Dead And Buried (29 page)

Authors: Corey Mitchell

BOOK: Dead And Buried

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“And can you explain to the jury, so we won’t have to stop and start this tape,” continued Trice, “as you head out See Canyon toward Davis Canyon, you stop at some point. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you first stop?”

“We make one stop, where you see Bill Hanley get out of the car. That’s just for logistics. That’s nothing.

“The second stop that we stopped, and you actually see Rex Krebs get out of the car, is the site where he buried Rachel Newhouse. We then drive past the A-frame and we didn’t videotape the A-frame, but you’ll see a mailbox on the left-hand side, where it goes down the driveway to the abandonedA-frame.

“The next stop was made at Rex Krebs’s house, where he points out the grave site of Aundria Crawford, and then he takes us inside of the house to point some things out to us.”

Trice approached Hobson and said, “Let me show you a tape. It’s marked as 153 for identification. Ask you if you recognizethis exhibit?”

“Yes,” replied Hobson.

“What’s that?”

“This is the videotape that was made of the trip to Davis Canyon with Rex Krebs.”

“And that was on April 22, 1999?”

“Yes, it was. Around twelve-thirty, one o’clock in the afternoon.”

The jurors attentively watched as the “drive-through” tape started.

FIFTY-TWO

Detective Larry Hobson was not done yet. He spoke of his duties from April 22, 1999, until two days later. The most significantevents during that time for Hobson were the exhumation of the bodies and the subsequent autopsies. After observing the bodies, he noticed a few discrepancies between Rex Krebs’s confession and the evidence on the corpses. The most significant one was the use of flex ties on Aundria Crawford’s wrists. He knew he needed to go back and clarifyseveral issues with Krebs. He wanted the best information possible to secure the charges against him.

In the courtroom all eyes returned to the state’s star witness. They would soon turn their attention to yet another videotape.

Hobson popped in the cassette. The familiar black-and-whiteimage of Hobson and Krebs appeared on the screen.

On April 24, 1999, Hobson pressed Krebs for even more specifics as to the murders and subsequent burial of the bodies.Hobson began his probe with the murder of Rachel Newhouse in the A-frame.

“All right, when you laid her down on the couch, what happened?”asked Hobson.

“I sat her up,” Krebs replied in a monotone voice. “She’s still pretty drunk. I cut through the back of her collar with the utility knife. Back of her shirt collar.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard about the utility knife.”

“I took it out of my back pocket.”

“Why did you take the utility knife with you?”

“To cut her clothes off. After I cut through the collar, I ripped the blouse down the back.”

“What was she wearing under the blouse?”

“A bra.”

“A bra. Did you cut it off?”

“No.”

“What did you do with the shirt you ripped off?”

“Left it on her.”

“It’s just kind of hanging there?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember what color it was?”

“A light color. Light blue, I think.” Rachel’s blouse was actuallya dark blue.

“You’d already ripped her panties off and stuffed them in her mouth, and when did you take the panties and duct tape off her mouth?”

“She spit the, uh, panties out in the truck on the way up.”

“So she was cussing you then, coming up in the truck then?”

“Yeah.”

“Before you got to the canyon?”

“No, after I started up the canyon.”

“Now what do you do with the pants?”

“I pulled them off.”

“Is she still talking to you at this time?”

“Yeah.”

“And she’s still cussing you?” Krebs nodded his head up and down. “What were some of the other things she was telling you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did she ask you to let her go?”

“Yeah.”

“And what did you tell her when she asked to be let go?”

“No.”

“So you pull her pants off now; then what happens?”

“I unbutton her blouse.”

“Did you unbutton it all the way down?”

“Yeah. Pulled it down onto her arms. I start touching her.”

“You’re touching ... you’re touching her breasts?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what happens?”

Krebs sat silent for a moment. “I raped her.”

“How did you rape her, what position?” Hobson wanted to know.

“Laying down on her back.”

“Did you take all your clothes off or just your pants?”

“Just my pants.”

“What were you wearing?”

“Pair of Levi’s. Long-sleeved blue T-shirt.”

“Where is that clothing now?”

“I got rid of it at the same time I got rid of her pants. In the Dumpster behind Texaco on Los Osos Valley Road.”

“The one toward the freeway?”

“Yeah.”

Krebs continued with the details of the sexual assault of Rachel Newhouse.

“When I was getting on her, after I started, um, raping her, she’s fighting me a lot.”

“How’s she fighting you—with her feet? Legs?”

“Moving around a lot. Jumping, trying to keep me from raping her.”

“When you say rape, you’re talking about your penis going in her vagina, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And your penis did go in her vagina, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you ejaculated in her vagina?”

“Yes.”

“And then after that, what did you do?”

“Rolled her over and retied her legs. A trucker’s hitch.”

“Did you want to go rape her again?”

“No. I had to go, let her go.”

“You were going to let her go? And how were you going to do that?”

“Thought I’d take her back downtown somewhere and let her go.”

Hobson still had difficulty with Krebs’s assertion that he would free Rachel after he raped her. “Your intent when you went back down there was to take her back into San Luis and just let her go. Even though there was a possibility she could identify you and/or your truck?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where were you going to take her?”

