Don't Blame the Music: The Farmville Murders

Transcript

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Welcome to the Eastern Crime Zone, the podcast that takes you inside investigations of real, true crime cases.

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I'm your host, cassie Millay, and each week I'll guide you through the twists and turns of some of the most fascinating cases in history, from the familiar to the obscure.

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We'll deep dive into the details and explore new angles you've never considered before.

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But I don't want this to be a one-sided conversation.

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Who knows, your suggestion might just be featured in an upcoming episode.

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So sit back, grab your detective hat and get ready for a journey through the criminal underworld.

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This is the Eastern Crime Zone.

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Richard Alden, sam Samuel McCroskey III was born on December 26, 1988, in Hayward, california, a city in the East Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived with his parents and older sister, sarah.

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In 2003, the McCroskey family moved to Castro Valley, california, just three miles north of Hayward.

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Richard's parents split up in the summer of 2009.

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The McCroskeys weren't an unhappy family, but they weren't really close either.

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Sarah McCroskey would later say we weren't a leave-it-to-beaver type family.

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Richard, however, did take it hard when his mother moved out of the family home at the request of his father.

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Richard attended two high schools as a teenager, but he dropped out of both.

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School was miserable for him, as it was for a lot of us.

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He was bullied for being an outcast, being overweight and his red hair.

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His sister, sarah, described him as very passive, someone who rarely stood up for himself unless seriously provoked.

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As a result of his bullying and his shyness, richard had very few friends and spent the majority of his time at home by himself.

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The internet, particularly the social networking site MySpace, became Richard's escape from reality.

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In 2008, richard was living at home, working part-time as a graphic designer and dabbling in making music, namely the genre horrorcore rap.

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Namely the genre horrorcore rap.

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According to masterclasscom, horrorcore is a subgenre of hardcore rap that delves into horror themes such as death, violence, slasher films and satanic worship.

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I'm saying horror like the scary movies, not whore, just to be clear.

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Horror is a really hard word for me to say.

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Horrorcore lyrics frequently reference horror films, violence, human sacrifice, cannibalism and mutilation.

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Many horrorcore tracks are built on a foundation of synths and samplers that evoke fear and dread.

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One example is from the band Necro, called Dead Body Disposal, which came out in 2001.

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Some of the lyrics in this song are came out in 2001.

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Some of the lyrics in this song are but if you want to take your time, don't rush it either.

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Cut each piece up like a Pizza Hut pizza with a rusty cleaver.

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Then put each piece up in a freezer.

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Richard would upload his own horrorcore rap music onto his Myspace under the name Psycho, sam, and Psycho is spelled S-Y-K-O and Sam is actually from his middle name, which is Samuel.

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He began communicating and making friends with other horrorcore fans and rappers.

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Some of his lyrics include you're not the first.

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Just to let you know, I've killed many people and I kill them real slow.

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It's the best feeling watching their last breath, stabbing and stabbing till there's nothing left.

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And that's from his song called my Dark Side.

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But really quickly, I am going to play you a snippet of one of his songs, and I am so sorry to do this to you because he was not good.

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He just some people have talent and some people are Richard, so I'm going to put a clip in really quick, okay.

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So now that we are familiar with Richard and what he calls music.

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Let's introduce another player in today's case.

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Emma Niederbrock was born October 15, 1992, to parents, mark Niederbrock and Deborah Kelly in Champaign, illinois.

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The family moved from Illinois to Farmville, central Virginia, although it's not clear exactly when Mark began serving as a pastor at Walker's Presbyterian Church in Hicksburg, virginia in 2003.

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Deborah was a professor in sociology and criminal justice at Longwood University in Farmville and Emma had been Longwood University in Farmville and Emma had been homeschooled since middle school.

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At the beginning of 2009, mark and Deborah got divorced.

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Emma stayed in the family home with her mother and her father moved out.

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As many teenagers do, emma spent a lot of time on the internet, mainly Myspace, where she went by the name Ragdoll.

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She used the website to listen to horrorcore music and meet other fans.

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Myspace was also where Emma and her friends found out about upcoming horrorcore music festivals.

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In September 2008, emma, then 15, met amateur horrorcore rapper Psycho Sam Richard.

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He was 19, and they met on MySpace.

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The two began chatting online regularly and on the phone.

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If there were adults, you wouldn't have really thought twice about the age difference, because it's only four years between them, but considering emma was still a minor, 15 to 19 is a huge age gap in terms of development?

