Naomi Irion kidnapping suspect ‘not talking,’ family has ‘no reason’ to believe she is hurt, brother says

The seek for lacking Nevada 18-year-old lady Naomi Irion continues as a suspect in her kidnapping prepares to seem in courtroom Wednesday for a bail listening to.

Troy Driver, 41, is charged with first-degree kidnapping and is at the moment being held on $750,000 bond, in keeping with the Lyon County Sheriff’s Workplace. Irion stays lacking, and the FBI is providing a $10,000 reward for data resulting in her whereabouts.

“I have been assured that there isn’t a purpose to consider Naomi has been harmed or will not be alive, so we nonetheless have hope in our household,” Casey Valley, Irion’s brother, informed Fox Information Digital. “We nonetheless have hope in our household. We really feel that Naomi is alive, and she or he’s nonetheless on the market someplace. And she or he needs to come back residence, and we wish her to come back residence. There’s lots of people making lots of speculative feedback.”

Valley added that Driver is “not speaking,” and he doesn’t “anticipate” the suspect will communicate throughout his bail listening to on Wednesday.

FAMILY FEARS MISSING NEVADA WOMAN ABDUCTED FROM WALMART PARKING LOT; VIDEO FOOTAGE OF SUSPECT RELEASED

Driver was reportedly beforehand sentenced to fifteen years for his position in serving to cowl up a homicide in 1997 and different violent crimes, in keeping with native information obtained by Information 4 and FOX 11 Reno. The Lyon County Sheriff’s Workplace mentioned it doesn’t share prison information.

“The rationale I do not suppose he is speaking, and it is type of an assumption on my half … this suspect is conversant in the prison justice system, intimately,” Valley mentioned. 

{The teenager} was final seen in a Walmart parking zone in Fernley, Nevada, after 5 a.m. on March 12. It was the place she sometimes parked her automotive and took an worker bus to her job manufacturing batteries at a Panasonic manufacturing unit. The FBI mentioned she was “kidnapped” from the parking zone “by a nondescript male.”

Irion’s brother is asking anybody with private information of the suspect or anybody who has come into contact with Driver to contact the FBI of Lyon County Sheriff’s Workplace. 

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“Anybody else that has private information of the suspect at any time — when you’ve got even heard of this man, it’s good to keep up a correspondence with the Lyon County Sheriff’s Division or the FBI,” he mentioned.

Naomi Irion kidnapping suspect (Lyon County Sheriff)

LCSO had been looking for a Chevy pickup truck they believed was concerned in Irion’s kidnapping. On March 25, the sheriff’s workplace mentioned that they had recovered an impounded pickup truck “that was presumably concerned.”

A bunch of volunteers will collect Saturday at a location someplace between Fernley and Falon, Nevada, primarily based on the place Irion was kidnapped and the place the suspect lives. Irion’s household has but to find out a selected assembly location. 

“There’s lots of open land between these two cities,” Valley mentioned. 

Naomi Irion (Lyon County Sheriff)

Safety digicam footage launched by the Lyon County Sheriff’s Workplace Tuesday exhibits a possible suspect in her kidnapping. The person carrying denims and a grey, hooded sweatshirt could be seen strolling from a close-by homeless camp into the Walmart parking zone. Authorities mentioned the suspect received into the motive force’s seat of Irion’s car and left in an “unknown route with Naomi within the passenger seat.”

The suspect could possibly be seen within the footage “strolling straight in entrance of autos and their headlights.”

Deputies situated Irion’s car — a four-door sedan — in Fernley on March 15, two days after she was reported lacking. Proof authorities present in her deserted car instructed that her disappearance was prison in nature.

Naomi Irion. (Credit score: Irion household)

Irion moved from South Africa to Nevada, the place she was residing with Valley, in August 2021. 

Naomi’s father, Herve Irion, and mom are in South Africa however traveled to Nevada this week to help with the seek for their daughter. Herve Irion works for the U.S. State Division within the international service. The Irions have lived in quite a few international nations, together with Germany and Russia.

The Lyon Sheriff’s workplace is asking anybody with details about Irion’s whereabouts to name 775-463-6620 or e-mail detective@lyon-county.org.

The Irion household is accepting donations that may go towards the seek for Naomi via a GoFundMe web page and Findingkids.org, a nonprofit serving to individuals for personal investigations. Her household is asking the general public to say Naomi Irion of their donations.