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Suspect may have been in contact via Internet with professor’s daughter




Screen capture from the MySpace page of “Syko Sam,“ the stage name of horrorcore rapper Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III.

By Luz Lazo
Published: September 20, 2009
Updated: September 23, 2009 7:03 PM
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RELATED • Suspect arrested in four Farmville slayings • Longwood professor 'loved her work' • Map of Farmville, murder site • Suspect may have been in contact via Internet with professor’s daughter

The suspect in the slayings of four people in Farmville may have been in Internet communication with the daughter of the Longwood University professor who lived at the home where the bodies were found.
Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III keeps two MySpace pages -- one where he goes by the name "Lildemondog" that is for his personal use, the other to promote his music under the stage name "Syko Sam."
Wade Stimpson, acting chief of the Farmville Police Department yesterday confirmed that McCroskey used the name Syko Sam and said he had also heard that the suspect used the name Lildemondog.
His personal page, which lists his status as "out of town," has a black background and in large letters at the top reads "I'm different. I've seen the dead come alive." The last login to the account was Friday, according to the date stamp.
Emma Niederbrock, daughter of associate professor Debra S. Kelley and the Rev. Mark Niederbrock, went by the name RagDoll on MySpace. Her page is set to private, so details weren't available, but she frequently left messages on McCroskey's personal page. Though she doesn't use her name on her MySpace page, friends posted messages throughout the day yesterday mourning Emma's death.
On Sept. 7, the last message she wrote on McCroskey's page, she wrote: "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwe baby the next time you check your myspace, YOULL BE AT MY HOUSE! I cant waiiiit to see you baby its like 6:17AM, and ive been up since 4ish filled with uber amounts of excitement . . . i love you sooo SO much baby; forever and for always."
McCroskey writes that he's 20, from Castro Valley, Calif.; is single and has a high school education. He's 5-foot-9, with an average build and red hair.
The site includes 65 photos from a two-week trip to Washington state in early June, including pictures of McCroskey drinking a 40-ounce beer and references to him "defiling graves" with friends.
He includes on the page "Fun Facts of the Sam: I am.. the Sam, a Web designer, a graphic designer, a musician, a photographer, a gamer, a promoter, a juggalo. I am not.. a creeper, a stalker, a rapist, a serial killer, a zombie . . .
McCroskey also lists himself as promoter for Wicked Intent Records and Serial Killin Records. "I'm a Nerd, a Gamer, a Musician and a Awesome person. I love music, Its one of my passions."
On his other MySpace page, where he goes by the stage name "Syko Sam," he describes his music career: "Syko Sam is a new musician (sic) in the underground and only been rapping for a few months now. As a new artist I feel that I already have some talent in this scene but will only get better as time will do its job."
The songs posted on the site have names such as "Murderous Rage," "Creatures of the Darkness" and "Sick Minds Think Alike."
Yesterday afternoon, someone posted a public statement about the Farmville slayings -- including the victims' names and MySpace identities -- on the Web site for Wicked Intent Records and on KillMusick.com, which sells music, clothes, posters and other items.
The statement says the killings occurred shortly after an all-day music festival Sept. 12 called "Strictly for the Wicked 2009," which was held in Southgate, Mich. That event was hosted by KillMusick.com and Serial Killin Records, the company that McCroskey said he did promotions work for.
"We would like to firstly and most importantly send out deepest regards, respects, and condolences to all the families involved," the statement reads. "This was as much of a shock to us, as were (sic) sure it has been to everyone else involved, and this tragedy will forever impact the rest of our lives as we are sure it has impacted yours."
Dozens of comments were posted online yesterday in response to the statement on the Wicked Intent Records and KillMusick.com sites, including some from people who said they had hung out with two of the victims and the suspect at the Michigan music festival.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/article/FARM20S2_20090919-222603/294224/

Police look at role lyrics may have had in slayings



EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH


Parishioners Shirley Huskey and Janice Dowdy (foreground) mourned with others at the church of slain Pastor Mark Niederbrock.

By Reed Williams
Published: September 21, 2009
Updated: September 21, 2009 7:16 AM
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danville_regi373:http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/FARM21_20090920-223409/294416/

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RELATED • Appomattox church fondly recalls slain pastor • Suspect arrested in four Farmville slayings • Longwood professor ‘loved her work’ • Map of Farmville, murder site • Suspect may have been in contact via Internet with professor’s daughter

IInvestigators are trying to determine whether a suspect’s fascination with violent rap lyrics fueled the killings of four people found dead in a Longwood University professor’s home.

Farmville police said the victims, which include a church pastor, might have been killed on different days, although authorities still were awaiting the completion of autopsies. One of the bodies was found in a different part of the house.
On Saturday, police captured Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III at Richmond International Airport as he was waiting for a flight home to California. That was one day after police found the bodies in the Farmville home of professor Debra S. Kelley.
Investigators say McCroskey acted alone.
The only victim police are identifying is Kelley’s husband, Mark Niederbrock, the pastor at Walker’s Presbyterian Church in Appomattox County. Authorities have identified the three others only as females, and they are not discussing how the victims were killed. Friends and associates identified the females as Kelley, her daughter, Emma Niederbrock, and Melanie Wells, a friend of Emma’s visiting from West Virginia.
Today, McCroskey has an initial court hearing in Prince Edward County General District Court. He is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Mark Niederbrock, robbery of money from Niederbrock’s wallet and grand larceny in the theft of Niederbrock’s car, police said.
McCroskey, 20, of Castro Valley, Calif., rapped about killing people, although police say the deaths did not necessarily match the lyrics in his songs.
On one of his MySpace Web pages, McCroskey promoted his music under the stage name “Syko Sam.” Both of his MySpace pages were deactivated last night.
People who know McCroskey described him as a fan and promoter of the “horrorcore” genre, which is hip-hop music accompanied by violent lyrics, but they said they did not believe he was violent.
Wade Stimpson, acting chief of the Farmville Police Department, said it is possible the victims died at different times.
Rebecca Stratton, the treasurer of Walker’s Presbyterian, said she spoke with Niederbrock by phone Thursday afternoon and he said he was headed to Richmond for a meeting. He and Kelley were separated.
Farmville police say they found the bodies after an officer smelled what he thought was an odor of human decay about 3:10 p.m. on Friday at Kelley’s home at 505 First Ave.
At normal room temperature, a body would not start to smell until about 48 hours after death, suggesting that at least one of the victims died Wednesday or earlier, said Dr. Marcella Fierro, a retired former chief medical examiner for the state.
“The father would not have been dead at the time the others were,” Fierro said.
Stimpson said officers initially discovered three bodies in the house, then left to get a search warrant before returning and finding the fourth. “It wasn’t in the same place that the other bodies were,” he said, declining to elaborate.
Police say they encountered McCroskey at the home Thursday when they went to check on a visiting West Virginia teenager at the request of her mother. McCroskey told police she was at the movies. They found the bodies when police returned to check on her the next day.
Police said McCroskey wrecked Niederbrock’s car sometime early Friday morning, received a ride to Sheetz on South Main Street in Farmville and arrived at Richmond International by taxi. He was captured Saturday sleeping in a baggage-claim area waiting for a flight back to California.
One song attributed to McCroskey on one of his MySpace pages discusses committing murder in a rage, trying to get rid of the remains and driving a stolen vehicle.
“This thing is not playing out exactly like the song was,” Stimpson said. “It’s ironic that he writes lyrics like this. .¤.¤. The fact that he’s talking about killing people — that’s close enough to make us interested.”
Andres Shrim, a friend who owns a record label that specializes in horrorcore, described McCroskey as a nice, intelligent “good kid.” Shrim said he doesn’t believe McCroskey is guilty.
He said he saw McCroskey on Sept. 12 at a music festival in Southgate, Mich.
If, however, it turns out he committed the killings, “it had absolutely nothing to do with his music, my music or with horrorcore in general,” said Shrim, owner of Serial Killin Records in New Mexico. “He made that decision on his own.”
He said that listening to horrorcore is “no different that turning on the news.”
Phil Chalmers, who wrote the book “Inside the Mind of a Teen Killer,” said he interviewed 200 people who killed when they were juveniles and that a leading cause for the violence was a fascination with violent entertainment.
Chalmers said at least 20 homicide cases in America were tied to horrorcore. He said the genre provides a sense of community for outcasts, sometimes giving them the courage to carry out violent fantasies.
“You kind of throw gasoline on the fire,” Chalmers said.
One of McCroskey’s MySpace pages listed Mars, a horrorcore artist whose real name is Mario Delgado, as one of his favorite artists. Delgado said yesterday that he has seen McCroskey at some of his shows and signed autographs for him.
Delgado, who raps about rape and murder, said he does not condone murder but said he believes his lyrics might have influenced McCroskey. Delgado said a Farmville investigator called him yesterday to discuss that angle.
“If the wrong kind of kid gets ahold of this music and takes it the wrong way,” Delgado said, “then it could be a dangerous thing.”
Delgado has been connected with violent events before. Jeff Weise, a gunman who killed seven people and himself at Red Lake High School in Minnesota in 2005, is said to have listened to Mars.
Amber Edwards, 18, of Indiana described herself as a close online friend of McCroskey and said she also was in touch with Emma Niederbrock.
She said McCroskey, whom she knew as Sam, contacted her this month and wrote that he was leaving Sept. 7 or 8 to fly to Virginia to visit Emma Niederbrock and the teenager who was visiting from West Virginia. The three attended the music festival Sept. 12 in Michigan, Edwards said.
Before he left, McCroskey wrote her that he was afraid the plane would crash on the way to Virginia. “Nobody ever pictured Sam to do anything like this,” she said.
McCroskey’s sister, reached by phone yesterday, said, “I’m not answering any questions,” before the line went dead.
McCroskey had no adult criminal record in Alameda County, Calif., which includes Castro Valley, according to Lt. Dave Alvey of the Alameda Sheriff’s Office.
On Sept. 2, though, someone named Sam McCroskey called police at 1:41 a.m. to report that his sister had friends at the home and they were making too much noise, Alvey said.
Yesterday, McCroskey’s father called the Sheriff’s Office on his way home and requested a police escort because he had heard that reporters were waiting outside, Alvey said. The Sheriff’s Office declined.
The phone number to the home is unlisted, and McCroskey’s parents could not be reached for comment.
Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com

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(Staff writer Louis Llovio contributed to this report.)
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/FARM21_20090920-223409/294416/

Suspect’s sister expresses remorse in Farmville slayings



SARAH McCROSKEY


Sarah McCroskey said her brother “was always the quiet kid in the background who got along with everyone.“


By Reed Williams
Published: September 22, 2009
Updated: September 23, 2009 6:59 PM
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danville_regi373:http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/FARM221_20090921-235202/294638/

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RELATED • Excerpts: Farmville suspect's sister writes • Suspect arrested in four Farmville slayings • Longwood professor 'loved her work' • Map of Farmville, murder site • Suspect may have been in contact via Internet with professor’s daughter • Police look at role lyrics may have had in Farmville slayings

