WEBVTT 00:00.031 --> 00:01.713 [SPEAKER_01]: Hello, campus cronies. 00:02.174 --> 00:04.137 [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to campus crime chronicles. 00:04.577 --> 00:09.965 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host Dr. Nicole Turner, Higher Education Professional and True Crime Addict. 00:10.586 --> 00:20.740 [SPEAKER_01]: In every episode of this podcast, I take a deep dive into some sort of true crime that occurred on a school campus or a crime that's associated with a college or university in some way. 00:21.301 --> 00:28.030 [SPEAKER_01]: For each episode, I rate the 00:28.010 --> 00:35.821 [SPEAKER_01]: with one being completely not serious, possibly even a little humorous from time to time, to five being extremely serious. 00:37.063 --> 00:38.846 [SPEAKER_01]: This episode is rated a five. 00:39.927 --> 00:56.211 [SPEAKER_01]: After Labor Day weekend in 2005, 17-year-old Taylor Bell returned to the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University, eager to resume her freshman year, away from home for the first time, Taylor was embracing the independence and excitement of college life. 00:56.191 --> 01:05.623 [SPEAKER_01]: But when more than 24 hours passed without anyone hearing from her, concern quickly turned to alarm, and those closest to her knew something was terribly wrong. 01:06.684 --> 01:09.387 [SPEAKER_01]: This episode is titled The Missing Freshman. 01:09.788 --> 01:25.067 [SPEAKER_01]: So without further ado, let's get started. 01:26.650 --> 01:51.477 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. 01:52.351 --> 01:59.363 [SPEAKER_01]: It was Labor Day weekend in 2005, and 17-year-old Taylor Bell had been home in Vienna, Virginia, visiting her family. 02:00.144 --> 02:09.059 [SPEAKER_01]: On Monday, September 5th, she sat out on the roughly two-hour drive back to Virginia Commonwealth University, more commonly known as VCU, Enrichment. 02:09.901 --> 02:17.734 [SPEAKER_01]: Just two weeks into her first semester of college, Taylor was fully embracing the experience, including life in the campus dorms. 02:17.714 --> 02:21.758 [SPEAKER_01]: After several hours on the road, Taylor arrived safely back at her dorm. 02:22.319 --> 02:30.808 [SPEAKER_01]: According to CBS News, she unpacked her belongings, spent some time chatting with friends, and called both of her parents to let them know she had made it back to Richmond. 02:31.529 --> 02:37.035 [SPEAKER_01]: Although her parents had divorced when she was only two years old, they co-parented well and Taylor was close with each of them. 02:37.936 --> 02:44.042 [SPEAKER_01]: That evening, Taylor told her roommate Emma Ellsworth that she was leaving, but she'd be back in a few hours. 02:44.022 --> 02:54.422 [SPEAKER_01]: On an episode of 48 hours, Emma explained how she didn't become worried about Taylor until the next day, nearly 24 hours later, when Taylor still hadn't returned to their dorm. 02:55.104 --> 02:59.192 [SPEAKER_01]: Emma said, quote, the next night, we realized she hadn't been back for a day. 02:59.613 --> 03:00.815 [SPEAKER_01]: Her books were still there. 03:01.156 --> 03:03.841 [SPEAKER_01]: She hadn't gone to any of her classes, which was odd. 03:04.362 --> 03:04.883 [SPEAKER_01]: End quote. 03:06.095 --> 03:12.747 [SPEAKER_01]: With no sign of Taylor and growing unease, Emma contacted campus police to report her roommate missing. 03:13.929 --> 03:18.418 [SPEAKER_01]: Shortly afterward, VCU made a call no parent ever wants to receive. 03:19.039 --> 03:25.150 [SPEAKER_01]: They informed Taylor's mother, Janet Pelisara, that her daughter and her daughter's car had vanished. 03:26.294 --> 03:35.492 [SPEAKER_01]: According to CBS News, VCU police questioned Taylor's friends and acquaintances on campus, but they initially wondered if Taylor had simply wandered off for a while. 