Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Teen Girl Naomi Irion Remains Found in Shallow Grave, Suspect Now Claims He's Crazy

Episode Date: December 24, 2022

The man accused of kidnapping and killing 18-year-old Naomi Irion will stand trial. Troy Drive has been found competent to face charges.  Driver is accused of abducting Irion from a Walmart parking lot. Police find the body of missing teen Naomi Irion after receiving a tip that leds them to her gravesite. 18-year-old Naomi Irion was last seen on security footage, sitting in her vehicle while waiting for the shuttle she takes to work at Panasonic in the Reno-Sparks area. The footage also shows a man walking from the direction of a homeless camp and lurking among the parked vehicles. Naomi’s brother, Casey Valley, says that security footage seemed to show the suspect saying or doing something that made Naomi move from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat. Irion was in the passenger’s seat as the man drove away. Investigators later found Naomi’s blue 1992 Mercury Sable at the Fernley industrial park. An autopsy revealed Irion was shot  multiple times. Driver faces six charges in addition to first-degree murder, including sexual assault, robbery and destroying evidence. Joining Nancy Grace Today: Wendy Patrick - California prosecutor, author “Red Flags” www.wendypatrickphd.com 'Today with Dr. Wendy' on KCBQ in San Diego, Twitter: @WendyPatrickPHD Dr. Debbie Joffe Ellis - Psychologist, Professor at Columbia university in NYC, Author, Global Presenter, Author: Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (2nd Edition), DebbieJoffeEllis.com, Twitter: @DrJoffeEllis Dr. Tim Gallagher - Medical Examiner State of Florida www.pathcaremed.com, Lecturer: University of Florida Medical School Forensic Medicine. Founder/Host: International Forensic Medicine Death Investigation Conference Karen L. Smith - Forensic Expert, Lecturer at the University of Florida, Host of Shattered Souls Podcast, @KarensForensic, barebonesforensic.com Alexis Tereszcuk - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Writer/Fact Checker, Lead Stories dot Com, Twitter: @swimmie2009    Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Teen girl Naomi Erion is sitting in the early morning hours in the parking lot of a Nevada Walmart. She's waiting for her ride. It's one of those, you know, ride share buses that you see going around college campuses, dropping students off at one building or the other. Well, she was going to catch a similar bus to her job at Panasonic. It was one of those jobs where you have to wear a hazmat suit to go in there and build batteries, highly technical. She's really good at it. So that's why she's sitting alone in her car in a Walmart parking lot in the dark, looking at her phone like my children do incessantly.

She's playing some game or texting in the early morning hours, and then she never shows up for work. In the last hours, a big development in the case of Naomi Erion. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. We now know that teen girl Naomi Erion was kidnapped right there from that Walmart parking lot in the dark, their early morning hours. She was brutally raped, shot dead. Imagine the terror this girl went through, then buried in the desert, her body found in a shallow grave just two weeks after she goes missing. Cops are led to 42-year-old Troy Driver. May he rot in hell.

And of course, when you're busted with DNA, what you gonna do? Well, of course, you can't fight modern science. So he demands a psychological evaluation. Yeah. You know what that means? That you were crazy at the time of the incident, meaning you don't know wrong from right, or you're incompetent to help or assist your attorney at trial. That's incompetency. Now, as far as insanity goes, can I just point out that he walked back and forth around her car, staring at her as she's on her phone. He kidnaps her.

Then he destroys her cell phone so she can't be traced. He replaces the tires on his truck in an attempt to cover up the crime. If that's crazy, people, that's crazy like a fox. Then when all of this is uncovered, he declares, oops, okay, so I'm not insane at the time of the crime. Let's go with what's left, incompetency to stand trial. But before I get into his competency or lack thereof, I want to review the facts. This guy now claiming he is incompetent to stand trial. How did the whole thing start? Spread the word about my sister as much as you can because she, this was on Saturday morning.

We don't know how fast that truck is going. She could be anywhere right now. We are out of time. It's so critical right now. Just anything that you know or thought of. It needs to be reported. Truer words never spoken. And when I hear the words, we are out of time, that's not good. We know the statistics.