FARMVILLE -- The sister of the California man suspected in the slayings of four people near Longwood University said she failed her younger brother and wishes she could ask him what happened.
In an e-mail yesterday, Sarah McCroskey, 21, described Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, who rapped about killing people and disposing of their remains, as a boyish 20-year-old who avoided trouble, walked away from fights, and rarely showed emotion.
Police arrested him Saturday at Richmond International Airport after finding the bodies in a Longwood professor's home. A Prince Edward County judge appointed an attorney for him yesterday at an initial hearing.
"He's sweet, he's talented, he's like the best brother anyone can ask for," Sarah McCroskey said in a phone interview, adding that he was troubled by their parents' recent separation. She also apologized to the victims' families.
Early yesterday morning, she said, authorities in Alameda County, Calif., raided the home she shares with the suspect and their father, seizing their computers and other items, including a Halloween costume of Joey Jordison, drummer for the heavy-metal band Slipknot. Alameda officials confirmed they entered the house about 1:30 a.m. PDT while no one was home and that they stayed until about 6 a.m.
"My house is trashed," Sarah McCroskey said. "It's upside down."
She said her grandmother's ashes are missing.
Farmville authorities still have not positively identified the four victims found Friday at the home of professor Debra S. Kelley, or discussed how they were killed. Police tentatively identified one of the victims as Kelley's husband, Mark Niederbrock, pastor at Walker's Presbyterian Church in Appomattox County.
Friends and associates identified the others as Kelley; her daughter, Emma Niederbrock; and Melanie Wells, a friend of Emma visiting from West Virginia. Emma was the suspect's girlfriend, Sarah McCroskey said.
Police discovered the bodies Friday after an officer smelled what he believed was human decay. Officials say the victims might have been killed on different days, although they have not presented a timeline.
Investigators charged McCroskey with first-degree murder in the death of Mark Niederbrock, robbery of money from him, and grand larceny of his 2000 Honda.
Prince Edward authorities ticketed McCroskey about 4:20 a.m. Friday for driving without a license after he got a 2000 Honda stuck in a ditch on Poorhouse Road, where someone reported seeing a suspicious vehicle.
The car had not been reported stolen, and Prince Edward sheriff's Sgt. Stuart Raybold said there was no reason for deputies to be suspicious. In a college town, he said, it's not unusual for someone to be driving another person's car.
"He told deputies he was going back to California in the very near future," Raybold added.
Elton Napier, owner of Napier's Towing, said he arrived to tow the car and gave the man a ride to Sheetz, which authorities also confirmed. Napier said the man smelled like a dead animal, making Napier lean toward his open window.
"He smelled so bad it made me heave," Napier said. "I don't know what kind of smell it was. It was a strong smell."
Napier said he noticed that the front of the man's neck was covered with what appeared to be hickies, and when he asked the man about them, McCroskey told him his girlfriend had left them.
In Farmville yesterday, Prince Edward General District Judge Robert G. Woodson Jr. appointed defense attorney Cary B. Bowen of Richmond to represent McCroskey. The suspect appeared for the hearing by videocast from the Piedmont Regional Jail.
Officials said a preliminary hearing was set for Jan. 11 unless there is a bond hearing before then. Bowen represented Ray Dandridge, who pleaded guilty to the deaths of the Harvey family and the Tucker/Baskerville family in Richmond in January 2006.
Bowen said he visited McCroskey yesterday at the jail and described his client as in shock. The suspect has no criminal record, according to court papers.
"Twenty years old -- he's never been locked up before," Bowen said. "He's wrestling with it."
Bowen said it's possible prosecutors could charge him with capital murder. Prince Edward Commonwealth's Attorney James R. Ennis declined yesterday to discuss his plans.
Bowen also said McCroskey might have been using sarcasm Saturday when he told television cameras what sounded like "Jesus told me to do it" while he was being moved by police.
Airport police had found him Saturday sleeping in a baggage-claim area at Richmond International Airport waiting for a flight back to California the next day.
McCroskey was visiting Emma Niederbrock, and they attended a music festival in Michigan on Sept. 12 with Wells, according to online friends. McCroskey was a fan of the horrorcore genre, which is hip-hop music accompanied by violent lyrics.
Sarah McCroskey, 21, described their family as musically inclined. She said their father plays guitar and she used to play drums for a heavy-metal band. She said her parents' separation a couple of months ago was a blow to her brother, whom she described as a "mama's boy."
"We were the only kids of all our friends that still had our parents under one roof," she said.
She said her brother, who went by Sam, apparently met Emma Niederbrock at a horrorcore music show in California, possibly last year.
Amber Edwards, 18, of Indiana, said she is an online friend of Sam McCroskey and was in touch with Emma Niederbrock and Wells. "They were actually really nice girls," Edwards said. "They were innocent pretty much."
Wells' cell phone had a Backstreet Boys song as a ring-back tone.
Sarah McCroskey said she doesn't believe the horrorcore lyrics influenced him but added that he doesn't show his emotions. "He didn't let anyone in," she said. "He had such a big brick wall built up."
Before he left for Virginia, McCroskey told his sister he planned to join the Army as soon as he got back, she said.
"I wish I could have been there for him way more then I was," her e-mail said.
In a later phone interview, she said, "Even though I'm surrounded by my friends, I feel so very alone."



Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com

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http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/FARM221_20090921-235202/294638/

Police tell of encounters with Farmville suspect



MARK GORMUS/TIMES-DISPATCH


In Farmville yesterday, prosecutor James Ennis, announced the names of all four victims.

By Reed Williams
Published: September 23, 2009
Updated: September 23, 2009 6:58 PM
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See and hear: • Take a look around Syko Sam's room • Prince Edward Commonwealth’s Attorney James Ennis identifies the victims and the cause of death RELATED • Teen victims were drawn to macabre music • Excerpts: Farmville suspect's sister writes • Suspect arrested in four Farmville slayings • Longwood professor 'loved her work' • Map of Farmville, murder site • Suspect may have been in contact via Internet with professor’s daughter • Police look at role lyrics may have had in Farmville slayings

FARMVILLE -- Farmville police now say they were inside a Longwood University professor's house with a California man less than 24 hours before officers would find four bodies in the home and pinpoint him as a suspect.
Police last night described an eerie encounter they had with Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III -- making it three times the suspect came face to face with law enforcement in the space of a few hours and before the bodies were found.
Earlier yesterday, Prince Edward County Commonwealth's Attorney James R. Ennis formally identified the victims and said all four were killed by blunt-force trauma to the head. He did not discuss a motive.
Ennis declined to discuss any weapon used in the deaths and did not say when they were killed at professor Debra S. Kelley's house on First Avenue.
Ennis identified the victims as Kelley, 53, an associate professor of sociology and criminal-justice studies at Longwood; her daughter, Emma Niederbrock, 16; Emma's visiting friend, Melanie Wells, 18, of Inwood, W.Va.; and Kelley's estranged husband, the Rev. Mark Alan Niederbrock, 50, pastor of Walker's Presbyterian Church in Appomattox County.
This past weekend, Farmville police described their first encounter with McCroskey. McCroskey answered the door at the home of Kelley and Emma on Thursday at 11:58 p.m. after a single officer went to check on Wells at the request of her mother, police said.
But yesterday, police said McCroskey called one hour later, Friday at 12:58 a.m., and said he heard something in the basement and wanted police to check it, said Wade Stimpson, the town's acting police chief.
Two officers arrived, and McCroskey let them into the house and the officers went down some stairs into the basement, which was covered with animal feces, Stimpson said. The officers then left without suspicion.
The bodies were not in the basement and were in a "totally separate part of the house," Stimpson said.
Less than four hours later, about 4:40 a.m., a Prince Edward sheriff's deputy ticketed McCroskey for driving without a license after he got a stolen car stuck in a ditch, authorities said. McCroskey is accused of stealing the car from Mark Niederbrock.
The car had not been reported stolen, and a tow-truck driver gave McCroskey a ride to a nearby Sheetz convenience store, police said. McCroskey arrived at Richmond International Airport by taxi later that day.
Wells' mother called police again Friday after she still hadn't heard from her daughter. Police went back to the house that afternoon and found the victims after noticing what smelled like decaying bodies, Stimpson has said.
Stimpson said two dogs and two cats were found alive in the house, away from the bodies. The animals were taken to a shelter in Prince Edward.
"Everything about this case is weird," Stimpson said.
Airport police took McCroskey into custody Saturday after they found him sleeping in a baggage-claim area as he waited for a flight to California.
Ennis said yesterday that the medical examiner confirmed the identification of the victims Monday, and relatives were notified.
Ennis said authorities had interviewed McCroskey friend Andres Shrim, who starred in a music video that shows actors pretending to murder religious figures, according to Jacob Virgil, who said he worked on the set.
Ennis did not say what was learned from the interview with Shrim. Authorities say they have identified no suspect other than McCroskey.
McCroskey, 20, of Castro Valley Calif., is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Mark Niederbrock, robbery of cash from Niederbrock and grand larceny of his car.
Ennis said he expects McCroskey will face more homicide charges "at some point in the future, after forensics results have been received and the evidence has been reviewed."
Ennis also discussed the massive scale of the investigation that has prompted authorities to explore McCroskey's fascination with the horrorcore genre, which involves violent lyrics accompanied by hip-hop music. "It certainly is alien to me," the prosecutor said.
"I really don't have time to tell you the extent and scope that this investigation entails," Ennis said. "We are going coast to coast on this investigation, and every lead is being followed as it develops."
Police raided McCroskey's home in California on Monday.
Shrim, who performs under the name SickTanicK, owns Serial Killin Records, an independent record label in New Mexico that specializes in horrorcore. Shrim said during the weekend that he saw McCroskey at a Sept. 12 music festival in Michigan. Friends say he was there with Emma Niederbrock and Wells.
Shrim did not return phone calls yesterday or Monday.
Virgil said he designed the set for a rap video starring SickTanicK filmed in 2006 at an art studio Virgil was renting in Albuquerque, N.M. It shows a man with a chain connected to the neck of a woman defiling what looks like a picture of Jesus. The actors then pretend to kill religious figures, including a Catholic and a Muslim.
Virgil, 29, said he no longer is interested in the macabre and wouldn't want his parents to see the video.
"Their music is idolizing serial killers," Virgil said. "It's a horrible thing."



Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com

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http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/article/FARM231_20090922-233601/294871/

Culture: Horror

By Staff Reports
Published: September 24, 2009
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Plato was right. If, as Congreve wrote, music has charms that can soothe the savage breast, then it also has the power to enrage and pervert. The slayings in Farmville are immensely sad. Sadder still is the world in which the principal suspect, Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, spent much of his life.
McCroskey styled himself Syko Sam and was affiliated with Serial Killin Records, a label of -- fortunately -- little renown. He was an aficionado of horrorcore, a genre of music (we use that term loosely) that dwells on sadism and brutality. Mario Delgado, one of the horrorcore artists (we use that term loosely as well) McCroskey enjoyed listening to, focuses on rape and murder.
If horrorcore were merely a minute piece of contemporary culture it would be dismaying enough. But it represents just one band on a broad spectrum that also includes grindcore, death metal, industrial noise, deathgrind, pornogrind, and various interpolations thereof. The words don't fully convey the degeneracy. If you want a taste, spend a few minutes online with Slipknot or Brutal Truth -- if you have the stomach to withstand the assault.
Defenders will say Shakespeare wrote of brutal subjects in Titus Andronicus and The Rape of Lucrece and elsewhere, and that is so. It has to be conceded that many great works of art address unpleasant themes. But facile comparisons obscure essential differences. A surgeon cuts human flesh, and so does a man who slits open his pregnant wife's belly in an argument. That does not mean the two actions are even remotely the same.
Most young people who listen to death metal and horrorcore do not go on to commit murder. But it is hard to spend more than a few minutes in their universe without concluding that they are doing great harm nonetheless. Small comfort that it is confined within the boundaries of their own bleak interior lives.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/opinion/editorials/article/ED-HORR24_20090923-185402/294940/

VIDEO: • Alternative view of suspect's arrest SPECIAL REPORT: Farmville killings VIDEO: • Take a look around "Syko Sam's" room AUDIO: • Prince Edward Commonwealth’s Attorney James Ennis identifies the victims and the cause of death • Map of Farmville, murder site