03:36.194 --> 03:42.767 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that maybe she was really embracing her newfound independence and just wanted to get away for a bit on her own. 03:43.810 --> 03:48.635 [SPEAKER_01]: But Taylor's mom knew her daughter, and she knew that Taylor would never wander off without telling anybody. 03:49.276 --> 03:52.559 [SPEAKER_01]: So Janet turned to the media to get the word out about her missing daughter. 03:53.240 --> 03:55.903 [SPEAKER_01]: And soon, a search for Taylor, spread nationwide. 03:57.024 --> 04:07.135 [SPEAKER_01]: Taylor's best friend from high school, Glynis, recalled what she was feeling and thinking during this time, wondering where her friend could be convincing herself that they'd find her safe. 04:07.115 --> 04:10.281 [SPEAKER_01]: She said quote, Hope became less and less. 04:10.582 --> 04:13.688 [SPEAKER_01]: I kept telling everyone around me, you know, it's going to be okay. 04:13.988 --> 04:16.092 [SPEAKER_01]: She's going to come back alive and quote. 04:16.954 --> 04:28.937 [SPEAKER_01]: But after 10 days and still no sign of Taylor, VCU turned the case over to Richmond Police, and Chief Rodney Monroe quickly organized a task force comprised of numerous law enforcement agencies. 04:29.423 --> 04:32.586 [SPEAKER_01]: including University Police and State and Federal Officials. 04:33.808 --> 04:41.737 [SPEAKER_01]: The first thing on the task forces to do this was to establish a timeline of Taylor's last movements, who had last seen her, where had she gone? 04:42.577 --> 04:47.563 [SPEAKER_01]: Richmond Police Captain John Van Neudie said, quote, where do you start with your victim? 04:47.983 --> 04:54.030 [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone your victim knows, every place your victim's been, and that was our starting point, end quote. 04:54.010 --> 05:01.623 [SPEAKER_01]: One of the last people to see Taylor the night of her disappearance was one of her friends who lived off campus, a guy named Ben Folly. 05:02.285 --> 05:12.643 [SPEAKER_01]: Folly told police that Taylor had come to visit him that night, and according to CBS News, he recalled that she was upset because she had just been dumped online by her official boyfriend. 05:12.623 --> 05:18.390 [SPEAKER_01]: I don't really know why they used or he used that wording official boyfriend, it's a little odd to me, but anyway. 05:18.971 --> 05:23.316 [SPEAKER_01]: That boyfriend was Jacob Cunningham, a freshman art major of ECU. 05:23.957 --> 05:26.220 [SPEAKER_01]: So police, of course, went to talk with Jacob. 05:26.821 --> 05:32.888 [SPEAKER_01]: And according to a 2005 article from People.com, Taylor had actually spent most of that evening with him. 05:33.329 --> 05:37.033 [SPEAKER_01]: The two had dinner together, talked through their disagreement, and made up. 05:37.674 --> 05:41.719 [SPEAKER_01]: Jacob told investigators that Taylor left his place around 10-18 p.m. 05:41.699 --> 05:47.145 [SPEAKER_01]: Detective Jason Hudson later explained, once you talk to Jacob, he's a very nice young man. 05:47.545 --> 05:54.433 [SPEAKER_01]: We narrowed his timeline to where we felt comfortable excluding him from any person of interest, and quote. 05:54.453 --> 05:57.716 [SPEAKER_01]: Before leaving, Taylor told Jacob she planned to go skateboarding. 05:58.397 --> 06:08.027 [SPEAKER_01]: Just six minutes later, at 1024 pm, campus surveillance cameras captured what would be the last confirmed sighting of Taylor Bell alive. 06:08.007 --> 06:13.016 [SPEAKER_01]: Within two days of Richmond Police taking over the case, investigators caught their first major break. 06:13.617 --> 06:18.466 [SPEAKER_01]: On September 17, 12 days after Taylor disappeared, her car was located. 06:18.486 --> 06:24.837 [SPEAKER_01]: It had been parked on a quiet residential street about two miles from campus, but something was immediately off. 06:25.318 --> 06:30.387 [SPEAKER_01]: The cars of Virginia license plates had been removed and replaced with stolen Ohio plates. 