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Authors: Corey Mitchell

BOOK: Dead And Buried
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At 4:30
P.M.
, on March 29, 2001, Judge LaBarbera brought the court to order. He received a request from the jury to hear David Zaragoza’s testimony in its entirety. The judge sent the court reporter to read the testimony to the jurors. No one heard from them again that day.
On Friday, March 30, the jury asked for a few clarifications on the instructions. Otherwise, not a word. Everyone would head into the weekend not knowing the fate of Rex Allan Krebs.
On Monday, April 2, 2001, the jurors sent in another request. They wanted to rewatch a portion of the Davis Canyon drive-throughvideotape when Rex Krebs pointed out the grave site locations to investigator Larry Hobson. Judge LaBarbera made sure they received the tape. He then broke for lunch.
Upon their return to court for the afternoon session, Judge LaBarbera informed the attorneys that the jury had reached a verdict. After discussing a few dates and details for a possiblepenalty phase, he asked the bailiff to bring the jurors into the courtroom. The nine women and three men that comprisedthe jury quietly walked to their seats in the jury box. None of them looked Rex Krebs in the eye.
The time was 3:49
P.M.
“The ladies and gentlemen of the jury are present.” Judge LaBarbera took control of the situation.
“Good afternoon.
“I understand, Madam Foreperson, that you’ve reached verdicts.”
“Yes, we have,” she replied.
“Could you hand those to the bailiff, please? Thank you.”
The bailiff took the sheet of paper and walked toward the judge’s bench. He handed the paper to the judge, who glanced over it, handed it back to the bailiff, who then handed it to the clerk.
“If the defendant would please stand, and the clerk will read the verdicts.” Krebs, dressed in a dark blue suit, with a dark blue striped tie, slowly stood up from behind the defense counsel’s table. Once everyone stood up, the clerk began to read the verdicts.
“Superior Court of California, County of San Luis Obispo.
The People of the State of California, Plaintiff,
versus
Rex Allan Krebs, Defendant, number F283378,
verdict of jury.
“Count one, murder in the first degree; victim, Rachel Lindsay Newhouse. We, the jury, find the defendant, Rex Allan Krebs, guilty of the crime of murder in the first degreein violation of Section 187 of the Penal Code of the State of California. Dated April 2, 2001, number 265, foreperson.”
Rex Krebs showed no emotion. He continued to look straight at the clerk. The audience seemed to let out a collectivesigh of relief. An enormous amount of pressure instantly drained out of the courtroom.
The clerk continued to read the verdicts: “Count two, murderin the first degree; victim, Aundria Lynn Crawford. We, the jury, find the defendant, Rex Allan Krebs, guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree in violation of Section 187 of the Penal Code of the State of California. Dated April 2, 2001, number 265, foreperson.”
All remaining pressure vanished from the courthouse—at least on the victims’ side.
The clerk continued down the litany of charges against Krebs. He was found guilty of all special circumstances includingthe kidnapping and rape of Rachel Newhouse and the kidnapping, rape, and sodomizing of Aundria Crawford. The jury also found Krebs guilty of multiple convictions of murder,kidnapping with the intent to rape and sodomize, rape and sodomize by force, and burglary.
The proceedings returned to Judge LaBarbera. He polled the jurors for their individual verdicts. Each one voted guilty on all eleven charges.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the judge addressed the jury, “as I mentioned to you regarding the penalty trial, we will begin evidence on April seventeenth at nine o’clock, which is the Tuesday after Easter.”
The district attorney’s office had stated from the outset that they wanted to send Krebs to San Quentin to face his own death by lethal injection. The defense had two weeks to prepare. They did not have much time.
FIFTY-FIVE
The defense put up a good fight. They summonsed anyone and everyone from Rex Krebs’s past. Family members, school officials from North Idaho Children’s Home, and a nationally renowned specialist in sexual disorders testified on behalf of Krebs. The cumulative testimonials were an attempt to paint a disturbing picture of a young man who could not control his destiny from the beginning. From the early days of abuse at his father’s hands to the latter-day sexual compulsion from which he suffered, the defense attempted to unveil a sympatheticportrait of a tormented man who could truly be a decent human being.
In total, the defense called upon forty-eight witnesses to testify on Krebs’s behalf. The testimony stretched over a periodof eight workdays.
