Dead And Buried (26 page)
Authors: Corey Mitchell
“No,” Krebs stated quietly.
“What were you going to do with her?” Hobson asked.
“I hadn’t really thought about that.”
“She could identify you, though, right?”
“Possibly. She was pretty drunk; I hit her pretty fast.”
“So you don’t think she’d be able to identify you.”
“No.”
“What were you going to do with her the next day when you went down there and she was tied up, had she been alive?”
“I was going to take her back into town and let her go.”
“Did you think you would be contacted about Rachel?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d you think when you weren’t contacted?”
“Ask David Zaragoza,” Krebs said, referring to his parole agent.
“What does that mean?”
“Ask David Zaragoza” Krebs pointedly repeated.
“Why, he knows?”
“He knows exactly what I was thinking.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“I told him I was pissed.”
“That nobody contacted you?” Krebs nodded his head yes. “Suppose somebody had contacted you, what would you say?”
“Of course, I would have lied.”
Larry Hobson had elicited the confession he wanted. He got Rex Krebs to admit that he had assaulted, kidnapped, raped, and possibly murdered Rachel Newhouse. Now he also knew exactly where her body would be located.
But Larry Hobson was not done with Krebs just yet.
He wanted to find out what happened to Aundria Crawford.
FIFTY-ONE
The videotaped confession continued. Larry Hobson extractedinformation from Rex Krebs like he was squeezing tangy juice from a lemon. He was on a roll and not ready for the release to stop. He egged the convict on.
“This is Aundria now.” He steered the conversation toward the second missing person that Krebs was the prime suspect in a possible murder.
“First time I seen Aundria ... first time I seen Aundria ... driving past her house, leaving the, uh, Gaslight,” Krebs recalled.
“It was nighttime or daytime?” Hobson prompted.
“At night. Getting out of her car, going in her house.”
“Where was her car parked?”
“Next to her house.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“White car.”
“How could you see her?” Hobson wanted to know.
“She was wearing white pants.”
“How many times did you go back and watch her at her house?” Hobson inquired. He was aware that Krebs had been stalking Crawford for some time and wanted to know exactly how long he had done so.
“That night would have been the first night,” Krebs recollected.
“And what’d you do after you saw her and parked?”
“Drove up on the next block. Walked back.”
“Did you go around to the back of the house?”
“Uh-huh,” Krebs grunted.
“What’s at the back of the house that you remember?”
“There’s a deck and a fence, and I looked through the back window.”
“Window? Were there curtains or something covering them?”
“Yeah, there’s a little gap at the bottom,” Krebs clearly recalled.
“OK. Could you see her at all?”
“Little bit.”
Krebs’s short replies were mildly annoying to Detective Hobson; however, he remained calm and focused. “How long did you stay there?” he continued.
“Three or four minutes.”
“Did you do anything while you were there?”
“No.”
“And when did you come back?” Hobson wanted Krebs to detail each of his stalking experiences with Crawford.
“About a week later.”
“You never drove the Dodge Colt over there?” Hobson alludedto Krebs’s other car that he owned.
“No.”
“Never?”
“Never,” he abruptly responded.
“You never parked that Dodge Colt anywhere on her block?” Hobson persisted.
“Larry,” an annoyed Krebs stated.
“No, I—I hear what you’re saying. I’m just—I want to make sure I hear it,” Hobson sputtered out rather unconvincingly.
“Larry. Your eyewitnesses are bullshit.”
“OK.”
“That car was never on the street.”
Hobson quickly dropped that line of questioning and attemptedto extract more meaningful information from his number one suspect.
“OK, the second time was a week after the first time,” Hobson resumed the discussion of Krebs’s penchant for stalkingAundria Crawford. “Had you been drinking?”
Krebs nodded and said, “Every time I went over there, I’d been drinking.”
“Remember the day of the week it was?”
“Middle of the week.”
“What’d you do that time?”
“Looked at the place.”
“From out front?”
“Uh-huh. Walked around the block.”
“What were you thinking about?”
Krebs looked down at his lap and slowly raised his head towardHobson. He took a deep breath and calmly replied, “Taking her.”
“What did you do that night, the second night?”
“Looked.”
“Did you ever get up on her roof?”
“No.”
“Did you get on the roof behind her house? There’s a roof back there, a flat roof. Did you get on that roof?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a pile of leaves up there. Did you sit on those leaves?”
“Pushed them to the side.”
“Then from that location, you could look in and see her loft up there?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is she the type of person that went to bed early at night or is—”
“Seemed like late,” Krebs threw out before Hobson could finish his question.
“From this location, could you watch her get ready to go to bed?” Hobson continued without missing a beat.
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you see her take her clothes off?”
“One time.”
“How many times were you actually here on the roof?”
“Actually there on the roof?” Krebs repeated. He thought about it for a split second and quickly answered “Twice.”
“About how long do you think you sat up there and watched?”
“Ten or fifteen minutes.”
“That’s all? Did you masturbate?”
“No.”
“And what’d you do then?”
“Went and got more drunk.”
“You went where to get drunk?”
“My truck.”
“You had some booze in your truck?” Krebs nodded his head in the affirmative. “Did you come back after you drank?”
“No, I went home.”
“How many days passed before you went back?”
“Four, five, something like that.”
“This is the third time you went back. What did you do this time?”
