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.

With his daughters, ages 8 and 12, Ben seemed the kind of father an 8-year-old might create: He’d join them for marathon video games, had plenty of paper, crayons and paint on hand, hung their artwork and school photos abundantly, and let them eat marshmallows from an open bag. But he also projected the kind of paternal admonition children wish for and need. When his younger daughter proudly demonstrated how many marshmallows she could take at once and showed me her mouth — a mushy riot of pink and eggshell blue — Ben became “Dad” and told her to put the bag away.

When I moved in on July 31, his little girls helped me load in my few belongings, as eager to help as they were for answers to their curious inquiries about me. When the newly cut key Ben gave me failed to work, his older daughter gave me her keychain, a butterfly made of leather, and showed me how the key must be finagled to unlock the door. In the weeks to come, Ben rode his bike in blistering heat more than twice to buy toys and clothing at Target for his daughters, who had returned home several hours north. He asked that I see each piece, an insistence I now suspect owed at least as much to his wish to establish an unspoiled persona as to a genuine wish to show off presents for his girls.

I first encountered Ben in the summer of 2005 through his ad for a roommate posted on Craigslist.org, and I traveled from Hampton Roads to Richmond, where I was moving, to see his apartment. The urgency of my need for housing along with the inexpensive rent of his place, its proximity to Virginia Commonwealth University — where I’d be attending school — and his informal attitude cinched the deal.

As my new lodgings and schedule settled into routine, I accepted that Ben stayed up through most nights, working on several blogs and a Web site devoted to Goth subculture. He spent many nights molding stylized skulls in clay, experimenting with material and processes. And he seemed to obsessively focus on them, nipping soft clay, sanding an imperceptible flaw in a dried piece. I awoke most mornings to find that he hadn’t yet slept. It usually wasn’t until I’d returned from an afternoon of classes that he would finally retreat into bed.

His collections and hobbies did not seem strange to me, although I knew many people perceived them as eccentric. The previous tenant had died over the summer, leaving hundreds of adult DVDs, and Ben said he wanted to sell them on eBay. I shared his opposition to waste, and I supported any kind of recycling, whether it was of cans, plastic and paper, or of adult films inherited from a former tenant. A co-worker of mine took issue with me for finding nothing alarming about the pornography Ben actively sold while I lived there. But Ben was an adult and any material that I saw lying around was legal. He alluded to “illegal” porn left behind by the deceased man and said he’d destroyed it all.

Though he and a female friend once entertained the idea of hosting a “porn and chicken” party, a takeoff of a 2002 comedy film, I never saw him watch the DVDs and did not disguise his revulsion as he packed them for shipment. He raged about the irresponsibility of adults who allowed pornography to find its way into the hands of children and avowed to take every conceivable precaution to ensure that nothing he sold would come near anyone other than adults. Since his arrest for child pornography, some depicting children younger than 3, his claims and the intensity with which he made them remain chilling mysteries to me.

I spent the night Taylor disappeared, Sept. 5, alone in the apartment setting up my new computer and was awake much later than was typical for me. I’d bought the desktop that afternoon before having to go into work, and I was excited about the purchase. But the excitement paled when it became clear that either the hardware was faulty or the configurations of the apartment’s network — Ben’s four or so computers and mine — were preventing proper setup. Finally, at close to 3:30 in the morning, I went to bed frustrated, but rose a few hours later to run errands.

In the early afternoon Sept. 6, I returned from the bank to find Ben huddled on the couch in the cramped apartment, clutching his stomach. “Be careful out there,” he grunted. “I just got jumped.” As he recounted the events of the attack, I listened in shock. I remember looking through the window into the yard next door, considering whether he was schizophrenic. The story seemed that implausible. I stated emphatically that he should call the police to establish a record of the crime. He responded feebly, “What can they do?” I turned toward my room and suggested, “And call MCV.” [Medical College of Virginia] Inside my room, I latched the door, with more than a note of shame for doubting him. I felt guilty for not responding with more sympathy.

But his story seemed rife with inconsistencies. He wasn’t able to dredge up any memory of his attackers’ voices. I’d asked him if he could remember something distinctive about their speech — accents, impediments, anything? “No,” he said, whimpering, still clutching his gut. “I was in shock.”

