Josh Copson always wanted to be the superhero growing up. When Nelson County teen Alexis Murphy went missing in 2013, that hero impulse returned.
“I’m not that, though,” he said. “What I am is a martial arts instructor. And what I can do is do something to help that not happen to somebody else.”
Copson has taught martial arts in the Nelson and Amherst areas for about 20 years and is the sensei of Blue Dragon Dojang on Front Street in Lovingston. He didn’t know Murphy personally, but something about her disappearance — in his hometown — was a call to action.
The Shipman 17-year-old was a rising senior at Nelson County High School when she went missing from a Lovingston gas station in August 2013. Murphy’s remains were located in December 2021, seven years after her disappearance. Randy Taylor, 56, is serving two life sentences for her abduction and murder after DNA evidence and video surveillance linked him to Murphy.