California man indicted in Farmville killings

A young California man was indicted today on six counts of capital murder for the slayings of four people found dead in a Farmville home.

Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III of Castro Valley, Calif., was also indicted on charge of grand larceny, said Wade Stimpson, acting Farmville police chief.

Found bludgeoned to death inside the home were Longwood University professor Debra S. Kelley, 53, who lived there; her estranged husband, Mark Niederbrock, 50; their daughter, Emma Niederbrock, 16; and a friend from Inwood, W.Va., Melanie Wells, 18.

McCroskey, 20, met Emma Niederbrock online through their interest in horrorcore rap music and flew to Virginia on Sept. 6 to meet her for the first time.

In Virginia capital murder is not a single crime. A person can be charged, tried, convicted and sentenced to death for capital murder in the furtherance of terrorism as well as capital murder for committing more than one murder in a three-year period.