Tell Me a True Crime Story
Tell Me a True Crime Story
A Predator Was Lurking (Pt 1)
When 18-year-old Naomi Irion drove into the Walmart parking lot on the morning of March 12, 2022, it was still dark out. She parked her car, then chatted with friends on social media that were in other time zones, while she waited for the shuttle bus. It was her typical work-day routine. Naomi had no way of knowing that a determined predator lurked nearby. He’d been there since 4:22am, watching the Walmart parking lot and waiting on a young woman that he could make his prey. Troy Driver had all of the preparations in place; the kill spot was chosen and the grave had been dug. Then, at 5:09am, he spotted a young woman, alone, pull into the parking lot. The young woman was Naomi Irion.
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Tell me a true crime story. Hey there, welcome to Tell Me a True Crime Story podcast. I'm your host, holly. Thank you so much for spending this time with me and for taking me along with you as you go about your day. I'm honored that you have chosen to listen to me, because I know that you have many quality choices to choose from. I hope that you all are having a joyous holiday season and, of course, I hope that you and your family are happy, healthy and together forever. Please follow this podcast on Facebook, instagram and TikTok. My username on all three of those is at Tell Me a True Crime Story.
Speaker 1:To those of you who do follow me, you haven't seen a post from me in a little while. I did take a break from social media for a bit. I haven't posted a new episode on the podcast for several weeks. It's been one thing after the other. It was Thanksgiving and I had family stay with me for a week for the holiday. Then I was out of town for a week, then I was sick for a week, and I'm still getting over being sick, so forgive me if my voice sounds scratchy. And this is the part where I ask you guys to leave me a 5 star review on Apple and or a 5 star rating on Spotify. Thank you for the awesome reviews on Apple to those of you who have already done so for me, and on Spotify I received more 5 star ratings, so you guys have really helped me out by doing that. Thanks a ton, and big, big hugs to you guys and to those of you who haven't and you enjoy this podcast. I'd be so grateful if you would take a few moments of your time and do that for me. I appreciate each and every one of you guys.
Speaker 1:Now let me tell you a true crime story. 18 year old Naomi Christine Erion lived with her big brother Casey Valley in Fernley, nevada, but she hadn't lived there for very long, just about seven months or so since moving there from South Africa in August of 2021. Because her dad was a foreign diplomat, naomi had lived in many different countries around the world. Although she was well traveled. Her brother Casey knew that she wanted to gain some independence and get away from her protective parents for a bit, so he invited his little sister to live with him in the United States. So after Naomi graduated from high school, she did just that.
Speaker 1:Our story starts out on Saturday, march 12, 2022. A man with a sinister plan pulled into a dirt parking lot just south of a Walmart parking lot in Fernley, nevada in the wee hours of the morning. He's a predator and he's here to wait on a lone woman that he can kidnap, rape, shoot to death and bury in a remote grave, a grave that he dug a month earlier in preparation for this day. The man with a sinister plan pulled into a dirt parking lot just south of a Walmart parking lot in Fernley Nevada. He's a predator and he's here to help him out. Naomi was reported missing by her brother, casey Valley, in the evening on March 13, 2022. She was last seen on the previous morning, march 12, 2022, when she left her home in Furnley Nevada for work. Naomi worked at Panasonic Energy of North America in Reno, nevada. On March 15, 2022,.
Speaker 1:The investigation into Naomi's disappearance was assigned to the Lyon County Sheriff's Office Investigations Division. Investigators learned that Naomi would always park her car in the same spot at Walmart located at 1550 East Newlands Drive in Furnley, nevada, and take the shuttle bus to work. The first step the detectives took in the investigation was to look at surveillance footage from the Walmart. On that footage, they observed that at 5.09 am on March 12, naomi drove into the Walmart parking lot in her blue 1992 Mercury Sable and parked it in the parking lot on the east side of the store. As Naomi sat in the driver's seat of her car waiting on the shuttle bus, she was on her cell phone talking to friends overseas on social media. There is a man seen on the surveillance footage wearing a gray hoodie, dark pants or jeans and dark tennis shoes, actively stalking Naomi. He eventually approached the driver's side of her vehicle. He opened her driver's side door and got into the car. Seconds later, the unknown man drove Naomi's car out of the Walmart parking lot. After viewing that footage, investigators became almost positive that Naomi was taken against her will. The Lyon County Sheriff's Office began looking for Naomi's car, but it wasn't found until three days after Naomi was abducted.
