Troy Driver, Suspected Killer of Naomi Irion, Found Dead in Prison

A prisoner suspected of murdering a teenager who was accosted on her way to work has been found dead in jail, according to authorities.

Troy Driver, who was awaiting trial on suspicion of killing 18-year-old Naomi Irion, is believed to have died at his own hands inside his cell at the Lyon County Jail in Nevada on Sunday evening. The 43-year-old was accused of being the masked and hooded man who was caught by security cameras forcing his way inside the teenager's car in the early hours of the morning in a Walmart parking lot in Fernley on March 12, 2022. Irion's car was later found abandoned and her body was discovered on March 29. The teenager had been shot and buried in a shallow grave in a remote area of Churchill County.

According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), some 600,000 people go missing in the United States every year and an estimated 4,400 unidentified bodies are recovered annually. However, abductions by strangers are extremely rare, according to authorities. On average, fewer than 350 victims under the age of 21 have been abducted by strangers per year in the U.S. since 2010, the FBI says, with no clear directional trend. Whereas hundreds of thousands of juveniles are reported missing each year, just 0.1 percent of those are reported as being abducted by a stranger.

Driver had pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, sexual assault, robbery, and destroying evidence after his arrest on March 25, 2022, local station News 4 reported. He had been accused of hiding or destroying Irion's cell phone and removing the tires on his truck in an alleged bid to hide the evidence of his crime.

Driver was reportedly found unresponsive during a routine hourly cell check at 18:17 p.m. on Sunday, according to the Lyon County Sheriff's Office. Deputies began CPR and called for an ambulance, but lifesaving attempts proved unsuccessful and Driver was later declared dead.

A statement issued by the sheriff's office was posted to its Facebook page on Sunday night. Sheriff Brad Pope said: "Preliminary details thus far indicate that Driver committed suicide by asphyxiation. Driver was housed in a maximum security jail cell and had no contact with other inmates."

Pope concluded his statement by saying his thoughts were with Driver's alleged victim's family, who had been waiting for justice in court. "I want to express my sincerest condolences to the Irion family. My thoughts and prayers are with you," he added.

As is standard for custody deaths relating to Lyon County Sheriff's Office, an external agency—the Nevada State Police Division—will now investigate Driver's suspected suicide.

Newsweek has reached out to the Lyon County Sheriff's Office though its Facebook page, seeking further information and comment.

Strangely, Driver's death comes almost a year to the day that the sheriff was forced to insist that the alleged killer was still alive, after rumors circulated on social media that he had killed himself in jail in late August last year.

His death this week means that no one can now be prosecuted for Irion's death.

The case comes amid a spate of high-profile kidnapping cases in the headlines this summer. An 18-year-old girl escaped kidnappers in Texas after a month of being chained to a bed and sexually assaulted, police said last month. A couple was arrested and charged.

While the same month, a 10-year-old girl who was kidnapped in Illinois was later found dead in the street, with a suspect being later arrested.