That night at work — I serve tables at a local restaurant — I ruminated on his abduction story and felt guilty for what I considered my callousness. When I got home, I stuck my head inside his bedroom to ask how he felt. He woke to say he’d taken a barbiturate and was feeling better. At the time, no one yet knew that Taylor was missing.

Later, he would tell authorities that he could not recall much about the “attack” because he’d been drunk. I never saw Ben drink, and he strongly asserted his aversion to alcohol many times. Bottles of champagne and wine left over from previous roommates and his parties sat in the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, labels developing slick residue. A chilled bottle of Absolut Vanil sat untouched on the same shelf, brought forth only for guests, but he didn’t join them. His guests were usually young and female, a sign I thought to indicate that he must be safe with women — or that they felt so. The young women I met appeared to be stable and goal-oriented — a music student, a visual arts student, an Air Force enlistee.

I’m bewildered and frightened now at how smoothly Ben carried on, knowing that a few hours earlier, he’d pitched Taylor’s body into a ravine in Mathews County. After rising from the couch, he spent hours that day on the phone with technicians trying to solve my computer problems, several times bending at the waist to clutch his stomach and groan loudly before rising to verify configurations, pull up dialog boxes, check and uncheck options. He didn’t drive, so a few days later he asked a female friend to take us to the warehouse store where I’d made the purchase, and he loaded the monstrous box into her sports car. Ben is small. I was concerned that the box was a struggle, but he dismissed any idea that he needed help.

I wasn’t comfortable with anyone taking time from their schedules to haul me through the suburbs, but I needed a working computer, so as a token of appreciation, I offered to pay for their food when we stopped at a drive-through on the way. Ben shrugged, saying that I could get him something later. I’ve since looked back on the immensity of the box and the apparent ease with which he hoisted it. I’ve wondered how much Taylor weighed.

As the days passed and Taylor’s disappearance was made public, Ben occasionally talked about his “friend” with whom he had a sexual relationship. He made a comment that he’d been excited to see that I was out the night of her disappearance. He was able to have sex without concern of my intrusion. I’m sickened now by his blithe licentiousness, knowing he had abandoned her days earlier. But that night, he told me that Taylor had expressed a wish to commit a serious crime before turning 18, and that he believed she had chosen to leave, perhaps to “get a reaction” from a father whose ambivalence, he said, inspired her fear and anger. “All Taylor should do is come back,” he said ardently. He said he was concerned for her. I believed him.

As community unease intensified and the neighborhood and campus were papered with posters seeking information about Taylor, within Ben’s life, all outward signs of normalcy remained. He continued to host friends at the apartment and to plan social outings. On the curb, he commiserated with others about Taylor’s disappearance, including her mother, Janet Pelasara, always speaking loudly, his voice above everyone else’s. One night, returning home from Cabell Library, I saw him between VCU’s Shafer Court and Franklin Street handing out flyers seeking information about Taylor’s disappearance, eyes wide in animated conversation with a young skateboarder. Later at the apartment I said, “I saw you,” and I thought I detected a hint of alarm in his reaction, or annoyance. I clarified, “On Shafer.”

“Yeah,” he said.

Though his benign response to Taylor’s disappearance assured me then of his innocence, hindsight doesn’t allow me to pinpoint the most contemptible thing Ben did in the days following her disappearance. Poring over phone records with authorities, I would learn that his first call upon returning from his last night with her, made literally the minute he returned, was to UPS, to check the status of some packages. Knowing that her body lay buried in Mathews, he calmly went about his banal, daily activities.

One interaction with him, however, was particularly disturbing. I was at my computer finishing a paper when he appeared at my open door, “really worried,” he said. For the first time in questioning, police seemed to be becoming suspicious of him. This bothered Ben and seemed beyond his comprehension because, he said, Taylor liked older men. “That’s why she sat at the Village bar,” he reasoned. “Have you seen who sits there?”

