Dead And Buried (24 page)

Authors: Corey Mitchell

BOOK: Dead And Buried

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“I asked him if he was responsible for the disappearance of Rachel Newhouse and Aundria Crawford. He said, ‘Yes.’ I asked him if he was responsible for their deaths. He said, ‘Yes.’ ”

Hobson testified how he needed to get the details on videotape, how he brought Krebs into the tiny interrogationroom in the police department at 10:40
A.M.
Waiting for answers—answers that no one outside of the lawyers’ offices and courtroom chambers could hear for the past two years. Answers that would finally be forthcoming.

Nevertheless, they would have to wait one more day.

FIFTY

The following morning, Larry Hobson popped a videotape dated April 22, 1999, into the VCR. The television screen beamed a dull glow with the black-and-white video of the detectiveand Rex Krebs.

In the video Hobson walked up to Krebs with a slight hesitationand then gently placed his large hand on Krebs’s shoulder. “Stand up, we’ll get this stuff off you.” He motioned toward Krebs’s handcuffed wrists. He unlocked the suspect and motioned to the chair behind the wooden table. Hobson took his chair opposite Krebs and began the Miranda warningprocess.

Upon completion, Hobson jumped right into the key information.

“Are you responsible for the disappearance of the two girls?” Hobson asked Krebs point-blank.

Rex Krebs looked at the officer and then down at his lap. He looked up once again and slowly began to nod his head.

“Are we going to find either girl alive?” Hobson queried.

“No,” came the unemotional reply from Krebs.

“Where do you want to start talking? I know this isn’t easy. Like I said, the Rex Krebs that I spent a month getting to know by reading your stuff and searching your house, searchingyour trucks, isn’t the same Rex Krebs that I’m dealing with right now as far as what happened to these two girls. But I need to have you tell me what did happen, so we can put it in the proper perspective,” the officer calmly asked of Krebs.

“There is no perspective,” was his response.

“The issue isn’t whether it happened, it’s why it happened,” Hobson impatiently shot back. “Had you seen Rachel before November twelfth?”

“ No.”

“What were the circumstances where you first saw her that night?”

“Walking down the street drunk,” Krebs replied in reference to Rachel Newhouse’s inebriated state five months earlier.

“Whereabouts did you see her?”

“Santa Barbara Street, I believe it is. I saw her walking up toward the railroad station.”

“How do you know she was drunk?”

“Staggering.”

“She was staggering?” Hobson asked. The officer reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He effortlessly flicked the packet forward at a forty-five-degree tilt with his wrist. A cigarette slid halfway out of the pack. He directed the offering to Krebs, who accepted. Instead of askingfor a light, however, Krebs began to chew on the tobacco. Hobson continued the query. He was only just beginning. “What were you doing?”

“Drinking,” Krebs replied rather nonchalantly.

“Where had you been drinking that night?”

“I think I’d been into Mother’s, Library, Bull’s.”

“About what time of night did you see her?”

“I don’t know. It was late. Midnight.”

“When you saw her, what did you do?”

“Drove by her. I was driving up toward Santa Barbara Street.”

“Then what’d you do?”

“Stalked her,” Krebs stated.

Hobson was getting the information he wanted, but he felt as if the conversation was moving too rapidly. He needed more specifics as to what happened that night. He attempted to get Krebs to speak in a more detailed fashion. “When you say you stalked her, what are you talking about?” he asked in hopes of eliciting more detailed information.

It did not work.

Krebs’s response was simple: “Drove around the block.”

Hobson returned to a chronological structure. “Then what’d you do?”

“I watched her.”

“Did you pull over and stop?”

“I stopped on one of the side streets.”

“Then what’d you do?”

“Watched where she was walking.”

“Did she continue staggering down Osos Street toward Santa Barbara Street?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And eventually did she turn on this little side street that led to the bridge?”

Krebs paused for a moment and then glared up at Hobson.“I had a—oh, what do you call it?—premonition ... where she was going.”

Hobson, once again, look nonplussed as he replied, “A premonition,OK. And where did you think she was going?”

“Up on the bridge.”

“And so what did you do after the premonition?”

“Drove in, parked my truck, went up on the bridge.”

“So as she’s staggering, you had a premonition that she was going to the bridge.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you know for sure she was going there?”

“No.”

“What would happen if she continued on Santa Barbara?”

“She’d be safe.” Krebs made it sound as if Rachel Newhouse had a choice as to her fate that night. And, unfortunately for her, she had made the wrong decision.

Hobson shook his head and continued the interrogation. “Then what’d she do?”

“She went up on the bridge. She walked up the ramp.”

“And you were already up there?”

“Yeah.”

“What was your intent to do then? What was going through your head?”

“There really wasn’t anything going through my head.”

“What was going to happen?”

“Don’t know.”

“OK, now Rachel comes up the ramp, you’re standing to the side. Does she see you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you talk to her?”

“No.”

“Does she talk to you?”

“No, she walks, like she’s going to walk around me.”

“Then where does she go?”

“Walks behind me like she’s going to go down the bridge.”

“What happens next?”

“I attacked her.”