The prosecution called on seven people. It only took one afternoon session.
Deputy District Attorney John Trice knew he needed to end the penalty phase with a powerful message to the jury. He called a few of the women who were closest to Rachel and Aundria during their all-too-brief lives. The first witness to testify was Patricia Turner, Rachel’s aunt and Montel Newhouse’ssister.
“Could you tell the jury about your relationship with Rachel?” Trice gently inquired.
“My daughter was six weeks old when Rachel was born, so we raised our daughters together. I knew every aspect of her,” Turner tearfully replied. “Rachel was my niece and she was a dream child. She was a straight A student and an athlete.Montel always was concerned that possibly she was too much of a perfectionist, that she wouldn’t enjoy her happiness until everything was perfect. The last summer I saw her, she had accomplished that. She had found her balance. She was balanced and perfect.”
“And that would have been the summer of ’98?”
“Correct.”
“Have you personally seen how the loss of Rachel has affectedtheir family?”
“I saw Montel’s world change completely. Everything that happened after that is different, in that Montel lived in the same house that Rachel was born and she works in the school that Rachel attended, and all of those things that she does every day will never be the same. Instead of celebrating a good job of raising Rachel, she is torn between that and sadness.So her life will never be the same again.
“I’ve seen Phil have a daily battle with trying to balance celebrating her life with the nightmare that did not define her in any way. I’ve watched him struggle to celebrate every day and keep a positive attitude. He’s done that. He’s been able to do that and he’s done an excellent job.
“The Newhouse family has struggled every day to celebrateRachel and not to grieve or think anything but positive thoughts.”
After Turner, Trice next called Rachel’s mother, Montel Newhouse, to the witness stand. They quickly discussed her marriage of twenty-seven years to Phil Newhouse, her three children, including Rachel, and that they lived in Irvine, California,for the last twenty-three years.
Trice then asked Mrs. Newhouse about her daughter. “What type of student was Rachel Newhouse?”
“She was very conscientious. She kind of had that perfectionistthing going that was sometimes difficult. She wasn’t brilliant, but she set her sights very high and she worked really hard. She had a good work ethic and she did very well. She graduated from high school with a 4.0 grade point average.”
Mrs. Newhouse spoke about Rachel’s numerous interests as she grew up. Camping, hiking, running, her friends and family. She then spoke of Rachel’s activities in San Luis Obispo. A full class load every semester combined with differentjobs from baby-sitter to restaurant hostess.
“Did you ever talk to her when she was at Cal Poly about her personal goals, marriage or children?”
“I think that was in her plans. I know she would have been a good mom. She was always telling me stories from her baby-sitting experiences. She enjoyed the kids a lot and I think that was a long-term goal.”
“In November of 1998, did things seem to be going well for your daughter?”
“Yeah, I had visited her in October. Her grandmother and I came for a visit and we had a great time and things were going well. I talked to her last on Wednesday night, the eleventh. We had a long conversation and she was upbeat; things were going well.”
“How did you hear that your daughter Rachel was missing?”
“It was on Friday, November thirteenth. Phil and I were watching a movie and Nichole called and said that no one had seen her since the previous night. At the time we were just kind of in shock, disbelief. We ended up coming up the followingmorning. We met at a rescue center that they had going and we met Detective Cindy Dunn.”
“What were the next three or four months like then?”
“I don’t know a way to describe it. It’s a fear, a magnitude that I’ve never experienced and an anxiety that I don’t think you can measure.”
“How did you find out that Rachel had finally been found?”
“We got a phone call from Cindy Dunn that was a little more urgent than some of the other contacts we had. We came up on Thursday and we stayed up here and finally heard definitivelyon Saturday afternoon.”
“Is it possible to explain how her death has affected you and your family?”
“I hesitate because I feel like it isn’t fair to compare our pain with maybe what her pain and suffering was. There’s anotherpart that we’ve been able to cope by basically remaining kind of private. I think that’s where we get our strength. I think when you describe the pain that you’ve been through, it takes away from the joy that Rachel brought to us. There aren’t words to express that kind of loss.”
Next up were the two most important women in Aundria Crawford’s life: her grandmother Jody Crawford and her mother and best friend, Gail Crawford Eberhart.
