Benjamin Taylor

RIPLEY — Charges of first-degree murder and sexual assault in the death of a 10-month-old Jackson County girl are headed to a grand jury.

The case against Benjamin Ryan Taylor, 32, of 119 Rondis Hollow Road, Cottageville, was bound over to the grand jury after Jackson County Magistrate Thomas Reynolds ruled at the end of a preliminary hearing Wednesday that probable cause had been shown by prosecutors. Taylor is accused of brutally attacking Emmaleigh Elizabeth Barringer, the daughter of his girlfriend, overnight or in the early morning hours of Oct. 3. The girl died Oct. 5 at a Charleston hospital.

Dr. Allen Mock, West Virginia chief medical examiner, testified that Emmaleigh died from “multiple injuries sustained in a physical and sexual assault,” including a skull fracture, and that her death was a homicide.

Emmaleigh’s mother, Amanda Adkins, took the stand during the hearing, describing how she had found her daughter in the basement with Taylor bent over her. As she got closer, she said, she saw Emmaleigh was bloodied and battered.

“I punched him in the face and screamed at him, ‘What did you do to her?'” Adkins said. “He had no answer.”

Photo by Evan Bevins Jackson County Sheriff Tony Boggs answers media questions about increased security at the courthouse in Ripley following Wednesday’s preliminary hearing for accused murderer Benjamin Taylor.

Adkins said her daughter was just starting to stand and hold onto objects but had not yet learned to walk. When Taylor’s attorney, 5th Circuit Chief Public Defender Kevin Postalwait, asked if she’d ever had any concerns about Taylor with Emmaleigh or her other three children, she said, “Never.”

“I thought he loved them,” Adkins said.

Postalwait asked if the couple had been “partying” the night before. Adkins admitted they had both smoked marijuana and that she drank a small amount of beer while Taylor was consuming beer off and on through the evening.

Jackson County Sheriff’s Deputy Lucas Casto, one of the first officers to respond to the scene at Adkins’ 8 Meadowlark Lane, Ripley, apartment, said Taylor appeared to be mildly intoxicated but not so much that he was struggling to walk, stand or communicate. He asked Taylor whether he had been using methamphetamine, but said during the hearing there was no evidence of meth being present.

In a recorded interview with Casto played during the hearing, Taylor said he had a beer around 4:30 a.m. Oct. 3, less than half an hour before Adkins said she went into the basement.

Casto said that when he arrived Adkins was holding Emmaleigh, who did not appear to be alive.

“The baby appeared to be not breathing, the baby appeared to be lifeless and appeared to be bleeding,” he said.

Initially, Casto said, Taylor said the baby had been bleeding when he changed her diaper and at one point acknowledged she wasn’t breathing when Adkins came into the basement. But on the recording, Taylor said he didn’t notice her bleeding until “probably someone said something to me.” He indicated confusion over the sequence of events after Adkins entered the basement, attributing it to the intensity of the situation.

“Once the audio begins, suddenly he doesn’t know what happened, suddenly he has a blackout,” Assistant Jackson County Prosecutor Katie Franklin said.

On the recording, Taylor told Casto he had an “episode” and blacked out. Taylor said that had happened before but he had never seen a doctor about it because “there’s never been no major problems or anything.”

Mock said samples were being tested for possible DNA evidence.

Franklin said Adkins’ testimony and Taylor’s interview showed no one else was with Emmaleigh that night and morning.

Taylor arrived in the courtroom with his arms and legs shackled, a tan bulletproof vest over his orange jail jumpsuit. He did not noticeably react during the testimony.

Taylor returned to custody at the South Central Regional Jail in Charleston, where he is being held without bond on the murder charge. A $2 million bond was set for the sexual assault count.

Jackson County Sheriff’s deputies, West Virginia State Police, officers from the Ripley and Ravenswood Police departments, U.S. Marshals and representatives from the state fire marshal’s office were all on hand to provide increased security at the Jackson County Courthouse for Wednesday’s hearing, Jackson County Sheriff Tony Boggs said.

“This is a high-profile case, and we’re just trying to make sure security is at its best,” the sheriff said.

Boggs declined to answer a question about whether any threats had been made against Taylor. However, a shift supervisor at the South Central Regional Jail in Charleston said last week there had been a report of some threats against Taylor by prisoners and he was being kept separate from the general population and monitored to ensure he didn’t harm himself.

People in downtown Ripley stopped along North Court Street Wednesday to look at the gathering of law enforcement and media representatives outside the courthouse. Some that didn’t realize the hearing was happening were all too familiar with the case itself.

Cottageville resident Debbie Adkins, no relation to Amanda Adkins, said she’s heard people talking about it wherever she’s gone in the area and beyond.

“I’ve had people from out of state calling me, asking me, ‘Do you know who these people are?'” she said.

Gilmer County resident Kay Bailey looked across the street at the courthouse and said in reference to Taylor: “They ought to hang him” if he did it.

“But innocent until proven guilty,” she added.