Samantha Clarke's mother left for third shift job, with her daughter Samantha, 19, and her son Hunter, 12 at home. By 12:30 a.m. Hunter called his mom to say that Samantha had walked out of the house with her pajamas on, but Barbara Tinder was unable to answer the call till she got her break about 1:30 a.m. When Barbara arrived at home at 7:05 a.m. (9/14/10), she would find Samantha's pajamas on her bed. The only thing known that Samantha had with her was a new change of unidentified clothes, and her house key. When Barbara went to file the Missing Persons report that morning, someone at the Police Department advised her she had to wait 48 hours before she could file a missing persons report... an outright nontruth. Those days were long gone.
By Federal Law, every police department is required to take a missing persons report, without delay, by anyone, at any department. Unfortunately, that truth is not as known and understood as we would hope. Unfortunately, this was detrimental, as the Police did not 'get the case' until the 15th.
Samantha had just met a new group of people the week prior to her disappearance. One of them, was Randy Taylor, 45, who was later confirmed to be the last person that spoke with Samantha. He called the residence six times that night. Randy admitted to being the last person who spoke to Samantha.
Taylor would be the same guy who last saw another young girl three years later, Alexis Murphy, 17 (Her story is also on our website) in Lovingston, Virginia, at a gas station with Taylor. He was charged for Alexis' murder, and sentenced to life.
Most search efforts for both of our missing girls has been on a plot of land that's been searched more than once; a two-hundred-acre private hunting club in the Eheart area of Orange County, in east-central Virginia. So far, there has been no word on anything being found on that property. This area was close to where Taylor lived, and had access to this property at the time of their disappearances.
Taylor and Alexis are still missing. Taylor's case has been reclassified from a missing persons case to an abduction and murder investigation.
Samantha Ann Clarke is described as being 5’4” tall and weighing about 145 lbs. at the time of her disappearance. She has brown hair and brown eyes. She also has a Playboy bunny tattoo on her right arm, a Tigger tattoo on her right ankle, and two dolphin tattoos on her lower back.
If you have any information on the whereabouts of Samantha Clarke, please contact the Orange Police Department at (540) 672-1491.
Taylor is housed at Red Onion Prison, which also has two other well known serial killers - Lee Boyd Malvo the Beltway Sniper, and Jesse Leroy Matthew.
Information accumulated by:
NBC News
WRIC News
CBS News
WTOP News
