MURDERED: Pherbia “Faye” Tinsley
2023-09-25 00:51:09
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.
Hi, crime junkies, I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
And I'm Britt.
And the story I have for you today is one that hasn't been widely reported on since it happened more than a decade ago in Charlottesville, Virginia. And that's because up until now, there just hasn't been enough information out there for anyone to tell a really in-depth story. But challenge accepted.
I was going to say, not for long.
Not for long, because I sent Delia D'Ambra to do some digging. And now, it is finally time for everyone to know the story of Phobia Faye Tinsley.
It's around 5.30 in the morning on Saturday, July 14, 2012,, and a woman named Teresa is sitting on her back porch smoking a cigarette. She needs to start getting ready for work soon, but for these first few minutes of the day, she's just taking a beat to like sit by herself, enjoy the stillness of the morning air for as long as she can. But as Teresa takes another drag from her cigarette, the quietness of her neighborhood is pierced by two sounds, two loud pops, gunshots, and what Teresa thinks is someone talking. But honestly, she can't even tell which came first, the shots or the voice, because they all happened so close together. And she also can't tell whether the voice she's hearing belongs to even a man or a woman, because whoever it is doesn't speak for long, and after hearing the voice, Teresa doesn't hear anything else but silence.
No yelling, no screaming, nothing.
If she's hearing voices, those shots had to have been pretty nearby, right?
Oh yeah, based on what Delia was able to find from talking to this woman, she thinks that the gunshots and the sound of the person talking were coming from somewhere near the front of her house, like right on the street that she lives on, which is the 800 block of Prospect Avenue. But she didn't even know for sure at the time, because she didn't go out and look.
Uh, yeah, I'd be terrified to look.
Oh, actually, she isn't terrified. to look. Teresa, isn't even that startled by the sounds, because apparently random gunfire going off along Prospect Avenue was something that just kind of happened before on her street. So she just stamps out her cigarette, goes inside her house, and sort of forgets about the whole thing.
So out of sight, or earshot, I guess, out of mind sort of thing?
Yeah, she spends the next hour or so getting ready for work, and by shortly before seven, she is walking out her front door toward her driveway. And that's when she notices something odd. There, parallel parked on the street, right in front of her house, is a green Honda Pilot SUV that she's never seen before. And what's even stranger is that the engine is idling, the headlights are on, and the dome light inside is on as well. So those sounds she heard earlier might have been normal, but this?
This is not. So Teresa goes back into her house and gets her husband, asking him to be the one to go check it out. So a minute or so later, he steps out, walks over to take a closer look at the SUV, and right away, his heart drops. He tells Teresa to stay back, but it's too late. She's already up on the car, seeing what he's seeing, which is a middle-aged woman slumped in the driver's seat, still strapped in her seatbelt.
Her head is laying over to one side, and there is blood all around it. Teresa calls 911, and at 6.53 a.m., dispatchers who received the call send officers to the scene. By seven, the first city police officers and EMTs with the Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad arrive. But right away, they realize that the victim in the SUV can't be helped. Authorities pronounce the woman dead and run a registration check on the Honda, finding out that it belongs to 51-year-old Ferbia Tinsley, who everyone calls Faye.
And is Faye the woman inside the Honda?
She is. But what's weird is that, based on her car's registration information, Faye doesn't live on Prospect Avenue. Her address is listed over at Barracks West Apartments, which is, like, 15 minutes away. So the first question becomes, what the heck was Faye doing on Prospect Avenue so early in the morning?
I mean, maybe she had a connection there, like work or friends? Or maybe she was lost?
I know she definitely wasn't lost, because Faye had grown up in Charlottesville, and she had lived there her whole life, so she knew that city kind of inside and out. In fact, according to Courtney Stewart's reporting for The Hook, Faye had once actually lived in the 700 block of Prospect Avenue.
Oh, so it's not out of the question that she has connections in the block over, right?
Right, but what? Or who? One of the first detectives on scene to try and answer that question is a guy named William Newberry. William is currently a captain with the Charlottesville Police Department, but back when this happened in 2012,, he was a detective in the Investigation Bureau, which is basically like CPD's equivalent of Major Crimes Unit. Now, he's the only member of the force who originally worked Faye's case who has not retired and was willing to do an in-depth interview with our reporter.
And he said that when he got to the crime scene, it was like 8 a.m., so roughly an hour or so after the 911 call was placed. Now, he sees that the doors to Faye's car are all shut. The windows are rolled up. There's no broken glass on the ground or any indication that whatever went down inside spilled out onto the street. As he takes a look inside, he sees Faye's body sitting upright in the driver's seat with her seatbelt still on and her head and neck covered in blood.
Like I said, her head is turned to one side, looking out the driver's side, toward the street. And he notes that there's at least one gunshot wound to her head, but possibly there might be two. But it's kind of hard to tell, since there's so much blood. And he obviously isn't going to, like, touch her, right? Like we're waiting for her to be removed, you got to take pictures of the scene, you got to preserve everything.
