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12:08 PM EST on Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Associated Press

MATHEWS, Va. (AP) -- A 38-year-old Richmond man appeared in a Mathews County courtroom on charges of killing Virginia Commonwealth University student Taylor Behl, whose decomposed remains were found in the rural county.

Benjamin Fawley was arraigned Wednesday morning but didn't enter a plea. Judge William Shaw appointed Gloucester attorney Bill Johnson to represent Fawley.

He also scheduled a May 30 trial date.

Fawley is being held without bond.

Behl's mother, Janet Pelasara, was in the courtroom and stared hard at Fawley during his arraignment.

Outside of the courtroom, Pelasara said, "We've got our man so now it's just -- the process needs to go forward ..."

Asked about seeing Fawley, she said, "I felt absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing ... I just am still so numb that seeing him didn't make me feel anything."

Johnson said outside of court that he had made no decision on whether to seek to have the trial moved out of Mathews County but noted the extensive press coverage and said "that position could change."

The Grand Jury indictment accuses Fawley of killing Behl "in the commission of, or attempt to commit, rape, forcible sodomy or abduction."

Behl’s remains were found in Mathews County in October, about a month after she went missing from her Richmond home.

Courtesy VCU

Taylor Marie Behl

A photograph on Fawley’s Web site led investigators to the scene.  It was of a farm house on property that belongs to one of his ex-girlfriend’s family.

What is still a mystery is how Behl died.

Fawley reportedly has told police it was an accident - that he panicked after she choked and died during consensual sex in her car.

Behl’s mother, Janet Pelasara, doesn’t believe his account and hopes that a jury will convict Fawley.

"I think Ben will know that his spiraling down to the depth of Hell has just begun," she said.  "Put him in a state pen for a little while and he'll maybe get a taste of what he put my daughter through."   

Behl disappeared Labor Day weekend and her car was found two weeks later, less than two miles from her dorm. Police soon zeroed in on Fawley, raiding his apartment and seizing dozens of items, including a box of bones, a machete and a cutting of a box spring bearing a reddish-brown stain.

Prosecutors said authorities also found at least 30 videos on Fawley's computers depicting children as young as 1 in sexual acts.

If the medical examiner's office can't determine a cause of death for Behl, the prosecution could have a tough time securing a first-degree murder conviction, said attorney Esther Windmueller, immediate past president of the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"In order to convict anyone of anything, you have to prove the charge, so in proving a murder or a manslaughter, you have to ... prove the death," Windmueller said. "They're going to have to prove that Mr. Fawley murdered her ... and that would be difficult to do without showing how somebody died."

Associated Press contributed to this story.