Imagine being taken in a kidnapper's vehicle every hour, 60 miles, every minute, another mile away from home now take a listen to the lion county sheriff's department press conference held late at night listen when i didn't hear i didn't see her on saturday uh because i went to bed super early, and she got home. She usually came home kind of later at night, and so that wasn't weird. And then when I saw that she didn't come home on Sunday. She worked so early in the morning. And she worked so early in the morning, et cetera.

She didn't come home on Sunday, and I knew something was wrong. I immediately reached out to family first to see if they'd heard from her. I reached out to all the jails and hospitals in the nearby area, all the way from Churchill County to Washoe County, Sacramento, Carson City, everywhere like that. It was at that point that I knew something was wrong and I made sure to call dispatch on Sunday night. Have you ever had that feeling where you don't know where your daughter, your son is?

Are they lost in the mall? Are they lost in the store? They're not picking up their cell phone. You were hearing her brother, Casey, who lives with her, describing when he realized something was very wrong. This teen girl has a job with Panasonic and works crazy hours off and catching the bus to get to work. Now, take a listen to this. The search for a Nevada teenager stalked and abducted from a Walmart parking lot has ended with the discovery of her body. Police say detectives acting on a tip found the remains of 18-year-old Naomi Arion buried in a remote area of Churchill County. The teenager

was abducted in her own car while waiting for a shuttle bus on her way to work in Reno. A 41-year-old ex-con was charged today with first-degree kidnapping. Troy Driver has a violent criminal record, including a sentence of 15 years in prison for his role in a 1997 murder in Northern California. You were just hearing our friends at KTLA 5 breaking the heart-rending news this after Naomi's mother joined us begging, begging for help in finding her girl. Listen. We're also looking for her purse. It's a black bag.

And any of her clothing. She was wearing the blue Panasonic t-shirt, and she was wearing a gray cardigan, and I think she was wearing gray sweatpants and blue Ugg boots. They were either gray, black, or brown. Gray, black, or brown. I think they were like a faded black. Yes. They're like knockoff UGGs, so they're not name brands.

Yes. So if you find any of that just laying out, please call. It could be vital to saving her life. and that's our number one goal right now please save my daughter and bring her home please anything any little tiny bit of information please call her mother diana breaking down in tears the more we talked about the search for her daughter, the more she broke down. I wonder if verbalizing in that way what was happening made it too real for her. We learned the body of teen girl Naomi Erion found in a shallow grave. Joining me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now, Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author of Red Flags on Amazon. She's the host of

Today with Dr. Wendy on KCBQ. You can find her at wendypatrickphd.com. Dr. Debbie Jaffe-Ellis, psychologist, Professor Columbia University in New York, author of Rational Emotive Behavior. You can find her at DebbieJaffeEllis.com. Renowned medical examiner joining us from the state of Florida, Dr. Tim Gallagher, lecturer, University of Florida Medical School, forensic medicine, founder and host, International Forensic Medicine Death Investigation Conference. Karen Smith, forensic expert, lecturer, University of Florida, host of a hit series, Shattered

Souls Podcast. But first, to Alexis Tereszczuk, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter joining us. Alexis, take a listen to our friend Brianna Connor, ABC 13. It was in fact a tip from a neighbor that helped investigators find driver and the truck connected to the case. Another tip eventually led to Naomi's body. Alexis Tereschuk, tell me everything you know about they said there's a body or a grave, but they pointed the police in the exact right location. This is a rural area, and what they found there is a shallow grave. I understand that it is Churchill County, as in Winston Churchill, Churchill County. Now, I'm trying to figure out, Wendy Patrick, what do we know, or Alexis Terrestri, anyone on the panel that is familiar with that area, Churchill County. From Fernley, Nevada, where she went missing, to Churchill County, Nevada, it's about an hour and 15 minutes.