On horrorcore music message boards, fans identify themselves with handles such as "psycosick" and "freshdeath."
They discuss new artists such as Randum Shotz and stalwarts of the genre, Kid Crusher, Twiztid and the most mainstream of the lot, Insane Clown Posse and Slipknot.
They are passionate about this fusion of hip-hop and rock with lyrics that focus on death and murder.
But for most people, horrorcore was a completely unfamiliar musical style until last weekend, when a 20-year-old California man heavily involved in the horrorcore scene was identified by police as a suspect in the bludgeoning deaths of four people in Farmville.
Matt Molgaard, a California-based contributing writer for Fangoria magazine, the pre-eminent outlet for fans of horror movies, comics and music, described horrorcore as "an aggressive and gruesome sub-genre. A dead branch of the hip-hop tree, if you will. Like horror cinema, horrorcore is a grittier take on topics that just about every musical genre explores."
On his MySpace pages, Farmville slayings suspect Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III describes his interest in horrorcore music. The aspiring horrorcore artist and promoter, who goes by the stage name Syko Sam, also records dark songs about violent murder.
"There are still club songs, but rather than liquor, it's blood spilling. There are still love songs, but resolution is often found in violent actions -- there's no talking about it," Molgaard said. "Horrorcore is really a ventilation system for those with a generally more sinister mindset."
On Friday, Farmville authorities discovered the bodies of Debra S. Kelley, 53, an associate professor of sociology and criminal-justice studies at Longwood University; her daughter, Emma Niederbrock, 16; Emma's visiting friend, Melanie Wells, 18, of Inwood, W.Va.; and Kelley's estranged husband, Mark Alan Niederbrock, 50, the six-year pastor of Walker's Presbyterian Church in Appomattox County.
The bodies were found inside Kelley's home. All died of blunt-force trauma, officials said.
McCroskey, who has been identified as the suspect in all four killings, has been charged only with Mark Niederbrock's death.
Shortly before the killings, McCroskey had traveled with the teenaged girls to a horrorcore concert in Michigan.
On the Web site http://www.horrorcore.com, one message-board thread focuses on the Farmville murders. Without exception, the posts express respect and sorrow for the loss of life. But they also express frustration that McCroskey being named as the suspect in the killings has turned a spotlight on their underground musical outlet.
Molgaard, who has interviewed and reviewed scores of horrorcore artists, said he thinks the appeal of the music is that it offers a release.
"People aren't supposed to run around the streets slashing people to death for having premarital sex or impaling kids for smoking a little weed," he said. "Any semi-stable individual understands that that is not acceptable behavior -- it's common sense."
One of the most popular horrorcore artists, Insane Clown Posse -- or, ICP as they're known among fans -- uses clown makeup and gimmicks such as naming their fans "the Juggalos" as entertainment tactics.
On one of McCroskey's MySpace pages, he refers to himself as "a juggalo," and a video posted on his YouTube page that was filmed inside his California bedroom shows at least one large Insane Clown Posse poster on the wall.
The Detroit-based ICP duo -- Violent J (Joseph Bruce) and Shaggy 2 Dope (Joseph Utsler) -- has enough of a mainstream following that its latest album, "Bang! Pow! Boom!" debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 album chart two weeks ago (it's since slipped to No. 43). The group is on a 64-city tour that stops at The NorVa in Norfolk on Oct. 16 and The National in Richmond on Dec. 3.
A spokesperson for Plan 9 Music in Richmond said the new Insane Clown Posse album has been among its Top 20 sellers since its release but that the chain doesn't carry much horrorcore music outside of the handful of better-known groups.
Despite the commercial success and acceptance of groups such as Insane Clown Posse, Molgaard said it's easy to understand why horrorcore -- and horror, in general -- sometimes is misunderstood.
"Whether we're talking about film, music or any other aspects of life in which horror is present, we're ultimately talking about fear, rage, violence and terror," he said. "If the genre wasn't understood, I'd be even more frightened by the potential dangers of society."



Contact Melissa Ruggieri at (804) 649-6120 or mruggieri@timesdispatch.com
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/FARM24_20090923-222604/295120/

Reed Williams

• VIDEO: Alternative view of suspect’s arrest • SPECIAL REPORT: Farmville killings • VIDEO: Take a look around “Syko Sam’s” room • AUDIO: Prince Edward Commonwealth’s Attorney James Ennis identifies the victims and the cause of death • MAP: Farmville, murder site

FARMVILLE—A horrorcore rap artist provided Farmville police with the name of the suspect in four slayings soon after officers found the bodies in the home of a Longwood University professor, authorities confirmed today.
Andres Shrim, who performs under the name SickTanicK, contacted Farmville police Friday and told an investigator he had reason to believe that Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III could be responsible for killings at the home at 505 First Ave, authorities said.
Shrim, owner of Serial Killin Records in New Mexico, told the investigator he had spoken with a friend of McCroskey and that the suspect told the friend that he had killed, according to authorities and a posting by Shrim on MySpace.
Shrim also knew McCroskey, who had built a Web site to promote Shrim’s music.
Shrim told the investigator they could find a picture of McCroskey on MySpace, officials said.
Authorities soon circulated a picture of the suspect and his description. He was captured the next day at Richmond International Airport.
McCroskey, a 20-year-old from California who rapped about murder and other violent acts, is charged with killing church pastor Mark Alan Niederbrock. Authorities say more homicide charges will come.
Found dead in the Farmville house were Niederbrock, 50; his wife, Longwood professor Debra S. Kelley; their daughter Emma, 16; and 18-year-old Melanie Wells of Inwood, W.Va.
Kelley was separated from her husband and living in the home with Emma.
All four victims were bludgeoned to death. Authorities have not provided more details about how they died or when.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/article/horrorcore_rap_artist_alerted_police_to_slayings_suspect/295213/

Slain pastor remembered as gifted and compassionate



DEAN HOFFMEYER/TIMES-DISPATCH


Jan Somers Niederbrock (right), mother of Mark A. Niederbrock, leaves the graveside service for her son.

By Reed Williams

• SPECIAL REPORT: Farmville killings • VIDEO: Suspect arrested at airport • VIDEO: Alternative view of suspect's arrest • VIDEO: Look around "Syko Sam's" room • AUDIO: Prince Edward Commonwealth’s Attorney James Ennis identifies the victims and the cause of death • MAP: Farmville, murder site

HIXBURG -- Mark Niederbrock was remembered yesterday as a gifted and compassionate pastor who dearly loved his congregants and ministered in their homes and hospital rooms.
"He just really came to know God, and there was no turning back from there," said Bert Cloud, pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Disputanta.
The Rev. Joseph McCutchen officiated at the graveside service at Walker's Presbyterian Church in Appomattox County, where Niederbrock had been pastor about six years.
McCutchen told more than 150 people that Niederbrock would have wanted them to keep their faith, despite the horrific nature of the crime that took his life and three others.
Niederbrock was found slain in the Farmville home of his estranged wife, Debra S. Kelley, a Longwood University professor, along with their daughter, Emma Niederbrock, 16, and her friend, Melanie Wells, 18, who was visiting from West Virginia.
Authorities have arrested Emma Niederbrock's boyfriend, Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, 20, of Castro Valley, Calif., who shared an interest with her and Wells in horrorcore music, a mix of violent lyrics and hip-hop music.
At a Sunday service a few weeks ago, Mark Niederbrock expressed his concern about her exposure to the music, church members Billy and Barbara Dickerson said.
Emma Niederbrock "had more control of the family -- pretty much whatever she wanted to do happened," church elder Luther Glenn said.
The Dickersons said Emma sometimes came to church with her father and that they both went on a 13-mile hike along the Appalachian Trail with other church members about three years ago. Emma kept waiting for her father to catch up.
"Emma was a sweet child," Barbara Dickerson said. "She loved her daddy; her daddy loved her."
McCutchen, a retired pastor of Farmville Presbyterian Church, said the crime was so strange as to be unbelievable. "The universe in which we live is not rational and the world is not fair, but the one consistent thing we can depend on is the love of God," he said.
The killings took from Jan Niederbrock her only child and her only grandchild. The resident of Champaign, Ill., attended yesterday's service.
"I loved Mark dearly, and he loved me dearly," Jan Niederbrock said quietly, seated in the church sanctuary after the service. "He was my rock."
Born in Benton, Ill., Mark Niederbrock met Kelley in Champaign while he was pursuing a bachelor's degree in photography and she was pursuing a doctorate in sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Jan Niederbrock said.
Emma Niederbrock was 2 years old when they moved to Virginia.
Mark Niederbrock attended Farmville United Methodist Church and was baptized in 1997, said Cloud's wife, the Rev. Regina Anderson-Cloud, pastor of Sycamore United Methodist Church in Prince George County.
He was working as a graphic artist but decided to enter the ministry, Anderson-Cloud said. He graduated from the Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond in 2006.
At Walker's, Mark Niederbrock made about $600 per Sunday. He had been living off Hixburg Road less than a mile from the church since he and Kelley separated about eight months ago.



Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com

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http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/article/FARM251S1_20090924-233803/295422/

Reed Williams

• SPECIAL REPORT: Farmville killings • VIDEO: Suspect arrested at airport • VIDEO: Alternative view of suspect's arrest • VIDEO: Look around "Syko Sam's" room • AUDIO: Prince Edward Commonwealth’s Attorney James Ennis identifies the victims and the cause of death • MAP: Farmville, murder site

A horrorcore rap artist provided Farmville police with the name of a suspect in four homicides soon after officers found the bodies in the home of a Longwood University professor, police confirmed yesterday.
Andres Shrim, who performs under the name SickTanicK, contacted Farmville police last Friday and told Sgt. Andy Ellington that he had reason to believe that Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III could be responsible for homicides at 505 First Ave., authorities said.
Shrim, the owner of Serial Killin Records in New Mexico, told the investigator he had spoken with a friend of McCroskey. That friend said McCroskey had made some disturbing comments, according to Ellington and a posting by Shrim on MySpace.
Ellington said McCroskey is believed to have told the friend that he killed one or more people. Ellington did not identify the friend.
Shrim informed McCroskey's mother, Chevelle McCroskey, that her son was a suspect, prompting her to try calling her son's teenage girlfriend, Emma Niederbrock. She got her voice mail.
The 16-year-old girl's sweet-sounding voice still is on Chevelle McCroskey's mind.
"I'm tempted to call it again, because I just feel so bad that her life is gone," she said.
"She just sounded like a sweet girl," Chevelle McCroskey said. "I just feel really bad for her. It's an awful thing. She's never going to get to grow up."
The recollections of Chevelle McCroskey and Shrim shed light on the frantic hours before and after the bodies were found in the home Emma Niederbrock shared with her mother, Longwood professor Debra S. Kelley, 53, who was killed as well.
Also killed were Kelley's husband, Mark A. Niederbrock, a 50-year-old pastor who was separated from Kelley; and 18-year-old Melanie Wells of Inwood, W.Va., who was visiting Emma Niederbrock, as was McCroskey.
All four victims were bludgeoned to death, police said, but authorities have declined to elaborate on specifics and a motive. McCroskey was taken into custody at Richmond International Airport on Saturday.
On the evening of Thursday, Sept. 17, McCroskey called his sister, Sarah McCroskey, at their home in Castro Valley, Calif., and left a message about 5:30 p.m. PDT checking on the family and saying he loved her, she said.
She said she didn't answer because she still was angry with him for reporting her to police for being loud in their home a few days before he flew to Virginia on Sept. 6.
Their mother said the last time she talked with her son was when he called her that night about 7 p.m. PDT. "He sounded perfectly fine," Chevelle McCroskey said. "My mother's intuition is pretty strong. He said he was having a good time and he loves me."
About two hours later, a police officer went to the house to check on the West Virginia teenager at her mother's request. Police say McCroskey answered the door and said she was at the movies. The officer left.
An hour after that, at 12:58 a.m., McCroskey called and said he heard something in the basement and wanted police to check it. Two officers arrived and went into a different part of the house from where the bodies were located. They searched the basement and left.
About 4:20 a.m., a Prince Edward County sheriff's deputy ticketed McCroskey for driving without a license after he got a car stuck in a ditch. McCroskey is accused of stealing the car from Mark Niederbrock.
Shrim said his girlfriend, whom he identified only as Razakel, got a call from Wells' mother early last Friday saying she was worried about her daughter.
Razakel was friends with Emma Niederbrock and Wells. Wells' mother had spoken with Razakel on another occasion because she was curious about her daughter's interest in horrorcore, which is hip-hop music accompanied by violent lyrics, Shrim said.
Wells' mother wanted to know about a horrorcore festival that Wells planned to attend in Michigan. Wells went to the festival with Emma Niederbrock and McCroskey; Kelley took them.
After the early-morning call from Wells' mother, Shrim and his girlfriend started making calls to find out if Wells was OK. They tried the cell-phone numbers of Emma Niederbrock, Wells and Kelley but got no answer.
Shrim said he later spoke to the friend who got the disturbing call from McCroskey. Shrim also knew McCroskey, who had built a Web site to promote Shrim's music.
Shrim called Farmville police and spoke with Ellington an hour or two after the bodies were found Friday afternoon, telling the investigator that police could find a picture of McCroskey on MySpace, officials said.
Authorities soon circulated the picture and McCroskey's description. He was taken into custody the next day at the airport.
Sarah McCroskey called her mother Friday and said Shrim had called and left a message saying Sam McCroskey was a suspect in four deaths. Chevelle McCroskey said she initially thought it was a prank but broke down crying at work when she realized it wasn't.
She tried calling Emma Niederbrock's cell phone -- "I wanted to talk to her to ask her where Sammy is" -- and her home number. "The house number just rang and rang and rang and rang," she said.
Chevelle McCroskey said she still has trouble believing her son is charged with murder. "I honestly don't think he had anything to do with it," she said.
She also described herself as a protective mother who worked as a teacher's aide in her son's early elementary school years.
She said the family liked to watch horror movies and that she and her husband still ride motorcycles with their friends even though they separated in June. Her husband lives with their two children, but she no longer does.
Her son was shy and quiet and spent a lot of time in his room making music or doing online performances, she said. But he had friends growing up and took karate lessons and liked to jog.
"He's never even had a detention in school," she said.
When he was in the 10th grade, Sam McCroskey started doing independent study in high school, meaning he went to school a couple of hours a week but did most of his work at home. He got average grades but earned his General Educational Development certificate when he was in 11th grade.
"I cannot believe it is happening," Chevelle McCroskey said. "I just cannot believe this is happening."



Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com

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http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/article/FARM251_20090924-232001/295416/

Farmville suspect told of confrontation, cab driver says



MySPACE


Emma Niederbrock, her parents and her friend from West Virginia were found slain in Farmville. Her boyfriend is a suspect in the deaths.

By Reed Williams
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• SPECIAL REPORT: Farmville killings • VIDEO: Suspect arrested at airport • VIDEO: Alternative view of suspect's arrest • VIDEO: Look around "Syko Sam's" room • AUDIO: Prince Edward Commonwealth’s Attorney James Ennis identifies the victims and the cause of death • MAP: Farmville, murder site

The suspect in the killings of four people in Farmville told a cab driver hours before the victims' bodies were found that he had confronted his girlfriend after finding a text message from another man on her phone.
Curtis Gibson of Access Taxi in Charlottesville recalled the roughly hourlong conversation he had with the foul-smelling suspect, Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, on the morning of Sept. 18. Gibson drove McCroskey from a Huddle House restaurant in Farmville to Richmond International Airport.
During the cab ride, McCroskey told Gibson that his girlfriend got angry when he confronted her about the message and accused him of invading her privacy. The 20-year-old Californian told Gibson he didn't want to argue with his girlfriend, 16-year-old Emma Niederbrock, so he waited for her to go to sleep early that morning or the night before and then he left the house.
Gibson said McCroskey was calm during the entire ride and seemed normal, except for a stench that Gibson did not recognize.
Niederbrock's body was found that afternoon in the Farmville home she shared with her mother, Debra S. Kelley, a professor of sociology and criminal-justice studies at Longwood University.
Also found dead inside the home were Kelley's estranged husband, Mark Niederbrock, and Melanie Wells, an 18-year-old friend of Emma Niederbrock who was visiting from West Virginia.
All four had been bludgeoned. Authorities have not said when they died, nor have they elaborated on how the four were killed.
Gibson said he recognized McCroskey on television news on Sunday afternoon, the day after McCroskey was arrested at the airport. Gibson called police, and an investigator interviewed him in Charlottesville that day and looked inside Gibson's minivan for evidence.
Farmville police officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.
On Thursday, police Sgt. Andy Ellington said: "We're trying to piece the timeline together, and of course we're trying to figure out motive." Police have said McCroskey is their only suspect in the slayings, but he has been charged only in the death of Mark Niederbrock, a pastor.
McCroskey had three run-ins with law enforcement in the hours before Gibson picked him up.
First, police came to the Kelley home just before midnight the previous night to check on Wells at her mother's request. Authorities say McCroskey told an officer that Wells was at the movies.
An hour later, McCroskey called police and said he had heard noise in the basement and asked them to check it. Two officers entered a different part of the house from where the bodies were found, and they searched the basement and left.
Then, about 4 a.m., McCroskey got a stolen car stuck on a remote country road in Prince Edward County and got a ticket for driving without a license. McCroskey is charged with stealing the car, which had not been reported stolen, from Mark Niederbrock.
A wrecker towed the car and gave McCroskey a ride to a Sheetz convenience store in Farmville. In an interview, the wrecker driver said McCroskey smelled like a dead animal.
Cody Scott, a 17-year-old server and manager at the Huddle House, a quarter-mile from the Sheetz, said he arrived at work at 6 a.m. and struck up a conversation with McCroskey, who already was there. McCroskey ordered a sandwich and fries.
McCroskey told Scott he was from California, and when Scott asked him what he was doing in Farmville, McCroskey replied, "I had to take care of some business."
Scott said he asked McCroskey why he looked so tired, and McCroskey said he had been awake for days. Scott asked him why, but McCroskey shrugged his shoulders and kept eating.
McCroskey also told Scott how to find his MySpace page and said Scott should listen to his rap songs on there and see if he liked them. In one of McCroskey's songs, he raps about murder, rotting corpses and stashing human remains.
When Gibson, the cab driver, picked up McCroskey about 8:20 a.m., he asked why McCroskey had called a cab from Charlottesville, about 60 miles from Farmville. McCroskey said he called information and couldn't find one in Farmville and eventually found a number for Access Taxi.
Gibson said he and McCroskey talked for most of the trip to the airport and that McCroskey spoke passionately about his involvement in the horrorcore music scene and also about his girlfriend. McCroskey told Gibson he met Emma Niederbrock online about a year ago through their mutual interest in underground music.
McCroskey also told Gibson that his girlfriend's parents had taken them to a music festival in Michigan on Sept. 12 and that they had a good time. But McCroskey said he later saw the text message on her phone from a man with whom she had talked at the festival. The message said he loved her and wanted to be with her.
McCroskey didn't say what day he had found the message.
A Chesterfield County police officer stopped Gibson for speeding through a school zone on the way to the airport, and McCroskey got out to smoke a cigarette but appeared calm. They stopped at a bank so McCroskey could withdraw some money, and he paid Gibson $130 when they got to the airport about 9:30 a.m.
Police took McCroskey into custody the next day at the airport and charged him with killing and robbing Mark Niederbrock and with stealing his car. Authorities have said additional homicide charges are expected.
Gibson said he was shocked when he learned McCroskey was suspected in the horrific slayings.
"I enjoyed talking to him," Gibson said. "He was interesting."



Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com

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http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/FARM26_20090925-222606/295597/

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Slain W.Va. teenager mourned at service

JAMIE WEST THE (MARTINSBURG, W.VA.) JOURNAL
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• SPECIAL REPORT: Farmville killings • VIDEO: Suspect arrested at airport • VIDEO: Alternative view of suspect's arrest • VIDEO: Look around "Syko Sam's" room • AUDIO: Prince Edward Commonwealth’s Attorney James Ennis identifies the victims and the cause of death • MAP: Farmville, murder site

INWOOD, W.Va. -- It was a somber evening at the Brown Funeral Home's South Berkeley Chapel, as about 150 of Melanie Wells' friends and family gathered to remember the young woman and mourn the tragic loss of a loving friend, daughter and sister.
Wells, 18, was one of four victims found bludgeoned to death Sept. 18 in Farmville. Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, 20, of Castro Valley, Calif., is suspected in all four deaths.
At the service last night, photo collages of Wells' life were at the front of the room, and emotional rock songs such as "21 Guns" by Green Day and "Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down played before Pastor Jeff McLeod of First Baptist Church spoke on behalf of the Wells family.
"I just don't understand this," he said. "Like all of you here today, I struggle to understand times like this."
"God isn't up there pulling levers," he said. "People have the ability to make choices for themselves."
McLeod read a note from Wells' family that detailed their memories of her as a child, including her love of picking wildflowers and her fascination with dinosaurs.
"She could name all their scientific names," McLeod read.
The note also spoke of Wells' infectious laugh, how she loved her family, friends and her cat Beans, and that she had a big heart. If she found a bug in the house, she would let it out.
The family's note included a story of Wells' first day at Musselman High School, after her family's move to the area from Louisville, Ky. Wells expressed fear that she would have no friends, and that everyone there knew each other.
As that first day passed and the final school bell rang, Wells displayed that contagious energy by returning with several new friends, "evident by the people here today," the note concluded.
Wells had planned to pursue GED certification and hoped to attend a college in Virginia, McLeod said.
He encouraged those at the service to "drop their rocks and take care of one another. The world would be a better place if we love one another, and there would be less of these senseless things happening."
Members of Wells' family, as well as friends, declined to comment after the service, citing respect for the family.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/article/FARM26S1_20090925-222201/295585/

The unfolding of a cruel crime in Farmville, and a strange one




Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, 20, recorded rap songs about murder and rotting bodies.

By Reed Williams
Published: September 27, 2009
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• SPECIAL REPORT: Farmville killings • VIDEO: Suspect arrested at airport • VIDEO: Alternative view of suspect's arrest • VIDEO: Look around "Syko Sam's" room • AUDIO: Prince Edward Commonwealth’s Attorney James Ennis identifies the victims and the cause of death • MAP: Farmville, murder site

