Jury Seeks Death for Slasher
Ben Fawley Wants a New Trial
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 8:45 pm
A clip from MyCase.com, a half-hour special produced by Optomen Television and aired on TruTV (then Court TV) in November 2007. It was about 'cyber-sleuthing' and the murder of Taylor Behl. And yeah, it featured yours truly. (My name is on the right, if you've never been to this site before.)
This comes from the 'Aw, Geez, not this shit again' department...
Richmond, VA attorney Hayden Fisher has filed a petition to throw out the murder conviction of Ben Fawley. Fawley was convicted of killing Taylor Behl, a freshman who vanished from the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in September, 2005.
In August, 2006, Fawley entered an Alford plea in connection with the 17-year-old's death. In doing that, Fawley basically stated that he wasn't culpable for Behl's murder, but he couldn't really fight the evidence against him.
Hayden Fisher's petition states that one of Fawley's two attorneys in the first trial, William Johnson, was responsible for a "miscarriage of justice." Johnson's failure, according to Fisher, was his dismissal of findings by a shrink who met with Fawley prior to the Alford plea. Psychiatrist Merritt W. Foster Jr. felt that Ben Fawley wasn't guilty of murder. Foster also found that Fawley suffered from a melange of mental illnesses and that these made him "unfit for trial."
Fisher's papers also stated that Taylor Behl's "tragic, accidental death" was the result of "Behl's and Fawley's amateur attempt at a high-risk sexual practice (erotic asphyxiation) that resulted in the tragic loss of life by one party."
Yeah, sure. That was it.
Prosecutors who commented on the request for a new trial said that Dr. Foster's findings about Fawley's mental health would not have changed the case against him.
If Fawley does manage to go to court again, you'll read about it here. Meanwhile, check out TruTV's Crime Library story of the case, co-written by me and Marilyn Bardsley: "Taylor Behl." [InRich.com]
Tags: Ben Fawley, cybersleuthing, Hayden Fisher, Jr., Merritt W. Foster, Richmond VA, Steve Huff, Taylor Behl, William Johnson
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