Okay, so pick it up there, Alexis. You were in the middle of telling me about where she was found. Go ahead. So she was found in Churchill County, which is almost 60 miles away from where she went missing. She was found at Churchill County. She went missing in Fernley, Nevada, and then was found in Churchill County. This is a rural county. Not even 3,000 people live there. So somebody called in a tip about this and led the police to her grave. Not to her in a house, her alive, unfortunately, to a grave, what they're calling a shallow grave. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Teen girl Naomi Arion vanishes in the night where she's sitting in a parked car at a Nevada Walmart parking lot waiting for her ride to work

at Panasonic. In the last hours, a big development in the case of Naomi Erion found raped, shot dead, and buried out in the Nevada desert. The alleged perp, 42-year-old Troy Driver, claims he's incompetent.

I don't buy that for a minute. For those of you just joining us, this POS, technical legal term, has been found competent to stand trial. Now, we know few details on his competency evaluation. Considered private medical information under HIPAA was filed with the court. But here's the deal. When you use insanity or incompetency as a defense,

those records typically are shared with the prosecutor and are introduced in court. Now, maybe they used a bench trial to determine competency, which means you just have a judge, so we may never know what those medical analyses are. But I have tried incompetency cases and you have to listen to this. Not only does the prosecutor

have to try the murder case and all its gory details for seeing Naomi's family to listen to all of that. There has to be another trial for incompetency. Yes, a trial within a trial before you even strike the jury on guilt or innocence. Now, you also have to have a jury for an incompetency hearing,

a trial, unless the defendant agrees to just do it with the judge. And in that stage, you hear everything the defendant tells the shrink. Okay, that said, we don't have our mitts on the incompetency records. But we do know a lot about 42-year-old Troy Driver's actions around the time of the murder and since. What that family had to go through. The body of Naomi Erion found. Renowned medical examiner joining us from the state of Florida, Dr. Tim Gallagher. Lecturer, University of Florida Medical School, Forensic Medicine. I'm trying to determine, A, how they identified her.

And B, if we can figure out a cause of death after this time lapse. Dr. Gallagher, there are many ways to identify a dead person. You don't have to have DNA. As a matter of fact, when Gabby's body was found, she was wearing a t-shirt that her parents, Gabby Petito, that her parents immediately knew was hers. And we all have certain identifying things that we wear. It could be as simple as that. What are other ways other than DNA? Well, that's a good way of a supporting piece of evidence that would lend to somebody being identified. But in order to identify somebody scientifically, it has to be something that's part of their body. And things that are part of their body could be a unique tattoo, as simple as that. Or it could be a dental

work that they had done that is shown up on the post-mortem x-rays. There are also unique features in the bones of the face that if we take an x-ray of the remains and then we were able to get an x-ray of a person who is alive, we could match the bones of the face, you know, to... You mean if she had had an x-ray in life? Right if she had had an x-ray in life? Right, if she had an x-ray in life and we were able to acquire that x-ray and then compare it to the x-ray that we could... Or if somebody had a broken leg in life

and you find out this person has a broken leg, this girl, to my knowledge, did not have any tattoos or piercings other than in her ears. So that wouldn't help. But, you know, what about the fact that to Dr. Tim Gallagher, for years and decades, the Red Cross and others have relied on field tests, immediate field tests to determine identity. What is that?

The immediate field test to identify identity often relies on what we've been talking about before. Pre-injuries, it could be the repair of an injury. Sometimes they will put a metal plate in the leg to fix it, and that metal plate will have a serial number on it. We could remove the plate, find the serial number, look that serial number up, and it'll tell us the doctor, the patient, and when it was placed inside that leg. And then we could identify the person that way. The field identification could be something as simple as stature. You know, is this a male? Is it a female? Is it an old person? Is it a younger person? The Red Cross does do excellent work, but they go by an anatomical type of identification process where the scientific community now embraces a molecular or radiologic type of modality, you know, to identify somebody.

What do you mean by the two modalities to identify? You said radiologic and one other. Right. So a DNA type of identification. Would be molecular. Radiologic is an x-ray. Is that what you're saying? Right.

