Suspect told cabbie he confronted girlfriend
MySPACE
Emma Niederbrock, her parents and her friend from West Virginia were found slain in Farmville. Her boyfriend is a suspect in the deaths.
A Charlottesville cab driver today recalled driving the suspect in the Farmville killings from there to Richmond International Airport last Friday morning, hours before police found four bodies.
Curtis Gibson of Access Taxi said Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III told him he had found a text message on his girlfriend’s phone from a man stating that he loved her, and that McCroskey had confronted her about it.
Gibson picked McCroskey up from a Huddle House in the Farmville area after McCroskey, who was not a suspect at the time, called for a cab about 6:20 a.m.
McCroskey smelled horrible, Gibson said, but otherwise seemed like a mature adult who spoke calmly and never raised Gibson’s suspicion. A wrecker driver who gave McCroskey a ride earlier that morning has said he smelled like a dead animal.
McCroskey’s mother has said her son’s girlfriend was Emma Niederbrock. The body of the 16-year-old Niederbrock was found that Friday afternoon, hours after the taxi ride, in the Farmville home she shared with her mother, Debra S. Kelley, a Longwood University professor. Also found in the home were the bodies of Kelley’s estranged husband, Pastor Mark Niederbrock, and Melanie Wells, 18, a friend of Emma’s visiting from West Virginia. All four had been bludgeoned to death.
Gibson said he and McCroskey talked for most of the trip to the airport, and McCroskey spoke passionately about the underground music scene he was involved in and also about his girlfriend. The 20-year-old Californian told Gibson he met the girl online about a year ago through a mutual interest in underground music. He said he saw her for the first time in person when she arrived with her parents to pick him up at Richmond International earlier this month. He was struck by her pretty smile.
McCroskey told Gibson his girlfriend’s parents had taken them to a music show in Michigan on Sept. 12 and that they had a good time. But McCroskey said he later saw a text message on her phone from a man she had talked to at the music show. The message said he loved her and wanted to be with her.
McCroskey said his girlfriend got angry when he confronted her about the message, accusing him of invading her privacy. He told Gibson he didn’t want to argue so he waited for her to go to sleep and left the house.
He was planning to fly from Richmond International to California. Police captured him Saturday at the airport and charged him with with the murder of Mark Niederbrock and have said that additional homicide charges are expected.
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Reader Reactions
Memo to LoveVA - I guess Dr. Kelly got a post-doctoral seminar in violence. Tragic that the seminar was so costly.
There is nothing wrong with a parent telling a 16 year old kid “no” parents who give in to their children are not doing them a favor. This girl clearly was sending signals out about some problem. Sadly, her parents missed the signals or ignored them. Just as the parents (and teachers) of Harris & Klebold ignored the signals those boys sent out, the Niederbrocks found out too late what the situation really was.
I believe that Dr. Kelley must have taken the girls to the festival b/c she was trying to relate to her troubled daughter, but also b/c she was studying the violence of it. She was on sabbatical from the University to study violent behavior as a criminal justice professor. I just can’t think that those things aren’t related in some way.
This was a “perfect storm” if you will for this to happen….although I do not know if we will ever really know what happened in that house. The rumor is that the police are sparing the media the extrememly gruesome way the bodies were left-“hundreds of pieces of evidence” though, you get the idea. He obviously was obsessed w/ murder, death and mutilation…and Dr. Kelley was studying violence. He told the cabbie that Emma was texting w/ another guy, which must have angered him and then mabye he lived out his fantasy of this horrific murder scene.
I am normally not pro-death penalty but this man needs to be put to death as a rabid animal would. This murder is like nothing I have ever heard about and the fact that it happened in lovely Farmville is even more mind boggling. No one is ever going to forget this anytime soon. So horrible. May God bless all those affected and may the dead rest in peace.
Neighbor: I appreciate your comments—they got to the heart of a lot of what has been troubling me. I knew Debra as a grad student and know many who knew her and Mark—none of us recently. She was smart and not naive and had her own share of life experiences that I am sure made her street smart—yes, she probably should have known better or sensed something. But she didn’t. We have been talking here—and I have been awake at night wondering—how do you know as a parent what to do when your kid is struggling? You don’t really know, you just make your way through it. I’m sure Debra and Mark thought they were doing the right thing. I am sure they were good people doing their best as parents, handling whatever else life threw at them. I’d like to think I wouldn’t make the mistake of letting a guy like this into my house, but that’s the part that scares the crap out of me—that maybe I <could> make the same mistake. If my kid stuggled, as I struggled as a teen, as I’m pretty sure Debra did—would I do any better? When you get down to it, all any of us knows is it was horrific, this guy was one in a million, and two parents doing the best they could ultimately did the wrong thing and ended up with this freak p.o.s. in their house. Many, many, many people who knew them will wonder how for a very long time. It is so troubling, so not understandable.