Mark Niederbrock was on the phone with his 70-year-old mother in Illinois when he got a call on the other line that would lead to his death.
It was Kathleen Wells, calling from West Virginia, and she couldn't get in touch with her daughter, Melanie, who was in Farmville visiting Mark's daughter, Emma.
Niederbrock said goodbye to his mother and told her he was going to his estranged wife's house to check on the two teenagers.
That telephone conversation the afternoon of Sept. 17 was the last time Jan Niederbrock spoke to her only child.
About 24 hours later, police found Mark Niederbrock's body and the bodies of Emma Niederbrock, 16; Wells, 18, of Inwood, W.Va.; and Emma's mother, Longwood University professor Debra S. Kelley. The victims were bludgeoned to death in Kelley's home, but authorities have not said exactly how or when they were killed, nor have they assigned a motive.
The killings and the arrest of Emma Niederbrock's boyfriend, Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, 20, of Castro Valley, Calif. -- an aspiring rapper with songs about murder, rotting bodies and voices in his head -- have shaken the Farmville community of 7,300. Residents are alarmed not only at the cruelty of the crime but also its utter strangeness.
As new details emerged last week about McCroskey's macabre music interests and bizarre movements after the killings, the community is bracing itself, knowing the story is likely to become even more disturbing.
Sam McCroskey lived with his father and 21-year-old sister, Sarah, at their home in Castro Valley.
He always was an average student, and he had friends, according to his mother, Chevelle McCroskey, who separated from her husband a few months ago. He took karate lessons, enjoyed jogging and watching horror movies with his family, and he never got a detention in school, she said.
Chevelle McCroskey was so protective of her son that she worked as a teacher's aide from his kindergarten through third-grade years. In 10th grade, he started an independent study program, working mostly at home, and earned a GED diploma.
Sam McCroskey's father works construction and plays guitar in a band called S&M, and his sister, a drummer, used to play for a heavy-metal band.
McCroskey, whose stage name is Syko Sam, spent a lot of time recording music in his room, which was decorated with a hockey mask like the one worn by the Jason character in the "Friday the 13th" movies.
In one of his songs, McCroskey raps about murdering people, then stealing a car and frantically trying to discard the bodies. In another, he raps about voices urging him on in a murder rampage and refers to the smell of rotting human remains.
McCroskey started talking with Emma Niederbrock, a pretty girl with bright pink hair, about a year ago. The two talked by phone almost daily.
They arranged to meet for the first time in early September.
"I cant waiiiit to see you baby its like 6:17 AM, and ive been up since 4ish filled with uber amounts of excitement I can't wait. i leave to pick you up in five hours. gahh . . . ," Emma wrote on his MySpace page. "My insides feel all squishy. I love you sooo SO much baby; forever and for always."
Emma and her mother picked him up at the airport, and McCroskey later said he was amazed by Emma's smile.
It is not clear how Emma and McCroskey spent the few days between his arrival Sept. 7 and Sept. 10, when they left Farmville for Southgate, Mich., for the Strictly for the Wicked Festival on Sept. 12. Debra Kelley and Mark Niederbrock drove their daughter, McCroskey and Melanie Wells.
When Mark Niederbrock first met McCroskey, he thought he was a nice young man, said Marvin Glover of Walker's Presbyterian Church in Appomattox County, where Niederbrock was pastor. Niederbrock had shared his worries about his daughter's music with his congregation, but he could not bring himself to forbid it.
"It was something she wanted to do," Glover said, "and Mark loved his daughter."
In Michigan, they stayed at a motel -- Kelley, Wells and Emma Niederbrock in one room, Mark Niederbrock in his own room, and McCroskey in a third room.
There, they met up with friends Andres Shrim, a horrorcore rapper who goes by the name SickTanicK, and his girlfriend, a fellow performer he identified only as Razakel.
The night before the festival, McCroskey, Wells and Emma Niederbrock hung out with Shrim and Razakel. Razakel braided Wells' hair. McCroskey was quiet but got along with everyone.
Shrim remembers having a soda with McCroskey on the motel balcony, and he ribbed McCroskey about the hickies on his neck. "He just kind of giggled," Shrim said.
While Emma seemed excited to meet McCroskey in person just days before, the couple apparently had a falling out during his visit, possibly after McCroskey found a text message on her phone from another man and confronted her.
Shrim said McCroskey and Emma weren't clingy at the music festival, but he was unaware of a disagreement.
"As far as I had seen, everything was cool," Shrim said. "You didn't see themselves around each other as you would think if they were together. If there was some sort of disagreement, they kept it private."
Damian "Insane D" Pavlovich, who also performed at the festival, said McCroskey was oddly quiet and gave him a bad vibe. "He was videotaping the show, but he was kind of in his own corner," he said.
Several YouTube videos posted by Shrim show Wells and Emma dancing and singing near the stage as Shrim and Razakel performed. Pavlovich said he later saw the girls without McCroskey at an after-party in a motel room.
"They seemed to be having probably the best time of their life," Pavlovich recalled. "In a world of pain and anger that they go through, it was probably a time of bliss for them."
The two parents and the three young horrorcore fans returned to Farmville on Sunday, Sept. 13.
On MySpace, Wells wrote that the festival was great, and that she planned to return to West Virginia on Wednesday. Shrim said he believes his girlfriend last talked to Wells and Emma Niederbrock that Tuesday.
But Wells didn't make it home.
Worried, her mother called Mark Niederbrock on Thursday about 2 p.m. and also called Farmville police. A town officer went to the Kelley home at her request just before midnight, and McCroskey answered the door calmly and said Wells was at the movies.
The officer left.
McCroskey also spoke by phone with Wells' mother and told her the same thing.
After the officer's visit, McCroskey called police and said he heard noises in the basement and asked police to come check it. All four victims were dead by then, police say, and it's not clear why McCroskey called police back to the house.
Two officers arrived and entered a different part of the house from where the bodies later were discovered. They checked the basement, which was covered in animal feces, and then left. Authorities later found two dogs and two cats inside the house.
"They're trying to beat themselves up thinking that they could have done something, but it just wasn't anything out of the ordinary," Farmville police Sgt. Andy Ellington said. "There was no reason to think that he didn't belong there."
About 4 a.m., McCroskey got Mark Niederbrock's car stuck while trying to turn around on a narrow, remote stretch of Poor House Road in Prince Edward County. A deputy ticketed him for driving without a license. The car had not been reported stolen.
Tow-truck driver Elton Napier moved the car and gave McCroskey a ride to a nearby Sheetz convenience store. He noticed that McCroskey smelled like a dead animal and said it made him sick even with the windows down in the wrecker.
"I told one of the deputies, 'You ought to take him down and give him a bath,'" Napier recalled.
He also asked McCroskey about his neck, which appeared to be covered with hickies. McCroskey said he got them from his girlfriend.
At 6 a.m., waiter Cody Scott arrived for his shift at the 24-hour Huddle House restaurant about a quarter-mile from Sheetz. He saw McCroskey sitting at the counter and drinking a No Fear energy drink.
McCroskey ordered a BBQ sandwich and put mustard on it, which Scott found odd. He and Scott talked off and on for a couple of hours -- McCroskey said he was a rapper from California and told Scott how to find his music on MySpace.
Scott, who also is from California, asked McCroskey what he was doing in Farmville. "I had to take care of some business," McCroskey replied.
Scott noticed that McCroskey had bags under his eyes and told him he looked exhausted. McCroskey said he hadn't slept in days. Scott asked him why, but he only shrugged and kept eating.
Charlottesville cab driver Curtis Gibson pulled up to the Huddle House about 8:20 a.m. and tried calling the number McCroskey had left with the dispatcher. It went straight to voice mail, a girl's voice.
Gibson walked inside and asked if someone had ordered a cab. McCroskey stood. After they got into his minivan, McCroskey said he hadn't been able to find a taxi in Farmville and Gibson was the closest he could find.
When Gibson first saw McCroskey, he thought he looked like a punk kid. But he changed his mind during the roughly hourlong drive.
"He looked younger than what he is, and I thought he acted a whole lot older," Gibson said.
McCroskey smelled horrible. Gibson never had smelled anything like it. He cracked two windows in the back, where McCroskey was sitting, and turned up the air conditioning, adjusting the vents to blow to the back.
McCroskey spoke passionately about his interest in underground music.
He said he met a girl online and had come to Farmville to see her for the first time. He said her parents took them to a show in Michigan.
McCroskey's voice remained steady when he mentioned that he found a text message on Emma's phone from a man who was at the festival. He said he had thought she and the man were just friends, but the message said he loved her and wanted to be with her.
McCroskey told Gibson that his girlfriend got angry and accused him of invading her privacy after he confronted her about the text. He didn't want to argue, so he waited until she was asleep early that morning or the night before and then left the Farmville house to head back to the airport and home to California.
He shouldn't have invaded her privacy, he told Gibson.
Gibson asked him if he had a phone. He said he had one, but the battery was dead and he had left a charger and some other things at his girlfriend's home. He said he would try to sweet-talk her into sending them to him in California.
On the way to the airport, a Chesterfield County police officer stopped Gibson's minivan about 9 a.m. for driving 52 mph in a 35-mph zone.
When the officer took Gibson's driver's license and returned to his motorcycle to write a speeding ticket, McCroskey asked Gibson if he had any outstanding warrants. Gibson said no and asked if McCroskey did. McCroskey grinned and said he didn't have a record.
He got out and smoked a cigarette.
They stopped at a cash machine so McCroskey could pay for the ride. He gave Gibson $130 when they got to the airport about 9:30 a.m.
McCroskey had a flight to California set for two days later, Sunday. He tried to change it to an earlier day but didn't have the $150 fee to rebook it. He only had about $50.
Police say he hung around the airport Friday overnight, waiting for the flight.
On Saturday morning, airport police took him into custody after they recognized him from a wanted poster. Surveillance video from the airport shows McCroskey presenting an ID to the officers, then casually walking away with them.
By Friday morning, Sept. 18, Melanie Wells' mother still hadn't heard from her daughter, so she called Melanie's friend Razakel.
Razakel and Shrim started making calls, and Shrim said he spoke to a friend of McCroskey. That friend had received a disturbing call Friday from McCroskey in which McCroskey said he "killed everyone," Shrim said.
Later Friday, after Wells' mother asked Farmville police to check Kelley's house again, officers found four bodies inside. Within hours, Shrim called Farmville police with information on McCroskey, and police named him as their suspect.
McCroskey is charged with first-degree murder of Mark Niederbrock, but authorities say more homicide charges are likely. He is being held at Piedmont Regional Jail with a preliminary hearing scheduled Jan. 11.
He's not on suicide watch but is segregated from other prisoners because his case is high-profile, jail Superintendent Ernest Tony said.
McCroskey rarely speaks, except when his attorney visits. He spends most of his time asleep.



Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com

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When Raising Teens, the Devil Is Indeed in the Details

ROBIN BERES STAFF COLUMNIST
Published: October 4, 2009
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danville_regi373:http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/opinion/commentary/article/ED-BERES04_20091002-195406/297031/

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Had Wormwood's first assignment been Syko Sam McCroskey, his task would have been much easier. The minion would have been a hero of the underworld and the letters from his Uncle Screwtape would have beamed with pride.
C. S. Lewis' book, The Screwtape Letters -- a series of letters from a senior devil advising a junior demon on claiming the soul of a young man -- describes how we allow evil to enter our lives. Sometimes it's the little, insignificant things we do that permit evil to gain a foothold. But sometimes people just open the front door and invite it right on in.
While it can't be proved that Satan does exist, events such as what happened in Farmville last month make a pretty strong case that the prince of hell could be real.
In today's enlightened era, many believe that the concept of Lucifer is an outdated idea -- no more frightening or dangerous than the boogeyman. In the preface of The Screwtape Letters, Lewis wrote: "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existences. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both."
The events in the small college town last month shook many to the core. As details continue to emerge, the story grows ever grimmer. Americans across the country have been shocked to learn of the sleazy style of music known as horrorcore. A sub-genre of hip-hop, the dark music focuses around such topics as cannibalism, suicide, murder, rape, and a definitely unhealthy interest in Satanism.
Fans of horrorcore claim the music is just a release. Sorry, but no, I don't buy it. Jogging is a release. The glorified, gorified images of Satan and the song lyrics praising evil that are splashed on the pages of horrorcore Web sites would have, in an earlier day, constituted devil worship, plain and simple.
Razakel, a female horrorcore artist who goes by the name of "Queen of the Wicked (expletive)," was a friend of the slain girls, Emma Niederbrock and Melanie Wells. The two teens had done online promotional work for the artist and were referred to as her "unholy apostles."
Razakel says she will never use the slayings in her music, but she also told the Associated Press, "We rap about it and it finally happens. It should be like a slap in our face, right? Well, no -- (expletive) happens."
Someone should point out to the young lady that a lot more than a four-letter word happened. Four brutal murders were committed, inspired by sick lyrics.
Don't blame the music? OK, then what about the people the music attracts? Can we blame them? That's probably not fair, either. But it is fair to ask what it is about the music that attracts young people. And it is fair to ask if allowing an emotionally troubled child to indulge in this music is not unlike allowing a child with a compromised immune system to hang out in a hospital emergency room.
Is it more than a coincidence that neither Emma nor Melanie -- nor McCroskey, for that matter -- had high school diplomas? They had all dropped out.
Two beautiful, albeit confused, teenagers and a mother and father are dead and a young man is behind bars.
As we try to grasp the horror of it all, a hundred more questions come to mind: Why would parents let a 16-year-old daughter listen to that filth? How could parents let their 16-year-old daughter invite a 20-year-old man she met over the Internet into their home? Why would parents drive two teenage girls and an unknown 20-year-old more than 600 miles to a horrorcore concert?
Anyone who has raised teenagers knows how hard it can be. If you haven't had a teen turn your home into an emotional war zone at least once, count yourself lucky.
It can be tempting to give in to their demands just to keep the peace. As parents, crossing those turbulent waters of adolescence with three sons, my husband and I can testify that giving in makes matters only worse. The concept of "just this once" does not exist for an adolescent. Cave once and that becomes the expected norm, and only makes it that much harder to stand your ground the next time.
When teens are engaging in activities that are inappropriate, parents have to step up and say no. Set and keep boundaries. Teens need them, and despite loud protests, they want them.
We have survived teenagers. They grow out of it. One day they come to like and appreciate their parents again. It's amazing what a year or two of college can do.
Of course Mark Twain summed it up well: "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished how much the old man had learned in seven years."
If you have a teenager, give that kid a hug. He may pretend to recoil in shock, but he'll also appreciate it.
No one ever said raising children would be easy. And if your children are healthy and happy, let them see you say an extra prayer of thanksgiving to God -- you know, the Good Guy.



