RICHMOND, Va. - The mother of a missing college student said Thursday she believes a body found in a wooded area is her daughter.
"I'm sure you can imagine the shock and horror that I feel knowing that the body found is most likely my baby," Taylor Behl's mother, Janet Pelasara, said at a news conference outside of her home in Vienna, Va.
A task force investigating Behl's disappearance found the decomposed body in rural Mathews County on Wednesday - exactly one month after the 17-year-old Virginia Commonwealth University freshman vanished. The body was found buried off a dirt path.
"We certainly believe that the strongest suspect they have is already in custody," Pelasara's attorney, George Peterson, said at the Northern Virginia news conference.
Ben Fawley, a 38-year-old amateur photographer who was one of the last people to see the teen before she disappeared, is being held without bond on child pornography charges. He had a romantic relationship with the teen, according to his attorney Chris Collins. He has not been charged in the Behl case.
Peterson said one of Fawley's ex-girlfriends owns a property near where the body was found.
"We have a high degree of confidence that the body found is Taylor's," Peterson said. Investigators on Thursday continued to process the crime scene, which is on private property about 75 miles east of Richmond.
Richmond police spokeswoman Cynthia Price said police would likely not have a positive identification for several days. But she said Pelasara's assumption that the body is Behl is "probably a pretty accurate assumption."
Behl has not been seen since she left her dormitory room on Sept. 5, taking only her cell phone, a small amount of cash, a student ID and her car keys. She told her roommate she would be back in a few hours.
The teen's car was found two weeks later, less than two miles from her dorm. Her license plates had been replaced with Ohio plates reported stolen several weeks before she disappeared.
Fawley was questioned by police in her disappearance and classified as a person of interest at one point during the investigation. He was arraigned last week on 16 counts of possession of child pornography.
Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Mike Jagels said authorities have found at least 30 videos on Fawley's computers depicting children as young as one in sexual acts.
Detectives later entered Fawley's home looking for anything that might belong to Behl. They seized more than 70 items, including a box of bones, a machete and a cutting of a box spring bearing a reddish-brown stain, according to a search warrant.
A telephone message left for Collins was not immediately returned.
Residents of Mathews said the area where the body was discovered is isolated and difficult to find unless someone is familiar with it.
"Whoever put that body there, it's gotta be somebody local," said Christopher Dehoux, 20, who lives in Moon, less than three miles from where the remains were found. "It's nothing but old trash and garbage. You'd have to be looking awful close to see something."
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Associated Press Writers Ashton Williams in Vienna, Va., and Michael Felberbaum in Mathews, Va., contributed to this report.
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