Rapper, suspect’s mother provide slayings case details
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Farmville slaying suspect arrested at airport
Surveillance camera video of Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III being arrested at the Richmond International Airport|
• SPECIAL REPORT: Farmville killings
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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
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Reader Reactions
As far as the smell being noticed by some and not others, the ones that noticed it the most were in a small enclosed space with him. My guess is they did not smell them in the house because maybe he had the doors shut to whatever rooms they were in and the AC on. He was probably trying to hide the smell until he could return to Cali. on Saturday. Maybe once he left he opened the doors up or the smell was just too strong to cover anymore.
What does an April report on the PD have to do with anything? Were you there?NO so don’t second guess them. This freak was caught, too bad he did not try to do something to the cops, so they could have shot him and saved us taxpayers a bunch of money.
While I do not want to start bad mouthing the Farmville Police Department and the job they did or did not do I believe that it is important to hold them to some accountability.
The following excerpt is taken from and independent study done in April of the Farmville Police Department.
“Despite the best intentions of many of the agency’s employees, the Farmville Police Department lacks sufficient and critically needed direction, guidance and accountability. The agency does not have a mission statement or a values statement for direction. It operates under a haphazard system of command and control without structure and consistency. Policies and procedures are antiquated. Organizational systems are more informal than formal. Accountability for performance is often lacking or is provided intermittently based on personal preferences or individual relationships.”
This report may be found at
Personally, I think the first visit from the cops spooked him. So, he called them back to set up an alibi that someone may have been hiding in the house, basement, etc. THEN I think he moved the bodies. Which would explain why the first officers didn’t notice a smell but other later did. I think he may have tried to set up a scene that looked like a break-in so he could say it all happened after he left. He was probably hoping by the time anyone got around to asking him he would be in California.
Regarding the smell, there were several others who noted it. The sheriff’s deputy who called the tow truck smelled it but did not recognize the smell. Also, WTVR has an interview with the cab driver who also noticed the smell.
I am still surprised that the cops who came to the house did not notice it.
I do not believe this kid called the cops to kill them. I’m betting that he called them either as a taunt or because he subconsciously wanted to get caught.
“Hmm.. I think McCroskey called the cops to come investigate the “noises in the basement” with the intention of killing them while they were there, but then he couldn’t follow through with it for whatever reason.“
I’m not sure we’ll ever know for sure - but that certainly has a high degree of probability.
Hmm.. I think McCroskey called the cops to come investigate the “noises in the basement” with the intention of killing them while they were there, but then he couldn’t follow through with it for whatever reason.
“I JUST WANT THE FACTS TO ADD UP!“
I think a lot of us do…
So far the only person speaking of the smell is the Tow Truck Driver.
It would be interesting to hear from some other folks that had contact with him between 4:20AM and when he was apprehended. Here is a list of potential people:
- Customers or Employees at the Sheetz in Farmville
- Travelers at the airport
- The folks at the ticket booth where he tried to change his flight.
- The cab driver that drove him from Farmville to Richmond.
I know from doing ‘adopt a highway’ that decomposing animals have a very distinct smell (and that’s all I can go on). So I agree with you Legal American.
I’m not going to totally call the tow truck driver out - my thoughts are - maybe this guy didn’t smell like decomposing bodies, maybe he just smelled bad. Maybe he was living in a separate part of the house for days, so he wouldn’t smell bad…
The entire case doesn’t make sense. As we get more information things start to come together. But yes I agree, as things are now, there are lots of things that don’t add up.
I suppose that until the Commonwealths Attorney and law enforcement build their case, many of the facts won’t add up.
Trying to find the answers to my posts…I realized…12:58 am the police arrive at the house to investigate—-say they stayed 12 minutes to keep the time even—-it is now 1:10 am and the next thing we now is the deputy ticketed him at 4:20 that is only 3 hours and 10 minutes later…NONE OF THESE POLICE PEOPLE NOTICE A HORRIBLE SMELL but the tow truck driver arrives to tow the car and he is hanging his head out the window??? When the boy is sitting in the airport NO ONE MENTIONS THE SMELL! Is the tow truck driver just trying to make his little part in this story more interesting or what? How did the boy hide the smell if these victims had been killed for any length of time from the visiting officers? “DECOMP” has a particular smell and it is not easily hidden…I don’t care about the emotional aspects of this case…bad mother, sick music, the general public bashing the police department….I JUST WANT THE FACTS TO ADD UP!
Legal American - the smell is a very valid point.
Perhaps given that the police came to ‘another part of the house’ - where there was supposedly a lot of animal feces (from what I read in another article), that is what they attributed the smells to.
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