True Crime with Kimbyr - Part1 : Young Influencer Vanishes! - The Heartbreaking Case of Alexis Murphy | True Crime Stories

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

In this heartbreaking case from a quiet rural town in Virginia, a teenage girl’s future is stolen in an instant. Alexis Murphy was just days away from starting her senior year when she vanished while heading to a simple hair appointment. With almost no physical evidence left behind, investigators turned to an unexpected place for answers—her social media. What they uncovered would slowly expose a chilling truth. True Crime with Kimbyr breaks down the mystery with compassion, careful research, and sharp analysis, honoring Alexis’s story while asking the questions that still haunt this case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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With a social media following of over 10,000 people. But then the unthinkable happens. She vanishes without a trace. Hi, everyone, welcome back to my channel. My name is Kimberlya. If you've never been here before, nice to finally meet you. For today's case, I'll be taking you to yet another small town. This one is in Virginia.

And by the way, for my very last video, I actually went out to the neighborhood where the story took place. I was able to get my own footage of the home that the victim used to live in and take you around the town. And that has been a dream of mine. Where someone came from, where they lived, and who they are, mean so much to me. My goal for 2023 is to be able to go out to some of these towns that I'm talking about in these videos and get my own videos. Because painting the most accurate picture of these victims is my passion. And all you have to do is watch. My job is to bring you the content, and I hope that I can continue doing so.

So thank you so very much now to Virginia, loving some Virginia to be exact. But in order for me to take you there, we have to go back to Charlottesville, Virginia on June 5, 1996. That's the day that Alexis, Tiara Murphy was born to her mom, Laura Ann Murphy, and her father, Troy William Brown. Alexis has three brothers, Avery and Cameron Murphy, and Noah Thompson. Ultimately, Alexis and her mom moved about 40 minutes away from Charlottesville. to rural Lovingston, Virginia, and lived with Laura's parents, Gail and Tony Taylor. Now, this town had a population about 520. Here's what it looks like on the map.

We can see a couple of churches, a market, some coffee shops, a bookstore, a library, and it looks as though McDonald's is the only or the main fast food restaurant in that area. Other than that, there are just a small number of homes scattered throughout the area and nothing but nature after that. And it was okay because if anyone needed more than what this area had to offer, they could go to Lynchburg, Virginia, which was about a 35-minute drive. And Lynchburg is a major city. It has everything that you would expect from a big city. But Lovingston was fine for Alexis and her family. They were very close. And as a matter of fact, she spent a lot of time with her two aunts, Angela and Trina. They were almost like big sisters to her, but Alexis grew up with so many cousins and they were so close that her cousins were actually like siblings.

She was also still close to her father, Troy. The family would frequently get together for birthdays, holidays, and any other reason they could find to throw a good party. Alexis was well taken care of. She had a very strong support system in her family, as well as her close-knit community in Lovingson, where everyone knew one another. They were always there to lend a helping hand.

And Alexis grew up to be a happy, smiling little girl. She was always laughing, running around, having fun. And Alexis was also very beautiful. Everyone could see that. When I first saw her, I thought, wow, that is one of the most beautiful girls that I have ever seen. And there's just something special about Alexis. And as she grew up, she grew into a gorgeous young lady. And she was very popular. She excelled in sports. And by high school, she was one of the most valuable players on her volleyball team. I have to say that I learned so much about Alexis. I could talk about her for hours. There were just so many things I really loved learning about her.

Most of all, I think it was her humor. By the time Alexis was 15 and attending Nelson County High School, she, like many other teenagers, her age, was really into social media. I think it's only gotten more popular for younger people to get online at a younger age. I know it's true for my 11-year-old, and boundaries are so important. Alexis' platform of choice back then was Twitter. She wasn't just a casual user. She would tweet multiple times a day and sometimes multiple times an hour. She wouldn't just post updates sharing her thoughts.