Right, right.
But his assumption is that she's been shot twice. And that's based on the fact that he sees two spent shell casings for a handgun laying near her body inside the car. And he also notices that her car keys are right there inside the vehicle, too. But there is no gun. So right away, he knows he's dealing with a homicide.
On top of that, another indicator to the detective that someone else was involved is the fact that her purse and wallet are nowhere to be found. Now there's something really interesting, because, according to early news coverage, like if you look up this case, Faye's mother, a woman named Barbara Page, was quoted as saying that the inside of the Honda was, quote, tore up. But what Detective Newberry told us was that that's not what he saw. So somehow that got misreported. The contents of Faye's car don't show any signs that it's been ransacked.
In fact, nothing inside is tossed around. There aren't any signs of even a serious struggle. It looks more like maybe Faye had been taken completely by surprise.
Man, I keep thinking, like, if only Teresa had walked around to the front when she heard those pops, I mean, she could have seen something.
I mean, that's true. But when you think about it like that, it's possible that the fact that she didn't go look actually saved her life. I mean, you don't know what would have happened if she saw something she wasn't supposed to see.
I mean, was there anyone else around? Did anyone else see anything? Surely she wasn't the only person who heard these gunshots.
Yeah, it's hard to say. I don't know for sure, because unfortunately for Detective Newberry and his colleagues, they're white cops trying to get information from a predominantly black community about a random shooting. And in general, the relationship between black citizens and the Charlottesville police was not good at the time and historically had never been great. And honestly, even beyond that, I don't know if anyone saw or heard anything, because this happened super early in the morning. So most of the people in the community weren't even up.
yet. Honestly, it's kind of a miracle. Teresa was even awake and outside smoking when this all happened. Now, the few neighbors who do agree to do an interview all say that they didn't notice any cars fleeing the scene or they didn't see any suspicious people walking around, nothing. And there weren't many cameras around that area either at the time, according to Detective Newberry.
And no other 911 calls came in to even report the shooting in the timeframe that Faye was killed. So pretty quickly, the investigators realized that they're not going to get much from this canvas of the neighborhood to progress the case. They've got to hope that maybe the physical evidence will tell them something. So CPD sets up this white tent over Faye's car and the ground right around it to help preserve the crime scene, because a rainstorm was expected to hit Charlottesville that day. Now, while this is happening, a group of people from the neighborhood kind of begin gathering behind the crime scene, tape a few yards away.
And some even start taking pictures with their cell phones, and they start sending them to people they know, showing them what's happening on their street. And one of those photos gets sent to a woman named Talambria, or Tootie, for short. When the image pops up on her screen around 830 in the morning, she's kind of confused. The grainy, slightly blurred image shows a green vehicle with a white tent set over it. It's parked in a neighborhood in front of, like some row of houses, but Tootie can't really make out exactly where it's at.
And the picture comes with zero context, so she writes back and asks what the heck this picture is all about. But then more and more of these texts start coming in, and slowly more and more of the picture starts coming into focus. This isn't some random car people are sending her. It is her mother Faye's car.
Tootie doesn't want to believe that something bad has happened to her mom, but it's a hard feeling to ignore because she hasn't been able to get a hold of her mom all morning. She actually had a missed call from her when she had woke up, but she figured maybe her mom was just calling to say she couldn't watch Tootie's daughter like she normally did. But now Tootie wonders if there was another reason that her mom was calling her. Now, during this time, while she couldn't get a hold of her mom, she had actually been going back and forth with her daughter's other grandmother. And that's Sharonda Washington, who also happens to be Faye's best friend.
Now, when Tootie was talking to Sharonda, she was just trying to arrange childcare in her mom's absence. But the calls to Sharonda get more and more frantic as Tootie slowly pieces together what has been happening. And by the time she makes her final call to Sharonda that morning, Tootie is in absolute hysterics because by then she has made it to Prospect Avenue. And to the best of her ability, through, I mean, literal sobs, Tootie explains to Sharonda that the situation unfolding around her mom's car is an active crime scene and something horrible has happened to Faye. So within minutes, Sharonda is in her car and she joins the group of folks gathering behind the crime scene tape.
And it's there, at the scene, that Sharonda learns Faye has been shot and is dead, still inside the car. Nearby, Sharonda sees Tootie being physically held up by strangers because she is so overcome with emotion. When Tootie regains her composure long enough to speak with Detective Newberry and other detectives who arrive on the scene, she tells them that the last time she saw her mom was the previous evening. That would have been Friday, July 13th. Tootie says that she gave her mom 40 bucks in cash and Faye went to go play bingo at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars Lodge in Charlottesville.
Now, for reference, the VFW is about a 10 minute drive southeast of Faye's apartment and it's a good 10 to 15 minutes northeast of the crime scene.
And do we know when Faye's bingo game ended?
