Student Search Team Finds A Body

Task Force Won't Say If It's Missing 17-Year-Old College Student

(CBS/AP)  A task force investigating the disappearance of a college freshman unearthed a body in a wooded area Wednesday, but refused to say whether they believe they had found Taylor Marie Behl.

"During the past week, we have gone into a mode of searching locations that we knew Taylor to have visited based on statements, based on photographs, based on a host of other things," said Richmond Police Chief Rodney Monroe. "That is what led us to this particular location."

Local, state and federal officials created the task force to search for the 17-year-old who was last seen leaving her Virginia Commonwealth University dorm on Sept. 5. Behl's 18th birthday is Oct. 13.

"All we can say at this time is that they are human remains," said Monroe. "How long they have been there we don't know."

Monroe said investigators from VCU discovered the body buried in a heavily wooded area on private property in Mathews County, about 75 miles east of Richmond.

The location is across the road from the Chesapeake Bay, reports Cindy Pena of CBS affiliate WUSA-TV.

Police would not say whether the body was female, and said it would take several days for identification.

Behl's mother, Janet Pelasara, was contacted by police about the body as a courtesy, he said.

A family friend who answered the phone at Pelasara's home Wednesday night said Pelasara would not be making any statement until the body has been identified.

But last month, on CBS News' The Early Show, Pelasara said waiting for news of her daughter was "excruciating, heartbreaking and horribly frustrating."

Behl, of Vienna, Va., near Washington, D.C., left her dorm with her mobile phone, a small amount of cash, a student ID and her car keys. She told her roommate she would be back in a few hours.

The teen's car was found two weeks later, less than two miles from her dorm. Her car's license plates had been replaced with Ohio plates reported stolen several weeks earlier.

A 38-year-old amateur photographer who was one of the last people to see Behl was questioned by police in her disappearance. Ben Fawley was arraigned last week on 16 counts of possession of child pornography and ordered held without bond.

However, police aren't saying whether Fawley is a suspect or that anyone is at this point, reports Tim Trudell of CBS affiliate WTVR-TV.

Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Mike Jagels said authorities have found at least 30 videos on Fawley's computers depicting children as young as 1 in sexual acts. Neither Behl nor Fawley appear in any of the videos, Jagels said, and Fawley has not been charged in Behl's case.

Last month, Pelasara told Early Show co-anchor René Syler she had "hope that maybe he knows something and, while he's behind bars, he'll share what he knows that would help us, help the police locate Taylor and bring her home."

According to Fawley's attorney, the photographer had a romantic relationship with the teen, and Jagels said the two had sex on several occasions.