Bond was set at $750,000 on Wednesday for the 41-year-old Nevada man arrested on kidnapping charges in connection with the disappearance of teenager Naomi Irion.
Troy Driver, who worked at construction company Ledcor, was arrested last week after an extensive manhunt for a hooded figure seen getting into Ms Irion’s vehicle on 12 March in a Fernley, Nevada Walmart parking lot. She has not been seen since.
On Wednesday, Ms Irion’s family was in court as Mr Driver, wearing a striped jumpsuit, appeared before a judge via Zoom from Yerington Jail for his bail hearing. The judge banned all streaming of proceedings not long before their start.
The judge invited the Irion family to make a statement but they declined. If Mr Driver posts pail, he will be required to wear a GPS monitoring device.
Following the proceedings, Ms Driver’s brother, Casey Valley – with whom the 18-year-old lived – addressed reporters.
“I’m surprised that there was bail at all,” said the Navy veteran and Apple employee, adding that he wanted the suspect to “put himself in our shoes”.
“He has a family, or so I’ve been told,” said Mr Valley, 32. “And I know he’s probably a father – so I’ve been told – so I would imagine, I would ask him ... what would he want the suspect to do if that was his daughter?”
When asked if justice had been served given Mr Driver’s arrest and arraignment, he flatly said: “No – because I don’t have my sister.”
The 18-year-old had been waiting before dawn for a shuttle to her job at nearby Panasonic, wearing the company’s logoed t-shirt as she checked social media on her phone.
Her social and phone activity stopped around 5.30am, and surveillance footage showed a man pacing the lot before approaching Ms Irion, saying something to her, getting into the car and driving off.
The teenager’s sedan was found two days later as authorities searched for Ms Irion, the internationally-raised daughter of a diplomat, as well as a dark-coloured pickup believed to be associated with her disappearance.
On 25 March, the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office said in a release that a vehicle had been impounded and a 41-year-old man, Troy Driver, from Fallon, had been arrested. Ms Irion remains missing.
Mr Driver had previously been sentenced to 15 years in prison in connection with the killing of a meth dealer and other violent crimes.
In 1997, he pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder, three charges of second-degree robbery, firearms charges and burglary, according to a report in the Ukiah Daily Journal.
Mr Driver, then aged 17, reportedly helped his girlfriend Alissa Marie Moore dispose of the body of a methamphetamine dealer Paul Stephen Rodriguez in Willits, California.
The two of them and another teenager lured Rodriguez to a secluded area where she shot him in the head, and they then dumped his body in wooded area in Mendocino County, according to the Ukiah Daily Journal.
Mr Driver served around 12 years for being an accessory to murder, the robberies of a convenience store and two service stations, a burglary for a separate break-in and using a firearm charge in the commission of the crimes.
It’s not clear whether he had any connection to Ms Irion, who was first reported missing by her older brother, with whom she lived in Fernley.
Mr Valley said on Tuesday that there was no reason to believe the missing 18-year-old wasn’t still alive. He addressed a video circulating this week on social media made by a man claiming to have been the mentee of Mr Driver at Ledcor – and who said he’d noticed suspicious behaviour by Mr Driver around the time of Ms Irion’s disappearance. The social media user claimed he’d been fired from the company after speaking to the FBI about his former mentor.
In the videos, he claimed Mr Driver had deliberately spent time alone in remote areas in the surrounding days and could have dumped evidence in the region’s mines.
Neither Ledcor nor the alleged employee immediately responded to interview requests from The Independent this week.
Mr Valley, however, posted on Tuesday: “For everyone’s information, we did put the search on hold for a short time yesterday. As of this moment the Search is still on ... We don’t have any reason to believe that Naomi is not alive..
Just hours before Mr Driver’s court appearance on Wednesday, Mr Valley posted that a search was planned for 2 April at 10am, writing: “BE SURE TO BRING ID. EVERYONE WILL HAVE THEIR PICTURE TAKEN WITH THEIR ID FOR US TO SUBMIT TO LAW ENFORCEMENT.”
The 18-year-old left the home she shared with her older brother early on the morning of 12 March. After buying an energy drink at a gas station and parking at Walmart, she scrolled on social media on her phone until 5.23am, according to records. Then her activity stopped.
It was Mr Valley who first raised the alarm.
He’d gone to sleep early that Saturday night; because his sister’s days began before sunrise, however, he thought nothing of the fact she wasn’t there on Sunday morning.
But then she didn’t return on Sunday night, and neither friends nor family had heard from her. Mr Valley began calling jails and hospitals across counties, to no avail. His stepfather in South Africa, who has access to Ms Irion’s accounts, confirmed that her last purchase had been around 5am at a gas station near Walmart.
A friend of Mr Valley’s girlfriend was the one who suggested that Walmart could hold some clues, he said.
“We tracked security down at Walmart, and they were very helpful – and I’m very thankful to them for letting us barge in on them and showing us that footage,” Mr Valley said last week at a press conference.
The footage showed his little sister having an alarming interaction with a hooded man in the parking lot.
“This person did say or do something to Naomi to make her move over from the driver side to the passenger side,” he said, noting it was then “that I reported it as a kidnapping”.
He called Panasonic. Ms Irion had neither shown up at work nor called all weekend. The family’s reality was about to turn into a living nightmare.
Her phone was last traced to an area near Wadsworth, less than three miles away; it has not been used since and authorities, despite extensive official and volunteer searches involving everything from ATVs to horses, have failed to turn up any evidence of the device she so devotedly used.
In addition to the Walmart security footage that shows a person getting into Ms Irion’s car, the sheriff’s department also released footage of the suspect beforehand – footage of him pacing erratically in front of the store, cars and their headlights.
Ms Irion’s sister, Tamara Cartwright, travelled from Texas following the teen’s disappearance, and Mr and Mrs Irion flew in from South Africa.
Mr Driver’s next court appearance was scheduled for 5 April.
