01x02 - Death of an Influencer

[bunniefuu]

In case y'all didn't know,

it's Black girl Sunday.

Celebrate your girl,

or not, it's whatever.

We hear about a lot
of missing children.

But there was something
really different about Alexis.

She was the social media star.

That was one of the
alarming things,

does she have a stalker?

Is somebody following her?

One of the videos captures

Alexis Murphy's
vehicle pulling in,

but you can't really
tell who's driving.

It was definitely unlikely
that Alexis drove her car

to some random movie
theater in Charlottesville.

It was still a lot of questions

going through my head.

What happened? Where is she?

Alexis has virtually disappeared

off the face of the Earth.

It's just full throttle forward.

- It's August 2013.

In the rural enclave
of Shipman, Virginia.

Go!

17-year-old Alexis Murphy,

is preparing for senior year
at Nelson County High School.

She definitely was a person that

could brighten your
day on your worst day.

My name is Trina Harmon Murphy,

and Alexis is my great-niece.

She was just an
incredibly humble,

genuine person.

She was the total package.

I'm Jasmine Murphy,
and I'm Alexis' cousin.

She was looking forward
to her senior year,

playing volleyball.

I did assistant coaching
with her for two years.

Seeing her play and
playing against her,

at the open gyms,

she had definitely developed
and grown as a player.

Ay, where my Pacers fans at?

Oh, sh...,

I was serious.

None. None at all.

She was definitely attached
to her cell phone, for sure.

If the battery was dying,

she would plug in
multiple extension cords

so that she could still
move about the house

and take the phone with her.

Okay, my life is pretty
much complete right now.

Whoever invented this,
thank you so much.

Alexis' journey to
the cusp of adulthood

began on June 5, 1996,

when she was born into a
loving, extended family.

Even when she was a
baby, she was just

funny, outgoing person.

She was always
getting into stuff.

But I definitely
saw her grow up.

She was definitely smart.

She could come to me for things

or if I had clothes
that were too small,

hand-me-down to
Alexis. She loved them.

She grew up around
most of her cousins

so cousins are more like
brothers and sisters.

As she got older, you saw
her get more interested

in music, dancing.

She was forever recording
herself dancing.

If I was dancing in the car,
she would just laugh at me,

and was like, "Don't
ever do that again."

Just enjoyed... she loved
her music and dancing,

she definitely did.

Alexis and her friends

spend their free time
at a local destination,

Liberty Gas Station.

The gas station that has a
McDonald's connected to it,

was definitely like the
teenage hangout spot.

Alexis went to that gas
station every single day.

It's a rural county, you know?

The gas station is just
kind of where kids hang out.

Alexis' social world, however,

extends far beyond
Shipman, Virginia.

My name's Katie Love,

and I was an
investigative reporter

covering the Alexis Murphy case.

In 2013, we're just
starting to understand

the power of Twitter.

And Alexis got it right away.

You knew what she was up to

because she would tweet it.

In case y'all didn't know,

it's Black girl Sunday.

Celebrate your girl,
or not, it's whatever.

The average teenager
probably has

a couple hundred followers,

Alexis was completely different.

We're talking
about 12,000 people

who just wanted to know
what she was up to.

She was this social media star.

Gotta go feed the dogs,

, nobody feel like doing that.

I don't give a who's here.

I haven't even
ate. It's whatever.

We would joke about
it, and she's like

"I don't even know
how they follow me"...

I'm like, "Well, they
obviously like what they see

or what you're doing."

On Wednesday, July 31st,

Alexis hangs out with
her cousin, Jasmine.

After volleyball
camp, I had asked her,

to ride with me,

to Madison Heights to
get my eyebrows done.

And I remember,

we had went to the Chinese
place to get dinner.

And I took her to
McDonald's to get a frappé.

I believe we had
texted that Friday,

just randomly,
'cause we always do.

But I hadn't talked to
her at all that Saturday.

Little did she know,

that was the last
time that Jasmine

would ever see Alexis.

Later that weekend,

in the early morning hours
of Sunday, August 4th,

Alexis' family notices
something peculiar.

Alexis' grandma realizes

that she's missed her
11:00 p.m. curfew,

which is really strange.

Alexis never missed curfew,

was always in the house on time,

and they have no
idea where she is.