She would post pictures, videos, quotes. And surprisingly, at least for me, she was making her own memes back then. She started her account in 2010, but I could only go back to about 2012. And I went back through as many of the over 55,000 tweets and replies that Alexis had on her Twitter to get to know her from her own words and her own thoughts. She's been one of my favorite, if not my favorite person, to get to know. out of any of the videos I've done. I like when someone has an online footprint because there's so much to gain so much insight. I don't have to solely rely on what other people say when I can see

it for myself. I wasn't the only one that enjoyed Alexis's tweets because by 2013, she had gained a following of about 11,000 people and that is a lot by the standard back then, especially for the average everyday teenager her age. Usually someone like her in a town like hers, maybe had 50 or 100 followers, and it was people they knew in real life, but not Alexis. Her Twitter just blew up. I think having more followers can fuel this inclination to post more, because sometimes it feels like there's an obligation to entertain people who choose to give you that follow. And then I realized, me realizing that our online presence may one day be the only thing we leave behind is a little bit scary.

Since there's also the thought, is this person portraying their real self? We know how much a social media can be contrived. And I think it's got to be a mixture. Alexis opened up a lot on Twitter. She would share sketches that she made, pictures of herself in cute outfits, and even a new piercing. She already had her nose pierced,

but on December 3rd, 2012, she showed off a new Monroe piercing. It's the one in the upper lip that's supposed to emulate Marilyn Monroe's beauty mark. She had a diamond stud put in, and I think it looked really good on her. Her username was the real for Laren. And this intrigued me, so I looked it up.

And this is the last name and the title of the eighth mixtape by an American rapper named Waleigh for Laren. It was released on December 24th, 2012. The mixtape features guest appearances from Rick Ross, Two Chains, Scarface, Nipsey Hustle, just to name a few. And Alexis was a big fan of not just music, but Wallet's music. She would frequently post song lyrics, and she would even sing. in videos on her posts. Her favorite song by Wallet was Love, Hate, thing, and it's really good.

I listened to it, and there was this one line that stuck out to me. And sure enough, I wasn't surprised that it was one of Alexis's favorites, too. She posted it here. They're going to love you a little different when you're at the top.

It's very true. Alexis wanted to be on the top, too. She had a lot of dreams. By the summer of 2013, Alexis was 17, going into her senior year of high school, She was the captain of her volleyball team number nine, and she dreamed of playing at the college level. She also liked basketball and softball,

but at 5'9, she excelled in volleyball. That was her sport, and she loved it. Maybe it had something to do with some of her teenage angst because she definitely had some. And I know she was kidding, but she followed up her post about loving volleyball with this. Says, I just want to hit girls in the head with volleyball all day. None of us go through life without getting upset, frustrated, and annoyed.

And Alexis went through all of those emotions, but she celebrated more than she complained. And when she did complain, it was the usual things, like having to get up early, go to work, a guy ghosting her, not finding a guy to commit. People only talking about her looks, the things that a normal teenager would complain about, and rightfully so. Alexis celebrated a lot of things that she loved. She loved food. Who doesn't? My favorite places were Subway, McDonald's, and Starbucks. She also liked Chinese food, and she talked about craving it a lot.

The cutest thing I saw on her Twitter was related to Starbucks. She tweeted, let me find out that they have a Starbucks inhaler. Yes, please let me know, because I can definitely say with confidence, I am a Starbucks lover, a Starbucks addict. It's what got me through grad school, and it's what gets me through these cases for you. Caffeine is my drug of choice. Alexis tweeted why is Starbucks my weakness? It's definitely mine too.

I smiled so many times going through her tweets. Alexis was very mature for her age. She was very intelligent. She was outgoing. She loved to dance, enjoyed getting her hair done, liked makeup, and dreamed of driving a Range Rover. She enjoyed bidding on things on eBay, but didn't like to be outbid, and I can relate.

If she couldn't get her Starbucks fix, she would opt for a McDonald's frape. After all, that was the closest fast food restaurant. She would go there every single day, but not for the food, for the fun. Yes, McDonald's. The one in her area was actually connected to a gas station. It was called Liberty Gas Station, and it became a local hangout for teenagers in Lovingston. There weren't many places for them to go after school or before school, so they would hang out at the McDonald's and the gas station.

But there were times she didn't mind going to Lynchburg for a craving. For example, she would drive there for a pretzel. and her dad will let her borrow his white 2003 Nissan Maxima. Alexis was very trustworthy. She was responsible, so her dad had no problem letting her take the car anytime she needed it. However, she did have a nightly curfew. She had to be home by 11 p.m. And she never missed her curfew not one time.