So x-rays or DNA. So x-ray or DNA. I hear you. saying right so x-rays or dna right i hear you so you got x-rays you got dna you have um tattoos you have clothing you have uh teeth work whether somebody had a cavity in the fifth grade whether they wore braces orthodontia all of that can help identify someone if you don't have DNA already. We know for a fact Naomi Erion, her remains have been found at what has been described as a quote shallow grave. You know that conjures up all sorts of images. Karen L. Smith is joining me everyone at barebonesforensic.com. Karen, a forensic expert. Karen, when I hear shallow grave,

in my experience, that's two or three feet deep max. Yeah. What does it mean to you? That's exactly right. One foot to three feet, Nancy. You know, that tells me so much about this crime that implements were purchased beforehand. There was premeditation. They had shovels. Okay. Look, you're the forensic expert. You've got to explain to everybody why you're saying that. I get you. Explain why. Well, you have one or more perpetrators. If you have a shallow grave, they're not going to get down on their knees and dig it with their hands. They have implements with them, whether it's a shovel or a rake or a pickaxe or whatever it is. They have that with them, which tells me it's almost like a murder kit. This was pre-planned. This was premeditated. They have to dig that grave with something and then, you know,

put a body in it. So that tells me everything about premeditation, Nancy. Karen Smith, that is an excellent point to dig even a shallow grave. An implement is needed. However, in my mind, Wendy Patrick, this teen girl could have been murdered and then the perp get the implement. First thing, they need to go to all the Walmarts, all the Lowe's, Home Depot's, Feed and Seeds. It's a rural area. There could be one nearby that's an obvious choice to find out if anyone came in and bought a shovel or anything they could use to dig this hole. Right? I mean, this guy might not be driving around in his car with a shovel in the back.

That's exactly right. And thankfully, that's something you and I and others have been using for years is looking at surveillance video, especially in a rural area where you don't have a hundred stores to look at, you have less. And especially when you have, and I love the murder kit, that's a great soundbite for what you would need, sadly, to dig this kind of a grave. that's right and one of the the benefits of doing that nowadays is when I started practicing law the graininess of the photos almost made it indistinguishable to try to figure out who you can recognize what somebody is buying but nowadays we do have ways of really seeing what we need to see to try to figure out who might have bought this

kit and I have to say this case really sort of makes us look at something that you would think would be as safe as a Walmart parking lot very differently. Karen L. Smith, there's so much forensic evidence that can be learned, gleaned from the site. For instance, I believe he had to have lived either in the Fernley area or the Churchill County area. I mean, why would he go to that location? I mean, think about Scott Peterson. He lived in the Modesto area, but he disposed of Lacey's body at a spot familiar to him, the San Francisco Bay, where he routinely went fishing. What do you make of it? And what, if anything if anything forensically can we learn from the gravesite i agree uh you know you deal with these perpetrators and most often they will stay in an area that is familiar to them however far away that might extend as far as the gravesite nancy

this is the desert location you're dealing with either loose dirt or hard compact dirt and clay. You've got shoe prints, possible tire tracks. You know, sometimes these perps will dispose of something like maybe a cigarette butt or a soda can in the gravesite. I found receipts in gravesites that were disposed of with the body. And all of those clues can lead back to the person who did it. So they're going to have to sift through every single speck of that grave site, which I'm sure they're doing. They use fine sifters and they go scoop, scoop by scoop, bucket full by bucket full, looking for bullet shell casings, looking for small bones, looking for clothing items and jewelry and any other evidence that might have been disposed of. In the last days, a judge has ruled prime suspect in the murder of teen girl Naomi Erion found raped, shot and buried in a shallow grave in the desert in Nevada.

Prime suspect has been ruled competent to stand trial. Now now this is just a pit stop on his way straight to he double l he'll have a trial first though but i mean with dna evidence from the rape man you can't it's hard to fight that this murder rocked the small town of fern. It's about 30 miles east of Reno. After a month of delay kicking rocks while 42-year-old Troy Driver claims he's incompetent, we now have a ruling. Troy Driver will be tried Tried for murder. The whole case is horrible. It's a tragedy. Right now, what can we do? We can seek justice. Take a listen now to our friend Brian Enten.