Well, they think that it was around 10 or 11 p.m. Friday night, because Tootie says that that's when she got a call from her mom saying that she had won like 600 bucks at bingo and she was going to run by the bank to deposit the money before heading home.
Well, you said her purse and wallet are gone. Maybe someone followed her and stole her bingo money.
Well, for a second, like in that moment, police kind of wonder that too. And not even just that she was followed. because what they're hearing about Faye is that she's this incredibly nice woman who would literally give the shirt off her back to anyone who needed something. So they're even kind of wondering right away, maybe she gave someone a ride and she was killed in some kind of desperate robbery gone wrong. But that theory fizzles out as quickly as they're talking to Tootie.
Because, remember, as she's talking to them, she tells them that her mom went and deposited that money. So she didn't have it on her.
Okay, are we sure that happened as planned, though? Like they have a receipt or a statement showing that deposit or a video at the ATM?
Well, so I don't know what they have to corroborate this because for some reason, Detective Newberry wouldn't get into those details with Delia. But he will confirm that they have some kind of proof or some kind of confirmation from the bank that she did deposit at least some of her bingo money on Friday night after leaving the VFW.
And since he's not talking details, I'm assuming we don't know exactly when that was that night, right?
Yeah, I wish I could tell you, but they wouldn't even tell us which location that she did this at. But regardless of where it was or how much of that $600 Faye deposited into her accounts, that's not what authorities fixate on, because Tootie tells them that she knows Faye did make it home safe and sound after bingo because another person living in Faye's apartment saw her. Who? That was Faye's longtime partner and fiancé, Sebastian Chavez. He and Faye lived together at the Barracks West apartment, and they've been a couple for like 20 years at this point.
And is this Tootie's dad?
No, so Tootie's actually older. She is Faye's daughter from a previous relationship. But Sebastian and Faye do have a 19-year-old son together named Tony. And Sharonda told us that for most of Tootie's life, though, Sebastian was in the picture and was definitely like a parental-type figure to her.
And where does Tony live during this time?
So he's actually a few hours out of state. He's living in Maryland because he was enlisted in the Army Reserve. So it was just Faye and Sebastian living in the apartment at Barracks West.
Got it.
So when Detective Newberry learns about Sebastian, he immediately tries to get ahold of him, which actually is really easy, because they find out he's already there on scene too, like in the crowd of people gathered at the crime scene.
Oh.
When authorities pull him aside, he explains that he learned about what was happening. the same way Tootie did, like probably got a picture, someone called him, whatever, and he came as soon as he could. Detective Newberry says he can visibly see that this guy is genuinely upset. He is distraught. But just as a precaution, he asks Sebastian to come down to the police station for a more formal interview there so they can learn more about his and Faye's relationship.
Sebastian readily agrees, and he sits down with them, and he tells detectives that the last time he saw Faye was around 1 or 1.30 earlier that morning. Just like Tootie has said, Sebastian confirms that Faye had gone out to play bingo at the VFW and then had got home. Now, he says that he had fallen asleep on their couch while watching television, and the last thing he remembers was seeing Faye go into their bedroom. But he thinks that at some point, while he was asleep that she left their apartment. And he didn't wake up until his phone started going off on Saturday morning, with people telling him to get over to Prospect Avenue.
So when she left that morning, did he know where she was going?
No, he says he didn't. And when authorities press him about why Faye would even have been in that part of town, that Prospect Avenue area, he says he has no idea why their car would have ended up over there. Because he's like, listen, she didn't mention any plans about going to meet up with anyone who lived on Prospect Avenue. So he's just as perplexed by the crime scene's location as detectives are.
He's perplexed just about the location?
No, I mean, he's perplexed about the whole thing. The location is just ultra odd. But I mean, he's really saying like he doesn't know why anyone would even want to harm her. But Detective Newberry and his colleagues keep pushing Sebastian. I mean, they want to know more about their relationship.
And they learned that he and Faye had met two decades earlier while together at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Salem, Virginia. Shortly after hitting it off, they started dating and then Faye got pregnant with Tony. So the two decided to get engaged. But their engagement had been a slow one. After having Tony, they spent several years kind of moving around between different apartments in the city and working various jobs, just trying to make ends meet.
And they never put a lot of emphasis on making things official. And by 2012, their relationship was more of a life partner kind of thing. At least that's how Sharonda Washington described it to Delia. But Sebastian played an important role in Faye's life. And, more than even her partner, he was kind of her caretaker.
Because, according to her family and friends, Faye experienced a lot of health issues, both physically and mentally, starting in her early 20s. Because during the 1980s, when she had been in the Army, she had had a traumatic brain injury after falling from a military vehicle. And that accident ended her career in the military. She was discharged, but she never really fully recovered. In fact, there was a short period of time where Barbara, who remember, is Faye's mom, Barbara, had helped care for Tootie and Tony because Faye was unable to.