Andres Shrim has music on his site regarding the killing of Christians, priests, women, etc.,a song called “Kill God’s People” can be heard here: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=99021159
Also has Satanic images on his myspace: http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=99021159&albumId=528372
This particular music lures kids into contact with truly evil influences - there is a pledge to Satan on this link. To many, this is silly, for some, ultra cool..but to others - deadly. Even before this, whenever something horrible happens due to the internet, it seems there is a connection to myspace or Craigslist. These sites need mandates to moderate!
Each site open to the public must establish standards, and they would and should vary greatly in what standards are established-but a line should always be drawn at cruelty-which is the core of what evil is-whether the cruelty is simulated or real-this is where the line should be drawn. Costumes, make-up, satanism, all mean nothing (in and of themselves) but murder and cruelty do. And the line for moderation and censorship is drawn with the propagation of cruelty and murder. A basic societal standard is not impossible to formulate.
To summarize this story & all the articles preceding it: This McCroskey kid was not a tough nut to crack. My god, he left clues & cues all over the place—From California to Virginia. A prosecutor’s dream I suppose. But its a shame Farmville PD couldn’t catch on just a few hours sooner. (Not that I’m blaming them for the murder).
why would her mother allow him to come here when shes underage first of all? secondly, what kind of parent lets some kid come from another state to see her daughter off the flippin internet?????????????? especially after all the horror stories you hear about it…
I for one am less concerned with the mother allowing her 16 year old to date a 20-year old than I am with the fact a 20 year old man would be interested in a 16 year old girl and actually admit it. I suspect the mother was letting it play it course knowing that it would not work. Todays kids live a “virtual” life on-line every day, it is the only way they know how to use their imagination. It is no surprise they live that way because we are the ones that put the computer, internet, and cell phones in front of them at very young ages.
We tell them they cannot go outside and play because it is to dangerous and they might be abducted,, but in truth, it is because we do not want to watch them, and it is easier to stick them in their room in front of the TV, computer, or x-box, while we look for wife (or husband) number 2 or 3.
Then when something like this happens we blame it on music, drugs, or school teachers. Think about it, by the time your kids are 18 years old, they will have spent more awake time with their teachers than with their own parents, and twice that time on the computer in their imaginary world. – Sorry for being so long winded, that is not like me.
The girl was probably dishonest with her parents about many things including McCroskeys age.
My mother never said I couldnt listen to any kind of music when I was 16, or any of my friends mothers either, and we’re fine as are most people. If the parents did know they listened to “hororcore” they probably knew she would grow out of it, like nearly everybody else who listens to that garbage does. I also for sure wouldnt be going to any concert with my parents at 16, this girls parents were with them, Im sure the kids werent happy with that. Most parents dont control their 16 year olds musical interests. Kids are partying without their paents at 16. Kids could be doing much much worse than listening to bad music.
The fact they let a stranger their daughter met on the internet stay over their house for multiple days is the one thing they did that they shouldnt have. Im assuming they didnt know McCroskeys age, and who knows what else they knew about him. But even letting a 16 year old young man stay over for a week is probably the wrong decision.
Everybody here sounds like a great monday morning quarterback. Im betting you’re most likely crappy parents who are patting themselves on the back because this exact situation has never happened to you. Stop blaming the parents at this point, its classless.
Very rarely do I comment. But as for all you experts that comment in this forum, I have one thing to say everyone has their right to an opinion. But we need to just face it there are just simply CRUEL people in this world who don’t give a DAMN about Human Life. I have seen this first hand. As a Former L.E. Officer as a Husband and as a Father. PEOPLE can be extremely cruel no matter how they are raised, what type of music they listen to, or who they associate with! This is coming from someone who knows first hand and will have to PROTECT his family when another Killer is released back into society. You cannot judge the culture but you need to judge the criminal they come from all walks of life!!!
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