Missing Nevada woman Naomi Irion found dead after being kidnapped.
The body of 18-year-old Naomi Irion was found in a remote part of Nevada Tuesday, more than two weeks after the woman had been abducted outside of Reno.
Sheriffs had followed up on a tip regarding the woman’s disappearance that led them to a possible gravesite in Churchill County where a body was found, officials said.
On Wednesday, the human remains “were confirmed as those of Naomi Irion,” the Churchill County Sheriff’s Office said, adding that the investigation was ongoing.
Troy Driver, 41, was being held on $750,000 bail for allegedly kidnapping Irion on March 12 as she waited for a shuttle to her job at the Panasonic factory in a Walmart parking lot.
He was caught on surveillance footage nervously pacing before he got into Irion’s 1992 Mercury Sable and drove off. The vehicle was later found in an industrial park.
Driver had been sentenced to 15 years in prison related to a 1997 California murder.
Earlier Wednesday, a 41-year-old man with a violent criminal record was charged with first-degree kidnapping. A judge in rural Lyon County left Troy Driver’s bail unchanged during a brief court hearing Wednesday. It had been set at $750,000 after his Friday arrest.
Driver, of Fernley, has yet to enter a plea. He was arraigned from jail Wednesday via Zoom. Justice of the Peace Lori Matheus said Driver will have to wear a GPS monitoring device if he posts a bond.
Watch Naomi Irion Kidnapping Footage
Driver has been held at the Lyon County Jail in Yerington as a suspect in what authorities say was Irion’s kidnapping.
Naomi Irion Death suspect
Irion was last seen around 5:25 a.m. March 12 in her car in a Walmart parking lot in Fernley about 30 miles east of Reno. Security video showed a masked man wearing a hooded sweatshirt get into her car.
Driver abducted her “on or about March 12” and “did hold or detain her for the purpose of committing sexual assault and/or purpose of killing her,” according to the two-page criminal complaint filed Wednesday in Lyon County’s Canal Township Justice Court.
The FBI offered a $10,000 reward for information to locate Irion. Hundreds of volunteers have joined searches during the past two weeks, looking for clues in a vast desert area.
Irion lived in Fernley with her older brother, Casey Valley, who told reporters after the hearing that the family was “all in shock” that any bail was set.
Irion’s vehicle was found three days after she went missing near a paint manufacturing facility in an industrial park along Interstate 80 not far from the store.
Valley said earlier his sister usually catches a bus from the Walmart lot to work at a Reno-area Panasonic facility. Valley said she never arrived at work and he contacted family members and authorities when Irion didn’t return home that weekend.