One news article published by the Daily Progress states that Faye was formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder at some point in her life before her murder and was on a specific medication to help her manage her condition. But Sebastian told police that, leading up to the crime, Faye had been regularly taking her meds and he had been helping her whenever she needed support. Financially, though, he wasn't working. He had actually just lost his job as a car salesman a few weeks before all this. So most of the money they lived off of came from Faye's veteran disability benefits and whatever income Sebastian could contribute from his military benefits or wages.
And all that background is fine and good. It helps understand, you know, who they are. It kind of sets the scene. But what investigators really want to know is what was his relationship like with Faye day to day? Did they ever fight?
If so, about what? Did they have any major problems? And that is when Sebastian drops a bombshell. He tells Detective Newberry there is something kind of important he needs to come clean to police about. He's been cheating on Faye for a while.
Detective Newberry and his colleagues are completely taken aback when Sebastian tells them this.
It's honestly same. I can't even remember the last time we covered a case where someone was so upfront with police about having an affair. They have to like find out about it after being lied to a bunch of times or months. And then it's not even the person who tells them they find out some other way. Yeah.
And they corner the person and the person's like, no, I swear, it's not true.
Yeah.
And then they confront him. They're like, OK, I should probably let you know. This is like kind of weird. Right. But yeah.
Call it coming clean. Call it full cooperation. It doesn't really matter, because Sebastian doesn't just reveal this big secret. He gives the police the full details and names to go along with them. He tells detectives that, most recently, the woman he's been seeing lives in an apartment on Hardy Drive, which is a street several miles away from the apartment that he shares with Faye.
He says that he and this woman, who we're going to call Amy, mostly have a sexual relationship and he sometimes even pays her money in exchange for sex. And the thing is, Amy, he says, is cheating, too, because she has a full time boyfriend, slash fiance, who we'll call Roy, who also lives in an apartment on Hardy Drive, though important to know, it's not the same apartment as Amy. Roy lived in a unit with his mom, like in the same complex.
Got it.
Now, here's what's wild. Hardy Drive, where Amy and Roy both live. It turns out. Tootie, Faye's daughter, also lives on Hardy Drive, in the same set of apartments as Roy and Amy, but just like on the opposite end of the street.
So hold up. How long has this affair been going on?
Well, according to what Sebastian tells police, I mean, we're talking months, if not years.
And they never got caught?
Well, not never. Sebastian tells Newberry that at some point shortly before Faye's murder, he thinks that Faye might have become suspicious and tried to uncover what was going on between him and Amy over on Hardy Drive.
Did she see them together or something?
No, she didn't see them. But Sharonda told us that a few weeks before Faye's death, Tootie had learned from some other people on the street that Sebastian was messing around with Amy. And these rumors were coming from multiple people, which made her feel like they were probably legit. But Tootie didn't go straight to her mom. She didn't know what to do, so she actually went to Sharonda first.
And Sharonda kind of cautioned her to just stay out of the whole thing, to not tell her mom, because it would do more harm than good. But Tootie couldn't. She couldn't keep that secret.
Yeah, I don't know if I'd be able to either.
I know, it is a big secret to keep from your mom, of all people. And so eventually she broke the news to Faye that she had heard Sebastian was carrying on an affair with a woman who lived on Hardy Drive.
OK, I've got two questions. First, what's the timing of this? How soon before Faye was killed, did Tootie tell her all this? Are we talking like months, weeks, days?
I mean, yeah. Sharonda told Delia that Tootie told this all to Faye. So I don't know when Tootie found out, but she told Faye about the affair like a few weeks before the murder.
OK, second question. How far away is Hardy Drive from Prospect Avenue?
So that's the thing. It's pretty close. We're talking 1.2 miles, which is, yeah, I like mapped it out as a drive. It's like a five minute drive.
Yeah, it's just around the corner.
So Sebastian gives detectives Roy and Amy's real names. And, while investigators are trying to track them down to verify his story, they take a look at Faye's cell phone activity from the early morning hours of Saturday, July 14th. And that's when they realized that, in addition to that early morning phone call that we know she made to Tootie's phone, you know, the one that Tootie missed, Faye had also called or been called by another number. And it was Roy's.
What time did that happen?
So Newberry didn't exactly say. All he would confirm is that the call between Faye's cell phone and Roy's happened sometime before those gunshots were heard at 530 a.m.
So Faye is not going to confront Amy. She's going to Roy because he's in the same boat as she is.
Right. That's what it seems like is maybe happening. Now, by this point, detectives have located Roy at his relative's home in a nearby county. And when they call him up, he agrees to come to the Charlottesville Police Department and speak with investigators. He tells them that Faye did, in fact, call him before 5 a.m.
on Saturday morning because she wanted to speak with him in person about the relationship that their significant others were carrying on behind their backs. So Roy says that shortly after Faye called him, she showed up at his mother's apartment on Hardy Drive, which is where he was living again. And the two of them talk about this love triangle or square. I don't even know what it is, this whole situation. And Roy says that neither he or Faye were happy with their significant other's choices to cheat, obviously.