Naomi, she is an 18-year-old woman. She is the daughter of a U.S. diplomat. She lived all over the world and recently moved here to Nevada to live with her older brother because she wanted a more normal life. She was used to living on these American diplomatic compounds.

She wanted to go to college. She wanted to buy a car. She wanted to have a boyfriend. And she was in the Walmart parking lot back on March 12th when she was kidnapped. This young girl had been very, very sheltered, according to what her mother, Diana, told us. They had lived all over the world, but always within a very tightly knit diplomatic community, going to certain schools, to American schools. She finally wanted to live with her brother in America and be like, quote, every other American teen. Guys, this is a girl

that has just graduated from high school, just graduated from high school. She was working a job at a Panasonic center where she actually would put on what looks like a hazmat suit and put together, build batteries for Panasonic. She wanted the, I guess, stereotypical life of an American teen. And this is what happened. At 5 o'clock in the morning, she has managed to get herself to a Walmart parking lot, waiting on a shuttle bus to go to Panasonic. She's sitting in her car. It's dark outside. She's playing on Snapchat or Facebook or Insta

and doesn't notice a man stalking her. No one would have known had it not been for the Walmart parking lot surveillance video. Listen to our friends at KOLO. Walmart had surveillance video and shared it with Casey. Here's a snapshot of that video showing the suspect. Casey says the video shows this man getting into Naomi's car and driving off with her in the passenger seat. Once we found the footage, which appears to be nondescript male, average height, average build, completely covered up with a mask and a hood.

That Walmart surveillance video was very, very chilling. To Alexis Tereszczuk, please describe it. So it's a Black Mart video. You can see her. I'm sorry, you can see him, and he's kind of pacing around the Walmart parking lot. So it's 5.30 in the morning. Remember that. So it's not light yet. There are not a lot of people there. Actually, I'm glad you brought that up, Alexis, because the Walmart video shows that it's dark outside. And what almost broke my heart is we learned that this little girl just graduated

from high school would go and try to park under a lamp a street light in the walmart parking lot we've all seen them because she thought it would be safer take a listen to our cut three our friends at khou11 not shared according to the family in a local tv interview is video of him forcing his way into her car. This person did say or do something to Naomi to make her move over from the driver's side to the passenger side. This wasn't chance. This was something that he was thinking about and he was very suspicious looking. Arion's four-door sedan was later found in this industrial area where it was processed and from where authorities believe the suspect may have driven away in this dark Chevy

pickup. Two days after Naomi disappears, her car is found. Take a listen to our cut 7 KOLO. Two days after Naomi disappeared, Lyon County deputies found her car in the industrial park in Fernley. The sheriff's office says evidence found in the car indicates criminal activity. Her family assumes that because of what Naomi is not doing. She's 18. She's always on social media constantly and she has not been on social media since Saturday morning. To Dr. Debbie Jaffe-Ella, a psychologist joining us from Columbia University. Dr. Debbie, we've talked many times about routine evidence, which is not to say typical. It is evidence of routine behavioral evidence. The fact that this girl went dark on social media was significant to her mother. And rightly so,

yeah. If there is something a person engages in regularly, enjoys it, and then stops without any warning or indication why, yeah, the mother was spot on in hearing her alarm bells go off loudly. You know, Wendy Patrick, we have analyzed criminal behavior thousands, countless times. What do you make of the perp's behavior as he stood and stared at her car and her sitting there in the dark under the parking lot light just tapping away on Snapchat?

