UPDATE: Farmville victims died from head injuries

Richard Samuel
Alden McCroskey III

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Listen to Prince Edward Commonwealth’s Attorney James Ennis release information on the four victims of the Farmville attack:

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The Prince Edward County prosecutor this morning officially confirmed the identities of four people found slain Friday in the home of a Longwood University professor and said the cause of death for each was blunt force trauma to the head.

Debra Sue Kelley, 53, an associate professor of sociology and criminal justice studies; her daughter, Emma Niederbrock, 16; and Emma’s friend, Melanie Grace Wells, 18, of Inwood, W.Va., were victims along with Kelley’s estranged husband, Pastor Mark Alan Niederbrock, 50, said Prince Edward Commonwealth’s Attorney James Ennis.

Niederbrock’s identity had been confirmed Saturday by police; the other victims had been named earlier by friends and associates.

Ennis said the medical examiner confirmed the identification of the victims yesterday and relatives were notified. He said preliminary autopsy reports list the cause of death for each victim as blunt force trauma.

Ennis declined to discuss what weapon may have been used or which day or days the victims were slain.

He said additional homicide charges are anticipated against Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, 20, of Castro Valley, Calif., who is the suspect in all four killings but was initially accused only in the death of Mark Niederbrock.

Those charges would come “at some point in the future, after forensics evidence results have been received and the evidence has been reviewed,“ Ennis said.

The prosecutor would not say what was found at either the Kelley home in Farmville or McCroskey’s residence in California. He also did not provide information on the McCroskey’s activities leading up to the killings.

The prosecutor said that Andres Shrim, a friend of McCroskey’s who owns a record label that specializes in horrorcore, the violent genre with which the suspect identified, had been interviewed. Shrim yesterday said he saw McCroskey at a Sept. 12 music festival in Michigan and that he doesn’t believe that he is guilty. Ennis did not say what was learned from the interview.

Ennis said there are no other suspects in the case.

“I really don’t have time to tell you the extent and scope that this investigation entails,“ the prosecutor said. “We are going coast to coast on this investigation and every lead is being followed as it develops.“

He credited “good police work” for the speed with which investigators have been able to act so far, and in identifying the victims.

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