That is how reliable Alexis was. Another thing people knew about Alexis is she never went anywhere without her white iPhone. If they would have had pink, I could guarantee you Alexis would have chosen pink. That was her favorite color. But if there was something else you could rely on when it came to knowing Lexus, it's that she would not let her phone die. She would carry around an extension cord just so it would stay charged. Her aunt would make jokes about it all the time that she would hear Alexis coming by the sound of her slippers shuffling across the floor and the extension cord dragging behind her. Alexis was the type of girl who would talk to kids than no one would talk to in school. She was loving.

She enjoyed listening to others and giving honest advice when she could. She absolutely adored her three brothers, even though they annoyed the heck out of her sometimes. And she cared about others. She cared about things like the Columbine High School shooting. She posted this on April 20, 2013. It says this is the 420 that really should be remembered, referring to the massacre that happened in Colorado on April 20th, 1999, and speaking of 420, I'm just going to get this out of the way now.

Yes, it seemed like she liked smoking weed. If I'm wrong, I apologize, but I'm only taking what I found from Twitter and making my observations. This is going to become something that's talked about, so I figured I would get it out of the way. She frequently posted about wanting to smoke and would post pictures and videos of her smoking, And there's still quite a stigma when it comes to marijuana.

So take it as you will. From everything I read, Alexis was a normal teenager from a small town. She had big dreams, was inspired by music that emphasized the ability to become something and leave the past behind, but never forget where you came from. She wanted true happiness and love. But she was going through all the growing pains that we go through to find it and voicing them all publicly. I could feel her pain, but she was definitely on the right track. In the summer of 2013, she was excited about entering her final year of high school. As a matter of fact, she was in the middle of planning her senior pictures.

She was having them taken in August before the fall semester began. This is necessary so that you could get your picture in the yearbook. It used to take a while for them to process the pictures and get them ready for publication. I'm sure you know if you've been through it. I dropped out of high school, so I did not have senior photos, but I heard this from my best friend. It's something completely normal. Laura, Alexis' mom, agreed to gift her a trip

to the hair salon in preparation. And Alexis had already picked out a style she wanted and made an appointment with a stylist out in Lynchburg for Saturday, August 3rd after she finished working. She actually worked at a thrift store in Charlottesville on the weekends and during the week in the summer. And what I could tell is that Laura instilled a work ethic into Alexis.

Laura worked at a local post office and sometimes she would put in overtime or work the night shift just to provide for her family. She didn't mind helping Alexis when she needed something, especially because she was a good student, a talented athlete, and did work her own job to get extra things that she wanted. Friday was filled with fun at a family barbecue

and she hung out with her Aunt Trina and all of her cousins. Alexis would routinely share her plans on Twitter with her followers. She let her community know where she was headed, like this post on January 16, 2013, off to North Carolina after I clean my room. It was no different Saturday, August 3rd. She posted Bergbound,

and after getting money from Laura for her hair, she headed out to work in Charlottesville and planned to drive to Lynchburg for that appointment when she got off. Her last tweet was at 3.40 p.m. She tweeted, I actually look cute right now. And then, It's as though Alexis vanished.

It was the next morning, Sunday, August 4th, when Alexis's grandma Gail went into her bedroom to check on her. But when she opened the door, Alexis wasn't in her bed. She wasn't home. Gail was the first person to realize that Alexis had never come home the night before. And that was unlike her. Gail called Alexis, but she got no answer. And that was a major red flag.

Alexis would always answer, always. Gail's very first thought was that Alexis could have gotten in a car accident trying to get to Lynchburg or back into town. And she was worried. Gail checked with Laura, who had worked the overnight shift at the post office and wasn't home yet, and she called her asking if she knew where her daughter was and Laura was confused. She's like, what do you mean she didn't come home last night? Well, the white Nissan wasn't in the driveway. and Alexis wasn't there.

Laura called Alexis's dad Troy asking if Alexis had possibly gone to his place the night before, but Troy said no, I haven't seen her. And they were both trying hard not to panic. But the fact that Alexis left alone, broke her free for the first time, and didn't return his car was frightening. And terrible thoughts started to fly through his head.

The same would happen to me. I go to the worst possible scenarios when I don't hear from someone. Alexis was still not answering her phone, and it seemed like it was off. It was going straight to her voicemail. And this was unlike her. Everybody knew Alexis would not let her phone die no matter what.

