Taylor Behl: Searching For Secrets

VCU Student Disappeared From Campus On Labor Day 2005

(CBS) 
Fawley claims, that at her urging during sex in the back seat of her car, he tried various ways to restrict Taylor’s breathing.

"She wanted me to put a bag over her head," he tells Moriarty. "We tried that several times."

Fawley says he held it over nose and mouth. "At first I thought she was laughing ‘cause we fell off the seat," he says. "I thought everything was fine and dandy. … But she was passed out. And that’s what she wanted."

Then, he claims, unable to wake Taylor up, he froze into a stone-cold panic.

Asked why he didn't call for help, Fawley says he thought about it but didn't "because by the time I tried to wake her up, what was running through my head, was 'I'm in some serious s--- here."

Fawley then claims he panicked again and that he drove the body of Taylor back to Richmond, left her in her car, went to sleep and then a day later returned to Mathews County, dug a shallow grave, and left the once-vibrant girl by the side of the road.

By the time her body was discovered a month later, it was impossible to tell exactly how Taylor had died.

Fawley was charged with first-degree murder.

One day after what should have been a celebration of Taylor’s 18th birthday, family and friends were instead mourning Taylor's death.

On that wet, gray October day, Janet Pelasara was filled with grief and rage for the man believed to have murdered her daughter. "My prayer … may the courts see fit to give him the death penalty so he will continue his downward spiral into the depths of hell," she said.

But Fawley claims that Taylor's death was an accident, the result of a sex game that went horribly wrong. "I definitely did not murderer Taylor. Am I the direct cause of her death? I very well could be. But am I guilty of murder? No," he says.

Prosecutors Jack Gill and Chris Bullard disagree. "This predator descends upon her, selects her, picks her out and kills her," Gill says.

Asked if it isn't possible that Taylor's death really was an accident, Bullard says, "It’s possible a meteor landed on Taylor Behl. Is it probable? No. The evidence shows that Mr. Fawley killed her."

The prosecution’s theory? Fawley took Taylor for a drive to a secluded area to have sex. When Taylor rejected him, an angry Fawley strangled her.

Prosecutors point out that in Fawley's own statement to police, he admits he "flipped out" and told Taylor to "shut up."

"He says he thinks he put his hand over her mouth and told her to shut up. That’s 'I'm angry,’” Bullard says.

But Fawley says he and Taylor were not mad at each other. "She was not rejecting me, she was not telling me it was over. There was nothing for there to be over between us," he says.

Prosecutors also say Fawley duct-taped Taylor's wrists — not as part of a sex act — but to restrain her.

"Now that's not erotic asphyxiation, bondage, or any kind of sex in any of the textbooks that I've looked at," Gill says.

"Her hands, according to your own statement, were tied behind her back," Moriarty remarks in her interview with Fawley.

"I know, at one point they were," he acknowledges.

Asked if that isn't more consistent with abduction, Fawley says, "I did not abduct Taylor. It was two people consenting."

In his statement, recorded by police, Fawley insists the duct tape was simply part of the game. "She said she wanted to feel like I was kidnapping her, make her feel like she was being kidnapped. Tie her up. She said really tie her up," he told investigators.

"She was a sweet, young college girl who was experimenting with sex and who knows what else and unfortunately it led to her death," says attorney Chris Collins, who along with Bill Johnson, is defending Fawley.

"How would Taylor have any kind of knowledge about this bondage or any of these sexual practices?" Moriarty asks.

"Fawley showed her," Johnson says. "He had a computer that was filled with pictures of you know young ladies involved in various bondage poses."