That day she left the house

in her dad's car,
the white Nissan,

and the car's
nowhere to be found.

Of course, her
grandmother, you know,

immediately started
to call her phone.

But it went straight
to voicemail.

Alexis was always
tapped into that phone.

When she didn't answer it...

that was a big clue.

I thought she'd
had a car accident.

That was my first thought.

Her mom works night
shift at the post office.

So she came home from
work that morning

and immediately went
to the sheriff's office

and filled out a
missing persons report.

I'm William Everett Mays Jr.

I go by Billy.

I was investigator lieutenant

with Nelson County
Sheriff's Office.

I get a phone call.

It is brought to my attention

by one of the deputies
with Nelson County,

that this young lady
didn't return home.

The deputies had already
spoke with the family

and got a lot of the information

that I needed to start
my investigation.

Teenagers, a lot
of times, tend to

be a little secretive
about what they're doing.

What we have to
take into account

that maybe she is with someone

that she doesn't want
you to know about,

or she went somewhere that
she doesn't want you to know.

As Lieutenant Mays gets
up to speed on the case,

he's alarmed by Alexis'
large Twitter following.

She had a lot of
followers on social media,

but with that, you know,
there's the downside.

It's just a breeding
ground for predators.

With just a matter of hours,

I had a huge resource available.

We had social media
experts from the FBI,

that were devoted
solely to that.

That was critical in this case.

I remember combing
through her social media,

and seeing, like, some of
the things people would post,

like "Oh, I would
like to meet you,"

or "You may see me
sooner than you think."

That was one of the
alarming things.

Does she have a stalker?
Is somebody following her?

As investigators dig through

the large, digital trove,

they spot one tweet,

that points to her plans
for early Saturday evening.

- As she was posting
throughout the day,

one of those said
she was "burg bound,"

which means she was
headed to Lynchburg,

which is a city just
south of Lovingston.

- Her family explains
to investigators

the enthusiasm behind
the 6:04 p.m. post.

She had an appointment
for her senior pictures

the following week,

and she loved hair and makeup

so her plans that day
were to go to Lynchburg,

and buy hair to do
her hair extensions,

for her senior pictures.

Her mom gave her the lecture

on not spending too
much money on hair

and she told them she loved them

and got in her car
and drove away.

That was her very last tweet.

Police reach out to
the Lynchburg store

she was headed to,

but shopkeepers say
she never arrived.

Whether or not she ever
set foot in the city,

is a mystery.

The million-dollar
question is, why?

Why she deviated from that plan,

and was that voluntary?

To track her movements,

Mays subpoenas
Alexis' cell records.

But while he waits
for the results,

late that afternoon,

Trina devises a plan to find her

using an app called
Find My Phone.

Oak Ridge Estates
was the last location

that the Find Me
app on her phone

actually provided.

It's a vast piece of property.

It's several thousand acres.

So a lot of resources
from the sheriff's office

and the state police were
focused on that area.

There was a huge
gathering of people,

there was tons and tons
of people willing to help.

By 6:30, there was a
state trooper helicopter

in the air looking for her car.

By 7:15, the first FBI
agent was on the scene.

You were on a pendulum

between hope and despair.

A suspect on the
road to Lynchburg.

It almost made
you afraid to even

be out at night alone.

And clues from
Alexis' final moments

lead police to the
end of a dirt road.

It looks like something
out of a horror movie.

In late July,

days before Alexis disappeared,

her aunt dropped by her home.

It was just a typical visit,

and she was just her
happy-go-lucky self, you know?

You know, we said our
goodbyes as always...

Love you, see you
later, and that was it.

I mean, the normal
moments are the ones

that are really
important, you know?

Lord knows, I wish
I had known that was

the last time I
was gonna see her.

Just hours after Alexis
is reported missing,

an app called Find My Phone

leads police to a
4,800-acre estate,

called Oak Ridge.

They're searching areas

thinking perhaps there
was a vehicle accident,

that she had ran off the road.

We also had contacted
the state police,

for their helicopters to
come in and fly in the area.

So a lot of the attention
was focused in that area.

After hours of searching,

investigators begin to
question the accuracy

of the phone tracking app.

Law enforcement find nothing,

so it kind of leads
them back to square one.

