Martin said evidence shows on Aug. 2, the night before Murphy’s disappearance, a Greene County officer was dispatched to investigate a missing ATV at Virginia Power Motor Sports. A dirt bike also disappeared.
As the search for Murphy began and Taylor became a suspect, Martin said Taylor mentioned the ATV to investigators. He told the lead Nelson investigator, Billy Mays, and an FBI special agent that he would talk more about the Murphy case if they allowed him to leave an ATV with his son and the teenage boy’s mother.
“He told officers it was his son’s four-wheeler,” Martin said in court.
A search warrant was taken out on the ATV because investigators initially thought it might have some significance to the Murphy investigation, Martin said. Weeks later, while listening to Taylor’s recorded phone calls made from the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, he said Taylor told the boy’s mother to “cover up” the dirt bike so he could avoid another charge.
Mays got another search warrant and, in late October, tracked down the missing dirt bike, Martin said.