Speaker 1:On March 15, 2022,. Her car was located in Furnley, nevada, in a dirt parking lot on the east side of Duffy Road between a Lowe's Home Improvement and a Sherwin-Williams paint factory. This location was only a half a mile away from the Walmart she had been kidnapped from. Naomi's car was seized as evidence and was taken to the Forensic Science Division of the Washoe County Sheriff's Office to be processed by forensic technicians. Meanwhile, detectives were also conducting emergency location pings of Naomi's cell phone. Sadly, there was no location data available for Naomi's phone. Detectives determined that her phone had been turned off on the morning of March 12, the morning of her abduction. There was also no further activity on her social media accounts or her financial accounts.
Speaker 1:The video surveillance footage from Walmart was studied and analyzed in order to get more information on the suspect that had gotten into Naomi's car and taken her away. It was determined through triangulation using reference points, that the suspect was between six foot and six foot three inches tall. In addition to the invaluable footage from Walmart, detectives were able to get additional video surveillance from businesses in the area. Thankfully, they were able to get their hands on video footage that showed Naomi's Mercury Sable being driven southbound on Duffy Road. On the afternoon she was kidnapped. At 3.31 pm someone parked her car in the dirt lot between Lowe's and the Sherwin-Williams Paint Factory. An unknown man can be seen on the video walking away from her car. He walked southbound on Duffy Road. Not even 45 minutes later, at 4.12pm, a grayish-blue Chevy pickup truck could be seen on video driving on Duffy Road. The truck parked near Naomi's car and the driver of the truck got out, walked to Naomi's car, got in it and moved her car to a different dirt parking lot. He then got out of her vehicle and left in the Chevy truck.
Speaker 1:Detectives took screenshots of the truck from that surveillance footage so that they could attempt to identify the truck and its driver. Since they now strongly believed that the driver of the truck was involved in the disappearance of Naomi Ereon, the screenshots of the truck were released to the public. Detectives also had those screenshots analyzed by several Chevrolet dealerships in the area. Each Chevy dealership analyzed the photos independently. They found that the truck and the screenshots taken from the video surveillance had some unique and distinct features. It was determined that the truck had four doors with chrome door handles, partially chrome-wrapped rear view mirrors, roof-mounted fog lights, chrome running boards, chrome rims, a gold-colored Chevrolet emblem on the front bumper, a rear center sliding window and color-matched front and rear bumpers. Several of the dealerships that analyzed the photos of the truck identified it as a metallic blue or metallic gray, 2020-2022 Chevy High Country 25 or 3500.
Speaker 1:Now that detectives had this crucial information, they were able to go to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles and obtain a list of the trucks that match that description in western Nevada. Their inquiry returned several hundred possible matches. Detectives were then assisted by the Nevada Threat Analysis Center, ntac. The NTAC is an entity within the Nevada Department of Public Safety Investigation Division that provides criminal and administrative investigatory response to law enforcement in Nevada. The NTAC helped detectives narrow down the suspect truck list by eliminating vehicles from the list based on color. The list was further narrowed down by eliminating trucks that had modifications, different chrome packages or different rims, etc.
Speaker 1:Detectives discovered a truck registered to an address in Silver Springs, nevada, that was registered to a Troy Edward Driver. A check of his driver's license indicated that Troy Driver was a 41-year-old white man who was 6'3" tall and weighed 215 pounds. A criminal background check of Troy Driver revealed an extensive criminal history. Just the year prior, in 2021, he was the suspect in a sexual assault case in Elko, nevada. However, his criminal career started with animal cruelty charges when he was just a teenager. Not long after that, he served 12 years in a California prison for his role in the murder of a teenager.
Speaker 1:Let's go back for a moment two and a half decades ago, to the year 1997. On April 21, 1997, reputed meth dealer, 19-year-old Paul Rodriguez, went missing from Willets, a city in Mendocino County in Northern California. A couple of weeks later, his body was found in a wooded area. The investigation into his premeditated murder determined that Paul Rodriguez was lured by his 17-year-old girlfriend, alyssa Moore, to 17-year-old Troy Driver's home where he lived with his parents. The driver home was located off of a rural road in a remote area. It was there that Alyssa Moore shot her boyfriend Paul Rodriguez in the head with a shotgun. After that, alyssa Moore, troy Driver and another teenager who'd been present for the murder, 19-year-old Carl Dulinsky, dragged Paul Rodriguez's body to his car. They drove his body 55 miles away and disposed of it in a heavily wooded area. The teens then took the victim's car to another area and torched it.