That was like this alarm
of "what is going on?"

Perhaps she's establishing
a little bit independence,

and she wants a
little more privacy,

as most teenagers do,

but her family was very adamant

that that was not the case.

This probably is bigger
than what we think.

With Alexis' phone
records still pending,

authorities widen
their search radius,

and call in more help

as Mays takes a darker
view of the situation.

It's becoming more evident to me

that this is probably
not a defiant juvenile,

and this is probably
not an accident,

so time is of the essence.
You know, it's critical.

And I was basically the
one overseeing all of this.

We reached out to the
Virginia State Police,

for their special agents,
and we probably had

close to 50-60 special
agents from the FBI there,

which was incredible.

I definitely saw that this
was something serious now.

More serious than we
had thought before.

- As the investigation
intensifies,

the Murphy family's plight
explodes into the spotlight.

In the newsroom,

we hear about a lot
of missing children,

but there was something
really different about Alexis

and how strange it
was for this girl

to suddenly have no trace.

Family members say
17-year old Alexis Murphy

is a good girl, star
volleyball player

at Nelson County High School,

a devoted daughter who always,

always answers her
phone and text.

She became everybody's daughter,

everybody's niece,
everybody's granddaughter.

But Laura Murphy has been unable

to contact her daughter
since August 3rd...

Somebody knows something.
If it's the littlest thing,

that they may not think
is important, it is.

It allowed people to
connect with her family.

It was amazing to
see how many people

organized search parties
after search parties,

looking for Alexis.

My name is Mark Eggeman.

I work for the
Virginia Department

of Emergency Management,

as a search and
rescue coordinator.

Watching the story develop
and grow in the news,

until we get that call
from state police,

and then that's when
we become involved

and it becomes an
active mission for us.

You have a tremendous
amount of woods

and country to have
to search on foot.

The whole community has
mobilized at this point.

This was very out of the
norm for Nelson County.

It's unclear, at this point,
if investigators have found

anything of use for them

as they continue to
search for Alexis Murphy.

In the midst of this publicity,

law enforcement
scrutinizes the road

Alexis would have
taken to Lynchburg.

In recent years,

it has been the site of a
rash of mysterious crimes.

Last count, I believe it's...

32 young women and men,

that are missing on some
portion of the 29 corridor.

There's something
going on, for sure,

on the 29 corridor
that needs attention.

Locals attribute this violence

to a single, anonymous culprit.

When I first started working

for Nelson County
Sheriff's Office,

I had heard about
the 29 Stalker.

There was some young ladies
that had been abducted

along route 29, from say,

Albemarle all the way

up to Barboursville.

You start to wonder

if this is something
that is connected.

Yeah, it was a scare.

It almost made
you afraid to even

be out at night alone.

It was definitely one of
those things you kind of

opened your eyes even more.

But soon, on Monday, August 5th,

two days after she vanished,

Mays received some
crucial documents...

Alexis' cell phone records.

We started looking at the
cell phone information,

the cell phone records,

and were able to determine that

Oak Ridge was... that, we
didn't need to be there.

The phone was pinging
somewhere else.

One of those hits
indicated she was

in the Liberty Gas Station.

That's where the focus
went, at that point.

We were able to go and pull
that video surveillance

of Alexis being there.

Could this footage be the
key to finding Alexis?

She was there,

and she was there alone.

So we were trying to
connect all those dots

and put those pieces
of the puzzle together.

That's the last known
ping on her cell phone.

We knew that this was probably

the last known
place that she was

In the case of Alexis Murphy,

police have obtained
surveillance footage

from the Liberty Gas Station

on the day she disappeared

after her last tweet
around 6:00 p.m.

Could this video hold
clues to her whereabouts?

It was somewhere
around 7:00 p.m.

What I seen when we
watched the video was

Alexis coming into the store

to pay for her gas.

She looked fine when
she was inside to me.

She didn't appear to be
distressed or distraught

or in any kind of
danger or scared,

and she was there alone.

There was really nothing
that looked out of place.

And then she exits
the gas station.

She could be very
close when she left.

It was somewhere
around 7:00 p.m.

And I believe it was 7:17 p.m.

it was the last
activity on her phone.

