When Troy Driver bid farewell to his girlfriend, saying he’d be home soon, he had murder on his mind.
Driver told his girlfriend Zulema that he was going camping for the weekend. Instead, he embarked on a path that would lead him and his random teenage victim to a remote killing ground.
As part of my investigation into Driver’s abduction, rape, and murder of Naomi Irion, I retraced his route from the house where he lived to the crime scene deep in the Nevada desert.
On Friday afternoon, March 11, 2022, Driver said goodbye to his live-in girlfriend Zulema, telling her that he was heading out on a solo camping trip.
Where Driver slept that evening is unknown, but he may have camped near the crime scene to ensure that everything was set.
Before dawn on Saturday, March 12, 2022, Driver began prowling around the parking lot of a Walmart store in Fernley, Nevada, looking for potential victims.
Driver, then aged 41, turned his focus on 18-year-old Naomi Irion, who was sitting in her car, texting friends, while waiting to catch a shuttle bus to the Tesla factory where she worked.
Naomi was an inspired young woman who’d lived in far flung places: Russia, Germany, and South Africa, along with Nevada, Texas, and Washington, D.C.
Naomi spoke four languages and loved people and dogs – she was bright, artistic, and wonderfully empathetic.
My investigation revealed that Driver, a construction supervisor with a six-figure income, was going through the sociopath’s version of a midlife crisis.
Driver’s deepest fantasy was to commit a horrific sex crime – and he didn’t care who he hurt.
In the Walmart parking lot, Driver forced his way into Naomi’s car, likely pointing a pistol at her to ensure that she’d comply.
Following the pattern of the infamous serial killer he idolized, it’s almost certain that Driver gained psychological control over Naomi by promising that if she cooperated, he wouldn’t harm her.
With Naomi sitting terrified in the passenger seat, Driver headed east from Fernley into the desert wilderness.
Eventually, Driver turned off the highway onto the narrow asphalt road shown above, in the title photo.
Driver traveled south through seldom visited landscape, continuing for miles past the place where the pavement ended.
After driving with Naomi for upwards of two hours, Driver reached an abandoned mine. A month earlier, when planning the crime, Driver had dug a would-be grave.
Driver ordered Naomi out of the car, forced her to undress, and raped her. Afterward, he shot her in the back of the head and buried her.
Driver assumed that even though he left his DNA behind, the grave was to remote that Naomi’s body would never be found.
But Driver didn’t realize that Naomi’s family would rally authorities and the public to find her.
The case generated nationwide – and even international – coverage in conventional media and on social media.
Sheriff’s officials from three rural Nevada counties teamed up with the FBI and analysts from the Nevada Threat Analysis Center in an effort to solve the crime and bring the perpetrator to justice.
This month I retraced Driver’s route to murder as part of the research for my upcoming book about the case.
My book probes the depths of Driver’s darkness, contrasts his evilness with the lightness of Naomi’s being, and tells the tale of how law enforcement solved the case before Driver could harm anyone else – which he surely would have done.
