Sadistic Killers: Profiles of Pathological Predators (13 page)

That year the malnourished young boy was admitted to hospital for a ruptured eardrum. Corey Mitchell’s impressive biography
Dead and Buried
notes that the doctor suspected Rex was being abused but decided not to file a report.

Freedom from fear

Thankfully, Rex’s dad now took him to a mental hospital, telling them that he was out of control. The staff believed that he could do well if removed from his current environment so he was sent to an Idaho children’s home. Often such homes 107

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are soulless, indifferent places, but this one offered a therapy-centred caring environment.

At first, Rex remained as disturbed as he’d been at home, throwing tantrums and lying constantly. But, over the next few months, he responded to the care he was given and eventually became their model resident. He also won a certificate for his baseball skills, improved at school and got an after-school job.

For the first time ever he looked and acted relaxed and was at peace with himself and his surroundings, and the staff at the children’s home thought that he would go on to have an enjoyable and productive life.

Unfortunately, he improved so much that he no longer required a supportive environment, and, despite the fact that he’d talked about the violence at home, he was returned to his father, a man who had never visited him during the past 21

months.

Rex reluctantly went back to the dilapidated farm with no running water. Almost immediately, the abuse started up again, with his father regularly punching him in the face, telling him he was a ‘worthless bastard’ and referring to his sisters as ‘whores’. He also watched the man kick his sisters and beat them with a switch. Desperate to block out the horror, the teenager began to drink heavily and soon progressed to using amphetamines.

Sexual assault

In February 1984, he was drinking with a group of other youngsters when he encouraged a 12-year-old girl to imbibe vodka. Separating her from the group, he lay on top of her and ripped off her jeans. He failed to penetrate her and, increasingly frustrated, began to strangle her instead. He then punched her repeatedly in the face, the exact same act of violence that had so often been carried out on him. Belatedly coming to his senses, 108

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he apologised and begged her not to tell anyone. Thankfully she told a passing couple who phoned the police.

The teenager was arrested the following day and charged with attempted rape but he entered a not guilty plea. The charge was subsequently plea-bargained down to an assault, for which he served only 90 days. This type of situation is all too common in both the USA and Britain, where the authorities don’t take early sexual offences sufficiently seriously. This is also true outside of the legal system, with teachers and parents often taking a punitive stance towards normal adolescent sexual explorations with a girlfriend/boyfriend or with erotica, yet downplaying an assault as boys being boys.

Prison

Freed from juvenile detention, Rex continued his downward spiral. Six weeks after his release he stole a car and broke into a second car. This time he received a three-year sentence and was sent to a minimum security prison in Idaho. Corrections officers found the 18-year-old to be immature but polite and non-confrontational. This shouldn’t have surprised them

– teenagers from chaotic homes often improve in a structured environment. At the end of Rex’s three-year sentence he was released to the custody of his mother, who was living with her fourth husband near San Luis Obispo in California.

Bondage and attempted rapes

Rex now turned the family garage into an apartment for himself and soon started dating. But his girlfriend noticed that he was obsessed with anal sex. Most young boys who are obsessed with trying out this particular sexual act have previously been the recipient and now feel the need to take the active role again and again. He also wanted to bind her wrists and ankles before they had intercourse but she refused.

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The boy who had overheard his own mother being raped all those years ago now had increasingly dominant sexual fantasies.

He also found it impossible to be faithful to just one woman and went out again and again in search of variety. When his girlfriend left him on 17 May 1987 he was frightened, lost and very, very angry. Another woman was about to pay…

A week after being deserted, he went on the prowl carrying a large coil of rope, his head full of revenge fantasies. He followed an attractive woman home and broke into her apartment, waking her in the darkness and threatening her with a knife.

Rolling her onto her stomach, he tied her wrists together then he slowly and ritualistically cut off all of her clothes. He tried to rape her for the next half hour but couldn’t maintain an erection, a common reaction in men who are using sex to meet non-sexual requirements. Eventually he hog-tied her, forcing her bound hands back towards her bound ankles and tying them together so that her body was completely helpless and cruelly stretched. Luckily, at that moment the woman’s flatmate returned – doubtless saving her life – and Krebs fled.

For the next three weeks the agitation built up, then Krebs sought to subdue it by attacking again. This time he targeted a young mother whom he had previously spoken to whilst installing a garage door for her neighbour. Breaking into her house in the middle of the night, he threatened her with a knife and a screwdriver and said that he wanted her body, but she fought hard to avoid being raped. Krebs became increasingly enraged as she scratched and hit him, but after a lengthy struggle he fled.

The woman told the police that her attacker resembled the man who’d worked on her neighbour’s property and they identified him as the recently released criminal Rex Allan Krebs. The police picked him up and discovered a scratch on his face and other scratches on his body. And he’d lost his cord hat and his knife at the scene.

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Eventually Krebs admitted the attempted rape and also confessed to the previous attempted rape. He was sentenced to 20 years in jail.

Imprisonment and parole

For the next ten years, Rex was housed at Soledad State Prison.

There, he worked hard and caused no trouble. After all, in a woman-free and heavily structured environment he was relatively at peace. Unfortunately, he didn’t participate in the sexual offenders programme as to do so would have marked him as a nonce (sex offender), and he preferred to tell other prisoners that he was in jail on a murder charge.

Krebs worked out in the prison gym during these years, turning from a slender sensitive looking man into a bulky and intimidating looking one with a shaven head and luxurious handlebar moustache. He was reasonably articulate and a good listener so he became increasingly popular with the other inmates. The parole board didn’t realise how sadistic he was because he hadn’t had a chance to enact his cruel fantasies and, halfway through his sentence, they released him back into the community. On 2 September 1997 he was free.