And they kind of agreed that this needs to just stop. Now, shortly before their conversation ended, this is where things get weird. So Roy says that this guy that he had seen kind of around Hardy Drive, who he didn't really know, just shows up at his mom's apartment and asks for a ride to Prospect Avenue.
What? Are they, like, standing outside having this conversation?
Yeah, I don't know. The details are fuzzy here. I don't know if he knocks on the door. I don't know if they're standing outside, whatever. But this guy shows up and eventually Faye, like, speaks up and said that she could give this guy a ride to Prospect Avenue.
And then Roy says at the last minute he decides to go with them. However, when they arrive in the 800 block area and Faye parks her car, the stranger doesn't get out. He just up and pulls out a gun and shoots Faye. And Roy tells police that in that moment, he panicked and jumped out of the car and took off running, leaving Faye and her shooter behind. Now, it takes him less than 20 minutes to get back to his mom's apartment, where he says that he lays low and he says he doesn't call the police because he is afraid that the guy who shot Faye will come back to his mom's house and kill him, which I mean, because he knows where he lives or whatever.
Ashley, I have so many questions.
I know, Bri. And for CPD detectives, same. There is so much about this story that just feels bizarre. I mean, he's essentially admitted to being a witness to a murder and not calling police, but he also has this weird interpersonal, again, love triangle, square mess with Faye and Sebastian and Amy. So the detectives are like, OK, hold up a minute.
This doesn't feel right. And so they ask him more about the man who he says killed Faye. He tells him he doesn't know the guy's name, but he's a frequent visitor on Hardy Drive. He describes the shooter as a light-skinned black man with a thin beard and patch of hair on his chin. He says he's between five foot eight, five foot eleven, has tattoos on both of his arms with cursive letters and tattoos on each of his hands that might have an M and a C.
All that seems like really specific information and kind of a lot of it for a guy he says he doesn't know and hasn't really spent a lot of time with.
It is, right? So which is why investigators don't just write off Roy's story right away, as weird as it seems, because, I mean, this person he's describing, this is like super detailed, like you said. So they can't just assume that this mystery guy doesn't exist. They at least have to put some effort into looking for him. So the next day, which is now Sunday, July 15th.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
All this happened in a day?
Oh, yeah. This is moving, like, fast.
Yeah, this is moving really quickly.
Yeah, which honestly, is kind of hopeful, right? Like, if you're getting this much right off the bat, I think they're feeling like they're going to solve this. Yeah. But anyways, the next day, CPD issues a release providing the public with the suspect description that they got from Roy. But when they release it, they don't publicly say where the information came from, and no one, I mean, other than Detective Newberry and his colleagues, know about Sebastian's affair, or Amy or Roy.
Well, other than the people in the family who knew, like Tootie and Sharonda.
Right. I just mean like they didn't release that information to the media at the time.
Oh, okay. Got it.
They don't want to give away too much yet, and they don't want to distract from the main goal, which is for people in the community, to help them identify whoever this strange person is, so they can figure out if he's even real, if he was involved or if Roy is lying. Now, in the meantime, Detective Newberry and other CPD officers go out and comb the streets between the crime scene and Roy's mother's apartment. They want to see if there's any evidence or surveillance footage along that mile stretch that Roy said he took. that either can corroborate or that maybe conflicts with his version of events. And what they find is super interesting.
There is a convenience store between Prospect Avenue and Hardy Drive. So the detectives went in and they asked the clerk if they have any video there, or if this clerk happened to even see anything weird himself the morning of the 14th, and they catch a lucky break. The clerk tells them, yeah, this guy did come in by himself, not wearing any shoes, and he also seemed to be really shaken up and acting nervous. Now, Newberry told Delia in his interview that surveillance footage from the store confirmed that the man the clerk interacted with was Roy. What?
And in the video, Roy walks in shortly after 5, 30 a.m. And, just like the clerk said, he's not wearing any shoes, which is kind of strange. And I had about 15 questions specifically around this.
Same.
Yeah, but it was something that Newberry wouldn't elaborate on. All he would say about this whole interaction at the store is that Roy stays in the store for a little bit. Roy talks with the clerk and then Roy leaves.
Did he buy anything? What did he buy? Is there any blood on him?
All of those are part of my 15 questions. And we asked him, but Newberry didn't want to answer any of those.
OK, what did Roy and the clerk talk about?
Nope. That's another thing he would not elaborate on. All he would say is that the statements Roy made to the clerk are significant enough to the investigation that he feels uncomfortable, even to this day, releasing that information for broadcast. Now, there are no other stores between that shop and Roy's mom's apartment that catch a glimpse of him on camera. So it's just this one snippet in time that authorities have to work with.
OK, so Newberry said that the statements were significant enough to not like release, right? Does that mean that CPD is considering Roy a suspect?
