What He Did To Her Was Absolutely Vile- The Horrific Case of Emmaleigh Barringer

What He Did To Her Was Absolutely Vile – The Horrific Case of Emmaleigh Barringer

The little girl was adored by her mother and siblings. She was their little warrior, having been born 8 weeks earlier than expected. But one unsuspecting night, after everyone went to bed, the unthinkable would happen to this baby girl.

Welcome, or welcome back! I’m Cassie, and this is A Wicked World. The case I have for you today is an absolutely appalling one. It’s honestly one of the worst that I’ve covered, so I just want to warn you ahead of time: this one might be a little bit difficult for some people. The man who hurt this little girl was a master of disguise, and he hid who he was from the world for years. It’s really unbelievable. This is the story of Emmaleigh Barringer.

A New Beginning in West Virginia

Emmaleigh Barringer was born on Thanksgiving Day in 2015. She was born 8 weeks premature to her mom, Amanda Atkins. Emmaleigh had a beautiful smile, and she was a very pleasant and happy baby; she hardly ever cried. Emmaleigh had three siblings as well, whom she loved to play with. She had a 7-year-old brother named Nathaniel, a 6-year-old sister named Carly, and a 2-year-old brother named Cameron. When Emmaleigh was 10 months old, she was just beginning to take her first steps and was babbling a few words. She was very loved by her entire family.

In the summer of 2016, Emmaleigh’s mother, Amanda, decided to move from their home in Maryland to West Virginia to start a new life for her and her family. She had previously lived near Baltimore, and knowing that it wasn’t a safe place to raise children, she decided that West Virginia—being lots of country—would be a better idea for them.

Not long after her family had moved to West Virginia, Amanda met a man named Benjamin Taylor, or “Benji” for short, as he went by. Benji swept Amanda off her feet. He seemed perfect. He always wanted to be around her, and he loved going places with her and the kids. He would act like he was already part of the family. In Amanda’s eyes, he was a great guy; he was perfect. In fact, in August of 2016, Benji even posted a picture on his Facebook of him and Amanda kissing, and soon after, on September 7th, he changed his relationship status to “in a relationship with Amanda Atkins.”

Now, Benji did have a short criminal history. He had a record of burglary, and he had also broken his probation twice. In only a few months after they met, Benji had moved into the house with Amanda and her children.

The Night of October 2nd

On October 2nd, Amanda and her three older children went to bed around 9:00 p.m. Benji decided to stay up for a while. He wasn’t tired, and neither was Emmaleigh, so she sat in her swing in the living room while Benji went down into the basement to do some laundry. At some point, Benji ended up taking Emmaleigh downstairs while he finished doing the laundry and listening to music.

Amanda awoke around 4:00 a.m. and looked in Emmaleigh’s crib. She wasn’t there, and her boyfriend, Benji, also was not laying next to her in bed, so she didn’t know where either one of them were. She figured maybe they had fallen asleep downstairs—him on the couch, her in her swing. She went down to check, but they weren’t in the living room either. So, Amanda went down into the basement because she remembered that Benji said he was going to do some laundry.

There, she found the most horrific scene. She found Benji shirtless, kneeling over her naked daughter with his pants unbuttoned. The lights in the basement were dim, and Amanda couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. She asked him what he was doing. Benji just said that he was drying Emmaleigh off. She asked him why he would be drying her off this early in the morning in the basement, and it was then that she noticed there was something wrong with Emmaleigh’s face.

She went over towards Benji and her daughter. Emmaleigh’s face was covered in blood, she was making a gurgling sound, and she was cold to the touch. Amanda immediately grabbed her and smacked Benji across the face, screaming, “What did you do? What did you do?!”

The Aftermath and Investigation

She ran upstairs and called 911. She told the dispatcher that Emmaleigh was bleeding from her vagina, and she yelled into the phone, “I think he’s effing her!” In the 911 call, you can hear Amanda screaming at Benji, “What the f*** did you do to her? Why was she naked?”

When First Responders arrived at Amanda’s home on Meadowlark Lane in Ripley, West Virginia, they found Amanda standing there holding Emmaleigh, and she was covered in a significant amount of blood. A police officer asked Benji to lift up his shirt, and it revealed a patch of blood. He told officers it must have been from when he picked up Emmaleigh. An officer also noticed blood on Benji’s thigh that appeared to be from Emmaleigh.