“Went through a, uh, driveway on the back side. Went over a fence, in this house’s yard, went over the fence.”
“Did you get up on the roof again?”
“Yeah.”
“How’d you get up on the roof? Off of the fence?”
“Tree.”
“Was she up in the loft?” Hobson referred to Crawford.
“Uh-huh.”
“And what time of night is it?”
“Late.”
“What’s she doing?”
“Moving around back and forth in her house.”
“When she wasn’t up in her loft, you couldn’t see her—could you—from here?”
“Just through the ... uh—”
“The blinds?” Hobson interrupted.
Again, slightly annoyed at the intrusion, Krebs responded with an edge, “The door.”
“How long did you watch her?” Hobson calmly asked, tryingto get back in good graces with Krebs.
“Probably about the same. Ten or fifteen minutes,” Krebs replied as he shook his head no, then switched directions and nodded yes.
“Then what’d you do?”
“Went. Left.”
“Had you been drinking that night?”
“Yeah.”
“Had you been drinking the second night?”
Krebs shook his head yes.
“You were drinking the first night,” Hobson continued as Krebs nodded. “How many days did you wait before you went back again?”
“Would have been the night I took her.”
“Were you only there four times, Rex?”
“Yeah.”
“That was it? No more? Did you ever get up on top of her roof?”
“No.”
“The fourth time you went, where did you park?”
“The fourth time. Right in front of her house.”
Hobson had zeroed in on the night of Aundria Crawford’s abduction. “What time of night is this now?”
“Late night, early morning.”
“So it’s after midnight?”
“Yeah.”
“Where do you go when you park in front?” Hobson asked while pointing toward the diagram of Aundria’s Branch Street duplex apartment.
“Check the doors.”
“Is her door locked?”
Krebs nodded yes.
“How do you know she’s home?” Hobson wanted to know.
“Her car is there,” Krebs muttered as he laid his head down onto the table.
“You go around in the back?”
“Check the sliding glass door, it’s locked.”
“Did you start to go in the house through the sliding glass door and she saw you and you ran?”
“No,” he replied, and looked up quizzically at Hobson.
“No? Because she had a prowler there, end of February, sometime about two weeks prior. That wasn’t you?”
“That wasn’t me.”
“So the door is locked back there,” Hobson stated as he pointed at the diagram yet again. “Can you see her in there?”
“No. It’s dark.”
“Are all her lights off?”
“The house is dark.”
“Where had you been drinking that night?” Hobson switched gears.
“Home,” came the monosyllabic reply.
“Could it be as late as two or three in the morning?”
“Yeah.”
“And on this day that you went there, you worked until six-thirtythat night?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you do after you got off work?”
“Went home.”
“And what’d you do at home?”
“Made dinner and drank.”
“What’d you drink?”
“Jack Daniel’s.”
“Is it Jack Daniel’s or Yukon Jack?”
“Jack Daniel’s.”
“How much did you drink?”
“Probably about half a fifth.”
“After drinking, you decided that would be the time to go back in there and take her?”
“Sure.” He shrugged nonchalantly.
“What do you do next?” Hobson continued.
“Check the windows. One back by the sliding glass door.”
“Is it locked?”
“Uh-huh. Kitchen window. It’s locked. See the little bathroomwindow’s open.”
“Where’s the bathroom window located?”
“Left of the door.”
“Which door?”
“Front door.”
“How big is that window?” Hobson asked, and tilted his head down toward Krebs’s feet.
“Tiny.”
“Show me with your hands.” Krebs placed his right hand above his left to indicate a height often to twelve inches. “How wide?” He placed his hands this time side by side, but eighteen to twenty-four inches apart. “OK. And it was not latched? Was there a screen on there?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d you do with the screen?”
“I folded it and threw it away.”
“How did you reach up to that window? It’s up pretty high.”
“Stood on the, uh, rail by the steps.”
“What do you do?”
“Crawled in.”
“How do you go in? Headfirst, feetfirst?”
“Feetfirst.”
Hobson seemed surprised. “Feetfirst? OK. And when you go in that window, where does it come out to?”
“Shower stall.”
“Are you making quite a bit of noise when you go in there?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you lower yourself down?”
“Arch my back.”
“Where do you put your feet?”
“On, uh, I think it’s a soap—”
“Soap dish?” Hobson cut in.
“Soap, right,” Krebs responded. “It’s like it’s a little tiny bathroom,” he stated as he rubbed his weary eyes. He then gently lowered his head into his hands as if saying a silent prayer.
“Does she wake up?”
“I hear a little bit of noise on the other side of the door.”
“Where do you hear noise at?”
“It’s like a bathroom area with a toilet and a door. Then there’s the sink area. And there’s another door. When I get in here,” he stated as he again pointed toward Hobson’s diagram, just outside the interior of Aundria Crawford’s bathroom, “I hear noise in here.”
“OK. What’s that noise?”
Krebs looked up at Hobson and said, “Turns out it was her cat.” He then lowered his head back into his hands and slumped over in his chair. He looked defeated. He continued, though. “I wait until the noise stops.”
“Do you see the cat?”
“No, not directly. When the noise stops, I wait a few minutes;my heart’s beating. Thinking all I want to do now is get out.” Krebs paused to recollect the nightmare. “Afraid I woke her up. Scared. I want to leave. But I know I can’t go back out that window without making a bunch more noise.”
“So what do you do?”
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