So we have a roughly a
17-minute window there

that we're trying to
figure out what happened.

We were starting
to canvas the area,

a perimeter around the
Liberty Gas Station,

talking to every resident there,

we're looking for this
young lady and her phone.

There is a car lot
directly across Route 29,

we were searching that area,
searching trunks of cars,

just... because we didn't know.

Law enforcement finds
no sign of Alexis

or her car or phone.

But on August 6th,

three days after
she went missing,

a tipster contacts police
about a major discovery

in Charlottesville.

Tuesday evening, someone,
just, who had watched

the news and had heard about
Alexis Murphy's disappearance,

had noticed this vehicle
sitting there and called us.

Said, "Hey, this car's
here in Charlottesville,"

so, of course, we
drop everything.

We haul freight to
Charlottesville.

It was Alexis Murphy's car.

I wasn't expecting it to be
found in Charlottesville,

wasn't close to Nelson County.

The city of Charlottesville
lies about 40 miles north

of Alexis' hometown of Shipman

and 70 miles north of Lynchburg.

It was the Carmike Cinema area.

And of course, the media's
there before I get there,

and it's a circus.
It's ridiculous.

It made it very difficult
for us to get in there

to do what we needed to do.

It was leaked on social media

that the car was found
before the police ever had

the opportunity to
call and tell us.

It was definitely unlikely
that Alexis drove her car

to some random movie
theater in Charlottesville.

If she said she was
going to the Burg,

then that's where she
was going, to Lynchburg.

It's odd to end up
the opposite direction

in which you said
you were going.

But when I got the news

that they had found her
car, I wanted something.

Some kind of answer
to... besides,

okay, they found her
car. Is she in there?

Or, what's in the trunk?

My biggest fear was when
we popped the trunk,

Alexis was gonna
be in the trunk.

And when we do open the trunk,

she isn't.

Which, it was a relief,

but at the same time,
it's like, "Where is she?"

And her phone is not there.

So, you go from, yay, you know,

she might still be alive, to,

okay, where do we go from here?

This is a big piece
of the puzzle,

but Alexis has
virtually disappeared

off the face of the Earth.
You can't find her phone.

It's just full throttle forward.

Determined to figure out
how the car got there,

Mays obtains
surveillance footage

from surrounding businesses.

There's hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds of hours

of CCTV that we're
going through.

And luckily,

one of the videos captures
Alexis Murphy's vehicle

pulling in on Sunday night

at around... I believe
it was around 10:00.

It's a real grainy video.

You can't really
tell who's driving.

You can just tell that there is
a figure that gets out of it.

And the subject
walks out of frame.

It was a creepy, creepy scene.

Could this mysterious
figure be Alexis?

Despite her bold personality,

her family thinks otherwise.

She was definitely
scared of the dark,

so her to walk off in
the dark without a light?

No, it was definitely
unlikely to be Alexis.

While the individual does
not appear to be Alexis,

their identity is unknown.

You can't identify

if it's a man, a
woman, age, anything.

It's not Alexis driving the car,

but we have no idea
who this person was.

Search teams are still out there

looking for any clues of
where Alexis had gone.

Desperate to understand

the mystery figure's
connection to Alexis,

investigators
reexamine the footage

from the gas station.

When you look at the
video, going back,

there was an individual that
held the door open for her.

And there was some small...
it appeared, small talk.

There was something
really interesting,

and they see something
they had never seen before.

There was a man holding
the door for Alexis Murphy.

And it looks like,
on the footage,

that there's some
sort of conversation,

between Alexis and
this unidentified man.

So, suddenly,

there is a new person
of interest in the case.

So we're starting to wonder

In hopes of identifying a man

seen in surveillance footage,

police in the Alexis
Murphy investigation

race to where it was recorded...

Liberty Gas Station.

So there was a question,
of whether that was someone

who maybe was involved
in Alexis' disappearance.

The attendants who work there
were able to easily say,

"This is a guy
named Randy Taylor."

He was not someone
who just kind of

slid under community radar.

This is a distinctive man

who has this huge Daffy
Duck tattoo on his neck.

The gas station
attendant knew Randy

because he has a car
that's very distinctive,

this camo truck.

Once Lieutenant Mays
learns of Taylor's vehicle,

he digs deeper into the footage.

