No bail for Nevada man accused of fatally shooting Naomi Irion
By Paradise Afshar and Claudia Dominguez, CNN
The Nevada man accused of fatally shooting an 18-year-old woman who disappeared from a Walmart parking lot in mid-March will remain in jail without bail, a judge ruled Friday.
Troy Driver, 41, of Fallon, was arrested March 25 in connection with the death of Naomi Irion. She was last seen March 12 around 5 a.m. PT in the rural town of Fernley. Her body was found March 29 in a neighboring county.
At a Friday court appearance, Driver was formally charged with first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, kidnapping, burglary of a motor vehicle, robbery and destruction of evidence. Driver, who appeared by video from jail, was denied bail on the murder charge.
Driver was not asked to plead to any of the charges during Friday’s hearing. His next court appearance, a pretrial hearing, is scheduled for May 10.
Richard P. Davies, Driver’s court-appointed attorney, told reporters outside the courthouse that he met with his new client for an hour on Thursday. There are currently more questions than answers about the case, he said several times.
“And we’re very confident as the investigation goes along, the true story will come out,” Davies said. “Right now everybody’s jumping to conclusions, and that’s natural. But I want to urge everybody to just be patient and let the process work itself through.”
Several members of Irion’s family attended the hearing.
Her brother, Casey Valley, told the media that it was “a relief to know that someone under this type of suspicion cannot harm someone else right now.”
Valley said life is hard for the family but they are doing what they need to do “to make sure that Naomi gets justice.”
“Every day it seems a little more real and that’s hard,” Valley said. “It’s hard to bring this all down to reality.”
According to a criminal complaint, Driver kidnapped and shot Irion, then buried her body in an attempt to conceal his crime. Driver also hid or destroyed Irion’s cellphone and disposed of the tires on his truck, the complaint states.
Irion’s body was recovered March 29 in a remote part of Churchill County after authorities received a tip related to her disappearance, the Churchill County and Lyon County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement last week. Churchill County is just east of Lyon County.
The Washoe County Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy and confirmed the body was Irion’s, the statement said.
According to surveillance video, a man wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, dark pants or jeans and dark tennis shoes approached Irion’s car at 5:24 a.m. on March 12.
Detective Erik Kusmerz at the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office said. Irion’s car was found near the Walmart three days later.
Irion’s sister, Tamara Cartwright, told CNN that Irion worked at Panasonic Energy of North America and was waiting to take a shuttle to work from Walmart.
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CNN’s Amir Vera and Steve Almasy contributed to this report.