“I figured I’d let her go down by the railroad tracks.”

“What happened when you got back there?”

“She was dead.”

“What do you think caused her to die?”

“I tied the rope too tight.”

“When you found her dead, what did you do then?”

“I untied her and I took her out behind the barn. There’s some blood on one of the cushions.”

“What did you do with the blood on the cushion and on the floor?”

“I turned the cushion upside down.”

“What about the blood on the floor?”

“I think I smeared it around.”

“How’d you smear it?”

“With dirt.”

“Then you took Rachel with no ropes at all on her and where did you take her?”

“Across a little bridge, up past the outhouse. There’s the outhouse; then there’s a little bridge behind the outhouse to a flat spot.”

“That goes away from the A-frame?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you hide her there?”

“Yeah. I covered her up with leaves.”

“How much longer was it until the sun came up when you finally covered her up with leaves?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hour estimate. One, two, three, four, five?”

Krebs appeared annoyed. “I don’t know, Larry.”

“Did you go back to the house and—”

“Drank,” replied Krebs immediately. He then paused for several more seconds before resuming: “Tried cleaning the blood out of the back of my truck.”

“How did you do that again?”

“Carpet cleaner.” That did not work. “So I cut the carpet out.”

“How big was that piece? ’Bout three foot square?”

“ ’Bout that, ’bout that wide, the length the back of the truck.”

“Why didn’t you take the jump seat out and clean it and put it back in?”

“ ’Cause I was stupid.”

“And where did the carpet go?”

“To the Dumpster.”

“What’d you do when you got back to the ranch?”

“Started drinking again.”

“Have you ever had a period of time where you’ve drank so much you blacked out?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you had any blackouts?”

“Twice.”

“And when were those?”

“One time was at Outlaws when I went to the hospital.”

“When was the other time you had a blackout?”

“Around Christmastime. I was out at the bars.”

Hobson began to speak about Rachel’s makeshift grave. “Why did you pick that particular spot?” he asked, referring to the embankment where Krebs buried the twenty-year-old.

“Actually, I started digging a hole before it got dark.”

“So it was familiar to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why not leave her where she was at the A-frame?”

“Don’t know. Probably ’cause I’d look out of place if anybodydrove by and seen me there.”

“Why bury her at all?”

Krebs paused. “I don’t know.”

“Were you afraid to put her in the car and transport her to another location?”

“Makes sense.”

“And is there some reason, though, you chose to dig a hole rather than just dump her?”

“If she’s buried, then it’s over. There isn’t anything to point to where she is.”

“When you buried her, you assumed nobody would ever find her?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you think about each day you drove by that location,knowing that you had buried her up there?”

“I thought about it every day.”

“When was the first time you heard about the news on Rachel Newhouse?”

“Roslynn bought a newspaper.”

“Did you read the article?”

“No.”

“Did you know if the police had any suspects?” Krebs shook his head no. “Did you expect to be contacted by your parole officer?”

“Yeah.”

“Were you contacted?”

“No.”

“At what point, timewise, did you feel safe about what you had done? That you weren’t going to get caught?”

“Probably about two weeks after my monthly visit from Zaragoza.”

“So he came to visit you when?”

“I think it was like the following week.”

“The following week after the thirteenth, Friday the thirteenthof November?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he talk to you about anything to do with the missing person?”

“I brought it up.”

“What did you say?”

“I don’t remember exactly.”

“When did you first start thinking about doing it again?”

“A couple of nights after I drove by and saw Aundria [looking]in the trunk of her car.”

“Is there something about Aundria and Rachel that was attractiveto you?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What was it about Aundria that caught your eye?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did she stand out more than some other lady down the street that you would have passed?”

“I don’t know, Larry.”

“Was it her age?” Hobson continued to press on.

“I don’t know.”

“So maybe it has something to do with her age, her youth?” Krebs compliantly nodded yes as though all he wanted was for Hobson to end this particular line of questioning.

“When you began thinking about raping Aundria”—Hobson decided to get back on with the specifics of the AundriaCrawford abduction, rape, murder, and burial—“those thoughts went on for how long a period of time?”

“Maybe a week.”

“You went back there, how many times to look at her?”

“Three, four.”

“The fourth time was the time you took her. Did you tie her up the same way that you tied Rachel up or did you bring some other types of devices to tie her up?”

“No, I tied her up the same way. With rope.”

“You didn’t use any of those plastic flex cuffs?”

“I used those when I got to the ranch.”

“Did she have the rope around her neck and then around her feet?”

“No.”

“You get up toward the ranch now and it’s getting to be close to daylight, so you decided to do what?”

“Put her at the cabin.”

“So you left her there for a period of what, three or four hours?” Krebs again nodded his head in the affirmative. “So it’s probably some time, five-thirty, six in the morning. Maybe a little earlier?”

“It’s around five.”

“OK, and you just wait then for eight o’clock to come? You don’t go to sleep?”

“I made coffee. Make it look like normal.” Krebs then went on to speak of his purposeful encounter with Debbie Wright.

“Then what did you do?”

“Went down and got Aundria.”

“Was she conscious when you left her in the A-frame?”

“Yes.”