He was too loud for his proximity, and spiraling. Growing louder, he answered his own question: “Old men! Any of them could have done something to her.” He waited impatiently for my response. I disliked his suggestion. It was lewd. He was attempting to portray Taylor as “loose,” that promiscuity had invited trouble. He stood, looking intently at me, and then as if to emphasize his point, swung his right arm around like a pitcher and clapped his cupped left hand loudly, finishing up by pointing forcefully at me. He turned and left my room. It was an offensive proposition, and a bizarre gesture, too big and out of place.

It was Taylor’s father, Matt Behl, who in February 2005 brought Taylor to the apartment of Mike Cino, a former classmate of Taylor’s who was Ben’s roommate at the time, according to news reports. Taylor was to spend the night there and tour VCU the following day. Matt Behl met Ben then and, after a brief introduction, felt comfortable enough with the 38-year-old to leave the girl there with him alone.

I never met Taylor, but Ben claimed their sexual relationship began in April. I never saw the two of them together to have any sense of the veracity of Ben’s claims. Nevertheless, their online dialogue continued over the summer and into Taylor’s first days as a freshman at VCU.

On Labor Day, Sept. 5, I returned to the apartment from computer shopping. Ben was clearly upbeat, cleaning enthusiastically while industrial music blared so loudly that he didn’t hear my entrance. He laughed at my having startled him and said he’d had a great few nights at a round of weekend parties. Over the previous weeks he’d had several falling-outs with friends, and according to his ranting blogs and his personal admission to me, he’d changed his social network and was going out less.

But that afternoon, he was in great spirits. He met my parents then, and talked with my father about repairs to the heating system he had planned. I dressed for work and at 4:30 said goodbye. Five-and-a-half hours later, Taylor left her dorm room to go skateboarding with friends and was not seen alive again.

One afternoon in late September, I returned from class to be greeted at my front door by a television reporter who eagerly shoved a microphone in my face and intently questioned me. “I’m just a roommate,” I mumbled, and climbed the steps to find that because I’d been on the apartment’s computer network with Ben, the FBI had confiscated my new computer. Ben sat weeping on the couch, in the arms of a young female friend. Through tears, he apologized profusely and declared that he hated most that reporters and authorities were “messing with my roommate.”

When I called to get information about my computer, an FBI agent advised me to get out of the apartment immediately, and I spent a small fortune on a hotel room until I was able to find a new place. For the next several weeks, I was questioned three times by federal and city authorities. The most memorable and surreal meeting occurred when an FBI detective asked to meet me in Monroe Park and literally emerged from behind a tree while I waited. The computer since has been returned broken.

The entire experience has been a chilling lesson in human nature. Yet in spite of my resulting loss of trust in others, I have no cause for self-pity. Taylor is gone forever, her family and friends left to agonize the loss. Still, I struggle to sort out the events.

A few days after leaving the Hancock Street apartment, I sorted laundry in a Fan District Laundromat and reviewed the past few weeks’ events, exhausted and stunned. Emptying pockets before thrusting items into the water, I found my old apartment keys on the leather butterfly keychain Ben’s older daughter had given me. I moved to throw it away, then thought better and instead removed the keys and plunged them deeply into the trash, keeping the brown butterfly, a gift from a little girl about whose fate, along with her sister’s, many people will continue to fret.

The tableau reveals several females whose futures have been determined by Ben’s actions. I believe that Taylor’s entry into the sexual dark from the murk of her own relationships with men eventually led her into that evening with Ben. Taylor’s friendship with Ben was an act of bravery, one tragically betrayed, a young woman’s attempt to confront and resolve what she feared. Ben’s daughters also will have to grapple with this — no doubt already are — ill-equipped, and one facing adolescence.

When Ben showed me his photographs, as he often did, I encouraged him as I do anyone who passionately undertakes a craft or artistic pursuit. Nevertheless, I silently noted that his photos usually lacked the glint of originality and his sensibility of human subjects seemed adolescent, co-opted from everything seen before. The same images manipulated by greater ability, a more generous spirit, could have been invigorating. But his were ideas left listless, and tired — no presence. Lately, I’ve returned to one photo of Taylor. In it, her gaze is an aperture edged in caution and I am struck by her presence. It was with horrifying simplicity that she was taken. I wish it weren’t with such ease that vigor and freshness are devastated by a man who could mine none of his own.

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.