Speaker 1:Troy Driver's 19-year-old sister was also present during the planning of the murder and pleaded guilty to be an accessory to the murder. Prior to murdering Paul Rodriguez, the teens had also gone on an armed robbery spree a short time before the murder, stealing cash and cigarettes from different stores. Troy Driver pleaded guilty to robbery charges, firearms charges, burglary and accessory to murder. After the fact, he was tried as an adult for his part in the murder and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In 2012, he was paroled from a California state prison and his parole was soon transferred to Nevada. Three years later, in 2015, his parole was completed and he was no longer under supervision from the state of Nevada.
Speaker 1:Since Troy Driver's physical description on his driver's license matched the suspect on the Walmart surveillance footage and based on his criminal history, investigators made it a priority to locate Troy Driver's truck to compare it to the suspect vehicle. They learned that he was living in Fallon, nevada, about 30 minutes southeast of the Walmart Naomi was taken from. He worked as a project superintendent for Leadcore, a mining company in Nevada. Troy Driver's truck was located at his residence in Photographed, his four-door metallic gray 2020 Chevy High Country 3500 pickup truck matched the suspect truck point for point. This included the chrome door handles, partially wrapped chrome-wrapped rear view mirrors, chrome running boards, chrome rims, a gold-colored Chevy emblem on the front bumper, a rear sliding window, roof-mounted running lights and color-matched front and rear bumpers.
Speaker 1:Detectives learned that Troy Driver had two cell phones a personal cell phone and a work cell phone. They sought a search warrant for both of those phone's records. They wanted to use those records to determine his location. On the morning of Naomi's abduction, march 12, 2022. Well, when detectives received those cell phone records, the records indicated that both of Troy Driver's cell phones had been located at his home in Fallon, nevada on March 12. Furthermore, those records showed there was zero activity on either phone on that particular date, which was not at all consistent with Troy Driver's normal cell phone usage. The cell phone records showed that March 12 was the only day in March that Troy Driver did not use his cell phones. He'd used his cell phones daily, every other day in March of 2022.
Speaker 1:While detectives had been investigating and analyzing the suspect vehicle, other detectives reviewed hours of surveillance footage from businesses located in the area of Walmart on Newlands Drive in Fallon, nevada. They eventually located footage of the suspect truck on video arriving in the area of the Walmart on the morning of March 12. At 4.22 am, the pickup truck parks in a dirt lot typically used by semi-trucks and RVs on the south side of the Walmart parking lot located between Wells Fargo Bank and the Greater Nevada Credit Union. Other footage shows Naomi's car entering the Walmart parking lot from Newlands Drive at 5.09 am and, of course, the Chevy truck is already in the dirt lot at this point After Naomi parks her car. The suspect can be seen on video walking across the Walmart parking lot from the dirt lot where the Chevy truck had been parked. The suspect then stalks Naomi as she sits in her car for several more minutes before entering her car from the driver's side and driving away with her.
Speaker 1:As you already know, surveillance footage was pieced together from different businesses in the area that showed the suspect leaving Naomi's car in that dirt lot on the afternoon of March 12th. The same day she'd been abducted from the Walmart parking lot and, as I said, the footage revealed a man getting out of her car and walking away from it in a southerly direction. Then the man turned and walked west across Stanley Drive near Greater Nevada Credit Union, where his face was clearly caught on camera. The man was Troy Driver. He continued to walk to the Chevrolet truck that was parked in the dirt lot south of the Walmart. He got into his truck where he'd left it that morning and drove out of the dirt lot. Surveillance footage proved that his truck had been there the whole time. It had not moved since he'd initially parked it there after four in the morning. After leaving the dirt lot near Walmart in his truck, troy Driver actually returned to Naomi's car, got out of his truck and repositioned her car in the dirt lot where he'd abandoned it near the Lowe's and the paint factory. Then he got back in his truck and left the area.