06:31.835 --> 06:35.421 [SPEAKER_01]: Detectives brought in a bloodhound to track any scent left behind. 06:36.042 --> 06:44.936 [SPEAKER_01]: The dog picked up a trail around the car and followed it for roughly five blocks, stopping at the home of an aunt and uncle of a man named Jesse Schultz. 06:44.956 --> 06:52.167 [SPEAKER_01]: Investigators searched the house but came up empty, but just before leaving, they casually asked the couple who their last visitor had been. 06:52.808 --> 06:55.412 [SPEAKER_01]: The only name they could think of was their nephew, Jesse. 06:55.392 --> 07:04.235 [SPEAKER_01]: So police brought Jesse Schultz in for questioning, and he agreed to take a polygraph, which investigators said actually indicated deception. 07:05.017 --> 07:10.532 [SPEAKER_01]: But Jesse insisted he had never met Taylor Bell, and he had no idea who she was. 07:10.512 --> 07:16.622 [SPEAKER_01]: As police continued looking into him, Schultz became less and less of a person of interest. 07:17.203 --> 07:26.358 [SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, it turned into a bit of a red herring, and to this day, the cent trail from that dog remains one of the biggest mysteries of the investigation. 07:26.418 --> 07:33.449 [SPEAKER_01]: Either way, Captain Vanude later said quote, do I think Jesse had anything to do with Taylor's disappearance? 07:33.970 --> 07:35.372 [SPEAKER_01]: No, end quote. 07:36.533 --> 07:41.440 [SPEAKER_01]: So investigators circled back to someone who had been on their radar from the very beginning. 07:42.201 --> 07:43.122 [SPEAKER_01]: Ben Folly. 07:43.142 --> 07:52.756 [SPEAKER_01]: According to an episode of 48 hours, Folly was known around BCU for his wild, colorful hair, and an eclectic van covered in stickers. 07:53.436 --> 07:56.761 [SPEAKER_01]: The van was so odd, it had even been featured on local TV. 07:57.562 --> 08:01.748 [SPEAKER_01]: But from the start, something about him didn't sit right with police. 08:02.217 --> 08:09.030 [SPEAKER_01]: You see, Folley and Taylor had first met in February of 2005, months before she even graduated from high school. 08:09.772 --> 08:14.341 [SPEAKER_01]: Taylor and her father, Matt Bell, had traveled to VCU for a college visit. 08:15.002 --> 08:18.609 [SPEAKER_01]: Taylor stayed overnight with a friend who already attended the university. 08:19.190 --> 08:24.681 [SPEAKER_01]: That friend lived off campus and had a roommate, and that roommate was Ben Folley. 08:25.657 --> 08:29.180 [SPEAKER_01]: Matt Bell remembered meeting him when he dropped Taylor off for the night. 08:29.781 --> 08:38.028 [SPEAKER_01]: He later said, quote, he was very friendly, very personable, dressed a little differently, but appropriate for what you would think you would see on a college campus." 08:38.668 --> 08:39.149 [SPEAKER_01]: End quote. 08:40.290 --> 08:46.395 [SPEAKER_01]: But what Matt didn't know at the time was that Folly was not an average college student. 08:46.415 --> 08:55.663 [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, he wasn't a college student at all. 08:55.643 --> 09:02.857 [SPEAKER_01]: After that first visit, while Taylor was finishing her final months of high school, she continued communicating with Folly through email. 09:03.719 --> 09:09.450 [SPEAKER_01]: Then she visited the campus again on her own before she graduated and spent more time with him. 09:10.409 --> 09:14.233 [SPEAKER_01]: Taylor's best friend, Glynis, later explained their relationship. 09:14.734 --> 09:18.498 [SPEAKER_01]: She said, quote, it was mostly just him showering her with attention. 09:19.038 --> 09:20.560 [SPEAKER_01]: She never thought of him seriously. 09:20.600 --> 09:22.742 [SPEAKER_01]: It was never, I want to date him. 09:23.163 --> 09:25.805 [SPEAKER_01]: It was more like intriguing and quote. 09:27.327 --> 09:32.553 [SPEAKER_01]: But as the months passed, Taylor confided in Glynis that she and Folly had been intimate. 