Samantha Ann Clarke

Case background and investigation

Samantha Ann Clarke was a 19-year-old woman living in Orange, Virginia, a small town northeast of Charlottesville. She stood about 5'4" with brown hair and brown eyes and had several distinctive tattoos, including a Playboy bunny on her right arm, a Tigger figure on her right ankle, and dolphins on her lower back. In the early hours of September 13, 2010, Samantha was at her family's home on Lindsey Drive.

Shortly after midnight, Samantha told her younger brother that she was leaving and would be back in the morning. She left the house taking only her house key, without her phone, wallet, or other belongings, and never returned. Her sudden departure with almost nothing, and her failure to contact family or friends, quickly convinced investigators that something was wrong.

The Orange Police Department investigated the disappearance and came to suspect foul play. Detectives focused in part on Randy Allen Taylor, a man who knew Samantha and was among the last people to have contact with her around the time she vanished; the two had spoken by phone that day. Taylor was later convicted in the separate 2013 abduction and murder of teenager Alexis Murphy in nearby Nelson County, but he has never been charged in Samantha's case, and it remains unclear whether he was involved.

For years Samantha's case was carried as an endangered missing-person investigation. Then, in January 2021, the Orange Police Department announced that, based on new information and advances in investigative and forensic technology, Samantha's case had been formally reclassified as an active abduction and murder investigation. Police Chief James Fenwick said the reclassification reflected newly developed evidence, though specific details were kept confidential because the investigation was ongoing.

Despite the reclassification and continued work by investigators, Samantha Clarke has never been found and no one has been charged in connection with her disappearance. The case remains open and unsolved more than a decade later. Authorities have continued to appeal for information, and her family and community have kept her case in the public eye, hoping that new tips or forensic advances will finally reveal what happened to her.