Emmaleigh was rushed to Charleston Hospital, where she was later pronounced brain dead. As Amanda held Emmaleigh in her arms two days later on October 5th, Amanda made the difficult decision to switch off her life support system, and Emmaleigh was pronounced dead.

The emergency room doctors told police that Emmaleigh’s traumatic injuries were likely caused hours prior to First Responders being called. An autopsy of the toddler confirmed that Emmaleigh had extensive bleeding, and her injuries were consistent with being penetrated by an adult male. She also had head injuries that suggested she had either been thrown to the ground or hit hard with a heavy object. Her cause of death was officially a skull fracture.

Arrest and Phone Evidence

Benji was arrested and initially charged with first-degree sexual assault, but he was later charged with murder on October 6th. After his arrest, Benji Taylor told police that he had brought Emmaleigh down to the basement, but he had “blacked out,” and the last thing he remembered was doing the laundry. He said he had drank eight beers between 2:00 p.m. and midnight that day, and he had also smoked a little bit of weed with Amanda earlier.

However, a deputy who arrived at the scene would state that Benji did not appear at all intoxicated when he got there. Benji said that he had blacked out maybe 10 times, and it could have been between 30 and 40 minutes, or 5 to 6 hours each time—he had no idea. He also claimed that he couldn’t remember washing the infant’s blood down the sink to try to conceal the evidence. But the truth is, Benji had done nothing to save the infant from the injuries she had sustained after he attacked her.

Police searched Benji’s phone as well and found that he had been searching for illegal pornography from 2:52 a.m. until about 3:17 a.m. Benji’s phone also showed that he made a 9-second phone call to a contact listed as “Home.” This happened at 4:54 a.m., which was about 6 minutes before the First Response Team arrived at the home. He later got a text message from his brother asking if everything was okay (assuming that’s the number he tried to call but didn’t pick up). Around 5:14 a.m., Benji texted back, “Dumb f man, but don’t worry, I’ll be dead sometime.”*

There were large amounts of blood found on blankets and clothing in the basement. Police investigators obtained a search warrant to collect Benji’s clothing from that night as well as a DNA sample. He was held at the South Central Regional Jail on a $2 million bond. On October 5th, 2016, a petition was actually made to the federal government to publicly hang Benjamin Taylor. It gathered quite a few signatures, as would be expected, before it was ultimately taken down.

The Trial

In March 2019, the case went to trial. It lasted 5 days. Benji wore a bulletproof vest, a helmet, and shackles for most of the trial. During the course of the trial, there were many character and witness testimonies given.

The character witnesses included a longtime friend of Benji’s, the girlfriend of Benji’s brother, Benji’s son’s mother (yes, he had a young son at the time he did this), Benji’s father, Benji’s mother, and Benji’s brother.

• The girlfriend of Benji’s brother said that he was there for her throughout her entire pregnancy and when her boyfriend had been dealing with medical issues. She also said he had been a positive influence in her son’s life, and he had never been overtly sexual or aggressive in her presence.

• Brenna Garnes, the mother of Benji’s son, testified that he had also spent time with her daughter and she had no complaints as to how he was around the children. She went on to say that there were times when Benji would drink and get very quiet, but he never became aggressive or overly sexual. She said she could never imagine that he would do what he was accused of doing.

• Benji’s father decided to tell the courtroom that he was proud of his son for who he was. He also said that Benjamin had never been violent, aggressive, or sexually inappropriate. He told the jury that he remembers his wife waking him up on the morning of October 3rd, 2016, and they rushed over to Amanda’s house. David said that Amanda seemed calm and she never expressed any anger when he drove her to the hospital. He went on to say that he was surprised that law enforcement and EMTs had described Amanda as being distraught and hysterical that morning because he just remembers her being “calm.” (Right… that just happened to her daughter, and what was her on the 911 call? I don’t believe anything else to say.) A recording was also played in the courtroom of Amanda screaming and crying hysterically at the hospital.

• Benji’s mother, Rita Taylor, would go on to say that she believed Amanda was faking her hysterics. She shared stories of Benji’s kindness towards his own son, his nephew, and other children in the family. She also recalled her son having three episodes where he had used either drugs or alcohol in the past and he had “just laid there.” She, of course, also said that there was no way her son did what he was accused of doing. But she had also received a phone call on the morning of October 3rd. It was Benji. He said that he loved her and then he hung up.