Jody Crawford testified to how she had helped her daughterGail raise Aundria after the divorce. She also spoke of how close she had become to her granddaughter. She talked about Aundria’s interests in ballet, horses, and cars. She also talked about helping Aundria get settled into San Luis Obispo for college.
“Did you ever go with Aundria to Cuesta College?” prodded Trice.
“Oh yes. I helped her get registered. I bought her books. I was over there a lot.”
“Do you know what her long-term plans were?”
“She really did want to get married and have children, but she wanted to own her own horse ranch in Wyoming.”
“How long did she live in San Luis Obispo before she died?”
“From May of ’98 to March of ’99.”
“By March of 1999, how were things going for your granddaughter? Things going well?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“When was the last time you spoke to her?”
“I spoke to her on Tuesday, which would have been the ninth.”
“How did it come about that you heard that she was missing?”
“Gail came by that night and I asked her if she’d heard from Aundria and she said no. She went home around nine-thirty.About one in the morning, she called and she said she had not had any response from Aundria and she had called the police and asked them to check the apartment. About seven-thirtyshe called me back. They found that she was not there. We drove to San Luis Obispo as fast as we could.”
“What did you do?”
“We started looking for her ourselves. We went all over San Luis Obispo County. We looked under bridges. We looked in trash dumps. We saw things we don’t ever want to look at again. We did that for six weeks.”
“How did you find out that your granddaughter had been found?”
“The police called us into the office on April twenty-second.”
“After six weeks, were you still holding out hope that your granddaughter might still be alive?”
“We always held out hope, but we were discouraged. But we didn’t give up hope.”
“You worked every single day for six weeks trying to find her?”
“Every day. Gail said she would not leave until she found her daughter.”
“Is it possible to explain to the jury how this has affected you?”
“It has affected our entire family to some degree. Everybodyin the family has trouble with it.”
“How about Gail?”
“She’s changed a lot. She hasn’t gone to work for two years.”
“How has your life changed?”
“I am separated. Gail and I had both moved out of state. We felt like we needed to move away from Fresno. It’s a total change of life for me. Well, Gail too. But for me, since I lived in the house for forty years in Fresno, it’s a big change.”
“Thank you. That’s all I have, Your Honor.”
Trice then called Gail to the stand. “Can you tell the jury as she was growing up, how close you were with your daughter,Aundria?”
Gail immediately broke into tears. Judge LaBarbera halted the proceeding. “Do you want to take a few minutes?” the judge asked. Gail Crawford shook her head no. “Take your time.”
“She was a real open child,” the mother tearfully responded.“We were best friends. I knew all of her secrets. She would come home and tell me. Just a real open, loving ...” She trailed off without finishing her thought.
Trice again talked about Aundria’s hobbies as a child. Crawford mentioned her daughter’s love of ballet, then horses.
“What type of student was she?”
“She was a good student. She was honor roll until she was about fifteen, sixteen. When the ballet problem came up, she got real frustrated, so her senior year she struggled, but she graduated.”
Trice asked Crawford about Aundria’s life in San Luis Obispo.
“She was homesick, but she was happy here.”
“And her plans for the future?”
“Oh, she had a lot of plans. She wanted to get married. She wanted to have children. She wanted to be an interior designer—architect. She wanted to run her own business. She wanted to move to Wyoming to have a horse ranch. She wanted all of it. She wanted everything.”
“Do you remember the last time you saw her or spoke with her?”
“I spoke with her Tuesday afternoon. That would have been the ninth. She was calling about a drafting board she needed to purchase. We had expected to hear from her by Thursday, because she called a lot. And that’s when I started calling her. We hadn’t heard from her in two days. It was unusual.”
“When you came over to San Luis, what did you do there?”
“When we first arrived, we went to her apartment and it was taped off. If her car was there, there was something wrong, because she took that car everywhere. She would take it on dates. She would drive, because if she ever got in a situationshe couldn’t get out of, or didn’t like, she could take herself home.”
“Is it possible to explain how your life has changed as a resultof losing your daughter?”
“She was my life. Because we were so close, we talked almostevery day. It’s a huge void. She was my family. I’ve lost my whole family.”
The courtroom was silent.
John Trice had no more questions for Gail Crawford. The defense declined to ask her any questions.

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