Fellow horrorcore rapper reported suspect in Farmville killings

By Reed Williams, Richmond Times-Dispatch/McClatchy Regional News

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."