What do you make of that? Had he seen her before? Why was he in the parking lot at 5 o'clock in the morning? You know, in a word, I think it goes to premeditation. What it shows is him thinking, strategizing, planning, plotting, looking at that vulnerability that people have when they're tied to their phones, whether they're on social media or making a call. He took advantage of that level of distraction to make his move. So it really looks like it wasn't random. He saw a vulnerable victim and he went in for the kill. It may have been dark

outside, but thankfully there was at least enough light that we can argue he knew what he was looking at, knew what he was doing, and probably knew what he planned to do. Karen Smith, you're the forensics expert. Weigh in. This is what I'm hearing, Nancy. You have a primary crime scene in her car. That is the primary crime scene. They say they found evidence of a struggle or evidence of something horrible that happened in the car. That tells me it's blood. Then you have the car found at this paint manufacturing company okay whoa whoa whoa wait you're right hold on they absolutely said at the beginning there's evidence in the car that convinces us this is of a criminal nature right she didn't just meet a guy and take off that's right your assumption is that it's blood well it would have to be something visible or

something that could be detected with luminol or well how about if our car was simply in disarray? Okay, so that's a good possibility. Like there had been a struggle. Absolutely. Let's go there. What I was going to say was you have a secondary crime scene in this pickup truck. Was that parked there strategically so that this perpetrator could use that to haul her body 56 miles to the burial site. This was definitely premeditated. This wasn't something off the cuff, Nancy. Well, another thing is it's been said he walked up from a homeless encampment, but I don't think this guy was homeless. And I'll tell you why. Because he had access to another vehicle after he ditches her car at an industrial park, which I find significant too.

He knew to go to an industrial park for her car would not be noticed for a couple of days and it wasn't. And he had access to another car. A homeless person does not have access to a pickup truck. I agree 100%. This is not a homeless person. This is somebody who has planned this. And I don't know if he was stalking her, if it was a spur of the moment thing as far as him watching for someone or a young girl, period. I don't know.

What in the world could he have said to her to make her move over? I don't understand. Maybe he threatened her with a gun? Absolutely. He had some kind of implement, whether it was a gun, a knife, the implication that he had a weapon with him. You know, I don't know how big this man is, but if, you know, a girl and you have a man threatening you or saying something to you or displaying a weapon to you, that's where my mind goes. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Even in death, Naomi Erion will always be one person's little sister. Talking about Tammy Cartwright, Naomi's sister, who has waited and waited and waited for justice ever since her sister, Naomi, was found murdered in a shallow grave in the Nevada desert. No more happy conversations on the phone, no more trips to the mall, no more dinners together around the supper table. Naomi's would-be 19th birthday came and passed in July. She will forever be remembered as 18.

Meanwhile, 42-year-old Troy Driver is now going to trial, accused of sex assault and murder after Naomi's body found in that shallow grave in Churchill County. After a let me just say battle over incompetency, a judge has ruled Driver will go to trial regarding the death of Naomi Erion. This, as Naomi's family shares photos with us of a desert memorial.

Can you even imagine? Instead of planning your daughter's graduation, her Christmas presents under the tree, Naomi's family is sharing new photos on social media of the we went where Naomi was found, deep in this horrible desert. Mm, mm, mm. They had to drive 65 miles on a normal road, then 25 more miles deeper into the desert to find the location. That shallow gravesite is there near Coal Canyon Road,

northeast of Fallon and Churchill County. Naomi's dad sharing a photo of a cross with Naomi's name on it on a tree in the Walmart parking lot where she was kidnapped. Have you ever been driving down the interstate and you see where somebody's put a cross and there's flowers on it? Where someone lost their life in a traffic accident, you can presume. Can you imagine that's what these parents are left with? Their teen girl dead? According to prosecutors, raped, shot, and buried by Troy Driver.

Take a listen to Hour Cut 26, our friends at Inside Edition. 41-year-old Troy Driver was arrested and charged with kidnapping by the Lyon County Sheriff's Office. Police released video of the suspect they believe got in her car and left the morning of March 12th. They also released images of the vehicle they believe he was driving. Authorities say they have also located the pickup truck they believe was leaving the scene where Naomi's car was later found. 41-year-old Khan, that's right, he's a felon, Troy Driver. Surveillance video picked him up leaving with her from that industrial park. Does it show him struggling with her?