The cameras, unfortunately,

were not all over
the parking lot.

But there is a camera that's on

a portion of the parking lot,

and it catches just a
tiny piece of route 29.

Just a few minutes
after Alexis leaves,

exits the gas station,

you see this camouflage vehicle,

and Alexis Murphy's white
car is directly behind it.

She was actually going north

towards Charlottesville,

and now she's following him.

The big question
is, we have no idea

why she followed him,
which is really strange.

What's going on?

Mays sizes up

the investigation's
new prime target.

We gotta come up
with a game plan,

let's figure out what the
best avenue of attack is,

as far as the
interview with him,

and let's pin him down.

Investigators discover that
Taylor lives in a camper,

just off of route 29.

Four days after
Alexis disappeared,

Mays heads towards the property.

We had put him under
24-hour surveillance.

I was told by the other agents
where this camper was located,

but I couldn't find it.

The grass was so high
around the driveway.

It goes into this property.

So I finally locate this road.

We pull in, and we're basically

walking up to this thing.

It's just an old
abandoned house.

Then there's this
blue and white camper.

It looks like something
out of a horror movie.

I remember knocking
on Randy's door,

and he opens the door.

We explain to Randy
why we're there.

And I basically asked him about

being at the
Liberty Gas Station.

We're looking for
this young lady,

and he said he had no knowledge,

he's never seen her,
didn't know her,

wasn't at the
Liberty Gas Station,

had no idea what we
were talking about.

That was an important
part of the case for me,

because I knew then that
he was hiding something.

But once we confront
him with the evidence,

there's a video of him
holding the door for her,

and things changed.

He told us he ran
into her at Liberty.

He admits that she was there.

Without prompting,

Taylor launches into a story.

He even goes on to elaborate

that he met Alexis Murphy
probably a year prior to this

at a car wash.

He was smoking some marijuana,

and she had made a comment
about the marijuana.

According to him, she
was talking about how

it smelt like some
really good stuff.

So when he saw her at
the Liberty Gas Station,

on August 3rd,

he knew who she was.

When pressed again about
the August 3rd encounter,

Taylor offers an
astonishing account.

Also he's telling us that
she's with a Black guy,

and they're talking
about a marijuana sale.

And Randy wanted to
buy it from the guy

that she was with.

So they come up
with an agreement,

and they leave, then
he goes to his camper,

Alexis comes, and this other
gentleman follows suit.

He buys marijuana, they
have some small talk,

sh**t the bull, and
they leave together.

That's the last
he's seen of her.

I didn't believe the story,

but we could not rule
out the possibility

of someone else being involved.

To validate Taylor's story,

Mays files for a warrant
to search his trailer.

Alexis' social media
is also scoured

in search of the man in
Taylor's description.

They got the picture off

of some Facebook
page or something

but very quickly were
able to identify this guy

as Dameon.

Dameon was a resident
of Nelson County,

but he leaves town

shortly after Alexis
Murphy is missing

and goes to Alabama.

That as alarming.

That was enough for us to
further investigate this.

- I knew Dameon.

We went to high school together.

So Alexis' relationship
with Dameon,

I don't know
exactly what it was.

I knew he worked at
McDonald's at the time,

she always was at
McDonald's, getting a frappé.

Was he one of the last
people to see her?

Did he have something
to do with it?

Did he know about it?

It was still a lot of questions

going through my head.

What happened? Where is she?

Police uncover disturbing clues.

We see that a fingernail is
embedded into the carpet.

During this kind of evidence,

your stomach just turns.

Authorities close
in on a suspect.

I don't think he expected

the reign of hell
that came down on him.

And cryptic circumstances

envelope Alexis' final moments.

So it leaves me with the
million-dollar question,

how did you get her there?

Investigators have learned

that a friend of Alexis,

who left town after
she disappeared,

may have been the last
person to see her alive.

So myself and
Special Agent Pittman

with the FBI, we
flew to Alabama,

We made arrangements
to meet with Dameon

and talk to him in
further detail about

what his involvement may
or may not have been.

As they sit down to
interrogate Dameon,

Mays asks him about
his whereabouts,

on the weekend Alexis vanished.

He was in Nelson County,

staying in a hotel
with his girlfriend.

