In the third episode of Missing: Dead or Alive? while the Richland County officers had just received the news that Amirah Watson had been found safe and alive, another missing person case came their way. David Taylor, a decent family man from the woods of Barnwell, went missing. He had just won the lottery, but before he could cash the check and start living his life, he unexpectedly disappeared. Only his truck, laden with numerous tools and everything but his phone and lottery ticket, was discovered on the roadside along the interstate. This scenario seemed suspicious because why would a decent individual who had just won the lottery leave his vehicle and run away? Or did someone else compel him to do so? Let’s find out.
Spoilers Ahead
Did David Taylor Get The Prize Money?
David Taylor was the father of three grown children and came from a respectable background. His wife felt confident that he wouldn’t abandon her out of the blue. She had faith in her husband and believed something terrible might have happened to him. Vicky Rains and Heidi Jackson received assistance from other investigators as they worked through the case, but as more information about the missing case came to light, the situation grew increasingly complex. Vicky was unable to locate the phone or the lottery ticket, but they were able to retrieve David’s wife’s call logs which revealed that David had tried to contact his wife once before failing to pick up any of her subsequent calls. This essentially shows that by the time his wife called, he was already in trouble. Vicky gathered the image of the lottery ticket and got in touch with the lottery company to find out whether David had cashed the lottery. The lottery provider told them he hadn’t. It was highly unexpected since on the day he disappeared; he’d gone out just to cash the lottery ticket. Authorities traced David’s truck and discovered that, aside from the lottery spot, he had driven to many other areas with his vehicle, but those locations were not appropriate for a supposedly decent family man to go to. Numerous drug users, particularly those who use meth, were around in all of these areas.
Where Did David Taylor Run Away?
Later, a local bystander reported that he had seen a man in the same vehicle nearby, scurrying across the street. He seemed agitated as if someone had been pursuing him for some time. After conducting a thorough investigation, the officers came up with two potential theories. David either tried to flee into the woods after buying some drugs or was robbed and then pursued by a group of drug dealers, which is why he was frantically running across the roadways. The idea that David may have been under the influence of drugs was intolerable to David’s family. David’s wife had seen all of her children grow up to be drug addicts, but she had never witnessed her husband do drugs. He was the kind of guy who stayed far away from these things. Therefo৮re, David’s drug-dealing theory was unconvincing.
Was David Taylor Alive Or Dead? What Did The Toxicology Report Reveal?
Vicky and her team moved swiftly in the direction of the woods along the roadside, where David was believed to have gone. The entire crew went into the woods, but Vicky was devastated by what she found there. She starts by noticing David’s blood-soaked, torn jeans, which is a sign that something really horrible could have happened to him. The team eventually came across David’s naked, dead body as they ventured farther into the woods. Vicky found it unbearable that she had known the place and it wasn’t even that far away. Maybe she could have saved David’s life if she had been able to make the connections a bit earlier. But after finding David’s corpse, the shocking revelation startled us. The toxicology report couldn’t reveal any single evidence of external or internal injury, but it found a substantial amount of meth in David’s bloodstream, which led to hyperthermia and hallucinations in his head. Meth influenced David’s hallucinations that he was being chased by someone, causing him to dash through the streets and eventually hide in the woods. In the end, the meth overdose elevated his fever, and he died painfully. There was no indication of any external injury in his body; perhaps it was David’s drug addiction that had taken his life. David’s wife and brother couldn’t believe the toxicology result showed meth in his blood. She felt as though she had hardly known her husband, who had kept her in the dark while pretending he had never used narcotics. Or, perhaps, David was not a habitual user of meth. Perhaps, without understanding the quantity, David had taken a large amount of meth to ease his tension, which eventually damaged his brain cells and ended his life.
From Lorraine Garcia’s missing case to Amirah Watson’s disappearance, every case we had previously watched had a happy conclusion except for David Taylor’s. Vicky Rains struggled to accept her failure as an investigator. Although she realized that witnessing death was an important part of her profession, her heart ached whenever she thought about the length of time it took her to find David. She was sorry about her failure, but she did everything she could to comfort David’s family. In such a case, Heidi Jackson encouraged Vicky, instilling bravery in her thoughts because the failure of one inquiry should not restrict Vicky’s abilities. She had considerably more potential to handle the far more dangerous instances that were coming her way. Will Vicky and her team be able to solve the next missing case, or will it end in a tragic way, as it did with David Taylor?
