Body Of Alexis Tiara Murphy Found Seven Years After She Was Reported Missing
Officials in Nelson County, Virginia, have confirmed that they have found the body of Alexis Tiara Murphy, the teenage girl who was murdered and reported missing in 2013. The Chief Medical Examiner’s Office identified the 17-year-old girl on Feb. 5, a month after the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office found her remains on a private property in Lovingston, Virginia, according to WJLA.
“With careful consideration for Alexis’ family being paramount, notification to the community was delayed to allow them time to grieve and make proper arrangements,” the sheriff’s office said.
2013 Kidnapping/Murder Investigation Update: Nelson County Sheriff’s Office, #FBIRichmond and @VSPPIO Announce the Recovery of Alexis Tiara Murphy’s Remains. pic.twitter.com/0rYmZLupTW
— FBI Richmond (@FBIRichmond) February 17, 2021
Murphy was reported missing on August 3, 2013, when she went to the town of Lynchburg to shop. The Virginia teen tweeted a message to her followers before embarking on the trip, according to People.
“’Burg bound!” she wrote.
Surveillance video showed that the teenager was last seen alive at a gas station in Lovingston, CNN reported. Randy Taylor, who was convicted in Murphy’s murder in 2014 and sentenced to two life terms, was also seen in the video. The footage showed Taylor holding the door open for Murphy at the gas station. Investigators also linked the teen’s DNA, found on a bloody shirt and a fingernail, to the convicted murderer.
“Alexis was the fashionista, athlete and joker of our family; we were blessed to have loved her for 17 years and her memory will continue to live on through us all,” her family said in a statement.
Murphy drove along the infamous Route 29 corridor, where dozens of young women have gone missing or have been killed since 1996, when she was heading to Lynchburg, according to People. Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington, 20, was among the victims killed along the highway in 2009.
Jesse Matthew, Jr., who pleaded guilty to the murder of Harrington, also killed University of Virginia student Hannah Graham in 2014 and again pled guilty.
Alicia Showalter Reynolds, a Johns Hopkins grad student, was also murdered in the same area in 1996 while driving from Baltimore, Maryland, to Charlottesville, to go shopping with her mother. Reynolds’ case hasn’t been solved.
In regards to Murphy, investigators said the case is no longer active.