Contact Robin Beres at (804) 649-6305 or mberes@timesdispatch.com

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Indictments reveal details in Farmville slayings

By Reed Williams
Published: November 4, 2009
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danville_regi373:http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/FARM04_20091103-223004/303535/

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FARMVILLE -- Authorities believe two weapons -- a ball-peen hammer and a wood-splitting maul -- were used to bludgeon four people to death inside a Longwood University professor's home in September, a source close to the investigation confirmed yesterday.
Also yesterday, Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III of Castro Valley, Calif., was served with indictments on six counts of capital murder in the bludgeoning deaths of professor Debra S. Kelley, 53; her estranged husband, Mark Niederbrock, 50; their daughter, Emma Niederbrock, 16; and Melanie Wells, 18, Emma's friend from Inwood, W.Va. All four were discovered dead Sept. 18 in Kelley's Farmville home.
McCroskey, who recorded violent rap music using the name "Syko Sam," also faces a charge of grand larceny that accuses him of stealing Mark Niederbrock's car.
Indictments in the case were returned Oct. 19 but were not unsealed until yesterday.
Investigators recovered several possible weapons from the home, including a ball-peen hammer and a wood-splitting maul, according to the court papers unsealed yesterday. A maul is a tool with a long handle with a head like an ax on one side and a hammer on the other.
Authorities believe both the hammer and the maul were used on each of the victims, according to the source close to the investigation. All four victims were bludgeoned beyond recognition, the source added.
.
Officials also removed from the Kelley home a meat cleaver and a red-stained knife, but authorities do not believe either of those weapon was used in the killings, the source said.
Three of the four bodies were found in a downstairs bedroom, according to court documents. The other was found in a room upstairs. Authorities have not said which bodies were found in which room.
Authorities believe one or more of the victims might have been attacked while asleep, but they don't know that for certain, the source said.
McCroskey has not discussed the crimes with investigators.
Authorities say they might never know on what day the three female victims died, although investigators say they believe Mark Niederbrock was killed after Kelley and the two teens. Charging documents say Niederbrock was killed Sept. 17, the day before the bodies were found.
At least 98 items were recovered from Kelley's home, including sketchbooks, electronic equipment and a note to Wells found on a kitchen table. The search warrant return did not indicate what the note said or who wrote it.
Documents also show items seized from Niederbrock's stolen car and from a satchel McCroskey had with him when he was arrested Sept. 19 at Richmond International Airport. Police believe he spent the night at the airport awaiting a return flight to California.
Investigators also have sought to search various cell phones and other electronic devices for images, text or other evidence. According to an affidavit for a search warrant, investigators were seeking to determine whether the suspect had documented his activities while at Kelley's home using a computer, cell phone or video camera.
McCroskey, 20, met Emma Niederbrock online through their mutual interest in horrorcore rap music. He flew to Virginia on Sept. 6 to meet her for the first time and to attend a horrorcore show with her and Wells in Michigan. Kelley and Mark Niederbrock accompanied the teens and McCroskey to Michigan.
In Virginia, a person can be charged with capital murder when there are certain aggravating circumstances such as the murder of a police officer; murder in the commission of a rape or robbery; or more than one murder in a three-year period. A defendant can be charged, tried and convicted of more than one count of capital murder for the same murder.
Each of the capital-murder indictments against McCroskey charges him with killing multiple people within three years.
His next court date is Jan. 19, when a trial date is scheduled to be set.


Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com

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http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/FARM04_20091103-223004/303535/

Details surface on murder weapons in Farmville slayings



FARMVILLE POLICE.


Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, 20, met victim Emma Niederbrock, 16, online through their mutual interest in horrorcore rap music.


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READ THE COURT DOCUMENTS:



• Indictments

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• Search Warrant 7
• Search Warrant 8




By Reed Williams
Published: November 4, 2009
Updated: November 4, 2009 11:33 AM
» 14 Comments | Post a Comment

danville_regi373:http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/FARM041_20091104-001202/303559/

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FARMVILLE—Two weapons—a ball-peen hammer and a wood-splitting maul—were used to bludgeon four people found dead inside a Longwood University professor’s home in September, a source close to the investigation confirmed yesterday.
Also yesterday, Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, 20, of Castro Valley, Calif., was served with indictments on six counts of capital murder in the bludgeoning deaths of professor Debra S. Kelley, 53; her estranged husband, Mark Niederbrock, 50; their daughter, Emma Niederbrock, 16; and Melanie Wells, 18, Emma’s friend from Inwood, W.Va.
All four were discovered dead Sept. 18 in Kelley’s Farmville home.
McCroskey, who recorded violent rap music using the name “Syko Sam,“ also faces a charge of grand larceny that accuses him of stealing Mark Niederbrock’s car.
A Prince Edward County grand jury returned the indictments Oct. 19, but they were sealed until yesterday.
Investigators recovered several possible weapons from the home, including the ball-peen hammer and wood-splitting maul, according to the court papers unsealed yesterday. A maul is a tool with a long handle with a head like an ax on one side and a hammer on the other.
All four victims were bludgeoned beyond recognition, the source said.
Officials also removed from the Kelley home a meat cleaver and a red-stained knife, but authorities do not believe either of those weapon was used in the killings, the source said.
Three of the four bodies were found in a downstairs bedroom, according to court documents. The other was found in a room upstairs. Authorities have not said which bodies were found in which room.
Authorities believe one or more of the victims might have been attacked while sleeping, but they don’t know that for certain, the source said.
The ball-peen hammer and the maul already were in the home and were not acquired for the purpose of committing the killings, the source said.
McCroskey has not discussed the crimes with investigators.
Authorities say they might never know on what day the three female victims died, although investigators say they believe Mark Niederbrock was killed after Kelley and the two teenagers. Charging documents filed earlier in the case say Niederbrock was killed Sept. 17, the day before the bodies were found.
At least 98 items were recovered from Kelley’s home, including sketchbooks, electronic equipment, a pair of stained eyeglasses, and a note to Wells found on a kitchen table. The search warrant return did not indicate what the note said or who wrote it.
McCroskey might have documented his activities while at Kelley’s home using a computer, cell phone or camera, according to an affidavit for a search warrant. Digital cameras might contain pictures of the crime scene, the affidavit states.
Court documents also name items seized from Niederbrock’s stolen car, including an assortment of pills and a folding knife, and items from a satchel McCroskey had with him when he was arrested Sept. 19 at Richmond International Airport. Police believe he spent the night at the airport awaiting a return flight to California.
Investigators sought phone records from Mark and Emma Niederbrock’s cell phones and retrieved call records and text-message data, according to an affidavit for one of several search warrants.
McCroskey met Emma Niederbrock online through their mutual interest in horrorcore rap music. He flew to Virginia on Sept. 6 to meet her for the first time and to attend a horrorcore show with her and Wells in Michigan. Kelley and Mark Niederbrock accompanied the teenagers and McCroskey to Michigan.
Representing McCroskey are attorneys Cary B. Bowen and G. Russell Stone Jr. Stone said last night that it was too early to say much about the capital-murder charges, but he said neither he nor his client was surprised by them.
Prince Edward Commonwealth’s Attorney James R. Ennis was not taking questions yesterday, according to a woman at his office.
In Virginia, a person can be charged with capital murder when there are certain aggravating circumstances such as the murder of a police officer; murder in the commission of a rape or robbery; or more than one murder in a three-year period. A defendant can be charged, tried and convicted of more than one count of capital murder for the same murder.
Each of the capital-murder indictments against McCroskey charges him with killing multiple people within three years.
His next court date is Jan. 19, when a trial date is scheduled to be set.



Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/FARM041_20091104-001202/303559/

Retired policeman speaks in Farmville on occult

By Jeremy Slayton
Published: November 16, 2009
Updated: November 16, 2009 1:40 AM
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danville_regi373:http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/FARM16_20091115-221607/305945/

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FARMVILLE -- Juggalos, Wiccans, Satanists and vampires are all subcultures of the occult that are on the periphery of the mainstream.
But the recent quadruple homicide in Farmville at the home of a Longwood University professor has thrust these lifestyles into the headlines.
Don Rimer, a retired member of the Virginia Beach Police Department who studies ritual crime and the occult, spoke yesterday about these cultures and ritual crime to about 100 people at Farmville United Methodist Church.
"This is all about education. This is awareness and recognition about all of these behaviors, and the crimes associated with them," Rimer said, although he was quick to point out that not all people associated with Satanism and the occult are violent criminals.
His four-hour talk drew a diverse crowd to Farmville, where Longwood professor Debra S. Kelley, 53; her estranged husband, Mark Niederbrock, 50; their daughter, Emma Niederbrock, 16; and Melanie Wells, 18, Emma's friend from Inwood, W.Va., were found bludgeoned to death Sept. 18 in Kelley's home.
Emma Niederbrock met Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III of Castro Valley, Calif., the man charged with six counts of capital murder in the killings, online through a mutual interest in horrorcore rap music. Emma Niederbrock and Kelley attended the church where yesterday's workshop was held.
While the instructional talk was aimed at educating community members about different religions, it had other purposes, too. "It's about healing and understanding," said Nancy Haga, a church member.
Wanda Whitus said the September slayings served as a wake-up call to the community. "This is really happening in our society," she said.
Several members of the Farmville Town Council attended Rimer's presentation. Councilman David Whitus said he was unfamiliar with some of these subcultures before the September killings, and he attended to learn more.
Rimer didn't specifically address the Farmville killings, but he discussed the growing group called the Juggalos, followers of the horrorcore rap group Insane Clown Posse. Two Juggalos were charged in last month's slaying of a New Hampshire woman who was killed with a machete and knife.
On one of McCroskey's MySpace pages, he referred to himself as "a juggalo," and a video posted on his YouTube page that was filmed inside his California bedroom shows at least one large Insane Clown Posse poster on the wall. In his own music, posted on a MySpace page under the stage name "Syko Sam," McCroskey rapped about murder and mutilation.
These subcultures "survive and prosper because their ceremonies are filled with secrets, sins and sex," Rimer said. "Their rules are mysterious and elaborate."
Rimer has immersed himself in these cultures, observing their rituals and conducting interviews. He said teenagers may spiral from dabbling in these cultures to acting out violently..
"By educating people and coming together as a community, we can help prevent tragic endings for any of our young people," said the Rev. Sylvia S. Meadows, pastor of Farmville United Methodist Church. "Be aware of when they are in need, [we] can intervene and offer them the support networks they need to have healthy lifestyles."



Contact Jeremy Slayton at (804) 649-6861 or jslayton@timesdispatch.com

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Life Horror

By Bill Hewitt
Emma Niederbrock's Parents Thought They Were Doing the Right Thing in Letting Her Revel in the Bizarre Horrorcore Rap Scene. and It May Have Cost Them Their Lives

From PEOPLE Magazine Click to enlarge

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When their teenage daughter Emma went into a goth phase a while back, Debra Kelley and Mark Niederbrock thought long and hard about what to do and decided to accept her adolescent rebellion rather than fight it. So they didn't forbid her from dyeing her hair bright pink and wearing heavy black makeup. Even when Emma, 16, developed a fascination with horrorcore rap—a bizarre subgenre that celebrates murder, cannibalism and just about every other depravity under the full moon—they gamely kept their dismay in check. "Debra and Mark were greatly concerned," says Ken Perkins, a professor of sociology at Longwood University in Farmville, Va., where Debra also taught. But they concluded, says Perkins, that "you either go along with kids or watch them walk out the door."

Now friends wish the couple had pushed back. On Sept. 18 police discovered the bodies of Emma and her parents, along with that of a friend, Melanie Wells, 18, at their home in Farmville. Authorities quickly arrested Richard "Sammy" McCroskey III, 20, an aspiring horrorcore rapper who goes by the name Syko Sam, in connection with the murders. McCroskey, who lives near San Francisco and had met Emma last year, had been staying with the family for about two weeks. Autopsies revealed all four victims died of blunt-force trauma to the head, and investigators alleged that McCroskey spent days in the house with the corpses. Says one shaken police source: "It was the most gruesome crime scene I have ever attended."

The murders stunned friends of the victims, not only for their brutality but for the fact that Kelley, 53, and Niederbrock, 50, were unusually well-suited to protect their daughter. Kelley specialized in criminology, especially violence against women. Niederbrock—he and Kelley were separated but maintained a close relationship—was a beloved pastor at Walker's Presbyterian Church, whose parishioners portray him as an exceptionally dedicated dad. Friends agree. "They were in family counseling together, and it was going fine," says Jeannie Langan, a longtime pal of the couple's.

The couple hoped that Emma, who was their only child, was just going through a rough period. Thus they allowed her to invite McCroskey to fly out and spend a few days. Fearing Emma might run away with McCroskey if they forbade her from attending a horrorcore mash-up called the Strictly for the Wicked Festival in Michigan, they drove the teens 1,300 miles there and back. "Debra thought at least if we take them there, we'll make sure they're safe," says Langan.

And indeed, for all Emma's attraction to the dark side, she remained underneath a sweet-natured girl. "Her smile came from her mother: beautiful, genuine, radiant," says Perkins. Given that there weren't many other goths in Farmville, Emma, who was homeschooled, turned to the Internet for companionship. "On the weekends she and a friend would go into the Wal-Mart and revel in the attention," says James Hodgson, a professor at Virginia State University, who knew the family well. "People stared at them." But Emma's infatuation with McCroskey seemed intense. Says Hodgson: "I do believe she felt she was in love with him."

