Police: Lyrics may have played role in Farmville slayings

Investigators are trying to determine whether a suspect's fascination with violent rap lyrics fueled the killings of four people found dead Friday 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 they still were awaiting completion of autopsies.

Police on Saturday captured the suspect, Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, at Richmond International Airport as he was waiting for a flight to California. That was one day after police found the bodies in the Farmville home of professor Debra S. Kelley, and her daughter, Emma Niederbrock.

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, 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 and grand larceny in the theft of Niederbrock's car.

McCroskey, 20, of Castro Valley, Calif., rapped about torturing and killing people, although police say he didn't act out all of the lyrics.

People who know McCroskey described him as him as a fan and promoter of the horrorcore, which is hip-hop music adapted to violent lyrics, but they said they did not believe he was violent.

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," said Wade Stimpson, acting chief of the Farmville Police Department. "Its ironic that he writes lyrics like this. . . . The fact that he's talking about killing people -- that's close enough to make us interested.