Missing VCU student

The Watchdog

October 11, 2005 Vol. 16 No. 1 C.D. Hylton High School Woodbridge, Va

Missing VCU student

Now police are wondering, “Did her online personal diary have anything to do with her disappearance?”

By Heather Gioia
News Editor

While the Internet opens more and more doors to enter into someones life, we have to remember that it also expands the doors to predators to enter. This is a question police are asking themselves, while thinking about Taylor Behl’s missing persons case.

Behl is a freshmen at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) who went missing over four weeks ago. The police are now looking at her personal online diaries and profile for any clues as to what might have happened to her.

Behl has a consistently updated journal at the popular LiveJournal.com. She began her entries on April 6, 2004 and has a consistent 50 entries over a 12-month span.

In these daily entries she gave extremely detailed information about what emotions she was feeling that day ranging from getting her license to her first days attending VCU.

Over summer 2005 Behl opened an account with another popular web site, Myspace.com (http://www.myspace.com/doowop). Here the police learned who Behl’s favorite musicians are as well as what she liked to do. They also watched her 92+ friends for anyone who stuck out.

Ben Fawely, 38, also known as Skulz67, caught their eye immediately. Fawely and Behl had a romantic relationship, and he was one of the last post on one of her blogs, after his arrest for child porn.

Behl’s Blog is asking friends to post memories they have of here “good or bad. Just so long as it happened.”

Skulz67: “this very attractive girl climbed up into my bunk at 407 [address to apartment], the last girl to do so before the move…”

Behl: “well I was curious”

Skulz67: “…so was I… in fact I still am…”

Since Behl’s disappearance her mother, who knew about her daughters Internet habits, says she wishes her daughter would have posted more about where she went and with who. She feels that more detail could help lead the police to her, yet if this was an abduction it would only make it that much easier.

To read users entries at LiveJournal.com you need only a computer and an Internet connection, same with Myspace.com. Yet with myspace you can post up to 10 photos of anything you want, an almost exact location, tell the world about anything you want, and post blogs about daily life.

The police and Behl’s mother are both hoping that her Internet life in the past will help them locate her now. Yet the question of weather or not Behl’s safe feeling with posting personal information on the internet had anything to do with her disappearance is a question police are further looking into.

Behl’s Body Found

The conformation that is was Taylor Behl’s body, found at a small farm near Richmond, Virginia came Friday, October 7. Police informed her mother on Friday as the information went out to the public. Fawely is still under arrest and is being held, yet he has not been charged with Behl’s murder. The information came to Behl’s mother on her birthday, Behl’s funeral will be held on what would have been Behl’s 18 birthday.