She would plug in multiple extension cords just so that it could still be accessible while she walked through the whole house when it had to be charged. This was very unlike her. So Laura took Troy's advice. He said to call the police. But instead of calling them,

Laura went down to the Nelson County Sheriff's Department in person to explain what was going on and get this. The officers there had never filled out a missing person's report. Never. This was actually the very first one they had ever completed. So this gives you a perfect example of how uncommon this was. This didn't happen in Nelson County. It took them longer than usual to figure out the process and Laura just waited patiently as patiently as she could, even though she had become more and more worried, especially considering she had contacted various family members and friends and none of them had seen Alexis since the day before. After the case was created, it was handed off to Nelson County Sheriff's Investigator William Everett Mays Jr. We're going to call him Billy Mays because that's what he went by.

He had never investigated a missing person until he was given Alexis Murphy's case. This really was his first rodeo. But at least he knew the first thing he had to do was get an understanding of who Alexis was and where she was last seen. So we started with interviewing Laura, followed by Alexis's family members, her grandparents that lived with her, her brothers, all her aunts and uncles, her cousins, to get as much information as he possibly could. He was dealing with a young woman, someone that he thought could have possibly wanted to disappear. This is an age where teenagers are transatlanticians, into true adulthood. They test the waters of what they can get away with.

And sometimes they make adult decisions thinking that they know it all. He thought that that's what they could be dealing with. Maybe Alexis didn't want to be found, but her family was adamant that that was not the case. No way. She overshared on social media. Even if it was her intention to leave her family, she would not have left her Twitter following out of the loop.

That was another place, wanted to take a good hard look, but first, he focused on Alexis's family. Her aunt Trina told him that she was Alexis's great aunt and that Alexis was incredibly humble. She was a genuine person and she would not have let her phone die. She said the last time she saw her was that Friday at the cookout. The last thing she said to her was, I love you and I'll see you later. Alexis's cousin Jasmine Murphy said that Alexis would never have left town without telling anyone. She hung out with her on Wednesday, July 31st after volleyball camp. Alexis went out to Madison

Heights with Jasmine to get Jasmine's eyebrows done, and then they went out for Chinese food together. And on the way home, they stopped at McDonald's to get a frappe, and then she dropped Alexis off at home. They texted on Friday, but they hadn't talked on August 3rd. Plus, Alexis was excited about her senior year. She was looking forward to playing volleyball and Jasmine had been the assistant coach for Alexis' team for two years. She saw Alexis grow as a player, and she know how seriously Alexis took the sport. None of the evidence that Mays is gathering at this point

is leading him to believe that Alexis ran away from home. He knew that she had plans to get her hair done. When he called to see if she made it to that appointment, the stylist informed him that she did not. Meanwhile, Laura is taking matters into her own hands. She couldn't just sit around waiting, and with modern technology, we can all do something. We can all be investigators.

The internet is a very powerful tool. Laura knew that the iPhone had the Find My iPhone feature on it. So they put Alexis's number into the app, and they were shocked when a location pops up on the map. I can only imagine that mixture of elation and fear, but mostly fear at this point because of where the location was. It was in an area called Oak Ridge. which was about a 10-minute drive from their home.

But it's where Oak Ridge is that worried them right away. It's along a major highway called Route 29. And this is a corridor that passes through a very rural area. It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and it's very well known as a place where a number of females have gone missing over the last few years. All of them were traveling alone when they disappeared.

As you probably understand, Alexis's family, they're beside themselves. beside themselves. They're confused and they're scared, but they give all of this information to investigator Mays. It's the first lead, and it came from the people who cared about Alexis the most. They were not going to give up. Actually, they were on the case faster than Nelson County Sheriff's Office because of social media. Everyone was reaching out on their respective platforms, whether it was Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, even MySpace, and posting about Alexis, asking the public to please give them any information that they can about her whereabouts or if they had seen her,

please come forward. They were desperate for answers and they knew the more time they went by, the less likely it would be that Alexis would be found or alive. It's a race against time. The family quickly gets the media involved, which wasn't hard since this town is so small and this is such a big news. The first missing person's case, a beautiful young girl vanishing out of nowhere. So the family holds a press conference begging for, the safe return of their loved one. Her aunt Angela was sobbing and begging the public for help. She also put out a public message to her niece. She said, Alexis, just know that we're working on bringing you home because we all miss you. It was a very emotional time for her family and now

