Saturday, September 26, 2009

Quadruple murder ............

A quadruple murder occurred in a nearby town a little over a week ago. The victims were Debra Kelley, a professor at Longwood University; her daughter, Emma Niederbrock; her daughter's friend, Melanie Wells who was visiting from West Virginia; and Kelley's estranged husband, Mark Niederbrock, a pastor. The bodies were discovered on Friday at Debra Kelley's home when police officers went there at the request of Melanie Wells' family who had been unable to get in contact with her. The police arrested Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, a 20 year old from Alameda County, California on Saturday at the Richmond airport.

The police are still trying to determine exactly what happened. McCroskey was an aspiring horrorcore rapper who went by the name of Syko Sam. I checked his MySpace page before it was taken down. His lyrics talk about killing - "I've killed many people and I kill them real slow. It's the best feeling, watching their last breath." His page was full of satanic images and upside down crosses. He knew Emma and Melanie through the internet and had attended a horrorcore concert in Detroit with them several weeks ago.

I won't go into all the details - if you're interested you can google Farmville murders or McCroskey. When I saw the video of the police escorting McCroskey to jail, I was struck by how young he looked. I was in Farmville the day they believe the murders occurred. If I had seen this kid, nothing about him would have alarmed me. I'm sure Emma's mother and father had no idea he was so dangerous. Today when kids meet people on the internet, they have no idea who they are talking to. It's hard for parents to monitor all of their children's online interactions. Events like this make me glad that I am childless (by choice). If I had children, I would probably worry myself sick or else lock them up out of harm's way.

This was such a tragedy for all the families involved. My heart goes out to each one of them.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

This was so horrible... and right in our backyard. It seems like every time you turn around the world is getting more and more awful. I'm keeping those families in my thoughts, too. I also hope that poor boy gets the help he so obviously needs so he can't hurt others or himself anymore. It's just tragic all the way around.

~Tara

Gilly said...

Such a tragedy! And the hurt spreads out like ripples on a pool. Their friends, students, neighbours, people who knew them from shops, hairdressers, what-have-you.

The internet can certainly corrupt young minds. ~There is far too much stuff available to anyone who cares to surf for horror, satanism, murder etc.

I'm thankful my daughter is far too old to worry about now - in her 40's and a granny she can worry about her own children! But if we had had the internet when she was younger, I think I would be very strict about what she could watch. And have the computer in a family room.

Mkind you, its easy to say that now!!

KathyA said...

It always amazes me how normal, and even beautiful, evil can look.

Greener Pastures--A City Girl Goes Country said...

I'm sorry, I feel for the families, but why in the world would those parents actually take that girl to a concert like that? We're not talking regular hard rock music. They were into glorifying mutilations and blood and all that sick stuff you see on those Saw movies. Red flag! Red flag! Red flag! Kids who are into that kind of sick stuff have more going on than the usual and normal rebelling. In the paper one of the family friends said what could the parents do? lock her up? Yep! She was a CHILD! No way would I allow my children to be involved in that kind of stuff! And if I had to lock them up to do it, I would.

Kohai said...

Only help for that fool is lethal injection, hanging, electrocution, or a plain old bullet between the eyes. Time we stopped coddling people like this, and simply do away with them and stop wasting time and money trying to help the lost.