Not quite. So. during his initial interview, they categorize him as a strong person of interest. Same thing goes for his girlfriend, Amy, who they do end up talking to, but she's honestly not even very helpful. She just tells detectives that her relationship with Roy is definitely personal.
But when it comes to intimacy, things are a bit open between them. Newberry told Delia that over the course of speaking with Amy, they learned that she may have engaged in sex work, an arrangement that Roy was aware of. And it's possible. he even benefited from Amy's earnings and had knowledge of who her clients were, including Sebastian Chavez.
So it might not have even been news to Roy when Faye contacted him.
It might not have been. So. whether Roy and Amy were less boyfriend and girlfriend and more of an, I don't know, some type of working relationship or maybe even something darker, I don't know. It's hard to know for sure without more information. Now, according to the podcast Small Town Big Crime, Amy either wasn't at or didn't see Faye at Roy's mom's apartment when Faye was there shortly before her murder.
But Amy had gone over to Roy's after the crime and seen him shortly after he returned from Prospect Avenue. But she didn't indicate to police one way or the other whether she thought Roy was involved in what happened to Faye.
So she's basically just not talking.
Kind of, yeah. Now, the suspect information about the man with the curse of tattoos continues to circulate for a few days, but authorities don't get any calls from people saying that they recognize this man or any man who matches that description, which just makes CPD even more convinced that Roy is hiding something or, at a minimum, not telling them the whole truth.
Well, yeah. And am I making this up? Or did you say that when they first went to track him down, he was like in another county over?
Yeah, you did not make that up.
So am I the only one who thinks it's weird that within a day of the murder, he gets the heck out of Dodge?
Oh, it's weird. It's even weirder when you know the details, because Roy and his mom left town and you say the day or so after the murder, they left the morning Faye was killed. Oh, yeah. When detectives questioned Roy about that trip, he tells them that it was just this spur of the moment decision that they went to a family member's property somewhere over in nearby Buckingham County.
A spur of the moment decision to travel at the crack of dawn?
No, thank you. I don't know exactly what time they left, but yeah, like last minute trip that morning. It's weird. So when authorities speak with his mom, she vouches for Roy, says all the same stuff. he said, how Faye came over to the apartment in the middle of the night.
on Saturday. She left with Roy and this stranger. And then, a little while later, Roy came home and they left to go on this spur of the moment trip to their relative's house outside of Charlottesville. But again, we're side eyeing. Investigators are a little side eye.
They're at least not convinced. So they spend the next few days doing a deep dive on Roy. And they actually find a picture on his social media that shows him posing with a gun that they believe could shoot the same type of ammunition as the two spent shell casings found in Faye's Honda. Now, again, this is all information police are learning behind the scenes. It is not information that goes out to the public or even to anyone in Faye's family.
But while I'm on the topic of firearms, a few days after Faye's murder, this would have been Friday, July 20th, the medical examiner in Richmond released information about the autopsy examination. And, though most of the results are sealed due to the ongoing investigation, the ME does release that Faye was shot twice in the head and neck and that her official manner of death is homicide. What's kind of wild, though, is that Newberry told our team that the bullets that killed Faye stayed in her, meaning police had a hard time figuring out the trajectory of where the shooter was positioned in her vehicle when they shot her. And, to complicate things, Roy's story about where he was sitting and where this mystery man was sitting during the shooting vary wildly during his first interview with police. So this is like another thing that I had a ton of questions on.
Right. Because I'm like, if you can figure out, was the person in the backseat? Were they in the front seat? Were there multiple people in the car?
I don't know. It helps give you a picture of something. Yeah. I don't know.
So this is another one that we asked a lot of questions about. And Newberry wouldn't go into a ton of detail about the topic. But he did say that figuring out exactly where the shots came from inside the Honda has been a huge challenge. Over the years, CPD has even brought in 3D reconstruction technology. But even the findings from those hasn't been great or hasn't been like what authorities would like to have, though they have provided some helpful information, just not a ton.
Right. Like not enough.
Yeah. And basically, like what he would say, is to this day, he believes the same thing he did when he first came upon the scene all those years ago, that Faye was taken completely by surprise, likely by an assailant who was sitting right next to or slightly behind her. And he doesn't think she had any time to react. So the public, the police, everyone's kind of getting a little bit more information about what happened to Faye. And the same day that her manner and cause of death are released, Faye's family holds a vigil in her memory.
The next day, July 21st, which is now a full week after the crime, they lay Faye to rest at First Baptist Church in Charlottesville. Law enforcement issues a $2,500 reward for information. But behind closed doors, Detective Newberry and his colleagues continue to pursue the Roy and Amy lead.
So I get. that's clearly the best lead they have right now, but I guess I don't get it. If police think Roy is lying and he's actually the shooter, why would he kill Faye? Like? what's his motive?
Like he's being cheated on, too. That's the motive. I know. Do you think he knew about that? so it wasn't a surprise?
I don't understand. I know.
