RENO, Nev. (AP) — A man awaiting trial on kidnapping, sexual assault and murder charges in the fatal shooting of a rural northern Nevada teenager last year was found dead in his jail cell where he apparently killed himself, the local sheriff said.
Troy Driver, 43, was unresponsive when a deputy found him in his cell in Yerington shortly after 6:00 p.m. Sunday and summoned others to help try to revive him, Lyon County Sheriff Brad Pope said.
State investigators will conduct a formal inquiry into his death. No other details will be released until that investigation is complete, the sheriff said in a statement Sunday night.
Driver was accused of killing Naomi Irion, 18, before dumping her body in a remote desert area after abducting her from a Walmart parking lot in Fernley about 30 miles east of Reno before dawn March 12, 2022.
Irion’s brother, Casey Valley, said in a Facebook post he’s had “a lot of mixed emotions” since authorities notified the family Sunday night of Driver’s death.
“I deeply regret that he took the easy way out before the trial, but I have no doubt in my mind given what I have been privy to that he is the perpetrator,” wrote Valley, who had lived with his younger sister in Fernley.
Irion’s vehicle was found three days after she went missing near a paint manufacturing facility in an industrial park along Interstate 80 not far from the Walmart store.
The FBI offered a $10,000 reward for information to locate her, and hundreds of volunteers joined in searches looking for clues in a vast desert area before a tip led authorities to Driver, of nearby Fallon, and eventually to Irion’s body nearly three weeks after the kidnapping.