VA - Couple & two teens found murdered, Farmville, 15 Sept 2009 #2

[dangrsmind]

Thank you as well and I hope you dont continue to lurk. We all dont agree, but lets all hope we can agree to disagree. I think thats where Atlantica met her faith.

As far as having a bag, I dont see that being a problem. The time line is vague (unless someone else can clue me in). I think everything was in close enough proximity that he could have gone back for the bag after the tow truck.. Then again, maybe I missed all that in the precise details regarding the area. (Its hard to envision for a person like myself. I am a visual person...).

Anyway... unless you guys debunk this, I am still thinking he may have been scouting a place to dump the bodies..jmo of course.

Reportedly he was out on Poorhouse Road at 4AM, then dropped at a Sheetz by the tow truck driver (there appear to be two Sheetz in Farmville) and then he was reported in the restaurant around 6AM. Both Sheetz locations and the restaurant are walkable to the house I think.

I think a lot depends on where the bodies where moved to and how they were moved. Did he drag them one by one towards the door? Then in all probability he was looking for a disposal location. Otherwise he had other reasons to move and manipulate them I think. In which case I have a hard time explaining his trip to Poor House Road unless he got lost as was suggested by blouAngel. But if that is true he sure drove a decent distance before trying to turn around. A little odd to me, but not mystifying like the call to the police.

 

[KindraLore]

Reportedly he was out on Poorhouse Road at 4AM, then dropped at a Sheetz by the tow truck driver (there appear to be two Sheetz in Farmville) and then he was reported in the restaurant around 6AM. Both Sheetz locations and the restaurant are walkable to the house I think.

I think a lot depends on where the bodies where moved to and how they were moved. Did he drag them one by one towards the door? Then in all probability he was looking for a disposal location. Otherwise he had other reasons to move and manipulate them I think.

So thats 2 hours but I remember a press report stating that the guy he talked to in the restaurant talked to him for at least an hour. Maybe two. I will have to go back and try and find it.

BUT again, what if he had plan A and plan B. He was at the house at thought, Ok.. time to dump the bodies.. but I have no idea where I am at. He packs his bag just in case.. (if it wasnt already pretty much packed). I have boys and I know they pack light (in my experience)..lol.

So he thinks, just in case, Im taking my stuff. (what is weird is he left his charger to his phone according to earlier news reports). So he wasnt that prepared.. which leads ME to believe he wasn't ready.. came home from the tow truck ordeal.. spooked.. throws things together and leaves.

Of course sleep depredation and psychosis could have played a part in all his decision making and probably did to a certain extent.

Still.. back to the original theory. If he wrecked the car and his plan was foiled... then he just left and went to get out of there. No sleep.. probably no food. He was hungry. Eat then figure it out.

Now no car, just get away.. go home..

I also wonder when he wrecked the car why he hung around though. Again, most criminals (he knows he has a car thats not his) WHY did he even hang around for that?? Why not just walk away? Did someone see him wreck? Most criminals that have killed people and stolen their car and wrecked would RUN.

 

[Heroine]

Does this look like the same house to you guys? I mean emmas house? I'm just making sure because I typed in 505 1st street, but on here directly in front of the house is says 508 but there is no other house. The house is on a corner and if you go to the next house past the corner it goes to like 518 or something. Anyway, I'm going to start here and see how he would of ended up on the road that he did.
If you guys want pics of the house, side view, what's across the street etc I'll get them for you.
I went to Farmville tonight to eat at applebees, which is right beside the huddle house and was actually gonna drive down those roads, but thought of how insane that would be....haha
Wait a minute, in one article they gave the wrong address, I kept going up the road and found it. Theres no doubt this is the right house.

 

[wadahoot]

As for the smell, the cops (presumably) didn't smell it when they came to the house for the check-up call, didn't notice it again that night going into the basement (both times are at the door and/or inside the house, not in fresh air). Sam stepped away during the tow-truck meeting with the cops, perhaps not thinking smoking would cover the smell, so much as to put physical distance between them and him (we don't know how close they came, but I presume fairly close, as I believe this is when he got the ticket for his licence (?)). So, 3 times the cops don't notice (or tell us that they did, although if they did any of the 3 times, one would think they would do more than walk away).

