Slain girl on Bay Area rapper's MySpace

Carolyn Said, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, September 21, 2009

(09-20) 20:28 PDT -- Richard McCroskey of Castro Valley called himself "Syko Sam" and rapped about the thrill of killing people.

But the 20-year-old's message board on MySpace.com was dominated by a different theme - a teen girl from Virginia, Emma Niederbrock, lavishing him with affection.

"You are my one and only everything," wrote Niederbrock, who counted down the days until McCroskey planned to visit her.

Police said Sunday that the visit turned into a nightmare. They believe McCroskey flew to Virginia on Sept. 6 to see the girl, attended a "horrorcore" concert with her, and then killed her and three others in her home.

He was arrested Saturday at Richmond International Airport, police said, one day after the bodies were found decomposing in a home in Farmville, Va., and one day before his scheduled flight back to the Bay Area.

Richard Alden Samuel McCroskey III is set to be arraigned today on charges including murder.

"It's a horrific crime. It's hard to imagine what these people must have gone through," said police Sgt. Andy Ellington in a telephone interview from Farmville, a town of 7,200 with little violent crime. "It's a close-knit community and everybody knows everybody. It's just devastating."

Ellington said none of the victims had been positively identified, pending autopsies being performed in Richmond. But he said investigators believe the victims include McCroskey's girlfriend as well as Mark Niederbrock, a pastor at a Presbyterian church in the area who is identified in published reports as the girl's father.

Asked about a possible motive in the slaying, Ellington said, "I wish I knew." He noted that the suspect, asked how he committed the crime by a reporter, responded, "Jesus told me to do it."

Efforts to reach McCroskey's family in Castro Valley were unsuccessful on Sunday. Neighbors of a modest, ranch-style home where McCroskey lived said they never noticed anything troubling about the young man, his parents or his older sister.

A loner
McCroskey appeared to be a loner, they said, and always wore a hooded black sweatshirt.

On his MySpace page, the red-haired McCroskey posed with a skull-bedecked bandanna covering the lower part of his face. He described himself as a fan of the horrorcore genre, which glorifies violence with lyrics set to hip-hop beats.

McCroskey, saying he only recently began rapping, posted songs with lyrics such as "I've killed many people and I kill them real slow. It's the best feeling, watching their last breath."

A friend, Andres Shrim, a musician and the owner of Serial Killin Records in New Mexico, said he was shocked that McCroskey was accused of murder, calling him a "good kid."

Legitimate art form
He said horrorcore is a legitimate art form that reflects reality in the world and had nothing to do with the slayings.

"There's no difference from what we do than going out on a Friday night to the newest horror movie that came out, or turning on the news and hearing about brutal bloodshed and violence," Shrim said. If McCroskey is guilty, he said, "It was some other sort of circumstance. The kid did not have it easy in his life."

Shrim, who first met McCroskey in January while performing at a concert in Apple Valley (San Bernardino County), said McCroskey "was brilliant at Web design, graphics and all that. I commissioned him to do our Web site and to do some graphics work for us."

Shrim said McCroskey had stayed in Farmville with Emma Niederbrock and her mother, Debra Kelley, an associate professor of sociology and criminal justice studies at Longwood University. Kelley's home was the site of the killings, but it was not clear whether she was among the dead.

Shrim said McCroskey, Niederbrock and her best friend took a road trip to a Sept. 12 horrorcore festival in Michigan called Strictly for the Wicked, with the girlfriend's parents acting as drivers.

Shrim said his girlfriend received an urgent call a few days later from the mother of Niederbrock's female friend, saying she hadn't heard from her daughter. Neither the two girls nor McCroskey responded to phone calls, text messages or e-mails, Shrim said.

"I got very concerned because it was definitely not in these girls' nature to not answer," he said.

Victims found
Shrim said he contacted police Friday, asking them to check at Kelley's house.

Ellington said the four victims were found Friday afternoon when a person asked officers to conduct a welfare check at the home.

"When officers arrived at the house, they noticed a distinct odor that they recognized as possibly being decaying bodies," Ellington said. "They made entry and observed three bodies on the floor."

The officers found the fourth body, Ellington said, after obtaining a search warrant.

McCroskey was arrested at about 11:30 a.m. Saturday at the airport. Ellington said he was sleeping in a chair in the baggage claim area.

On Sunday, someone apparently accessed McCroskey's MySpace page and deleted many messages, including those from Niederbrock.

"I know my mind works weird," she wrote, "cause I always expect the worst, but I'm trying sooo hard not to with you cause I know you'd never hurt me."