WASHINGTON –Police are launching a new search for missing
Virginia teenagers Alexis Murphy and Samantha Clarke.
“It’s a sense of frustration, obviously. It’s been four years,” says Town of
Orange Police Chief Jim Fenwick. Samantha
Clarke disappeared from Orange County in 2010; Alexis Murphy was abducted from
Nelson County in 2013.
Fenwick says they’re
not giving up hope they will find them. “The greatest possible outcome would
be that we would develop information that would lead to the discovery of
Samantha Clarke and Alexis Murphy.”
Fenwick says the search is kind of like deer hunting. “You can either sit in
the stand and wait for something to come to you. Or you can get out of your
stand, go out in the woods, and ‘beat the bushes’ to see what you can stir up.
So we’re out here ‘beating the bushes’ to see what we can stir up. We haven’t
had a whole lot of information coming in.”
Randy Taylor is serving two life sentences for abducting and murdering Alexis
Murphy but her body was never found. Fenwick says Taylor could have had
contact with Clarke too. “Ever since Randy Taylor was named a person of
interest in the Alexis Murphy case, the Samantha Clarke and Alexis Murphy
cases have been inextricably combined,” he said.
On Sunday, about 150 civilians and law enforcement personnel are searching an
area that has already been searched before. “This is an area that Randy Taylor
would have been familiar with and would have had access to,” Fenwick says.
Investigators have examined if there are any connections to the Hannah Graham
case, but so far have not found any link between them all.
Jesse Matthew, 32, is charged with abducting Graham. Last week he
pleaded not guilty to all charges in a separate 2005 sexual assault case in
Fairfax City.
That trial will begin March 9.
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