He said he was at the
blood bank donating plasma,

and this was right around
the time she went missing.

But he wasn't anywhere
close to where Alexis was

in Nelson County.

So he wasn't even in the
area when she went missing.

He said he had no
involvement whatsoever.

After the interrogation,

Mays returns to Virginia,

and digs into Dameon's account
of the weekend of August 3rd.

We were able to corroborate

his timeline and his alibis.

There was nothing.

There was no dots to
connect with Dameon.

It was just another
ploy for Randy

to throw the investigation off.

After clearing Dameon,

critical information in the case

against Randy Taylor
comes through.

We're able to secure a search
warrant for his camper.

We execute the search
warrant. We go in.

We explain to Randy
why we're there.

And we pull him
out of the camper.

The forensic techs
go in and start

the evidence recovery process.

They go to his house, his
trashy, dump of a camper.

It was a bit messy.

Inside, they find evidence.

We see that a fingernail is
embedded into the carpet.

They find a hair extension

and then a diamond stud.

Hearing this kind of evidence,

your stomach just turns.

It wasn't something
good when I heard that

they found all
those things there.

Because those are things that

any girl, you're not
gonna just let that go.

It had to be taken from you.

Alexis didn't have false nails.

Things like that, it's not
gonna just come out easy.

The evidence is sent
for DNA testing.

Then authorities
search the grounds

around the camper
for Alexis' body.

Behind the property,

there was just all kinds
of garbage and trash

that had been piled up,
and there's a mountain.

And behind the house,

there's a trail that
goes up the mountain.

We search the side
of the mountain

to see if he's taken
her up the mountain.

It was a very difficult search.

You know, everybody's getting
ate up by ticks and chiggers.

We blanketed that
side of the ridge,

and we have nothing.

No indication that
anybody had been up there,

no four-wheeler
tracks... Nothing.

Her cell phone
was still missing,

and she's still missing.

We were still hopeful that
we could find more evidence.

So I actually reached
out to administrators

with the Department
of Corrections

and inquired a little more

about these cell phone dogs.

We learned that law
enforcement is using

K-9 dogs to sniff a
very specific adhesive

found in phones.

We start to see K-9's sniffing
Randy Taylor's camper.

These law enforcement dogs are
smelling some sort of scent,

and they find Alexis
Murphy's phone

just 70 feet from
Randy Taylor's camper.

It's broken. It looks like

someone's tried to
take out the battery.

Finding Alexis' white iPhone,

was the nail in the coffin.

This was her lifeline,

I have that on your property,

and she's not here.

Something terrible has happened.

So I really think that
pretty much sealed the deal.

I went ahead and
arrested him for

abduction with intent to defile.

He looked like a ghost.

I mean, like a deer
in the headlights.

I don't think Randy suspected

the reign of hell
that came down on him

as fast as it came down on him.

After the arrest,

Mays seeks out the Murphy family

for a difficult discussion.

So a decision was made
to sit the family down

and tell them we don't
think she's alive,

and we want to go forward
with a m*rder charge.

And to do that, we had to

have their support
in understanding

that she is dead.

I think we had to

agree with the evidence that
was presented before us.

Because, obviously, the
evidence was there, right?

And we can't find her,

she has had no contact
with her family.

That was kind of the defining
moment to know that, um...

Chances are, she
wasn't here anymore.

As the case heads to trial,

police make Randy
Taylor an offer.

Before the trial,

law enforcement offered
Randy Taylor a deal:

20 years if you
just tell the family

where Alexis Murphy's body is.

His response?

"Give me ten, and I'll
tell you where she is."

It's, like, really unbelievable.

Months later, in May 2014,

at the Nelson County Courthouse,

the first-degree m*rder
trial of Randy Taylor begins.

While the prosecution
has a wealth of evidence,

the lack of a corpse
presents a problem.

This was an unprecedented
case in Virginia,

to try someone for
m*rder with no body.

In May 2014,

the m*rder trial of
Randy Taylor commences.

On behalf of the state,

prosecutor Anthony Martin

delivers the opening statement.

The prosecution was able

to paint this really
violent scene,

with the amount of
evidence that was

just found inside of his camper.

Something horrible has happened.

But in their opening argument,

Taylor's attorney takes aim

at the prosecution's assertions.