On the smelly side <VBG> the young women claimed to smell death walking by the house, the tow truck driver smelled it, people in the restaurant smelled it, and the cab driver smelled it. No mention that I recall of the people at the airline ticket counter (assuming he went to the counter and didn't do all his queries by phone).

He got $100 out of the ATM for the cab ride, and claimed to not have any more money for the change-of-date with the airline.

I'm sure the person Sam called is the head/owner of the OTHER record company (I-- something?). I read it on one of Sick's postings when he's taking the media to task for questioning his honesty. I'll try to find it.

 

[blouAngel]

(Its hard to envision for a person like myself. I am a visual person...).

I'm a visual person too, that's why some benevolent creature(s) devised google maps for us. If you don't know already, you can drag the little orange man to the street and get a street view in any of these places.

http://tinyurl.com/sheetz-to-1st-ave
Google estimates that as a 36 minute walk, one way, if you know where you're going. He would have had to hustle, which doesn't seem to be his thing, and there's no reason why he would have rushed back for a leisurely meal at the Huddle house, which is just north of the Sheetz. He could very easily had a meal and then walked to the house, done anything he wanted to do, and then called a taxi. He didn't though. The loss of the car may explain that, but it seems to me he was done there. One random thought that pops into my head regarding that is that I'm surprised he didn't burn the place down.

By the way, on that map, the house where the murder's occurred, 505 1st Ave., isn't correctly identified. It's the one on the West side of 1St. Ave. at the South end of the ball field. Its isolation probably had something to do with no neighbors hearing or smelling anything.

http://tinyurl.com/poorhouse-site
I'm guessing the tow truck driver knew the area pretty well and/or had GPS. His route back to town would very likely have been West on 637, North on 630, and North West on 628, which would have brought them back to Rt. 15 very close to Sheetz.

I think McCroskey was lost on Poorhouse Road. Like I wrote before, it can be very difficult to turn around on a rural road without getting stuck. I've had to unstick myself more than once while trying to do that. Why that road it's hard to say, but the same could be said for choosing it as a dumping ground. 460 is the start of the way to the airport though.

There may have been more to his being on that road, but he's hardly fit, and I can't imagine him picking up one body let alone 4, especially when one seems to have been a fairly large man. I don't remember the car model, but I'm pretty sure it's a compact to mid-size import. That means one body per trip if they're in the trunk. I don't get the impression that he is brilliant at all, but he would have had to have given that at least a bit of thought.

On the topic of McCroskey's fitness, I'm surprised at the identification of a maul as the murder weapon. I've split my fair share of wood, and those are hard to swing, at least with any sort of accuracy. The heads are usually around 5-8 lbs. Once it's swung, you have to pick it back up which takes some effort, and I would expect it to be stuck as well, if you can pardon the image that conjures. It would be hard for a strong person to do that quickly and repeatedly. I wonder how a kid from another world, who (I'm guessing here) hasn't likely split a whole lot of firewood, could handle it so quickly and effectively. I can't imagine al three females sleeping in the same room, so he would have had to do it very quickly on the run or very quietly. An unweighted stick would be much quicker, which probably explains why that's what killed the pastor. I wonder if the maul might have been used to finish up a job he started with something else.

 

[ziggy]

Does this look like the same house to you guys? I mean emmas house? I'm just making sure because I typed in 505 1st street, but on here directly in front of the house is says 508 but there is no other house. The house is on a corner and if you go to the next house past the corner it goes to like 518 or something. Anyway, I'm going to start here and see how he would of ended up on the road that he did.
If you guys want pics of the house, side view, what's across the street etc I'll get them for you.
I went to Farmville tonight to eat at applebees, which is right beside the huddle house and was actually gonna drive down those roads, but thought of how insane that would be....haha
Wait a minute, in one article they gave the wrong address, I kept going up the road and found it. Theres no doubt this is the right house. Hang on a sec.