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I don't really think at 19 I would have wanted to hang out with a 15 year old.

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Maybe you don't find that age gap as weird, but I definitely thought twice when I read about it.

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By September 2009, the now 16-year-old Emma and 20-year-old Richard had been chatting daily for almost a year and Richard thought of Emma as his girlfriend at this point, kind of an online girlfriend.

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His girlfriend at this point kind of an online girlfriend, and Emma sent Richard affectionate messages, but it's hard to tell how serious she really was about him, given how events would later unfold.

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They had never met in person, but they were really close, considering they talked every day.

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Strictly for the Wicked was an all-day horrorcore festival that was scheduled for September 12, 2009, in Southgate Michigan.

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Emma and her best friend, 18-year-old Melanie Wells, 2009 in Southgate Michigan.

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Emma and her best friend, 18-year-old Melanie Wells, had made plans to attend.

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Emma and Melanie, who lived in Inwood, west Virginia, about three and a half hours from where Emma lived, had been to many of these festivals together and always had a great time.

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Emma and Richard spoke about Strictly for the Wicked and decided it would be a great opportunity for them to finally meet in person for the first time.

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Emma's parents, however, were understandably very apprehensive about their 16-year-old daughter meeting up with a 20-year-old man.

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She had only spoken to him over the phone, so her parents were not really thrilled about the idea.

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But they wanted Emma to be happy, so Mark and Deborah decided they would drive Emma, melanie and Richard to Southgate and hang out in the city for the day while the festival was going on, so they would be supervised and have someone around in case something did happen.

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Bear in mind Mark and Debra were divorced at this point, so they were going out of their way to make this work for Emma and do something that she really wanted to do and make it special for her and her friends.

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On September 6th, richard left California for Virginia for her and her friends.

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On September 6th, richard left California for Virginia.

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Emma was excited to finally meet him in person and she posted to MySpace on September 7th next time you check your MySpace you'll be at my house.

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She added.

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I love you so, so much, baby, forever and always.

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What's important is that when Emma first set eyes on Richard in person, she was not impressed.

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He looked completely different than his MySpace photos and in reality he just looked different.

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He looked way younger than 20.

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He wore an oversized black hooded sweatshirt and baggy black cargo pants.

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His greasy red hair was combed straight down over his forehead.

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On top of his appearance, he also came across as immature, like a young teenage boy, and Emma was polite to Richard but kind of aloof at this point.

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Emma and Melanie seemed to actually find Richard irritating.

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Once they met him in person, the five of them Emma, melanie, richard and Emma's parents were in for a very long, awkward car ride.

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And this is actually kind of my worst nightmare is being stuck with people that I don't like.

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So whenever I go someplace I always make sure to take my own car.

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That way I can leave whenever I like.

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So she's stuck with this guy for days and days because he's staying with her during this trip.

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So just imagine how that would feel like oh crap, there's this person here.

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I don't actually enjoy them.

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They're annoying.

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And now I have no way out of this situation other than to be polite to him and try to just get through this time as quickly as possible.

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Richard hoped that once they arrived at the festival and were both in their element and immersing themselves in the music and the vibe, emma might see him completely differently and he could win her over.

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But this was really wishful thinking.

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In fact, the situation went completely downhill once they actually arrived at the festival.

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According to others present at the festival, emma paid Richard very little attention throughout the event.

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Not only was she not interested in him, she was reportedly very flirtatious with other guys in person and by text.

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Richard noticed and he didn't really take it well, which I think most guys wouldn't take it well.

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But depending on what kind of relationship they'd established up to this point, emma may not have been doing anything wrong.

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The festival ended at 11 pm on September 12th and the following day Emma, melanie, richard and Emma's parents drove back to Farmville from Michigan At 2.43 am on Monday, september 14th.

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Melanie posted to her MySpace page SFTW was fucking amazing.

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Back in Virginia now Be back in West Virginia on Wednesday.

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I miss everyone.

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Exclamation point.

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Exclamation point.

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Exclamation point.

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So it sounds like the girls did have fun.

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After the post to her MySpace page, melanie went quiet.

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Neither her friends nor her family heard from her at all that Monday or on Tuesday, and that just really wasn't like her.

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After repeated failed attempts to get in touch with her daughter, thomas and Kathleen Wells became worried and on Wednesday, september 16th, the day Melanie was due to come home, thomas drove 200 miles from Inwood, west Virginia, to Farmville to see where his daughter was and why they couldn't get in contact with her.