Does it show him with a gun to her back? How did he get her from her car into a truck? Was she already dead? How have they linked him, Troy Driver, to her? Is it because of his car? To Alexis Tereska joining us from CrimeOnline.com, what do we know about 41-year-old Troy Driver? What we know is he has just finished serving a 15-year sentence for murder that he committed when he was 17 years old. So he has had a lifetime of crime.

So when he was 17 years old, he of second-degree robbery of a Circle K convenience store and a Chevron service station, as well as breaking into a hardware store. So this location where he committed this crime, where he kidnapped Naomi and the murderer, is very well known to him because this is where he started off his life of crime. So he knows that these are vulnerable areas. Are you talking about the Walmart parking lot near Fernley or are you talking about Churchill County? The Walmart parking lot. I'm also curious where he did his time. I wonder if that was near where her body was found. I mean, I'm trying to get evidence. That's what I'm talking about. Did he kill her in Churchill County? Did he kill her before she was even taken out of her car? Did he take her somewhere and torture or rape her? Is there evidence there? I'm looking at a conviction, the possibility of convicting this guy. Is it him? How do we know it's him?

Regarding his criminal history, take a listen to our friend Paul Nelson, KTVN 2. He served time in prison for his role in a 1997 murder in Willits, California. Driver was just 17 at the time. According to old articles, he pleaded guilty to accessory to murder after the fact and a string of robberies. A judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison, but he may have been released after 12 years. The suspect in Naomi Erion's kidnapping is in the Lyon County Jail. According to the Ukiah Daily Journal, Troy Driver served time in prison for helping cover up a murder in 1997. It says he helped put the body of an alleged drug dealer in a car trunk, then dumped him in the woods.

It is upsetting to me that there's people out here in the general public that have these capabilities with this kind of past. The 41-year-old was arrested Friday in Fallon and a Chevy pickup was impounded for evidence. Valley doesn't expect him to tell detectives where Erion is. I would just try to relate to him as someone that also has family and ask him to put himself in our shoes. Well, apparently that didn't work. This guy's been in the pen before. He is not going to tell where the body is. However, a tipster calls in,

and the remains of this teen girl just out of high school have been found. Now, I just learned a lot. I want to go to Karen Smith. We know he's already put one victim in his last go around after a string of robberies and a murder, being involved in a murder. He puts the victim in a car trunk and then dumps the body in the woods. You know what? That's what I call a similar transaction. Transporting a homicide victim in a vehicle and then dumping the body like it's trash out of some remote location. Same thing here.

Right. And he escalated because now it was a shallow grave, Nancy. It wasn't just dumping it in the woods. Now he's trying to cover up his crimes. This is not foreign to him. He's a monster. You know, the forensics, as far as I'm concerned, we have the linkage principle, the victim, the crime scene to the suspect. And you link those three things, touch DNA, bloodstains, his truck. Now to Dr. Debbie Jaffe, LS psychologist, professor, Columbia University and author. Dr. Debbie, you'd think after a guy has done time, hard jail time, being implicated in a murder and a string of robberies,

that he would do anything not to go back to jail, right? Sounds highly likely. Yep, Nancy. Okay, I was expecting a little bit more from you other than yep. Something like the thinking that goes into the mind of a career criminal, how they're not worried about going back to jail. Their idea of my plan not going back to jail is don't get caught instead of I'm not going to break the law. Okay. Take two. Right. So why wouldn't the plan be I'm going to get a job, I'm not going to go back to jail, so help me God in heaven,

instead of, wow, when I kidnap this girl and rape her and murder her, how can I not get caught and go back to jail? Why? Apparently, well, one possibility would be the urge to do what he did is more dominant than any tendency to think things through regarding avoiding this, that, or the other. Obviously, the thrill or the potential satisfaction he thought he would feel blinded him from thinking things through about being caught, not caught, avoiding, not avoiding. We wait as justice unfolds. And don't you worry, driver.

We'll be on the front row of that murder trial. To those of you listening, goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.