But the community knew that he was a dangerous sex offender and he was hounded by the locals and forced to move to a less populated area. He rented a remote cabin in the Davis Canyon Woods, south of San Luis Obispo, and soon found himself a labouring job and a new girlfriend.

The 31-year-old now had a second chance at life and for a few months he made the most of his opportunities. He romanced his girlfriend, taking her out for meals and showering her with attention. He also did well at work, putting in long hours and impressing his boss.

But as soon as he had the upper hand in his new relationship, he began to show his true colours, becoming excessively jealous.

No doubt reacting to childhood conditioning, he also tried to 111

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control his girlfriend and everything else in his environment.

Soon the lovers were squabbling frequently and storming out on each other. Meanwhile his father was arrested on a drugs offence and got back in touch for the first time in years.

Increasingly unhappy and still plagued with sadistic sexual fantasies, Rex Allan Krebs began to drown his sorrows and to take recreational drugs, despite the fact that these violated his parole conditions. His mood darkened further by August 1998

after he attempted to break up a bar fight and received head injuries which left him disoriented for several days.

The rst murder

On 12 November 1998, he drank heavily in a San Luis Obispo bar and was inebriated when he left the premises in the middle of the evening. He saw student Rachel Newhouse walking across the Jennifer Street Bridge in the winter darkness, just half a mile away from her home. Krebs took a skull mask from his truck (its very presence proof of premeditation) and put it on, then jumped on the girl and battered her unconscious.

Throwing her into his truck, he drove carefully towards his out-of-the-way neighbourhood. Meanwhile, other pedestrians on the bridge noticed the large pool of blood and phoned the police.

At last, the sadist had a victim all to himself. He briefly parked his truck and tied her feet and hands, tore off her panties and used them as a gag, then drove to an abandoned house near his home. There, he ungagged and untied her then raped her before turning her onto her stomach and cruelly hog-tying her – as he’d done this to a previous victim, it’s likely that this particular form of bondage was his favourite sexual fantasy.

We’ll probably never know exactly what happened next.

Krebs’ own self-serving account was that he went home for 15 minutes to drink some whisky and that when he returned 112

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Rachel had strangled to death. In reality, a sadist simply wouldn’t leave a victim of his own volition after just one rape.

At midnight the following day, he wrapped her corpse in garbage bags then buried it on a grassy hill. He also removed the bloodstained carpet from his truck.

Impending fatherhood

Two months later, in January 1999, Rex’s girlfriend told him that she was pregnant. At first he was delighted but then he reflected on his violent urges and told her that he wasn’t a suitable father as he didn’t have a conscience.

Rex again went out drinking heavily and began to stalk 20-year-old college student Aundria Crawford. He followed her home and parked outside her house, then peeked under the window blind. For the next few nights he followed her around, on two occasions climbing up the side of her house to peer in her window. His urges began to escalate.

The second murder

On 11 March 1999, he entered Aundria’s apartment by squeezing himself through her tiny bathroom window, bruising his ribs badly in the process. When she encountered him, he battered her unconscious, hog-tied her and put duct tape across her mouth. He also put a pillowcase over her head and bound it in place.

After carrying the young woman to his truck, he returned to her apartment and wiped up the blood. He also stole her VCR, some of her clothes and an unusual key ring which he wanted as a souvenir.

He drove the student up to an abandoned cabin near his home, but saw a neighbour there so drove on to his own house, his cruel lust stronger than his need to avoid leaving a forensic 113

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trail. Putting her on the bed, he freed her from the hog-tied position but kept her hands bound together.

Throughout the day he raped and sodomised her multiple times. He also tied her spreadeagled to his bed, then reverted to his favourite position of hog-tying. It was classic sadistic behaviour, with the sadist trying out various forms of abuse but inevitably returning to his long-held masturbatory fantasies: in this case, hog-tying a young girl. Finally he strangled his unfortunate victim with a rope whilst kneeling on her back.

Within hours of her death he’d buried her in his backyard.

The net closes

The next time that Rex’s parole officer visited, he noticed that the former felon was walking slowly and holding his ribs. Rex said that he’d fallen over in the woods – but the officer knew that a man had forced his way through Aundria’s tiny window and would have severe bruising. He contacted the police and told them of his concerns. They, in turn, visited Krebs’ home and found airgun pellets and a BB gun, a violation of his parole.

Arrested, he broke down in tears. Aware that several of Aundria Crawford’s possessions were hidden in his house, he now said he’d been in the area at the time of her disappearance, and after a little more questioning he took them to Rachel Newhouse’s burial site. Detectives uncovered the decomposed remains of the once-beautiful and vibrant student: now she could only be recognised by the silver identity bracelet on her wrist.

Krebs then directed them to Aundria Crawford’s corpse, buried close to his house in the Davis woods, her wrists and ankles still wrapped in the bindings which had held them in place.

An active choice

For the next two years, Krebs’ lawyers filed motions to delay his trial. They then succeeded in getting the trial relocated to 114

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Monterey. It finally started on 19 March 2001 and the charges included the kidnap of Aundria Crawford plus multiple counts of rape and sodomy.

Krebs’ story to the police had been that Rachel had strangled to death by mistake and that he’d ‘had’ to kill Aundria as her blindfold had come off and she’d recognised him. He’d probably hoped for a double manslaughter charge – but when someone dies during a kidnapping or sexual assault, the assailant is guilty under Californian law of murder in the first degree. Oddly, Krebs’ defence team now countered that his statement shouldn’t be enough to convict him of homicide. They reminded the jury that he had once been a ‘small boy, neglected and abandoned by his mother, the child abused by his father’. The subtext seemed to be that he might falsely admit guilt due to disordered thought processes.