the community is coming forward to help in any way that they can. There were hundreds of people coming together asking how can we help? How can we take action? The town is known as a place where the residents are friendly. They open their arms to anyone and everyone and everybody knows everyone. That can be a double-edged sword. They know you, so they care. But they know you so they know all of your business. One of them could be involved. You never know. But the family would take any help that they could get. At this point, Nelson County investigators are searching the surrounding area. They're looking all around town for clues, but once they get that lead about Oak Ridge, they're focus shifts. And Mays makes his way out there to where Alexis's phone was last active according

to the Find My iPhone app. And when investigators are looking around, they don't see a car. That's the first thing they're trying to locate because they know she was driving the white Nissan. They don't see it anywhere in that area. But the thing about this area, though, is that there are thousands of acres of land. And this phone was pinging near Oak Ridge Mansion. And this specific location, is known for weddings and other really big events like that, and they realize that they're going to have to search this area and that it's a very small sheriff's department. So they call in volunteers from the area,

and there's a huge gathering. Everyone wanted to help. By 6.30 p.m. that evening, there was actually a state trooper helicopter in the air looking over this area for her car. Not only that, even though this is a small town, this was a big case already, especially with social media buzzing

and her large following and the town putting pressure on the sheriff's office. The first FBI agent was actually on the scene by 7.15 p.m. on August 4th. When Alexis's family gets the word that her phone pinged off of Oak Ridge Mansion, that kind of puts up a red flag because they know someone who works at Oak Ridge Mansion. His name is Abraham Gray. He was actually the ex-boyfriend of Alexis's mom, Laura. Alexis had always looked up to Abraham. She saw him as a father figure when he was in her life.

And they got along great. He was very close to Alexis and her family. But of course, after he and Laura broke up, he wasn't as close or in communication with them. So they wondered, was Alexis still in communication with Abraham? Did she need something? Did she go there for help? What was going on? So they now need to find Abraham and ask him.

When was the last time you saw Alexis? Abraham wasn't working at Oak Ridge Mansion when they came out there research that day, but they do manage to track him down and ask him a lot of questions. The first one was, do you have anything to do with Alexis's disappearance? And he's like, no, I haven't even talked to Alexis. I have nothing to do with her going missing. I didn't even know she was missing. When they tell him when she went missing, he lets them know he wasn't even in town at that time. But investigator Mays thinks it's just a little too much of a coincidence. The fact that this person works there, he knows the family. There's a lot. There's a

a connection so he digs in deeper but with all the technology that they have they're able to look at his phone records and they know where his phone was pinging that night and it was in a completely different location so they were able to clear him for now anyway while these investigators and volunteers and the family are going through this entire plot of land as beautiful as it was this beautiful estate built in 1802 with these breathtaking views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it's also a place that elicits a lot of fear in the family and the community, knowing just how vast it is.

There's a lot of places for someone to go missing in this area, and not only that, there are fields, as far as I can see, but there's also heavily wooded areas like this, with creeks and bushes and all kinds of wild animals. Things that would be very dangerous for a young girl. It's also a very secluded area. You could definitely get lost out there. If you were deep in those woods,

no one would even hear you scream if something bad happened to you, especially if you were there against your will. And this is the main focus of the investigation at this point, because this is where the iPhone app said Alexis was located last. I mean, look at the birds eye view. You can see just how vast this land is.

Another thing I wanna point out is that even though it was only a 10 minute drive, this was a drive that was out out of the way from where Alexis should have been headed. The estate itself has over 4,800 acres. Investigators are thinking there could have been some kind of car accident. Maybe she went off the road,

so they're looking everywhere in that area. But after a few hours and with all their expertise and even the FBI coming in, they start to brainstorm once again. They theorize they could be off track, even as great as the technology is for Find My iPhone, And I think you might know what I'm talking about. It's not always 100% accurate.

I know this firsthand, okay? I have definitely used the location services on my phone to locate friends, family members, and it's not always on point. It'll give you a vicinity, but they really feel like they're looking in the wrong direction. And at this point, the media is really starting to get more and more involved. There are stations coming from out of town at this point,

and that is when the state police get involved. Now, unlike other cases that I've done about small, towns. This is happening very fast. This is only one day. This is the first day of the search. And they already have FBI agents out there. And now Virginia State Police are coming out there to assist the search and to coordinate with these other departments to try to think of their next focal point. There is one big reason that this was such a big deal. And it had a lot to do with why this case got picked up other than obvious reasons, which you may have already thought of, like how beautiful Alexis was. Some people don't like

When it's mentioned that these cases snowball and get bigger and bigger when someone like Alexis is involved. Someone who has that beautiful smile, someone with their whole life ahead of them. Someone that you can imagine is like your own daughter. She's young, she's beautiful with so much potential, but there's something else. She's not the only one. I mentioned this earlier, Route 29. That's the highway that Oak Ridge Estate is located off of. And there were a number of open and ongoing cases involving Route 29.