Speaker 1:Detectives now believed they had probable cause to arrest Troy Driver for the abduction of Naomi Eryon. 13 days after Naomi disappeared, on March 25th 2022, troy Driver was arrested and booked into the Lyon County Jail. He refused to speak to detectives. At the same time he was arrested, a search warrant was executed on Troy Driver's residence in Fallon, nevada. His Chevy truck was seized as evidence and sent for forensic processing at the Washoo County Sheriff's Office.
Speaker 1:Laboratory Detectives noticed that Troy Driver's truck had brand new tires. Their investigation soon determined that he'd had his tires replaced on March 19th, one week after Naomi disappeared. Rather suspiciously, he'd had his tires replaced at a less Schwab tire center two hours north of where he lived in a town called Winamucca, even though the less Schwab tire center in his own town had the same tires in stock. Investigators believe that the media attention surrounding this case led Troy Driver to believe that it would be a safer bet to get out of the immediate area to get them replaced. Luckily, troy Driver's original tires were still at the less Schwab in Winamucca and were retrieved as evidence.
Speaker 1:Four days after Troy driver was arrested, on March 29, authorities received a tip that led them to an inactive mine in a remote area, the Buena Vista iron mine. The mine is located about two hours northeast of the Walmart that Naomi was taken from. Troy driver was familiar with the Buena Vista iron mine and knew the security go to the padlocked gate at the site because the company he worked for at the time of Naomi's abduction, lead core, had taken samples from the site. A tipster reported to the Pershing County Sheriff's Office that in February of 2022, a month before Naomi's abduction, a semi truck hauling an excavator had been trying to deliver the excavator to Troy driver at the Relief Canyon Mine. The Relief Canyon Mine is located in Pershing County just outside of Love Lock, nevada. A mine employee who had spoken to the semi truck driver personally knew Troy driver and knew that he was not working at the Relief Canyon Mine. The mine employee called Troy driver, who asked that the excavator be delivered to the Buena Vista iron mine, which is located in Churchill County about 17 miles south of the Relief Canyon Mine. Detectives learned that the company Troy driver worked for lead core, had been hired to dig samples at the Buena Vista mine. That's why a month earlier in February of 2022, troy driver had been there waiting for the delivery of the excavator.
Speaker 1:After receiving the tip about the excavator being delivered to Troy driver at the Buena Vista iron mine, a Pershing County Sheriff's Office Sergeant went to the abandoned mine site and observed professionally turned over dirt on the north side of the mine that did not seem consistent with mining. The Sergeant contacted detectives with Churchill and Lyon County Sheriff's offices. With this information, investigators went to the mine site and discovered a clandestine grave there, evidenced by what appeared to be freshly dug dirt in the shape of a grave. The dirt had rock scattered on top of it in a futile attempt to make it appear natural. A little bit of digging determined that it was indeed a grave. Forensic technicians responded to the scene and processed the grave site. They exhumed a naked female body from the earth. She had been buried about four to five feet deep. Seventeen days after she had been kidnapped, 18-year-old Naomi Christine Eryon had been found. Authorities discovered excavator track marks at the area of the grave site and tool marks left by the excavator shovel located at every depth of the grave, which, of course, were indicative of the grave having been dug by an excavator Tire impressions from Naomi's car and from the discarded tires from the Winamucka Les Schwab tire center that had been on Troy driver Chevy truck on the day Naomi was taken were located at the grave site as well.
Speaker 1:And that's where I'm going to leave off for part one of this case. Part two is nearly finished, so you won't have to wait too long to listen to it. In part two I'll tell you about what happened to sweet Naomi and the evidence against Troy driver and more. Thank you, guys, so much for listening to this episode of Tell Me a True Crime Story. Please follow the podcast on social media at Tell Me a True Crime Story on Facebook, instagram and TikTok.
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Speaker 1:Thank you guys so much and thank you again for being here. I love you guys lots. I've missed you guys. I'm sorry that I was absent for a while. Life just got in the way and there was a lot of things going on, and I thank you guys for being understanding about that. I'm glad that you're here. I wish you all and your family good health and happiness. I hope you enjoy the holiday season with your family and your friends. I know that the holidays can be a very rough time for some people for lots of different reasons, and I'm thinking about you guys too that are struggling, and I'm keeping you guys close to my heart. Please join me in the next episode when I'll tell you another true crime story. Big, big hugs to each and every one of you. Bye, bye.
