Dead And Buried (30 page)
Authors: Corey Mitchell
“Did you talk to her or was she still duct-taped?”
“She’s still duct-taped.”
“Did you say anything to her, even though she couldn’t talk?”
“Told her to be quiet.”
“What was she wearing?”
“Black sweatpants. Black sweatshirt pulled over.”
“What was she wearing when you caught her at her house?”
“Panties and a T-shirt.”
“So you walk her into the house. And what do you do when you get her in the house?”
“Put her in the bedroom in the bed. Went and got a pair of scissors. Cut her T-shirt off.”
“What happened to that T-shirt?”
“I burned it. Fireplace.”
“Was she wearing a bra?”
“No.”
“And what’d you do with the panties?”
“Burned them too.”
“So at this point, she’s tied only with the wrists behind her back; her legs aren’t tied. She’s laying on the bed, and over her head, she has what?”
“A, uh, pillowcase.”
“And what was the reason for the pillowcase?”
“So she couldn’t see me.”
“Was she bleeding at all?”
“A little bit on her mouth.”
“How are you keeping the pillowcase on?”
“It’s tied in a knot behind her head.”
“Now what do you do?”
“I rape her.”
“Do you ejaculate when you’re on top of her?” Krebs noddedyes. “Then what did you do?”
“Turned her over and sodomized her.”
“And when you talk about sodomy, we’re talking about your penis in her anus, right?” Krebs again nodded his head. “Do you ejaculate again?”
“No.”
“Did you have an erection when you sodomized her?”
“Yes.”
“Then what did you do?”
“Put her sweatpants on her. To keep her warm.”
Krebs continued to tell Hobson how he tied the girl back up after he raped her. The real horror for Aundria Crawford had only just begun.
“Then what’d you do?” prodded Detective Hobson.
“Went out, drank some coffee. Drank some Jack Daniel’s. Screwed around the house, laid down on the couch. Passed out.”
“How long did you sleep?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened next?”
“I woke up with the door opening. The bedroom door. That’s when I put the blindfold on her.”
Hobson needed Krebs to backtrack a bit. “So after you wake up, what happens next?”
“When I wake up, she’s standing in the doorway.”
“Is she still tied?”
“No. She’s got everything untied.”
“She’s completely untied? Her hands, everything? Got the pillowcase off her head? Duct tape off her mouth?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You hear the door to your bedroom open?”
“Yeah.”
“Does it make a noise when it opens?”
“Yeah. It closes real hard. You’ve got to lift it up.”
“Because of the weather it swells up?”
“Yeah.”
“So she’s fully dressed now?” Krebs again nodded yes. “Now what do you do at this point?”
“Attack her.” Plain and simple. No beating around the bush for Krebs.
“When you say ‘attack her,’ do you tackle her? What do you do to her?”
“Yeah. I tackle her back into the bedroom and retie her. I retied her with the ropes; then I went and got the zip ties.”
“How did you tie her this time?”
“Just with her hands behind her back. Run the rope around her feet a couple of times.”
“In the hog-tied position?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what?”
“Then I go and get the zip ties.”
“How many zip ties did you use?”
“Three, I think.”
“So while her hands are behind her back, you put one zip tie on one hand, one zip tie on the other. Around the wrist?”
“Right.”
“Now what do you do about her eyes?”
“Put a black bandana over them.”
“Then where do you put her?”
“Bend her over the coffee table and I rape her again.”
“So you bend her over the coffee table facedown?” Krebs again nodded yes. “Did you rape her or sodomize her?”
“I raped her.”
“Then do you ejaculate again?”
“Yeah.”
“Is she cussing you out? Is she calling you names?”
“No.”
“What is she saying?”
“She’s not saying anything.”
“What did she say when you caught her trying to get out of the bedroom?”
“She screamed.”
“How’d you stop her from screaming?”
“Put my hand over her mouth, told her to be quiet.”
“Did she say anything else to you?”
“Yeah. I told her she saw me; she said, ‘I didn’t see you.’ I says, ‘You saw me.’ ”
“What did you feel at the point where she had seen you?”
“I was scared.”
“Did her seeing you tell you something else that was going to have to happen?”
“Yeah.”
“Which was what?”
Krebs waited a few seconds before he answered: “I was going to have to kill her.”
“So after you had sex with her from behind, where did you put her?”
“Put her back in the bedroom.”
“Did that have something to do with wanting to keep her with you for a period of time?”
“Maybe, I don’t know.”
“Had you ever read or heard about somebody else keeping somebody with them for a period of time?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“And who was that?”
“It was one of the—what do you call those, like me—one of those high-profile cases. On the news or something.”