It's hard to wrap my head around, too. And the answer, according to Newberry, is one CPD investigators still can't figure out. I mean, that really is the biggest question in their investigation, even this many years later. The one theory that Newberry floated to us that he thinks is possible is that Roy may have wanted to eliminate Faye because she might have confronted him about his treatment of Amy or women in general who do sex work. I mean, it's not super clear, but the main takeaway is that I think police believe something was said or conveyed between Faye and Roy that fateful morning in her car that could have pushed Roy to kill her for some reason and then take her wallet and purse to either make it look like a robbery or just because it was an actual robbery.
OK, but the location, like she went to him on Hardy Drive. Why are they on Prospect Avenue? Her car wasn't moved after she was shot.
I know that's a piece of the puzzle that's missing, and that's what I can't wrap my head around either, because it's not like her car was dumped there. They were on Prospect Avenue for some reason, and that's where she was shot. And that doesn't add up to me.
So what's Roy's history? Does he have any sort of rap sheet?
A long one. in Charlottesville. I mean, things like assault. He, I think, has one for a hit and run, larceny and grand theft. I mean, he's been in and out of jail there several times.
And Amy, his girlfriend. in 2012, she also had a lengthy criminal record in Charlottesville for drug possession, contempt, larceny and malicious wounding. And this is so weird. I didn't even know if I was going to bring it up, because it's just so strange and I don't know what it means. And actually, spoiler alert, Newberry says it means nothing, but it's still just so weird, I have to tell you.
So public records show that Amy was charged with that malicious wounding incident on the day that Faye was murdered. What? Yeah, but those charges were later dropped and the court records are sealed for that offense. So we couldn't see what exactly the circumstances were or who else might have been involved or why those malicious wounding charges just happened to occur on the same day as Faye's death. Again, Newberry says it doesn't seem like the malicious wounding thing that Amy did or was doing, or maybe didn't do because it was dropped is at all tied to Faye's murder.
It was just some other incident that coincidentally took place on the same day.
Some coincidence.
But again, I have a thousand questions. Now, in the years since Faye's murder, law enforcement has interviewed both Roy and Amy multiple times, especially whenever they've been arrested for other unrelated crimes, I guess hoping they'll open up more. But each time they have refused to provide detectives with any information. As of 2022, last year, they were both living in central Virginia, to the best of Captain Newberry's knowledge.
And I assume there's never been any tips on who the supposed mystery man ever was?
No. I mean, for years, Newberry and the other detectives who've taken on the case after him have searched prison and state databases for anyone who might have the kinds of tattoos that Roy described the shooter had. Because, again, I mean, those are so specific, but they've never gotten any hits on anything like that.
Which this is so wild to me, because I feel like, whenever they put descriptions out for people, tips just come flying in for the most random people who have nothing to do with.
it. Yeah, especially this one, because, if you remember, Roy said that he'd seen this guy hanging around Hardy Drive before. And I'm kind of surprised that no one else. And again, I know this is an area where they're like desperate to, like, give information to the police. But in all these years, no one remembers this guy.
It just seems so bizarre to me. It makes me feel even more strongly that this guy might not exist. I know. Were they ever able to process her car and prove that Roy was in it, or a mystery man was in it or anything?
So I don't know about proving anything about a mystery man, but proving Roy was in it, even if they did that, I don't think it would matter, because he admits he was in the car. So, like, to arrest him for murder, they need physical evidence tying him to the crime itself, like the murder weapon, which they didn't have. Or even like Faye's purse and wallet, because to date, the whereabouts of that person's wallet are still unknown. So maybe if they could find those, that would help. But then again, even if Roy had those things, having a wallet and a purse doesn't mean you necessarily murdered someone.
Would that be enough for the prosecutor to take it to court? I don't know. Right. I mean, in the past, Newbery tried to get the Commonwealth's attorney over in Charlottesville to consider moving forward with the case that they had. But they're not willing to until homicide investigators bring them more, because their big sticking point is still this mystery guy.
It's not even the fact that they didn't have the gun. It was the mystery guy. Like every time CPD has asked prosecutors to move forward, the issue of the unknown shooter still being out there and available for a defense attorney to jump on comes up, as well as the fact that they don't have the murder weapon.
OK, but again, what if the guy isn't real? What if Roy made him up? Isn't that more proof that could be used against him? That's what I think.
But I mean, I think what they keep coming back with is they're like, how do you prove someone isn't real?
So what? All people have to do to get away with a crime is make up a fake person. And that's basically a defense wildcard. You can avoid prosecution forever.
That's not the message I want everyone going home with today, but it's wild, right? Yeah. Like, at some point you would think that going this many years, not having anyone.
Not having any tips come in. About this guy with, like, distinct tattoos who's been hanging around this.
neighborhood. That's got to mean something in and of itself, right? You'd think. Now, there was a small lead on the murder weapon for a hot minute. So actually, Newbery told the Small Town Big Crime podcast that after Faye's murder, casings from multiple unrelated shootings in Charlottesville matched ballistically with the casings recovered from Faye's crime scene, which means that the gun that Lee's used to kill her ended up being used in other shootings at some point.
