Suspect arrested in four Farmville slayings

Police captured a young California man at Richmond International Airport yesterday and charged him in the slayings of four people at the Farmville home of a Longwood University professor.

Farmville police confirmed only the identity of Mark Niederbrock, pastor at Walker’s Presbyterian Church in the Hixburg area of Appomattox County, among the victims found Friday at the home of Debra S. Kelley, a Longwood professor from whom he was separated. The other victims were females, police said.

Kelley and Niederbrock have a daughter, Emma. Another teen was believed to be visiting at the home.

The suspect, Richard Samuel Alden McCroskey III, 20, of Castro Valley, Calif., was found sleeping at a baggage area at Richmond International Airport and arrested without incident about 11:25 a.m. He had stolen a car from the home, wrecked it before leaving the Farmville area and arrived at the airport in a cab, authorities said.

One of his MySpace pages on the Internet included apparent correspondence with Emma Niederbrock, who appeared to have left a message about two weeks ago saying she was looking forward to seeing him. Throughout yesterday, friends of Niederbrock posted condolence messages. Although she doesn’t use her name on her MySpace page, friends posted messages and e-mails to one another throughout the day naming her and mourning her death.

On his other MySpace page, McCroskey listed a song called “Murderous Rage” that references getting rid of bodies “before the corpses start to get to rotting.“

Wade Stimpson, acting chief of the Farmville Police Department, said McCroskey and one of the victims recently had attended a music event in Michigan.

Police said the state medical examiner’s office likely won’t have positive identification or cause of death for the victims until tomorrow. They declined to discuss motive or how the victims were killed. They also were trying to determine when they were killed.

At least two of the bodies were so badly decomposed that they will have to be identified by dental records, said Dennis Sercombe, a Longwood vice president.

John Goin, an elder at Walker’s Presbyterian, said Niederbrock was last seen at a church event Wednesday evening.

Officers were alerted to Kelley’s home at 505 First Ave., a few blocks from campus, on Thursday when the visiting teen’s mother called from West Virginia to say she was worried about her daughter, who was supposed to be staying at the house.

Police checked the home that day, and McCroskey answered the door and said the daughter had gone to the movies and also that he had talked to her mother, Stimpson said. Authorities confirmed that the mother had spoken to a man by phone who told her the same thing, so police were not suspicious.

On Friday, the mother contacted police again and asked them to make a second check. An officer arrived shortly after 3 p.m. and smelled what he believed was a decomposing body. Police entered the home about 4 p.m. and found three bodies before obtaining a search warrant to re-enter and find the fourth body.

Police said McCroskey stole Niederbrock’s car but wrecked it sometime Friday before 7 a.m. The car was towed.

McCroskey was seen about 7 that morning at Sheetz on South Main Street in Farmville after he was dropped off there, Stimpson said.

He told a clerk at Sheetz that he was waiting on a ride to the airport and he was seen both inside and outside the store, officials said. It was not immediately clear how long he was there or how he left, but he arrived at the airport by cab, police said.

It is unclear what McCroskey was doing between the time he was seen at the airport Friday and when airport police officer Keith Baty and Cpl. Richard Miles found him in the baggage-claim area, slumped on a bench asleep, apparently waiting for his flight.

McCroskey had a plane ticket to fly to California today and was seen at the airport Friday about 1 p.m. He tried to get an earlier flight but he did not have enough money to cover the $150 change fee.

The officers said McCroskey, tired and groggy, identified himself truthfully to the officers. The officers told the suspect he was wanted for questioning in Farmville and “he just kind of nodded his head,“ Miles said.

The officers kept him handcuffed in their office and brought him a sandwich and a soft drink, they said. The suspect “was sitting there real calmly, almost nonchalant,“ said Troy Bell, an airport spokesman.

“I don’t know what I would have expected but this wasn’t it—just too calm,“ Bell said.

Farmville police picked up the suspect at the airport about 2 p.m. He is charged with murder, robbery and grand larceny.

Authorities said he likely will appear in Prince Edward County General District Court in person or by video teleconference on Monday.