09:33.474 --> 09:39.420 [SPEAKER_01]: Glynis described it as a one night thing. 09:40.717 --> 09:48.153 [SPEAKER_01]: Another VCU student, 24-year-old Aaron Crable, also knew Folly Well, because she had dated him herself. 09:48.935 --> 09:51.841 [SPEAKER_01]: Aaron explained how easy it was to be drawn to him. 09:52.382 --> 09:55.028 [SPEAKER_01]: She said, quote, you were the only person in the world. 09:55.629 --> 10:00.480 [SPEAKER_01]: All of his attention was on you, and he had all these crazy stories and quote. 10:00.460 --> 10:11.367 [SPEAKER_01]: But, she ended the relationship almost as soon as it began, and the reason why Aaron said Folly broke into her apartment in the middle of the night, holding Mace and a hammer. 10:12.069 --> 10:17.322 [SPEAKER_01]: She said, quote, I felt like I don't know what this man is capable of, and quote. 10:17.302 --> 10:19.185 [SPEAKER_01]: y'all, that's chilling. 10:20.146 --> 10:26.335 [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, as detectives dug deeper into Follie's past, a disturbing pattern began to emerge. 10:27.217 --> 10:43.140 [SPEAKER_01]: Less Lossier or Lossier, an investigator with the Virginia Attorney General's office, said, quote, we found that there were other young girls who had been in contact with him over the years, and then been assaulted or had been threatened or felt threatened by him, end quote. 10:43.542 --> 10:55.206 [SPEAKER_01]: Even more troubling, Folly had been convicted just two years earlier in 2003 for assaulting a former girlfriend, and all of this made him look really bad, like really, really bad. 10:55.266 --> 11:02.040 [SPEAKER_01]: But investigators still needed something concrete that tied him directly to Taylor's disappearance. 11:02.020 --> 11:09.570 [SPEAKER_01]: During questioning, though, Folly admitted that he had previously had sex with Taylor, who was still only 17 years old at the time. 11:10.131 --> 11:14.957 [SPEAKER_01]: And that admission alone was enough for investigators to obtain a search warrant for his apartment. 11:15.718 --> 11:21.666 [SPEAKER_01]: And what they found inside was a massive amount of extremely graphic child pornography. 11:22.810 --> 11:27.560 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, Folly claimed it didn't belong to him and must have been left by a previous tenant. 11:28.502 --> 11:29.704 [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, okay, sure. 11:29.745 --> 11:34.274 [SPEAKER_01]: But regardless, possession of child pornography is a felony. 11:34.935 --> 11:37.140 [SPEAKER_01]: So police immediately arrested him. 11:38.302 --> 11:50.015 [SPEAKER_01]: As investigators combed through the endless digital files on his computer, they found thousands of photographs, abandoned buildings, secluded locations, maps, weapons, and pictures of tailor. 11:50.936 --> 11:53.679 [SPEAKER_01]: It started to feel like pieces of a very disturbing puzzle. 11:54.440 --> 12:00.867 [SPEAKER_01]: So police asked Aaron Crabel to look through some of the images, you know, since she knew him and had a pass with him. 12:00.847 --> 12:02.911 [SPEAKER_01]: and y'all she recognized one. 12:03.432 --> 12:09.906 [SPEAKER_01]: It was a photograph of a small abandoned house near her parents' property, a place she had once taken folly to herself. 12:11.088 --> 12:13.673 [SPEAKER_01]: So police took Aaron with them to the location. 12:14.475 --> 12:19.345 [SPEAKER_01]: The house that nearly 90 miles from BCU in a rural area in Matthew's county. 12:21.451 --> 12:28.803 [SPEAKER_01]: At this point, Taylor had been missing for over a month, and as the entered the house, Erin remembered a distinct smell. 12:29.564 --> 12:32.949 [SPEAKER_01]: She said, quote, this officer said, do you smell something? 12:32.969 --> 12:35.954 [SPEAKER_01]: I said, yeah, it smelled like the end of something. 