On Thursday, Ben Fawley was to appear in Richmond's Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court regarding the child pornography charges that he faces. The child pornography charges are unrelated to the death of Taylor Behl. Fawley has been indicted on 1^st degree murder in the death of Ms. Behl, and appeared at his arraignment in a Mathews County courtroom on Wednesday. The child pornography charges were a result of a serach warrant served on Fawley during the investigation of Taylor Behl's disappearance. During their search, the police found computer images depicting children involved in sexual situations. Some pictures had pictures of children as young as a year old.

Ben Fawley appeared before Mathews Circuit Court Judge William Shaw III for his formal arraignment. Fawley entered no plea to the 1^st degree murder charges that a Mathews County grand jury indicted him for last week. As Fawley entered the courtroom dressed in a button-down shirt and slacks, he glanced briefly at the packed courtroom. During the hearing, Judge Shaw appointed William Johnson of Gloucester as Fawley's counsel. The judge set a trial date for May 30, 2006. Fawley is still being held without bond in a Richmond jail, as he faces multiple counts of possession of child pornography.

Janet Pelasara, the mother of the slain co-ed, Taylor Behl, was in court today. She stared at Fawley during the proceeding. When asked later what she felt when looking at Fawley, Ms. Pelasara stated, "I felt absolutely nothing... nothing... nothing..."

Fawley's newly appointed attorney responded to a question about moving the trial outside of Mathews County by saying that no decision had been made at this point, but said that with the widespread coverage, "that position could change."

Late Wednesday I received word that the Mathews County court calendared the arraignment hearing for Ben Fawley for January 25, 2006. At this hearing, Fawley will make his first appearance in the Taylor Behl murder case and should formally enter his plea. From that point, the court should set a trial date. Of course, we can expect a phalanx of pre-trial motions in preparation for the trial. As I hear more, I will post it here. If you hear more, please email me using any of the email links on this site.

The Mathews County grand jury, composed of five men and two women, returned an indictment of 1^st degree murder, just before noon on Tuesday. The indictment accuses Fawley of the premeditated killing of Ms. Behl while "in the commission of, or attempt to commit, rape, forcible sodomy or abduction." The indictment indicates that the death occurred on or about September 6, 2005.

134 days after her disappearance, there is finally an indictment in the Taylor Behl case. Taylor's remains were found one month after she disappeared. The remains were found on land next to that belonging to an ex-girlfriend, located in Mathews County, VA. Shortly after finding the remains, Ben Fawley admitted to some involvement in her death, but claimed it was an accident.

Janet Pelasara is pleased with the indictment saying that even if it means Fawley does not face the death penalty. “He needs to be put through the pain and ... the horridness that he put my daughter through. When he gets to prison, maybe that will happen." Ms. Pelasara has not received any specific details in the case since the judge overseeing the Richmond grand jury imposed a gag order in October.

Ms. Pelasara traveled to Mathews County to await the grand jury's ruling. Speaking to reporters during phone conversations later in the day, Ms. Pelasara said that she was "tickled and thrilled" with the indictment. "We still have a long way to go, but this is a good beginning," she added. "I just hope that the trial is going to prove him guilty and that he will be put through the same pain that he put Taylor through." Ms. Pelasara told another reporter, "I am so relieved. The system is working. Ben now will know that his spiral down to the depths of Hell has just begun."

Saying that he would not comment on any of the evidence in the case, Mathews County Commonwealth's Attorney Jack Gill announced the indictment to the press. The medical examiner's office has still not determined the cause or method of death, according to a spokesperson from their office. Gill indicated that he expected the trial to begin within the next five months.

Fawley's attorney, Chris Collins, said that he was relieved that the grand jury did not indict Fawley on capital murder charges. Capital murder charges would have made the case eligible for the death penalty. Collins continued by saying that absent a cause of death, even first-degree murder "is a stretch." Collins said, "I don't know how prosecutors proved to the grand jury that the case should be first degree." He says that to do so, prosecutors have to introduce evidence of premeditation. "I think they have emotions on their side, and I think the only thing they can do is hope to get the trial jury so enraged that this 38-year-old man was having sex with a 17-year-old and that it will suffice as premeditation. Emotions sometimes carry these cases beyond the law," Collins added.