The defense was
constantly saying,

there's no body, there's
no m*rder weapon.

They keep hitting on it.

His explanation of
the hair extension was

the police planted it.

But we knew that
he was full of it.

After opening statements,

the prosecution unloads
its most potent evidence.

An item discovered on a deeper
search of Taylor's camper,

after his arrest.

One thing I will never forget,

is Randy Taylor's
bloody T-shirt.

Seeing the T-shirt covered

in not just a little
bit but a lot of blood,

you could tell the jury's
mood suddenly shift.

Attorneys reveal the
results of DNA testing

on items found
inside the camper.

And it was her DNA on the shirt.

It's a mix of blood
and saliva and fluid.

We have her DNA on
these hair extensions

that were found.

They were glued and
woven into the hair.

They don't just fall out.

That indicated to
us that there was

a violent struggle
that took place.

We know that there
was nothing casual

about this encounter.

That it was extremely violent.

After closing arguments,

the litigators turned the
case over to the jury.

Within hours,

the jurors announce that
they've reached a verdict.

- I was at volleyball practice,

I remember looking online,

and seeing "guilty,"

and I just busted out
in tears. It was...

It was a relief, like...

Kind of,

a joy for us, 'cause
you're... you're going away,

you're... you're not
gonna hurt anybody else.

It was a few moments of...

the weight has been lifted.

We have some type of justice,

and we did celebrate.

But the next morning we still
woke up to the same reality.

We still don't have her.

We convict him on both counts

of abduction with
intent to defile

and first-degree m*rder.

And as the jury is leaving to go

sentence him,

Randy stood up in open court

and said, "I'll take the
original deal of 20 years

and tell you where she is."

And of course, it's
too late at that point.

He ended up with two
consecutive life sentences,

and is currently at Red Onion

spending the rest of
his life in prison, so.

In the case of Taylor's
continued silence,

anger and mystery linger

over what transpired

in Alexis' final moments
captured on video.

One of the big
mysteries of this case,

is why we see
Alexis Murphy's car

following Randy Taylor's.

We have no idea why
she followed him.

Somehow, he gets this
beautiful, talented young girl

to follow him to his
trashy dump of a camper.

I still can't even
wrap my mind around it.

Billy Mays believes the
footage tells the story

of a drug deal gone bad.

I think Randy

had some conversation with
her in the parking lot,

prior to coming in the store

about some marijuana
that he had.

So I really, truly think
that she followed Randy

back to his camper,

in the thought of
purchasing marijuana.

I find it impossible to believe,

that she would have
voluntarily gone anywhere

with Randy Taylor.

Alexis didn't have to
go with Randy Taylor

if she really wanted weed.

So it leaves me with the
million-dollar question,

how did you get her there?

Despite Taylor's conviction,

he refuses to
reveal the location

of Alexis' remains.

I can't go put flowers
on my niece's grave.

I can't take little
pink trinkets,

which was her favorite color,

to put at her grave.

So I will continue
to look for her

until I'm either not
here or she's found.

Whether or not Alexis'
body is ever found,

her family and community
will never forget her.

I still think about
Alexis all the time.

Her face is on my refrigerator.

I have a T-shirt
with her face on it.

My daughter, who I now have,
will know about Alexis.

There was such a bright future
ahead for this young lady.

I grieve the what if's
the most, you know?

Where would she have
gone to college?

What would she have majored in?

Would she have met
the love of her life,

you know, in school?

Would she be married?
Would she have kids?

It's still unreal,

'cause it's like, how
can this happen to her?

You kind of sit back
there and wonder,

what if she stayed
home that day?

What if?

It's always that
question of what if.

And they'll always remember
their final moments

with Alexis.

I remember,

we had went to the Chinese
place to get dinner,

and I took her to
McDonald's to get a frappé.

It's one of the
things that I always

think about, especially
when it comes up,

the anniversary date
of her going missing.

The last time I saw Alexis

was the weekend before
she was abducted.

I mean, the normal
moments are the ones

that are really important.

Family gatherings and
parties and celebrations,

and regular moments.

You know, we said our
goodbyes as always,

love you, see you
later, and that was it.

Lord knows, I wish I had known

that was the last time
I was gonna see her.