Young girls, just like Alexis, had gone missing. And as a matter of fact, there was a suspected serial killer who authorities believed we were using Route 29 to capture his victims, who were usually young women traveling by themselves. There are too many similarities to Alexis's case that the state has to get involved. A number of these mysterious crimes had happened in the past few years. in the past few years. And at last count, there were 32 young women and men that were missing

on some portion of Route 29. And you know I don't like to go on tangents in my videos. That's why I make sure to write everything out that I'm going to talk to you about. However, when I do a case and there are other individuals that I feel that I should mention for the sake of getting their names out there and their stories, I will briefly do so. And I think it's really important in this case and it's definitely relevant and you will know why in just a second when I start to tell you what happened on Route 29. Since 1996, there has been an unusually high number of young women that have gone missing along this corridor in Virginia. Five women disappeared between 2009 and 2014. The person that the authorities thought was responsible was dubbed as the Route 29 stalker.

That person has still never been identified. However, A man named Richard Mack Evidence was a serial killer who was taking lives of women in that area from 1996 until at least 2002. He was involved in the murder of at least three teenage girls. A girl named Sophia Silva and sisters Kristen and Katie Lisk. In addition to kidnapping a girl in South Carolina, however, investigators knew that Richard had nothing to do with Alexis's disappearance since he took his own life in 2002 when the police surrounded him and ended up. attempt to make an arrest. So many people think the Route 29 stalker still exists. And witnesses have seen a man flag women down who were driving alone. But going back to Alexis, there were three recent unsolved cases that authorities were concerned may be connected to Alexis's disappearance.

The first one was the murder of Morgan Harrington. She was a 20-year-old Virginia Tech student that went missing from a Metallica concert in Charlottesville in 2009. Her body was found on a farm on January 26, 2010. The second case was the disappearance of Samantha Ann Clark. She was last seen in Orange, Virginia, which was close to Charlottesville. She was at her home, and she left a little after midnight. She didn't have a car, so it suspected that someone came to pick her up and she was never seen again. And the last one prior to Alexis going missing was the case of Sage Smith, also known as Unique,

who was a 19-year-old transgender woman last seen in Charlottesville on November 20th, 2012. She was on her way to meet a date. She was also never seen again. And now, just about a year later, Alexis is gone. And these cases are way too similar to overlook. There is a possibility that they're connected. And this is one of the major reasons why people think

that the state police and all these other agencies got involved, open cases that could potentially be solved as they investigate, Alexis's disappearance. So as they're searching these other women are on the top of their minds as well. And by noon the next day, Monday, August 5th, there were at least 80 agents from the FBI

throughout the small town in Lovingston, and soon there would be more. Over 200 investigators from different agencies would be working this case in just a couple days. Something else happened on Monday. It's when Alexis's volleyball team resumed their weekly practices. This time without number nine, their star athlete.

They came together as a team to encourage one another to support Alexis's family and to pray for her safe return. Many of them were in shock, especially parents. They didn't expect something like this to happen in their community and a hashtag was started on Twitter and across all the other platforms, hashtag bring Alexis Murphy home.

Her picture was everywhere. You couldn't get on social media without someone in the community reposting something about Alexis. Still, there was no sign of her, but something was about to be revealed, something big. A huge lead came in that very next day on Tuesday, August 6th. That evening, somebody called into the Nelson County Sheriff's Department with a tip. They'd been watching the news, and they saw information about Alexis Murphy, along with the description and the picture of the Nissan Maxima,

and a light bulb just went off in this person's head, and they remembered seeing what they thought could have been that vehicle. They said that they saw it in Carmike Theater parking lot and none other than Charlottesville. And we've heard this city before. This is the one where all those other girls went missing from and now Alexis's car has said to be spotted in this town. I'm sure you know that the police get hundreds of tips all the time and they have to look into each and every one. But they're not getting their hopes up yet. However, if it really is her car, this could be big. This location was about 40 miles north of Lovingston and 70 miles north of Lynchburg. Yes, it's true. She worked in Charlottesville, so it wasn't completely out of the ordinary for her to be in the area, but they knew she was