Quoting from the article written by Jim Nolan of the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Yesterday, Behl's mother, Janet Pelasara, sat with her fingers crossed in the front row of Circuit Judge William H. Shaw III's courtroom as the grand jurors entered. One of the two women appeared teary-eyed as she took her seat.

After the indictment was announced, Pelasara smiled at her childhood friend Kay Rosenthal, who had accompanied her from Vienna to Mathews for the proceedings.

Greeting reporters outside the courthouse on a cold, overcast day, Pelasara said she was looking forward to seeing Fawley in person when he next appears in court.

"I'm going to look him in the eye, and see if he can look me in the eye," she said. "I think Ben now knows that his spiraling down through the depths of hell has begun."

But Pelasara, who said the death of her daughter still seems surreal, said she does not know whether she will be able to attend every day of the trial because of the graphic evidence and testimony that will likely be presented.

"There will be a lot of details. . . . You want to picture your daughter healthy and beautiful and alive, and what they could bring in could be horrific," she said.. "No mother should have to see that."

"Taylor did not go off willingly with him," Pelasara said yesterday. "He had to have lured her in some way to get her here. No way she had consensual sex with him -- I don't think it was 'rough sex.'"

"He can just rot in jail and be loved to death [in jail]," she said.

Gill, the Mathews commonwealth's attorney, was asked yesterday whether the evidence gathered to date was strong enough to support a charge of first-degree murder.

"We'll see," he said, later expressing concern that the intense news coverage of the case could make it more difficult to select a jury in Mathews, a small fishing community whose year-round population of 9,600 generally doubles during the summer.

Law-enforcement officials said they could remember only three murders in the county during the previous 10 years.

It took less than a half hour for the jurors to indict Fawley after they reviewed evidence presented by the state's sole witness before the panel, Richmond police Detective J.B. Hudson.

"I feel sorry for the people of Mathews," said Pelasara, knowing that a trial could bring a swarm of national media and unwanted attention to its quiet, friendly shores. "It's a beautiful place."

One place Pelasara has not seen is the ravine where her daughter's remains were discovered.

Yesterday, a cable hung across the gravel road that led back several hundred yards to that spot. Just beyond the entrance to the property was a gray stuffed puppy under a wreath of bright pink, orange, and white plastic flowers.

The attached card read, "Rest-In-Peace, Dear Child of God."

It was signed, "Someone who cares and remembers."

The Hampton Roads Daily Press reported: "As court ended this afternoon, Judge William H. Shaw sternly reminded members of the grand jury not to speak about the case." The gag order issued in October is still in effect barring anyone involved with the investigation from releasing information to the press.

I want to apologize for being a little slow in getting the site updated. Today was the first vet visit for the puppies one of my dogs gave birth to on Friday, 1/7/06. The babies and the mother have been taking up a lot of my time. I just cannot help myself; I keep finding myself sitting in the room with them watching them nurse. You can see pictures of the dogs and find a link to the puppy pictures on the main website at http://www.notagz.com. Mom & pups received a perfect bill of health from the vet.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 17, 2006, is the day that the prosecution plans to put their case before the Mathews County grand jury. Prosecutors have said in the past that they expect an idictment against Ben Fawley, the only suspect in the death of Taylor Behl. You may recall that Fawley has admitted to being present during the death of Taylor. Janet Pelasara, Taylor's mother, is expected to be in Mathews County and available to testify before the grand jury should they deem it necessary. Ms. Pelasara has spoken out against Fawley's claim of having a romantic relationship with Taylor. It is Fawley's claim that Taylor died during a consensual romantic interlude on the day that Taylor disappeared.

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Richmond Times-Dispatch
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The links below are to the major network news and the stations in the area providing full coverage of Taylor's Case. These are the major source of the information provided on this site. Also included are links to the various Weblogs and other sites of interest.

The information on this page was obtained through public and private sources. The images may be updated, changed, corrected, or deleted by E-mailing me at: willnotagz@aol.com. You may also view an updated version of this webpage at: http://taylorbehl.notagz.com/. You may use the pictures and host them on official or other private sites. Where possible give collage credit to E-mail me at willnotagz@aol.com. I also welcome messages regarding broken links, continuity, grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.

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