McCroskey and the victims returned from Michigan five days before the bodies were found. The couple's friends were certain that McCroskey did not display any warning signals during his visit with the family. "He did not show up carrying a chainsaw and wearing a hockey mask," says Hodgson, a former police officer.

Friends of McCroskey's in the horrorcore world (see box) echo the notion that he didn't appear all that threatening. "Nobody who knows him saw this coming," says Dan MacDowell, a horrorcore rapper who goes by the name GuttaMind. "If you met him, you wouldn't think there was anything creepy." On the other hand, McCroskey's rap lyrics were anything but bland. Sample: "I've killed many people, and I kill them real slow/ It's the best feeling, watching their last breath."

Just hours before the bodies were discovered, McCroskey ran off the road in Niederbrock's car and needed a tow. The first thing tow-truck driver Elton Napier noticed was the stench coming off McCroskey. "It was awful," he says. "Like a dead animal, only worse." Authorities have said little about a possible motive in the killings. But cab driver Curtis Gibson, who took McCroskey to the Richmond airport, hints jealousy might have played a role. He remembers him talking about how after the Michigan concert he had discovered text messages on Emma's cell phone from a guy she had met at the festival. McCroskey told Gibson that he had confronted his girlfriend about the texts. "She got mad that he invaded her privacy," says Gibson. But, he adds, "[McCroskey] said they would make up and get back together."

Authorities eventually arrested McCroskey in the baggage-claim area at the airport, where he had been sleeping. A trial may provide some answers, but perhaps not all. "Debra and Mark were thinking, 'What do we do? Lock her in the basement, put bars on the windows?'" says Hodgson. "In retrospect, locking her up would have been a good option."

• Contributors:
  
• Susan Keating/Farmville,
  
• Wendy Grossman/Washington,
  
• D.C.,
  
• Johnny Dodd/San Francisco.
  

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20314033,00.html

Mucho Gracias Scott, exactly the kind of stuff we want posted in this subforum, great datadump of articles there! Appreciate the help.

Farmville murders


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Coordinates: 37°17.7971′N 78°24.0735′W / 37.2966183°N 78.401225°W / 37.2966183; -78.401225
Farmville murdersLocationCoordinatesAttack typeWeapon(s)Death(s)Suspected belligerent

Location of Farmville in the U.S. state of Virginia.

505 First Avenue Farmville, Virginia, United States[1][2]

37°17.7971 N 78°24.0735 W

Mass murder

Ball-peen hammer and wood-splitting maul[3][4]

Mark Neiderbrock (age 50) Debra S. Kelley (age 53) Emma Neiderbrock (age 16) Melanie Wells (age 18)[5][6][7][8][9]

Richard Samuel McCroskey (age 20)[10]

The Farmville murders took place in the small college town of Farmville, Virginia in 2009, where four people were murdered. On September 19, 2009, police arrested 20-year-old amateur horrorcore rapper and graphic designer Richard Alden Samuel McCroskey III, also known as Syko Sam, for suspicion of killing Mark Neiderbrock, a pastor at a Presbyterian church in central Virginia.^[11][12] Niederbrock's body was found along with three others at the scene.^[13]

Contents [hide] 1 Suspected perpetrator 1.1 Richard Alden Samuel McCroskey III aka Syko Sam 2 Victims 2.1 Pastor Mark Neiderbrock 2.2 Dr. Debra S. Kelley 2.3 Emma Neiderbrock 2.4 Melanie Wells 3 Murders 4 Arrest of McCroskey 5 Investigation 6 Aftermath 7 References 8 External links

//


[edit] Suspected perpetrator


Richard "Sam" McCroskeyBornResidenceOther namesOccupationKnown for

Richard Alden Samuel McCroskey III[14] December 26th, 1988

Castro Valley, California[10] (Currently held in Piedmont Regional jail[15])

Syko Sam LiLdEmOnDoG[13][16][17]

Amateur rapper, graphic designer[13][16][17]

Accused murderer of 6[4]

[edit] Richard Alden Samuel McCroskey III aka Syko Sam


The suspected perpetrator of the Farmville murders is Richard Alden Samuel "Sam" McCroskey III of Castro Valley, California.^[10] McCroskey has been charged with six counts of capital murder for the four murders.^[4] McCroskey is an amateur horrorcore rapper and graphic designer.^[13][16][17] As a rapper he uses names Syko Sam aka LiLdEmOnDoG.^[13][16][17] He had been into horrorcore since 1999.^[9] His rapper names are both references to David Berkowitz, the 1970s serial killer who called himself "Son of Sam."^[18][19][17] McCroskey's sister, Sarah McCroskey has denied reports that her brother was obsessed with Berkowitz.^[20]
At the time of the Farmville murders McCroskey was a 20-year-old aspiring horrorcore rapper and graphic designer who lived with his father and 21-year-old sister in Castro Valley, California.^[17][10] McCroskey and his sister were raised in Hayward before moving to Castro Valley.^[20] His father, a rock guitarist, introduced him to Insane Clown Posse, Metallica and Primus.^[9] In high school, McCroskey was teased and picked mainly because of his weight and "ginger" hair.^[20] McCroskey spent most of his time in his room, composing music on his computer, designing Web pages or playing video games.^[9] Neighbors have described him as a loner who almost always wore a black hooded sweatshirt.^[21] According to McCroskey's sister Sarah McCroskey, McCroskey was a meek and kind person who never fought back when picked on and wouldn't do anything unless provoked.^[5] According Sarah McCroskey he was way too passive and picking broke his confidence.^[20] McCroskey dropped out of Tennyson High School in Hayward, then went to Hayward High School and dropped out again.^[20]
McCroskey's MySpace Web page said he has only been rapping for a few months but has been a fan for years of the horrorcore genre.^[22] McCroskey's horrorcore style rapping is said to have consisted of violent depictions in its lyrics. His music deals with things such as mutilation, thrill of murder and deaths.^[13] One of McCroskey's songs titled “Murderous Rage” starts out with the sounds of dragging and dumping a dead body and in other titled “My Dark Side” McCroskey talks about how he likes to mutilate and murder.^[15] In “My Dark Side” he raps:^[23]

“

You're not the first, just to let you know. I've killed many people and I kill them real slow. It's the best feeling, watching their last breath. Stabbing and stabbing till there's nothing left.

”

McCroskey's MySpace page has satanic symbols and a portrait of him holding an ax, posed as if he were about to strike.^[15] He is hooded, his face obscured by a skull bandanna and he stands before a Gothic church in a lightning storm.^[9] On his MySpace page his status reads "I hate everything and I hate everyone."^[15] His MySpace page listed horrorcore rapper Mars as his favorite rapper.^[13] In his YouTube video McCroskey flipped over a cross on the grave of a U.S. Marine.^[18]
McCroskey was devastated when his father asked their mother to move out about five months before the murders but he was excited for a planned trip to Virginia to see his girlfriend Emma Neiderbrock.^[9] McCroskey and Niederbrock had been dating online for almost a year.^[24] They talked by phone almost daily.^[25] Emma Niederbrock's 18-year-old friend Melanie Wells had been staying with Emma Neiderbrock and Emma's mother, Debra S. Kelley, in Farmville.^[26] McCroskey flew to visit Emma Niederbrock on September 6.^[21] Days before the killings Emma Niederbrock and Melanie Wells joined McCroskey in Michigan for a horrorcore concert called the Strictly for the Wicked Festival.^[26][27] According to police Emma's parents, Debra Kelley and Mark Niederbrock had taken Emma Neiderbrock, Melanie Wells and McCroskey to the concert.^[24] Kelley had taken her daughter to the concert hoping to keep an eye on her.^[12]
[edit] Victims


The four people that were found killed in Farmville, Virginia were 50-year-old Pastor Mark Neiderbrock; his estranged 53-year-old wife Dr. Debra Kelley, an associate professor of sociology and criminal justice studies at Longwood University; and their 16-year-old daughter Emma Neiderbrock and her 18-year-old friend Melanie Wells, of Inwood, W.Va.^{[5][6][7][8][9]}
[edit] Pastor Mark Neiderbrock


Mark Neiderbrock was 50-year-old Pastor at a Presbyterian church in Hixburg in northern Appomattox County and father of 16-year-old Emma Neiderbrock.^[9][11][28] Neiderbrock had been heading Walker's Presbyterian Church for the past six years.^[28] He was born in Illinois.^[29] Neiderbrock was an Eagle Scout and graduate of the University of Illinois.^[29] Before he entered the ministry he was a graphic designer.^[29] Pastor Neiderbrock and his wife Dr. Debra Kelley were divorced. They had been separated for about a year. Neiderbrock's daughter Emma Neiderbrock lived with his wife.^{[6][7][8][9][5]}
[edit] Dr. Debra S. Kelley


Dr. Debra S. Kelley was a 53-year-old associate professor of sociology and criminal justice studies at Longwood University and estranged wife of pastor Neiderbrock. She lived with her daughter Emma Neiderbrock at the house where the murders took place.^[6][7][8][9] Kelley had taught sociology and criminal justice studies at Longwood since 1994.^[12] She started Longwood's chapter of Lambda Alpha Epsilon, a criminal justice fraternity, and often had students over for cookouts.^[12] According to Kelley's colleague she was disturbed by her daughter's obsession with horrorcore and they were in counseling.^[12]
[edit] Emma Neiderbrock


Emma Neiderbrock was Pastor Mark Neiderbrock's and Dr. Debra Kelley's 16-year-old daughter and Richard Samuel McCroskey's girlfriend.^[6][7][8][9] She was home-schooled since middle school.^[9][12] Emma Neiderbrock dabbled in the occult and obsessed about macabre music but also listened to the Backstreet Boys and played soccer.^[12] Online she used the name RagDOLL.^[12][30]
McCroskey and Emma Neiderbrock were brought together by horrorcore music.^[6] They met about a year before the murders, at a concert near San Diego.^[9] According to friends, neighbors and social network sites, McCroskey was dating Emma Neiderbrock whom he met online on MySpace.^[15] "You are my one and only everything," "I cant waiiiit to see you baby its like 6:17 AM, and ive been up since 4ish filled with uber amounts of excitement I can't wait. i leave to pick you up in five hours. gahh . . . ," and "My insides feel all squishy. I love you sooo SO much baby; forever and for always." wrote Niederbrock at McCroskey's MySpace Web page.^[7][25] Later someone apparently accessed McCroskey's MySpace page and deleted many messages, including those from Niederbrock.^[7]
[edit] Melanie Wells


Melanie Wells was the 18-year-old daughter of Thomas G. Wells Jr. and Kathleen Wells, of Inwood, West Virginia, and Emma Neiderbrock's friend.^{[6][7][8][9][31]} Wells and her family moved to West Virginia from Louisville, Kentucky, just before Wells was to enter high school. Wells dropped out but was studying for her high school equivalency diploma.^[9] She attended Musselman High School.^[32]
Like Emma Neiderbrock Melanie Wells was also a horrorcore fan.^[9] She listened to the same horrorcore as suspect McCroskey.^[26] On her MySpace page Wells lists her religion as LaVeyan Satanism, and posted well written poems and photos which show her cavorting in cemeteries and lying atop gravestones.^[9] Under interests, Wells listed, for example "cigarettes, alcohol, partying, sex, metal, SKR (Serial Killin' Records), lust, restorative arts, blood and gore, open graves, animals."^[9]
It appears that like Emma Neiderbrock, Wells got to know McCroskey online.
[edit] Murders