12:36.575 --> 12:38.117 [SPEAKER_01]: The officer saw her before I did. 12:38.578 --> 12:40.641 [SPEAKER_01]: He said, we found someone and quote. 12:42.207 --> 12:51.057 [SPEAKER_01]: behind the house in a shallow grave near a ravine, they found human remains, and it didn't take them long to determine that it was Taylor Bell. 12:51.938 --> 12:59.967 [SPEAKER_01]: Taylor's mother, Janette, later said quote, for him to leave her in a shallow grave, a ravine to be eaten by animals, by insects. 12:59.987 --> 13:00.988 [SPEAKER_01]: She was a skeleton. 13:01.428 --> 13:04.772 [SPEAKER_01]: That was what was left of my baby, because of him, and quote. 13:08.043 --> 13:11.949 [SPEAKER_01]: Despite the discovery, Ben Foley maintained his innocence. 13:12.610 --> 13:17.437 [SPEAKER_01]: He admitted to being with Taylor the night she died, but he insisted he had not killed her. 13:18.218 --> 13:25.048 [SPEAKER_01]: In a rambling statement to police, he said, quote, I was very drunk and very high, and I don't know why Taylor died, end quote. 13:26.250 --> 13:35.063 [SPEAKER_01]: Police later confirmed through surveillance footage that he had been waiting outside Taylor's dorm at 1021 PM and that Taylor left just minutes later. 13:36.292 --> 13:40.718 [SPEAKER_01]: Fully claimed they went back to his apartment where he drank heavily and took narcotics. 13:41.519 --> 13:48.669 [SPEAKER_01]: He described Taylor as a daring teenager who wanted to drive to rule Matthew's county to play what he called a game of drunk monkey. 13:49.310 --> 13:55.077 [SPEAKER_01]: He claimed that she suggested experimenting with a sex act known as erotic esphyxia. 13:55.818 --> 13:58.742 [SPEAKER_01]: He told police quote, she wanted me to put a bag over her head. 13:59.303 --> 14:04.510 [SPEAKER_01]: I thought everything was fine and dandy, but she was passed out, and that's what she wanted, end quote. 14:04.928 --> 14:06.930 [SPEAKER_01]: but Taylor wasn't passed out. 14:07.551 --> 14:08.212 [SPEAKER_01]: She was dead. 14:09.674 --> 14:19.465 [SPEAKER_01]: When asked why he didn't call for help as soon as he realized something was wrong, folly said quote, what was running through my head was, I'm in some serious shit here, end quote. 14:19.485 --> 14:25.613 [SPEAKER_01]: He then proceeded to admit that he drove her body back to Richmond, left her in her car overnight as he went to sleep. 14:26.253 --> 14:30.919 [SPEAKER_01]: Then the next day he returned to Matthew's County to bury her in that shallow grave. 14:32.418 --> 14:39.006 [SPEAKER_01]: By the time Taylor was found, her body was too decomposed for medical examiners to determine exactly how she died. 14:39.647 --> 14:42.710 [SPEAKER_01]: But still, Folly was charged with first-degree murder. 14:43.651 --> 14:46.655 [SPEAKER_01]: Prosecutors believed his story was complete fiction. 14:46.695 --> 14:53.683 [SPEAKER_01]: They argued that Folly had taken Taylor to a secluded area, attempted to have sex with her or make a move on her. 14:53.663 --> 14:56.308 [SPEAKER_01]: and when she rejected him, he strangled her. 14:57.270 --> 15:04.343 [SPEAKER_01]: He had even admitted to police that at one point, he, quote unquote, flipped out and told her to quote unquote, shut up. 15:05.084 --> 15:06.627 [SPEAKER_01]: And then there was the duct tape. 15:07.268 --> 15:11.596 [SPEAKER_01]: Her wrist had been bound, and prosecutors said that was not part of any sex game. 15:12.097 --> 15:13.900 [SPEAKER_01]: That was actual restraint. 15:13.880 --> 15:22.442 [SPEAKER_01]: To test this story, Richmond Police conducted a full reenactment using two officers of similar size and a car identical to tailors. 15:23.344 --> 15:30.522 [SPEAKER_01]: Reading from Follie's own statement, they attempted to recreate the scenario that Follie told them about. 15:30.502 --> 15:39.043 [SPEAKER_01]: The female officer, who re-enacted Taylor's part, said quote, I've only been here a few minutes and already half my body is completely numb. 15:39.644 --> 15:44.055 [SPEAKER_01]: So I know that any teenage girl wouldn't settle for this for too long, and quote. 