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Troy Driver, the 41-year-old suspect in missing 18-year-old woman Naomi Irion‘s March 21 kidnapping, appeared before a Yerrington, Nevada, courtroom via Zoom on Wednesday for his bail hearing.
Driver has been charged with first-degree kidnapping. Lyon County Judge Lori Matheus set Driver’s bail at $750,000. If Driver posts bail, he will be placed on enhanced supervision with a GPS monitor.
Tony Driver appears in court via Zoom
(FOX 11 Reno/Lyon County Sheriff’s Office)
The judge set a pretrial hearing for April 5 and a preliminary hearing for April 12.
Irion was last seen in a Walmart parking lot in Fernley after 5 a.m. on March 12. It was where she typically parked her car and took an employee bus to her job manufacturing batteries at a Panasonic factory. The FBI said she was “abducted” from the parking lot “by a nondescript male.”
Naomi Irion kidnapping suspect Troy Driver (Lyon County Sheriff’s Office)
(Lyon County Sheriff’s Office)
Driver was charged with first-degree kidnapping and is being held on $750,000 bail, according to the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office. Irion remains missing, and the FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts.
WHO IS NAOMI IRION? MISSING 18-YEAR-OLD ABDUCTED FROM WALMART PARKING LOT
Casey Valley, Irion’s older brother who reported her missing, previously told Fox News Digital that Driver was “not talking” and that he did not “expect” the suspect to speak during his bail hearing.
Driver was reportedly previously sentenced to 15 years for his role in helping cover up a murder in 1997 and other violent crimes, according to local records obtained by News 4 and FOX 11 Reno. The Lyon County Sheriff’s Office said it does not share criminal records.
Naomi Irion (Irion family)
“The reason I don’t think he’s talking, and it’s kind of an assumption on my part … this suspect is familiar with the criminal justice system, intimately,” Valley said.
Security camera footage released by the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office shows a potential male suspect in her kidnapping, though it is unclear if the person is Driver. The man wearing jeans and a gray, hooded sweatshirt can be seen walking from a nearby homeless camp into the Walmart parking lot. The suspect then got into the driver’s seat of Irion’s vehicle and left in an “unknown direction with Naomi in the passenger seat.”
Deputies located Irion’s vehicle, a four-door sedan, in Fernley on March 15, two days after she was reported missing. Authorities said evidence found in her abandoned vehicle suggested that her disappearance was criminal in nature.
Naomi Irion
(Lyon County Sheriff)
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A group of volunteers will gather Saturday at 2 p.m. in Hazen, Nevada, to look for any clues that could lead to finding Irion’s location. Hazen is about 12 miles southeast of Fernley.
The Lyon Sheriff’s office is asking anyone with information about Irion’s whereabouts to call 775-463-6620 or email detective@lyon-county.org.
The Irion family is accepting donations that will go toward the search for Naomi through a GoFundMe page and Findingkids.org, a nonprofit helping people with private investigations. Her family is asking the public to mention Naomi Irion in their donations.