The murders took place in Farmville, Virginia, about 50 miles west of Richmond. The site of the killings was Debra Kelley's house at 505 First Avenue where Emma Neiderbrock lived with her mother.^[7][9][1][1] The bodies were found just after 3:00 p.m. on September 17.^[33][1] The victims were bludgeoned to death.^[8] Authorities believe a hammer and a maul were used on each of the victims.^[4] Victims were bludgeoned beyond recognition but not dismembered.^[4]
A day before the bodies were found the police came looking for Melanie Wells, and McCroskey answered the door at the home of Debra Kelley and Emma Neiderbrock and calmly told police looking for Wells that she was at the movies with a friend. Wells' mother had called city police asking them to check on her daughter.^[5] Every time Melanie Wells' mother had called Neiderbrock's house and spoke to McCroskey, McCroskey had told her a different story.^[31] Before McCroskey's arrest he stole Niederbrock's 2000 Honda, wrecked it and deputy issued him a summons for driving without a license but they did not arrest him. Prince Edward Sheriff's Sgt. Stuart Raybold said there was no reason for the deputy to be suspicious.^[34] McCroskey also made a call to confess he had just killed the victims and the individual he called contacted McCroskey's record label.^[2] When Melanie Wells' mother called police again they went to the house and discovered the bodies.^[5] Three of the bodies were found in a downstairs bedroom and one in a room upstairs.^[4] The bodies of the victims are said to be badly decomposed.^[1]
[edit] Arrest of McCroskey

Arrest of McCroskey
McCroskey was captured at Richmond International Airport September 18 after 11:00.^[34][35] Police found him sleeping in the baggage claim area.^[36] He was about to fly back to California.^[23] McCroskey did not have a criminal record.^[34] He was first charged with first degree murder, robbery as well as the stealing of a car, but later charged with six counts of capital murder.^[37][4] McCroskey is currenty held in Piedmont Regional jail.^[15] He has been placed on suicide watch.^[20]
[edit] Investigation


Police have stated that each of the victims died from blunt force trauma to the head.^[38] Police occult expert Don Rimer, who was brought in because of symbols found in the music the teens listened, has described the murder scene as a slaughter house.^[39] Police know that Pastor Niederbrock died early Sept. 17 but it is unknown when the other victims were allegedly killed.^[12][1] According to police pastor Neiderbrock was not killed at the time the others were. Their deaths were possibly earlier. ^[40] Investigators say McCroskey acted alone.^[40]
McCroskey has not cooperated with police since his arrest.^[41] When asked about the possible motive, Police Sgt. Andy Ellington from Farmville, VA Ellington said McCroskey responded with "Jesus told me to do it."^[42]
The police have taken McCroskey's computer, house phones and more than a dozen paper bags full of evidence from his home.^[43][20] McCroskey has been charged with six counts of capital murder because he is alleged to have killed multiple people within three years.^[4] According to Farmville police Capt. Wade Stimpson authorities are also looking into McCroskey's "disturbing" songs.^[9]
[edit] Aftermath


The murders shook the community of Farmville. Residents were alarmed not only at the cruelty of the crime but also its utter strangeness.^[25] Well over one hundred people attented Mark Niederbrock's graveside funeral service outside Walker's Presbyterian Church in Hixburg.^[29] 300 people attended Debra Kelley's service, and about 100 came to Emma Niederbrock's.^[44] About 150 of Melanie Wells' friends and family attented Wells' funeral at the Brown Funeral Home's South Berkeley Chapel.^[45]
"I just don't understand this," Pastor Jeff McLeod of First Baptist Church said speaking on behalf of the Wells family. "Like all of you here today, I struggle to understand times like this."^[45] The Rev. Sylvia S. Meadows of Farmville United Methodist Church said that the small college town has come "face to face with evil." and that "We can no longer live as though certain groups don't exist. We can no longer pretend that darkness and forces of evil aren't right under our noses."^[46]
According to Wade Stimpson, a press release was issued to the public although it was not widely known about throughout Farmville. An e-mail was sent to Longwood University students ^[47], and that night many calls were made to the station at both Longwood University and the Farmville Police Department.
The following Monday, the Attorney General and Farmville County Police Department held a press conference where the bodies were identified. Not much other information was disclosed in order to keep the details of the case private due to its state of investigation. Many Longwood students and townspeople felt they were left in the dark and uninformed as to the progression of the investigation. The bodies were found and later, broad information was sent out to the public in the form of articles from the Richmond-Times Dispatch^[48] as well as a short clip being showed on CNN^[49]. Memorial services for all victims were held in Farmville.^[50]
[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} http://www.wset.com/news/stories/0909/660838.html
   
2. ^ ^{a b} http://media.www.therotundaonline.com/media/storage/paper1354/news/2009/09/16/News/Tragedy.On.First.Avenue-3776895.shtml
   
3. ^ http://www2.wsls.com/sls/news/state_regional/article/richard_mccroskey_indicted_in_farmville_murders/59582/
   
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/article/young_calif._man_indicted_for_farmville_killings/303376/
   
5. ^ ^{a b c d e f} http://www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-news-sykosam0922,0,4304856.story
   
6. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Bulwa, Demian (September 23, 2009). "Bay Area suspect allegedly bludgeoned victims". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/23/BAF619QQT5.DTL&type=printable. Retrieved 2009-09-24.
   
7. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/20/MN3M19Q1TP.DTL&tsp=1
   
8. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} http://cbs5.com/local/syko.sam.rapper.2.1199092.html
   
9. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t} http://cbs5.com/crime/syko.sam.rapper.2.1210315.html
   
10. ^ ^{a b c d} "Chilling New Details Emerge in Syko Sam Horrorcore Murders Case". San Francisco Weekly. September 22, 2009. http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2009/09/update_chilling_new_details_em.php. Retrieved 2009-09-24.
    
11. ^ ^{a b} http://www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-news-rapper0921,0,6829662.story
    
12. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} http://www.examiner.com/a-2250383~Slain_Longwood_U__professor__daughter_memorialized.html
    
13. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Drash, Wayne (2009-10-06). "'Horrorcore' singer suspected in Virginia killings". CNN (CNN). http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/06/virginia.horrorcore.killings/index.html. Retrieved 2009-10-06.
    
14. ^ "Castro Valley man arrested, suspect in the killing of four people in Virginia". Tri Valley Herald. September 20, 2009. http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_13379099?source=most_viewed. Retrieved 2009-09-24.
    
15. ^ ^{a b c d e f} http://www.wset.com/news/stories/0909/661036.html
    
16. ^ ^{a b c d} http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2009/09/syko_sam_why_satanic_rap_is_a.php
    
17. ^ ^{a b c d e f} http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2009/09/update_chilling_new_details_em.php
    
18. ^ ^{a b} http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/_Syko_Sam__Video__Bedroom_Show_Disturbing_Obsessions_Bay_Area.html
    
19. ^ http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Castro-Valley-Man-Rapped-on-MySpace-About-Killing-59935827.html
    
20. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13420404?nclick_check=1
    
21. ^ ^{a b} http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1621974/20090921/story.jhtml
    
22. ^ "'Syko Sam' rapper held in four slayings". MSNBC. September 21, 2009. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32955138/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/. Retrieved 2009-09-24.
    
23. ^ ^{a b} http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Gruesome-Details-Revealed-in-Virigina-Killings-60278252.html
    
24. ^ ^{a b} http://www.wtvr.com/wtvr-farmville-jennifer-nelson-concert,0,1880278.story
    
25. ^ ^{a b c} http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/FARM27_20090926-221606/295789/
    
26. ^ ^{a b c} http://www.nbc12.com/Global/story.asp?S=11203275
    
27. ^ http://www2.richmond.com/content/2009/sep/23/221218/farmville-victims-died-blunt-force-trauma/
    
28. ^ ^{a b} http://www.wset.com/news/stories/0909/661342.html
    
29. ^ ^{a b c d} http://www.fox2127.com/dpp/news/metro/WFXR_News_NiederbrockFuneral
    
30. ^ http://www.gainesville.com/article/20090928/ARTICLES/909289968?Title=Singer-Slayings-off-limits-to-horrorcore-rappers
    
31. ^ ^{a b} http://www2.newsadvance.com/lna/news/state_regional/article/father_made_futile_trip_to_farmville_in_search_for_slain_daughter/19928/
    
32. ^ http://www.nbc12.com/Global/story.asp?S=11201226
    
33. ^ http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20091006/horrorcore-rapper-syko-sam-arrested-gruesome-crime.htm
    
34. ^ ^{a b c} http://www2.wsls.com/sls/news/state_regional/article/ca_rapper_suspected_of_killing_va._pastor_3_others/48418/
    
35. ^ http://www.wset.com/news/stories/0909/661238.html
    
36. ^ http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Castro-Valley-Man-Rapped-on-MySpace-About-Killing-59935827.html
    
37. ^ http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world/syko-sam-the-alter-ego-of-richard-alden-samuel-mccroskey-iii-suspect-in-the-virginia-killings_100250475.html
    
38. ^ http://www.nbc12.com/Global/story.asp?S=11173921
    
39. ^ http://www.nbc12.com/Global/story.asp?S=11213232
    
40. ^ ^{a b} http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/crime/article/FARM21_20090920-223409/294416/
    
41. ^ http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Castro-Valleys-Syko-Sam-Obsessed-with-Son-of-Sam-60732532.html
    
42. ^ http://www.nowpublic.com/world/horrorcore-richard-samuel-mccroskey-charged-farmville-murders
    
43. ^ http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Syko-Sams-Motive-May-Be-Linked-To-Text-62205532.html
    
44. ^ http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/article/FARM041_20091003-222407/297346/
    
45. ^ ^{a b} http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/state_regional/article/FARM26S1_20090925-222201/295585/
    
46. ^ http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/10/02/crimesider/entry5358544.shtml
    
47. ^ http://www.longwood.edu/farmvillehomicide.htm
    
48. ^ http://www.longwood.edu/farmvillehomicide.htm
    
49. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtGdH5u1EPw
    
50. ^ http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/FARMGAT03_20091003-164201/297261/
    

[edit] External links

• WTVR: Timeline of Events Leading to the Arrest of Richard "Sam" McCroskey III in the Farmville Murders
  
• NBC12: Farmville murders (Articles and videos)
  
• WTVR Farmville homicide story (Videos)
  
• "Syko Sam" Video, Bedroom Show Disturbing Obsessions (Video)
  
• LilDemonDog’s Channel at YouTube
  
• LiLdEmOnDoG’s MySpace profile
  
• Syko Sam at Last.fm
  
• SykoSam.info
  

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmville_murders"
Categories: People murdered in Virginia | 2009 murders in the United States | Murder in Virginia | Murdered priests | Murdered scientists | Murdered students | Crimes involving Satanism or the occult
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• This page was last modified on 21 April 2010 at 02:25.
  

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) - For the first time, a relative of the Longwood University professor found murdered with three others in Farmville is speaking out.

Dr. Debra Kelley was an associate professor of sociology at Longwood. Her family is upset about what an expert has said about the crime scene.

Billy Borum, a retired undercover Henrico police officer, is speaking on behalf of his aunt and uncle, Debra Kelley's parents. He says the family was surprised to find out an expert on ritual crime and the occult had come into the picture. They call what he has said about the case, inappropriate and false.

"Aunt Margaret has her good days and bad days," said Borum.

Borum says what made matters worse for Kelley's parents, the description of the crime scene by a former Virginia Beach police officer.

...


http://www.nbc12.com/Global/story.asp?S=11227991

Rimer spoke in Farmville at a Church.

See: http://www.witchvox.com/vn/vn_detail...=usva&id=16745 and http://www.farville-umc.org

This is from a story dated October 23, last Friday:

"Sources tell CBS-6 that capital murder charges are expected to be filed in two weeks. A capital murder conviction can potentially lead to a death sentence."

http://www.wtvr.com/news/wtvr-farmvi...,1981283.story

I'm guessing that they are waiting for forensic evidence to come back. It sounds like they are playing this one extremely safe.

From The Daily Star (a UK publication)...

A SICKENING rap offshoot known as “Horrorcore” has been blamed for creating a *bloodthirsty monster who murdered four people and cut up their bodies.

Robert McCroskey, 20, who calls himself Syko Sam, butchered two girls after befriending them in a Horrorcore chatroom.

He accompanied pretty Emma * Neiderbrook, 16, and Melanie Wells, 18, back to Emma’s house before hacking them to death with a saw.

He also murdered Emma’s parents Debra and Mark, who had waited up to check the girls arrived home safely.
Detectives were physically sick when they witnessed the scene in rural Farmville, Virginia.

One said: “Those four bodies lay mutilated for four days before Melanie’s mother raised the alarm and we searched the property.

“The stench was unbelievable and there were sawn and hacked-off body parts and blood everywhere.
“It was like a scene from the worst horror movie you could imagine.”

...

From http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view...-to-the-core-/