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When nobody answered the door at Emma's mom's house, thomas sat outside in his car and he waited.

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I mean, where else was he going to go?

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He came to see what was going on with his daughter and he was going to wait there until he found some answers.

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He hoped that the women were just out and they would see him when they returned home and he would figure out why his daughter wasn't answering his calls and why she hadn't come home yet.

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After waiting for over seven hours, however, thomas was really sure that no one was coming and, reluctantly, he drove away from Emma's house, unable to shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong.

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When her husband returned home without Melanie, kathleen Wells began to call everyone she could think of who might know of Melanie's whereabouts.

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Serial Killin' Records SKR is a small independent record label owned by Andres Schrimm, based out of Albuquerque, new Mexico, and a lot of horrorcore music Emma, melanie and Richard listened to was produced by SKR.

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They also organized the Strictly for the Wicked festival that they had been at that previous weekend.

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Andres writes and performs his own horrorcore rap under the name Sicktanic.

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Andres writes and performs his own horrorcore rap under the name Sicktanic and I'm not really sure what the dynamic is between horrorcore artists and fans now or if the music became more or less popular since 2009.

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But in 2009, rappers and fans were friends who would meet and talk on MySpace and hang out at festivals.

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So they were pretty well-knit.

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And after her own investigation, kathleen Wells came across the phone number for Andre Schrimm and gave him a call.

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When he answered, kathleen told him that she hadn't heard from Melanie, emma and Richard and asked if anything happened at the festival.

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He said they had gone home with Emma's parents when the event ended and beyond that he didn't have any more information.

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After calling Andreas, kathleen called Emma's home again and this time, to her surprise, somebody did answer and it was Richard.

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Kathleen asked him where Melanie was, but he wouldn't give her a straight answer and Kathleen grew very frustrated with Richard because she was sure he was lying.

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On the morning of Thursday, september 17th, kathleen called the police in Farmville, virginia.

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She explained the situation and asked them if they could go by the house and do a welfare check for her daughter.

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When the police arrived at the home of Deborah Kelly and Emma Niederbrock, they were greeted by none other than Richard McCroskey.

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When they asked him where Emma, Melanie and Deborah were, he told them the women were at the movies.

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The police didn't know who Richard was, but they took him at his word.

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I find it a little strange that they didn't do any more investigation.

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They didn't question him further or ask to take a look inside.

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But I guess I shouldn't be surprised, considering I watch a lot of true crime and 50-50.

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The police don't do their job.

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I assume that Kathleen would have told them the most important parts of the story that Melanie was supposed to be home two days prior, that she hadn't heard from her and that she thought Richard was lying.

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So I thought it was weird that they didn't even look around, considering that she probably told them that this guy was full of crap.

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After the welfare check on the morning of September 17th didn't turn up anything.

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Kathleen called Mark Niederbrock and remember he was divorced from Debra Kelly, so he doesn't live at the same house that Emma does.

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She explained that she was worried about Melanie who was supposed to come home days ago but hadn't heard anything from her.

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Mark lived in Pamplin, virginia, about 20 minutes from Farmville, and he told Kathleen he would go to see Emma and Debra's house and see what was going on.

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He told her not to worry and that he would call her after he spoke to Melanie around 5 pm.

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Kathleen would not hear back from Mark after that phone call.

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On the morning of September 18th Kathleen called the police again and she was at her wit's end.

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She hadn't gotten a single piece of useful information for days.

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Mark never called her back.

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Richard was being sus and I'm not sure what she said to police if she asked to file a missing persons report for Melanie.

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But she managed to convince them to return to Deborah and Emma's house.

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When the police arrived at the house around 3.20 pm on Friday September 18th, they found the door to the home unlocked.

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Richard, who they had already spoken to, was gone.

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But what hit them like a ton of bricks when they opened that door was the thick, pungent, unmistakable stench of death.

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The smell was what gave police probable cause to enter the home.

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Inside the home, police found three dead bodies in what looked like Emma's bedroom downstairs.

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The discovery of the bodies was what allowed them to obtain a search warrant.

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The discovery of the bodies was what allowed them to obtain a search warrant.

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Once they had their warrant and they were able to perform a full search of the home, they discovered another body in a room upstairs.

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The bodies belonged to Mark Niederbrock, deborah Kelly, emma Niederbrock and Melanie Wells.

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Although they were not formally identified until Monday, september 21st, the scene described by police was so horrifying they wouldn't elaborate on details other than the victims had died from blunt force trauma.

