, Angela Taylor, added.