But Newbery was quick to clarify that the circumstances surrounding the shootings that happen after Faye's murder are not linked to her case. The department just believes that the gun used in Faye's murder was kind of passed around or maybe sold multiple times after she was killed, because it was considered a hot weapon. What investigators need is to figure out whose hands it was in shortly after the murder, because that person might be able to tell them where they got it from or, more importantly, who they got it from, which maybe could tell them whose hands it was in when Faye was murdered.
Like reverse telephone. So what about that family's place that Roy and his mom went to that morning? Did they ever search it?
So that's the other thing. No, they haven't been able to get a warrant approved to search it. Man, which is why they're asking anyone who was with Roy on his relative's property in the neighboring county on Saturday, July 14th, 2012, to come forward and speak with them. Today, law enforcement no longer suspects Sebastian Chavez of being involved in what happened to Faye. Initially, he was a person of interest, but, according to Captain Newbery, after multiple conversations with him and determining that he didn't benefit substantially from Faye's death, he was clear.
Sebastian eventually moved to Texas, and over the past decade, he's periodically checked in with CPD to see if they've made any progress in Faye's case. Delia tried reaching out to him for an interview for this episode, but as of this recording, he hasn't responded. Faye's daughter, Tuti, declined to do a formal interview when Delia visited Charlottesville last year, but she encouraged other people who knew her mom well, like Sharonda Washington and one of Faye's brothers, Jeffrey Tinsley, to speak with us about the case. Tuti still lives in Charlottesville with her children, and she told Delia that she is fearful. the person behind her mother's murder might still be living locally or have family in the city.
But that doesn't mean she's not fighting for her mom. The Justice for Furbia Faye Tinsley Facebook page is still going strong, and Tuti updates it when she can. That page was a source of many of the photos that we used in the blog post for this episode, and I highly recommend you check the page out. We're going to link to it in the show notes. And if you know anything about the unsolved murder of Furbia Faye Tinsley, please call the Charlottesville Police Crime Stoppers tip line at 434-977-4000..
You will remain anonymous.
You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com.
And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.
We'll be back next week with a brand new episode, but stick around for the good.
Well, Crime Junkies, we've almost made it to the end of September already, which means we are all due for some good news in the Crime Junkie world.
End the month on a high note. I love this. Yes.
Yes, same here. And you guys know the deal. We want you to keep sharing stories of your own, so you can submit them to the Good Segments page, which you can find on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com, as well as in our show notes of this episode. So, Britt, why don't you just take it over and brighten our day a bit?
OK, I am so excited for this one. Now, we've been asked not to share the name of the listener who sent this in, but they wanted to tell us, and everyone, honestly, about an incredible nonprofit organization that is truly out here doing the good. They wrote, Hi, there's an amazing organization in Indianapolis that serves victims of sexual violence and similar crimes who have PTSD. The Freedom Canine Project is currently training two service dogs, Genesis and Sam, to go to survivors of gender based violence, 100 percent for free. I know they're having some trouble fundraising and could probably use some additional visibility.
They are the only organization in the country that specialized in training service dogs for survivors of sexual violence. I know this because I am one of the people who will be receiving one of the pups.
I haven't. Wait, they actually get a pup and they don't just like come visit?
Oh, my God. I haven't even met them yet, but they've already changed my life. I've been involved in the court case against my perpetrator in a trial that lasted nearly four years due to COVID-19.. When I found out I was receiving one of these guys, I finally felt hopeful. I've also been involved in nonprofit work for years, and this is a really unique organization.
They are well organized and everyone I've interacted with has been nothing but kind and beyond respectful. They are developing a program to treat PTSD and are working with a multidisciplinary team. They don't know I'm reaching out, but I figured this organization would be a good fit for you, as they're also based in Indianapolis and work with crime victims. I feel so fortunate to be receiving the care I am from the Freedom Canine Project, and I just want to do everything I can to help them grow.
I think that is the sweetest thing ever. I thought you were just going to say that they go around and like visit people, but they actually like get their own support dogs.
Yeah. And, like, again, this is the only organization in the country doing this for victims of sexual crimes. Like, oh, my God.
Sign me up. Like, I am now fully behind the Freedom Canine Project.
And you guys, all of us here at Audiochuck, are just in love with the Freedom Canine Project. We love the work that they're doing. They continue to do. And we decided to make a donation ourselves in order to support them. And just a reminder, you guys, our listeners, are the reason we get to do that.
The reason we get to support these amazing organizations. And oh, my goodness, the best thing happened. The folks over at the Freedom Canine Project made a TikTok thanking us. It is so sweet, so adorable. So we are going to be linking to the freedomcanineproject.com in our show notes, so you can check out this amazing organization yourself.
Crime Junkie is an Audiochuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
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