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After going through the evidence in the home and checking the social media accounts of Emma and Melanie, it did not take police long to figure out that Richard had been with the girls at the festival and had come back with them to Farmville and now was nowhere to be found.

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Nowhere to be found.

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An officer who had spoken to Richard when they went to perform the welfare check was able to identify him through photos on social media and they decided to declare a manhunt for Richard McCroskey.

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Much earlier on Friday, september 18th, around 4 am, a homeowner who lived on Poor House Road on Farmville called police to report a car that had gotten stuck in a ditch at the end of their driveway.

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A tow truck and a deputy showed up at the home, and Richard was given a ticket for driving without a license.

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When asked whose car it was, he responded that it belonged to his girlfriend's dad.

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The bodies of Mark, emma, deborah and Melanie would not be discovered for another 12 hours, and Richard wasn't wanted by police at this point.

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Somehow, while the deputy and Richard were talking, it came up that Sam had plans to fly home to California the following day, saturday the 19th.

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The tow truck driver, elton Napier, offered to give Richard a ride, which was accepted, and they went to a gas station.

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Describing Richard, he told the media that he had never experienced such a terrible smell in his life and had to hold his head out the window to stop himself from gagging because Richard smelled so bad.

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He said he stunk like the devil.

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Up until this point, it seemed, though, richard had gotten pretty lucky.

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However, his luck would soon run out.

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Richard caught a cab to Richmond International Airport on the evening of Friday the 18th, and he planned to stay the night there before catching a flight to California the next day, and it would be much harder to get Richard once he had left the state.

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I mean it's still possible, but it is a little more complicated once someone leaves the immediate area.

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Early in the morning of September 19th, police apprehended Richard McCroskey, who had been sleeping in a chair and baggage claim at Richmond International.

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He was initially charged with the murder of Mark Niederbrock, grand larceny for stealing Mark's car and robbery for taking money from his wallet, and more charges would come soon.

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After it came out that Richard had been arrested, his friends and family expressed their absolute disbelief.

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His sister, sarah, said at first she could not believe it and then reality hit her.

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On Monday, september 21st, almeida County Sheriff's Office in California served a search warrant at the McCroskey house to seize phones and computers just anything connected to Richard that could be used as evidence.

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Sarah McCroskey told the Mercury News I just fell to my knees.

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I couldn't see, I couldn't talk.

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I feel I failed.

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As his big sister, sarah, sensed something was wrong earlier on September 17th when Richard called home and left a message.

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He said he wanted to make sure everyone was okay Before he hung up.

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He said I love you guys.

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According to Sarah, that's just not something Richard would say.

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They were not an I love you before hanging up kind of family.

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Sarah also insisted that the murders were not a result of Richard's music.

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Much of horrorcore rap is taking you through the mind of a killer and their point of view.

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Psycho Sam was just a stage name.

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It's not his alter ego, sarah said.

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On October 19th 2009, richard McCroskey was indicted on six counts of capital murder, one for each of his four victims, as well as capital murder for murdering multiple people within three years.

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The evidence against him was overwhelming.

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His court-appointed attorney, carrie Bowen, told Richard that they would have to reach a plea deal in order to avoid a trial and the death penalty.

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Nearly a year later, on September 20, 2010, richard McCroskey pled guilty on two counts of capital murder and two counts of first-degree murder and waived his right to an appeal, and he was given four life sentences in prison.

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Prince Edward County Commonwealth's attorney, jim Ennis said of Richard's motive for the murders.

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I think he had a certain expectation of the relationship with Emma Niederbrock, county.

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Commonwealth's attorney, jim Ennis said of Richard's motive for the murders.

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I think he had a certain expectation of the relationship with Emma Niederbrock, what it was going to be like after a year on the computer, and it didn't turn out to be what he imagined it was going to be like.

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The families of the victims declined to speak to the media, but they were issued a written statement expressing they were relieved that the case was over and they believed justice had been served.

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Richard did not say anything during or after the hearing.

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He was said to be smirking as he left the courtroom and was led to a van which would take him back to jail.

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Richard McCroskey is currently incarcerated at Wallins Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, virginia.

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After the hearing, richard's lawyer relayed Richard's statement to the media regarding what happened to Mark Deborah, emma and Melanie.

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Richard's motive for the murders was his rage towards Emma for rejecting him at the music festival.

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Mark Deborah and Melanie were really just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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Richard had been drinking and smoking marijuana and his blood became boiling when he just thought about how Emma didn't want him back.