• Benji’s brother, Zachary Taylor, didn’t have a lot to say, but he did say Benji was a good influence on his sons and that there was no way he could have ever done what he was accused of doing.

The prosecutors asked Benji’s mother if Benji had come out of a blackout holding an injured child, would he have called 911? To which Benji’s mother said, “Yes.” So why was 911 not called until Amanda went down there? That doesn’t fit.

An audio recording was also played at the trial of Benji, while he was being held in jail, speaking to someone else over the phone. He was heard saying that he wasn’t aware that the baby was even bleeding until someone else told him that she was. In another recording, he says to someone, “I’m not afraid to take punishment for what I’ve done.”

According to Benji in court, he was trying to build a relationship with Emmaleigh. He said that his intent was to marry Amanda and to start a family with her. He also said that he would go into Emmaleigh’s room and she would always smile at him. The prosecution asked Benji if it would be outside of his character to joke around about hurting somebody during sex. He said yes, that wasn’t something he would do. The prosecutor then showed him screenshots of posts that he had made on Facebook. There were many memes joking about pain and sex. Back in June, Benji had also bragged on his Facebook saying, “I will never apologize for being a sex freak.” He loved the message so much that he actually made it his background cover photo.

Forensic Evidence and Verdict

Swabs of the basement floor tested positive for blood. In baby Emmaleigh’s diaper, there was blood as well as what was presumed to be male fluid found. Similar results were also obtained with a sexual assault kit, and the pants that Benji had been wearing that night also tested positive for male fluids.

The defense called a former neighbor to the stand, Barbara Kay, who had lived near Amanda at the time of this occurrence. On the other side of Kay’s bedroom wall was Amanda’s apartment. The night that Emmaleigh was attacked, Kay said that she was in bed, and then around 12:30 or 1:00 a.m., she heard a baby crying and screaming. She got up and was about to call 911, but then the crying and screaming stopped, so she figured everything was okay and went back to bed.

Benji’s defense attorney consistently said that his client was being falsely accused. He said police should be focusing on other people as well, and not just on Benji.

After only about 2 hours of deliberations, jurors found Benjamin Taylor guilty of first-degree murder, guilty of death by child abuse, and guilty of sexual abuse by a guardian. The jury followed this guilty verdict with a sentencing recommendation of No Mercy for Benjamin Taylor, which meant that he was facing being jailed for life without parole.

Benjamin Taylor received life in jail on the first-degree murder charge. For the death of a child by child abuse, he was sentenced to 40 years. He was also sentenced to 10 to 20 years for sexual abuse by a guardian in order to pay a $5,000 fine. These sentences are to run consecutively.

For the first time today, Benjamin Taylor showed emotion. Throughout this trial, he stared blankly ahead, never looking at evidence that was shown on the large projector in the courtroom. He never cried when graphic, horrific photos of Emmaleigh’s bruised body were on display. However, immediately following the verdict being read aloud, Benjamin Taylor broke down in tears.

His defense attorney said that they plan to file an appeal because there was evidence that the jury didn’t hear.

Emmaleigh’s Legacy

In April 2017, Governor Jim Justice signed into law a bill that increases the penalty for a person convicted of child abuse resulting in death. It’s called Emmaleigh’s Law.

A large crowd gathered on the night of Friday, October 7th, 2016, in Pasadena, Maryland, for a candle vigil in memory of Emmaleigh. People from several communities gathered to show their love and support. Emmaleigh’s relatives wore photos of her on their t-shirts. They also all asked for privacy but told the crowd that they appreciated the outpouring of love they were receiving. Emmaleigh Barringer’s funeral was held at the McCully-Polyniak Funeral Home in Pasadena, Maryland, on Sunday, October 16th, 2016. Emmaleigh Barringer was buried and memorialized at Glen Haven Memorial Park in Glen Burnie.

Well, thank you for listening to all of Emmaleigh’s story today. This case is just horrific. I don’t understand, not even a little, and this is the worst kind of monster—someone who would do something so vile and atrocious to a sweet, innocent baby. Benji was very good at hiding the hideous human being that he is. The character witnesses at the trial all saw him as a good person, which is very difficult to even get my head around. Poor baby Emmaleigh died in one of the most horrific ways I can think of, and this man deserves every bad thing done to him in jail.