traveling to Lynchburg to get her hair done. So why would her car be at a movie theater parking lot when she had no plans as far as anybody knew to attend a movie that evening when she disappeared? On Tuesday night, agents including Billy Mays went to the Carmike 6 Cinema parking lot on Gardens Boulevard off of US 29. And sure enough, there it was. The white Nissan Maxima abandoned in this parking lot. The detectives circled the vehicle looking inside and they couldn't see a Lexus. Or anything suspicious about the car from the outside looking in. But this is huge because the license plate matched.

Wyn 3706, an exact match in the make, model, and license plate. But no Alexis. Well, no Alexis from what they could see by looking through the windows. They have something that they need to do, something that every officer dreads, they have to open the trunk. Statistically speaking, so many individuals are found deceased in either the trunk of their own car

or someone else's. But they know they're going to have to open it up, They're going to have to check it. That was Investigator May's biggest fear. He thought he was going to open up that trunk and that Alexis was going to be inside. But when he opened it, he was shocked and surprised and also confused and relieved all at the same time. She wasn't in the trunk. So where was she?

Another thing that wasn't there was her phone or any of her personal belongings. Just her dad's abandoned car at a place that no one expected her to be in the completely opposite. direction of where she had an appointment to get her hair done. Detectives now have something tangible that they can look through, that they can fingerprint, that they can analyze, but they also have something else, a location. And with the location, they have one of their biggest, most reliable pieces of evidence, and that is CCTV cameras. They know that the next day is going to consist of them going through every single business

that's in that vicinity of this location and gather up all of the footage. from the day of August 3rd all the way until that person called in the tip and they're going to go through hours and hours hundreds of hours of footage until they find out how that car ended up in that parking lot and who was driving it was it Alexis and if so when did she get out of the car where did she go this was huge they thought it might actually solve the entire case by getting the right piece of footage at this point Alexis's family comes together and they create a Facebook page called Help Find Alexis Murphy. And the first post is on the next day, August 7th, and it says, new update.

Investigators say they found several items of interest inside the car Tuesday night. After that preliminary search, officials sealed the car and towed it away so that they can conduct a more thorough search. Now, I wasn't able to find any information about what was found inside the vehicle. I did not find anything with thorough details. But the most important thing was that the detectives needed to scour those videos. And as they did, they finally found something. They spotted Alexis's vehicle pulling into that parking lot on Sunday night around 10 o'clock p.m. But the video quality, like so many other cases that I have done, was really bad.

When are we going to fix this? When are we going to be able to tell what something is right away? When is it going to be perfect night vision? But this was back in 2013, okay. But they can't tell who is getting out of that vehicle. What they can tell is that the person gets out, walks out of frame, and it looks like they're walking into the woods. There's one thing that Alexis's family said, that isn't Alexis, because they know she's scared of the dark. They think there is no way she would park that late at night in an area like that and get out of the car and walk into the darkness.

The sheriff's office decide to go get some canines to go to the car and see if they could pick up a scent. maybe they can track this scent to where the person went after they exited the vehicle and guess what the dogs do track a scent across the parking lot and into a nearby apartment complex but something i want to point out is that there is a lot of investigations going on simultaneously there are investigators that are back in lovingston there are some in charlottesville and there are others that are doing a thorough search of her social media platform which i'm definitely going to have to talk about in just one moment. They're all trying to connect the dots and come back together and brainstorm about what they should do next. And that's exactly what they were doing that night at the car with the canines. They were getting together. And here's a picture of all the different agencies standing outside that white Nissan Maxima trying to figure out what they're going to do next. So let's go back to the agents that were interviewing residents of that apartment complex where the dogs tracked the scent. Turns out there were no connections to Alexis.

in that nobody that lived there was connected to her as far as anyone being a friend, a boyfriend, someone she could have been hanging out with. And as they spoke to a lot of different residents from the apartment complex, they don't get any leads. There just were not any tips generated from that search. They really want to figure out why the car would be there. One thing they really wanted to get to the bottom of was how long had the vehicle been sitting in this parking lot because the biggest thing for investigators is to build a timeline, a solid timeline, as solid as it can be of where Alexis was at what time throughout the days she had gone missing.