“When you say you attacked her, what do you mean?”

“I turned around and hit her.”

“What’d you hit her with?”

“My hand.”

Hobson looked up impassively at Krebs and asked, “Just a fist?” Krebs nodded his head in the affirmative. “Where did you hit her?”

“Across the jaw, I believe,” Krebs answered calmly.

“And when you hit her, did she go down?”

“She staggered over against the rail.”

“Then what happened?” Hobson prodded.

“She screamed; I grabbed her, picked her up, and threw her down. Picked her up and I threw her on the platform.”

“Just threw her down headfirst, feetfirst, backfirst?”

“Uh, flat.”

“Flat? On her stomach, face, back?”

“I think on her back.”

“What happened when you threw her down?”

“Dazed her.”

“Then what?”

“Then I hit her again and knocked her out.”

“So while she’s on the ground you hit her and she’s unconsciousnow? What happens?”

“I grabbed her and drug her down to my truck.”

“You didn’t carry her down?”

“No.”

“How’d you drag her?”

“By her hair. I grabbed her hair and I pulled her down the stairs.”

“Where was she bleeding at this point?”

“I think from the back of her head, where I smashed her on the platform.”

“Was she bleeding about the mouth or anywhere you hit her?”

“I believe so, yeah.”

Hobson paused for a brief moment and resumed his questionsabout the attack on the bridge the previous November. “You drug her down to your truck?” he continued.

“Uh-huh.”

“What’d you do when you got down there?”

“Put her in the back of the truck behind the seats.”

“Did you have to lay her down while you opened up your truck?”

“Yeah.”

“Where did you lay her down at?”

“Right next to the truck on the passenger side.” Krebs had placed the unconscious Newhouse on the asphalt next to his truck as he opened the passenger door. Apparently, no one was in the area, despite the close proximity to several stores, restaurants, and a train station.

“Were you afraid somebody was going to come by?” Hobsonwondered aloud.

“Very,” Krebs replied, along with a vigorous nodding of his head.

“Once you got your door open, where did you put her in the truck?”

“Behind the seats.”

“OK, so you folded your seat forward?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you lifted her up and put her in—”

“Right,” Krebs interrupted.

“—where the jumps seats are?” Hobson finished.

“Uh-huh. I stuck her head and shoulders in and then I lifted her, uh, legs up and flopped them over.”

“So she’s in the passenger rear part of your truck in the cab area on that little jump seat.”

“The jump seats were closed.”

“She’s still unconscious?”

Krebs nodded affirmatively.

“What’d you do then?” Hobson posited.

“Took some rope out of the back of the truck that I had in there for tying stuff in and I tied her up.” Krebs seemed very methodical in his descriptions at this point—as if tying Rachel Newhouse up with rope were something he would do on any normal day.

“The rope was in the bed of the truck?” Hobson asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Where were you standing when you tie her up?”

“Leaning in from the passenger side.”

“Did anybody drive by while you were standing there?”

Krebs shook his head. No one had driven by as he placed his victim’s unconscious body into his blue Ford Ranger pickup truck.

“Did anybody walk by?”

Again Krebs shook his head in the negative.

“How did you tie her up?”

“On her stomach with her hands behind her back.”

“So she’s laying facedown on her stomach and you tied her hands behind her back. Did you tie her feet or anything?”

“No.”

“Did you gag her or anything so she couldn’t scream?”

“No.”

“Did you use any duct tape?”

“No.”

“Just the rope?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then what’d you do?” Hobson continued the probing.

“Got in the truck and then I drove down the railroad tracks. Away from population. There’s a flat spot down there I drove down to. It’s pretty big and open. Down past Pacific Home Improvement Center.”

“And what’d you do there?”

“Then I stopped and I tied her legs.”

“OK. Is she still unconscious?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you tied her legs. Same rope?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then what’d you do?”

Krebs sat erect in his chair as he answered, “I gagged her with her panties.”

“How’d you get her panties?”

“Ripped them off.”

“How’d you get her pants off? Not her panties but her pants?” Hobson wanted to know.

“Didn’t take her pants off.”

“Did you pull them down?”

“No.”

“Well, how did you get her panties? What’s she wearing?” Hobson asked, exasperated.

“She was wearing a pair of pants.”

“Okay. But you said you ripped her panties off.”

“I reached down the back of her pants and I ripped her panties off.”

“And you stuffed her panties in her mouth?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then what?”

“There’s still some rope left over, so I tied it through her mouth.”

“To tie the panties in?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then what?”

“I left town.”

Hobson paused to collect his thoughts. Krebs was giving him everything he wanted, but he needed to know more. Truth be told, the two men were just getting started.

“You said you’d been drinking earlier. What had you been drinking?” Hobson wanted to know.

“Jack Daniel’s.”

“How much Jack Daniel’s? What time did you start drinking?”

“About eight-thirty, nine (
P.M.
).”

“How many Jack Daniel’s do you think you consumed? Do you mix it with anything or Jack Daniel’s on the rocks?”

“Jack Daniel’s straight.”

“Between eight-thirty, nine, and the time you first saw Rachel, how many Jack Daniel’s did you have?”