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Melanie was killed first while she slept on the couch in the den, and then he killed Deborah in the room upstairs and finally went downstairs to find Emma in her bedroom.

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All three women had been murdered with a ball-peen hammer From around 3 am on Tuesday September 15th to 5 pm on Thursday September 17th.

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When Mark arrived, richard sat in the home with three dead bodies.

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The police came by the home this time to carry out the welfare check, like Kathleen Wells had requested, and when Mark Niederbrock went to the home on September 17th, after receiving the call from Kathleen, he was ambushed in a room downstairs.

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Mark was ultimately beaten to death with an eight-pound wood-splitting maul.

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Richard said he used the maul to kill mark because he believed the weight of it meant he wouldn't suffer as much.

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After murdering mark, he dragged his and melanie's body into emma's room.

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He also recorded a video of himself where he spoke to the camera talking about how he knew he would have to pay the consequences for what he had done and he was contemplating suicide.

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I don't understand several things about his confession, his order of events.

00:21:51.866 --> 00:21:59.830
I don't understand how, if you're drinking and smoking marijuana, that that's any sort of excuse for what you're doing.

00:21:59.830 --> 00:22:03.682
I feel like that's kind of something that people when they give confessions.

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They were like, oh oh, I was drinking and smoking.

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So yeah, I'm responsible, but, like you know, I was a little messed up.

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Anytime I've been drinking and smoking marijuana, I have been laid out on the floor trying to take a nap or wanting a coloring book.

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You know I'm not thinking about killing someone because they don't want to sleep with me, so that doesn't really make any sense, considering that they're downers.

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Kind of weird.

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You would want to take a hammer and kill three people after that.

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But okay.

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And also, if he only wanted to harm Emma and everyone else was just kind of an afterthought why did he start with Melanie and Debra?

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I don't understand.

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Was he upset with them as well because they were enabling Emma's behavior?

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Or did he just know that if he only killed Emma, they would wake up and find her like that, so they had to go as well?

00:22:54.128 --> 00:23:02.017
I just don't understand the logic here and clearly, since we're talking about a murder, there wasn't a lot of logic in the first place.

00:23:02.017 --> 00:23:05.805
It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me at all.

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And of course, with something like this, people want to point fingers.

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You know, violent video games, satanism or, in this case, horror cork are always being pointed at as, oh, this person likes this thing.

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That's why they did what they did, when in reality it's because people are not taught how to cope with their feelings.

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If Richard had been taught better coping strategies for when Emma rejected him, maybe we'd be in a different situation.

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Maybe, if hear me out, we didn't think of girls and women as property.

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Maybe he wouldn't have felt so entitled to her affection that she wasn't showing him.

00:23:46.105 --> 00:23:58.310
There are plenty of bigger reasons why things like this happen Mental health, societal issues but everyone wants to point out that he was into horrorcore rap.

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So I don't think that's fair.

00:24:01.548 --> 00:24:08.736
You can look at horrorcore rap and say that that's the reason he did this, but Emma and Melanie were into horrorcore rap and say that that's the reason he did this.

00:24:08.736 --> 00:24:09.324
But Emma and Melanie were into horrorcore rap.

00:24:09.324 --> 00:24:15.272
Andreas Schrem, who owns that music company we talked about, he's into it and he's never done anything like this.

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A lot of people have dark interests.

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If you're here, you like true crime, you're probably not a murderer.

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I'm not a murderer, so I don't think it's fair to point the finger at any of these things.

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Richard was just a bitter little guy who couldn't handle being rejected, and Emma was a 16 year old girl who probably didn't handle the situation the best with letting Richard down easy, but she did not deserve what she got for it.

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If anything, this should have just been an awkward situation that they both forgot about in five years, but that is all I have for you for the Farmville murders today Very sad case, especially when you have young people committing crimes or being victims of them.

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I mean, in this case, three young people are not going to be able to have a future, and, of course, deborah and mark as well but it's just completely sad and unnecessary.

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But hopefully next week we'll be back with a different case.

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I'm finishing up a book about israel keys, the serial killer who creeps me the fuck out, who had kill kits around the united states.

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Yeah, so that's awful, and if you want to hear me tell you about it, come back next week.

00:25:30.443 --> 00:25:32.849
So I'll talk to you very soon.

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Have a great rest of your day and stay safe and remember to question everything you.

Don't Blame the Music: The Farmville Murders

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