If they could narrow that down, it would help them in so many ways. It's going to help them with potential suspects. At some point, if they want to compare, it's going to help them with alibis. It's going to help them with other locations and the connections of those as well. Remember that she went missing on Saturday. This car was pulling into this parking lot on Sunday night at 10 p.m. That's a lot of time. They've now expanded the search 30 miles south and 30 miles north of this car,

and they were even trying to pull camera footage from public transportation like buses. And after brainstorming, they get a new idea, but before I go into that direction, I told you we are going to dive into Alexis's social media presence, specifically her Twitter account. from the very beginning, her influence, so to speak, and the amount of followers that she had was pivotal in the search. Since there were so many people that kept up with her on a regular basis, some of them probably felt like they knew her. And they would obviously notice if she wasn't posting and be interested in what happened to her. So from the very beginning, the word was spreading and fast. Once people were aware that Alexis was missing, some of the first.

first clues that really solidified that Alexis was going to Lynchburg came from her Twitter, the tweet that said, Bergbound. Now the authorities that were initially investigating from the Nelson County Sheriff's Department, well, they didn't exactly know how to use social media, the way that a teenager would. It was actually Alexis's friends and family that pointed out there's more than one way to look at what Alexis was tweeting. If you go to Twitter, you'll notice there's a tab that says tweets, and naturally people will probably assume that means those are all the tweets from Alexis, and that's true. Her tweets show up there, as well as anything she retweeted from someone else.

But there's another tab to the right called tweets and replies. In this section, you're going to find tweets from Alexis that she created, but you're also going to see tweets where she's replying to someone else that tweeted mentioning her. I know probably all of you know how to use Twitter. But for those of you that don't, this is what investigators were learning from her. her friends and family, this section that could give them a lot more insight as far as who Alexis was and who she was corresponding with. And that's the thing. The person that got out of that vehicle could be anyone. It could be any one of the 12,000 people that were actively keeping up with

Alexis. And I say 12,000 because by the time investigators start to look at her Twitter after they find that car, she's already gained 1,000 more followers. And they wondered, was one of them stalking her. Social media truly is a double-edged sword. It's what my senior thesis was about in college. I did an original research paper about the effects of social media and whether or not it's a good thing or a bad thing in our lives. And that's the question. Is it our friend or our enemy? It's something I've thought about and that I really like to study because enemies can be lurking in the shadows behind keyboards in a dark basement but next to you at the exact same time in the sense that they can follow your every move from afar. They can plan their evil

deeds behind closed doors out of the site of authorities and anyone else who can identify them because they come out of the shadows. It could be your biggest fan, someone that praises you every time you post, but it could actually be your biggest enemy. It wasn't that hard for me to figure out where she lived. Says it right on the top of her Twitter, right here on her profile, Nelson County. Considering there's only one main road going through Nelson County, it wouldn't be out of the question that a stalker might just wait there until they caught a glimpse of Alexis. She definitely stood out in a crowd. But if she hadn't added her location, I could have figured it out from posts that she made like this one. The fact that I have to work tomorrow, that's July 31st, 2013,

and just a day later, she says, Charlottesville morning traffic and rain. So you can put two and two together. It's pretty obvious. She's working in Charlottesville during the summer. Earlier that day, she said she was in Madison Heights. And not only that, she wouldn't have even had to post anything publicly. Someone could have been corresponding with her over DM. And we would never see it publicly.

Or it could be someone slick is talking to her like they're her friend. And sooner or later, maybe she'll hint about where she works in Charlottesville. Maybe she'll give them her phone number, or maybe she'll even agree to meet them. Investigators are thinking that this might have been the case because she even tweets about DMing people with her number when she's on her replies on Twitter. There's something else they notice. And before I say this, I have to tell you something. There's a difference between victimology and victim blaming. Victimology is the study of the victim, including their patterns and their lives, their behaviors, where they hang out.

And victimology is not just about finding out what happened to a victim in a particular case. It is also a study of how victims' behaviors can ultimately shape them into becoming vulnerable to becoming a victim. This is a science. This is something law enforcement uses. Now, criminology studies criminals' minds,

and victimology studies the minds of individuals who are victimized by criminals. A lot of times, when, When someone would mention certain factors that may have contributed to a criminal mind wanting to target a particular person, people can see it as victim blaming. And let me tell you this, there is no one to blame for something happening to a victim, except for the criminal, period.