“Did you ever hear anything on the news about that Ng guy up in Sacramento?” Charles Ng and Leonard Lake built a wilderness encampment in Wilseyville, California, in 1985, where they hid their kidnap victims and used them as sex slaves. The duo tortured the women and caught it all on videotape. When they were finished with their victims, they murdered them. Lake committed suicide after his capture and Ng went on the lam to Canada until he was extradited to the United States and convicted in 1999.
“No,” replied Krebs.
Hobson decided to let Krebs get back on track with Aundria.
“She’s hog-tied again,” Krebs continued. “No, I’m sorry, she’s not hog-tied; she’s leashed to the bed frame.”
“How did you leash her to the bed frame?”
“Tied both of her feet together and then run the rope underneaththe bed and tied it to the frame. Went in the kitchen and started drinking real heavy.”
“Were you upset over the fact that she had seen you?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you do after you finished drinking?”
“Went and killed her.”
The courtroom remained silent. All eyes focused on the television set.
“At some point you decided you had to kill her?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I strangled her.”
“Did you have sex with her again?”
“No.”
“How did you kill her?”
Miraculously, at this point the interrogation videotape abruptly ended. Some portions of this crucial part of the confessionwere not recorded. The prosecution, however, did not lose momentum. Hobson inserted the next tape and the damning confession continued.
Hobson’s back appeared on-screen again as he asked Krebs, “How did you strangle her with the rope?”
“Wrapped it around her neck,” a nonremorseful Krebs replied. “I pushed her over onto her stomach. I guess you’d say I kneeled on her.”
“Where was your leg? Your knee?”
“On her back. I left her there and I went and dug the hole for her.”
“Was there any doubt in your mind she wasn’t dead?”
“I don’t know.”
“The time of day, is it before noon, afternoon, early?”
“Probably right around noon.”
“Then what’d you do?”
“Went down and dug her grave.”
“For some reason you decided to dig this one right in your backyard. Why not go back to the same spot where Rachel was? What were you thinking that you decided to do it right there?”
“I don’t think I was thinking.”
“Where’s that shovel now?”
“Out at the ranch. Probably in the shed.”
“Where’s the shed?”
“Underneath my bedroom.”
Referring to Aundria’s grave, Hobson asked, “You dug it about how deep?”
“ ’Bout three, four feet.”
“When you had dug it, what’d you do?”
“Went up and got Aundria and put her in it.”
“How did you get down that tiny, narrow staircase?”
“It wasn’t easy.”
“How did you put her into the grave?”
“I think she was faceup.”
“What did you cover the dirt up with?”
“Leaves and garbage that was out there.”
“Why the wire and the rocks? What was the significance of that?”
“Keep animals from digging.”
“Where did the two pillowcases go and her T-shirt and panties?”
“I burned them. In the fireplace.”
“Inside that fireplace, Rex, we found some little, small animalbones.”
“Chicken bones.”
“Again I’m having a little trouble understanding why you would want to put her so close to your house.”
“What’s there to understand about any of it, Larry?”
“What’d you think every time you stepped outside to leave and go to work?”
“I was kind of sick.”
“What would have happened if we’d come and talked to you like that after Rachel? Do you think you would have taken Aundria?”
“No.”
“What would have stopped you if we talked to you? I mean, we didn’t know anything. What if we just came and talked to you as part of the investigation?”
“I would have been scared. Reality might have set in.”
“You were arrested nine days after you took Aundria from her house. During that nine-day period, were you thinking about doing it again?”
“No.”
“What was it that caused you not to think about it?”
“When I had to kill her with my hands.”
“Kill her with your hands. I thought you used a rope?”
“It’s the same thing. It wasn’t an accident. I honestly had to do it. And I did it.”
“What if she hadn’t seen you, Rex?”
“I think I would have washed her and turned her loose. Back into town somewhere.”
Hobson moved the conversation up to the day when Krebs was arrested. “Did you think we would find anything at your house?”
“Yeah. The jump seat.”
“Did you think we’d find the eight ball?”
“I didn’t even think about it.”
“The significance of the eight ball wasn’t the fact that it belongedto Aundria, it was what the number eight means to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“And the number eight, based on what we’re reading, stands for the eight letters of ‘I love you’?”
“And the Egyptian symbol for infinity.”
“Do you ever talk about eights or use eights with Roslynn?”
“No. It’s just a symbol. A design for my grandfather when he died.”
“You did an eight symbol for your grandfather, an Egyptianeight? For infinity for your grandfather?”
“It’s on a weight belt and on my belt buckle.”
Hobson again steered the discussion back to Aundria Crawford’s burial. “Why not just load her up and take her to Santa Maria, for instance, and dump her in the riverbed?”
“I just didn’t think about it.”
“Is there any significance to how you put Aundria and Rachel in the grave sites or was it just a matter of getting them there? Nothing significant about it?”
“No.”
“What about the shoes you were wearing when you went in Aundria’s house?”
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