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.“
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
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Reader Reactions
I concur with those that feel this 20 year old should FRY. It doesn’t matter that he ‘would never hurt a fly’...he killed four people.
My prayers an thoughts are with the families of all involved as they are all victims, lives changed forever by the actions of one.I hope that our legal system works its best and justice is served but it is not for me to judge the person while I might comdemn the actions.Sort of hate the sin but not the sinner. It has occurred to me that he was a lonely, sad young man who could only be someone he thought worthwhile in the one area that would allow him to vent the anger raging in him. Regardless of what one may say..writers write from the heart and his was a heart tortured by his own self and by the lack of self esteem of what he saw in himself, thus inventing his alter-ego. Should he be punished? Yes, to the fullest extent of the law…should he suffer for eternity for it? No, it should be the prayers of anyone who can honestly look in a mirror and call themselves a Child of God to pray that intervention happens and the young man finds Christ. Anything else shows that we have lowered the bar of grace and mercy that Jesus showed for us. Mercy…not getting what we deserve. Grace…getting what we don’t deserve. What this young man needs, spiritually, is our prayers and if we do less, then Satan really did win and we allowed it and the world wins.
legal american,
I was responding to Your 8:39 am posting without being aware of Your later posting.I didn’t realize You were being sarcastic.My apologies.We seem to agree that the guy should fry.
I am not blaming the family of the sicko who committed these crimes, but I am also not sympathetic to his family. My sympathies are with the victim’s family. I don’t care about the parents divorce, had a rough childhood, blah blah blah! He will get the death penalty, and that’s what this worthless piece of garbage deserves!
JDTRCTRS4ME, I disagree with your position regarding the killer’s salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in terms of his choices although I think you and me both can safely assume that this young man is not saved. As a part of “general revelation,” all human beings have an innate sense of right and wrong. God’s law is written on the hearts of man (saved or unsaved), woven into the very fabric of who we are. Some would refer to the foregoing as the natural or moral law. This murderer knew his acts were wrong regardless of his standing with God.
As part of our immaterial constitution, that part made in the image of God, we have a will. Dr. A.H. Strong once wrote, “Will is the soul’s power to choose between motives and to direct its subsequent activity according to the motive thus chosen, in other words, the soul’s power to choose both an end and the means to attain it. The choice of an ultimate end we call immanent preference; the choice of means we call executive volition.” In terms of immanent preference or motives, it follows, then, that the dynamics of human sin or evil, given the context of the nature of our posited spiritual reality, man‘s will (post-fall) ¯draws its energy from the spiritual dimension…and that we must admit the possibility…of a source of energy for will…evil – demonic. Similarly, Jonathan Edwards held that ¯every act of the will is excited by a motive, and that ¯that motive is the cause of the act of the will. It follows, then, that motives are not causes, which compel the will, but influences that persuade it.
As a seminary graduate who dealt with the family that murdered my only child, I would argue that there is much more involved with these killings than mere sin or lack of salvation. Given the context of the killer’s spiritual reality, he possessed free will although he allowed himself to be influenced by things that transcend the physical realm. He possessed the ability to refuse this influence however dark.
No, music is not solely responsible for this boy’s actions. The problem is he opened his mind to what the music meant and opened his heart also. It’s so very important to guard your thoughts because this is what can happen. When he allowed himself to listen to this music, he was allowing it to go in farther and farther. It’s like when you stick your finger in a bucket of ice…at first it’s cold, but then it goes numb and it’s no big deal. The same thing applies to sinful behavior. The first lie you tell seems pretty bad, but the next isn’t such a big deal. Before too long, you’ve created an intricate web of lies that you have to keep straight, without even thinking twice. The holy spirit is our guiding conscience, so if someone isn’t saved (as it appears this boy wasn’t), they don’t have that “little voice” telling them not to do things. And even if you are saved, you can only tell the holy spirit to shut up so many times before he stops talking altogether. It’s very similar to tolerance of a drug. You have to keep increasing doses to have the same effect. Sin works like that. Long story short, no the music itself did not make him kill these people, but he let the music influence him to a point that it was a driving factor.
One thing to leave everyone with:
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.“ -Phillipians 4:8 (New Living Translation)
Charlie Can’t Hackit, Would you please read, if you can, my 9:06 a.m. post before you direct your comments to me? There is absolutely no compassion coming from me for this COLD BLOODED KILLER…in fact…the death penalty would be to good for him; however, the RTD will barely print 1 out of every 5 comments I have because I am not a bleeding liberal that has compassion for SELF EXPRESSIONING individuals nor ones who will not take personal responsbility….LIKE YOU!
to legal american,
I wonder how much compassion You would have for this young man if He was standing over You with a hammer after He had just killed Your family.
Difficult childhood? I don’t think so. The mental illness game is one by which one can erect a scapegoat for human problems and, at the same time, financially enrich psychotherapists and others. Environmental conditions are never enough to explain human behavior. In spite of negative environmental influences and circumstances, there are children whose “invulnerability” enabled them to live responsible lives. For instance, an article contrasts two Hispanic men, both of whom had been born in grinding poverty and both of whom grew up to be of harsh and unbending disposition; but one of them became a criminal and other went into law enforcement (Evan Maxwell, Prison Drug Raid: A Matter of Honor, Los Angeles Times, Jan. 6, 1975). I would argue, then, that freedom and will consist in our relationship to our environment and all that determines us.
Just focusing on the music with its lyrics…true MOST people can listen to this kind of music and never commit a crime almost like MOST people can drink a beer and never get a DUI or kill someone drunk driving; however is it because they were lucky not to get caught DUI or that no pedestrians or other vehicles were in the way?
It is a proven FACT that music can lift your spirits (ever attended a black gospel church on Sunday), music can make you cry (ever hear Amazing Grace at someone’s funeral), music can make you feel proud (ever hear the Star Spangled Banner)...so stop trying to convince anyone that MUSIC DOES NOT INFLUENCE EMOTIONAL RESPONSE! This boy was driven by and did exactly what the lyrics of the music he was listening to SAID! He just didn’t wake up one day and decide to be a mass murderer…HE WAS INFLUENCED…music, drugs, alcohol….THEY ALL INFLUENCE BOTH POSITIVELY AND NEGATIVELY!
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