15:45.217 --> 15:54.016 [SPEAKER_01]: than the male officer who, you know, reenacted Folly, explained quote, someone could not get any kind of enjoyment out of this, end quote. 15:54.737 --> 16:01.993 [SPEAKER_01]: So investigators concluded by this reenactment that it absolutely did not happen the way Folly described. 16:02.800 --> 16:06.825 [SPEAKER_01]: Before trial, though, two things changed everything. 16:07.586 --> 16:15.176 [SPEAKER_01]: While in jail, Folly told an officer that his story about erotic esphyxia had been a strategy to simply beat the system. 16:16.198 --> 16:25.770 [SPEAKER_01]: And in a letter to an ex-girlfriend, he wrote, quote, people are right, something is wrong with me, and now it's true, I've killed and quote. 16:25.750 --> 16:28.776 [SPEAKER_01]: With that, Folly agreed to a plea deal. 16:29.538 --> 16:39.338 [SPEAKER_01]: Y'all he entered an Alfred plea to second-degree murder, and in exchange, the child pornography charges were dropped, and he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. 16:39.858 --> 16:41.880 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, that was in August of 2006. 16:42.981 --> 16:45.283 [SPEAKER_01]: He is scheduled to be released in 2031. 16:45.303 --> 16:51.990 [SPEAKER_01]: Y'all, that's only five years away, and again, that's chilling. 16:53.131 --> 16:57.676 [SPEAKER_01]: Taylor's parents said that the sinnencing never really brought the closure they had hoped for. 16:58.357 --> 17:04.263 [SPEAKER_01]: Her mom, Janet, said, quote, after the trial, when he was put away, I thought there'd be some relief. 17:04.523 --> 17:09.628 [SPEAKER_01]: Some, OK, I can get on now, but it 17:09.608 --> 17:16.358 [SPEAKER_01]: And her father said, quote, it's something that you think of every single day of your life, and quote. 17:16.378 --> 17:21.827 [SPEAKER_01]: But now, Erin's friends and family are turning their grief into something meaningful. 17:22.488 --> 17:33.945 [SPEAKER_01]: Erin Crabel, her friend who assisted investigators, ended up receiving a $20,000 reward for helping them, and she used part of that money to start a fund for women in crisis in Taylor's honor. 17:33.925 --> 17:41.298 [SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, Taylor's father established the Taylor Marie Belle Memorial Scholarship Fund to help students in need. 17:41.999 --> 17:49.352 [SPEAKER_01]: And Taylor's mother wrote a book titled Love You More, a phrase she and Taylor always used when ending their conversations. 17:49.332 --> 17:57.327 [SPEAKER_01]: So, I'd like to leave you with some words from Janet about her book, who said, quote, It's about her, about what he took from her. 17:57.888 --> 18:05.202 [SPEAKER_01]: She was so excited about the future, the list of things that she wanted to do, and who she wanted to be, and she would have succeeded. 18:05.242 --> 18:08.488 [SPEAKER_01]: She would have been all of those things, and quote. 18:10.139 --> 18:13.825 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay y'all, that brings us to the end of Chronicle 107. 18:14.365 --> 18:19.333 [SPEAKER_01]: As always, be sure to check out my social media where I post photos associated with each case in episode. 18:19.834 --> 18:24.080 [SPEAKER_01]: You can find me at Campus Crime Chronicles on both Facebook and Instagram. 18:24.481 --> 18:37.480 [SPEAKER_01]: Also, if anybody wants to volunteer to run my social media, if somebody young is listening and they want to run the social media because I'm not good at it and it's just me up in here trying to make this podcast work. 18:37.460 --> 18:44.331 [SPEAKER_01]: Reach out to me, follow me, send me a message on social media and we'll talk, but I would love that. 18:44.812 --> 19:04.783 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay y'all, well that's all for today, so bye for now.