K - so I wanna know if you drove by or drove on the roads...any thoughts? It's not that insane, really, and I'm telling you this to feel better about some of the places I've driven by

 

[Heroine]

K - so I wanna know if you drove by or drove on the roads...any thoughts? It's not that insane, really, and I'm telling you this to feel better about some of the places I've driven by

Technically I drove by Emma's house, but only cus i had to to get to applebees but its on the street over but you can see it from there...but I didn't ride directly by it. I'm going to though when it's day light out.
I posted some pics. I wrote on them so they are pretty self explanatory if you can read the writing. You can tell I can't write with a mouse...haha.
Sam was going in the right direction and then turned down poorhouse road, why? I think he was afraid if he left them he would loose control over the situation. So maybe he was going to check out poorhouse road, as you can see it only took him 11 minutes to get there and also as you can see you can look and see everything you want on google maps so all he had to do was look around for a desolate road. Or maybe he's a freaking idiot and somehow made a wrong turn, but believe me I've driven that rode 1,000 times and you can clearly see every mile or so where you're going, there are plenty of signs. Actually thats the way i take to get to and from farmville, 460 I mean.

 

[Heroine]

I'm a visual person too, that's why some benevolent creature(s) devised google maps for us. If you don't know already, you can drag the little orange man to the street and get a street view in any of these places.

http://tinyurl.com/sheetz-to-1st-ave
Google estimates that as a 36 minute walk, one way, if you know where you're going. He would have had to hustle, which doesn't seem to be his thing, and there's no reason why he would have rushed back for a leisurely meal at the Huddle house, which is just north of the Sheetz. He could very easily had a meal and then walked to the house, done anything he wanted to do, and then called a taxi. He didn't though. The loss of the car may explain that, but it seems to me he was done there. One random thought that pops into my head regarding that is that I'm surprised he didn't burn the place down.

By the way, on that map, the house where the murder's occurred, 505 1st Ave., isn't correctly identified. It's the one on the West side of 1St. Ave. at the South end of the ball field. Its isolation probably had something to do with no neighbors hearing or smelling anything.

http://tinyurl.com/poorhouse-site
I'm guessing the tow truck driver knew the area pretty well and/or had GPS. His route back to town would very likely have been West on 637, North on 630, and North West on 628, which would have brought them back to Rt. 15 very close to Sheetz.

I think McCroskey was lost on Poorhouse Road. Like I wrote before, it can be very difficult to turn around on a rural road without getting stuck. I've had to unstick myself more than once while trying to do that. Why that road it's hard to say, but the same could be said for choosing it as a dumping ground. 460 is the start of the way to the airport though.

There may have been more to his being on that road, but he's hardly fit, and I can't imagine him picking up one body let alone 4, especially when one seems to have been a fairly large man. I don't remember the car model, but I'm pretty sure it's a compact to mid-size import. That means one body per trip if they're in the trunk. I don't get the impression that he is brilliant at all, but he would have had to have given that at least a bit of thought.

On the topic of McCroskey's fitness, I'm surprised at the identification of a maul as the murder weapon. I've split my fair share of wood, and those are hard to swing, at least with any sort of accuracy. The heads are usually around 5-8 lbs. Once it's swung, you have to pick it back up which takes some effort, and I would expect it to be stuck as well, if you can pardon the image that conjures. It would be hard for a strong person to do that quickly and repeatedly. I wonder how a kid from another world, who (I'm guessing here) hasn't likely split a whole lot of firewood, could handle it so quickly and effectively. I can't imagine al three females sleeping in the same room, so he would have had to do it very quickly on the run or very quietly. An unweighted stick would be much quicker, which probably explains why that's what killed the pastor. I wonder if the maul might have been used to finish up a job he started with something else.

Yeah I know if you look at that pic of the house above i typed in 501 but i moved the arrow up to 544 so if you look in the left hand coener of the pic of the house you'll see where it says 544, i told you the address was wrong. That pic thats posted now is the right house.

 

[Heroine]

Hi everyone. I've been following this thread since about day 2 when I first found it, but the bickering back and forth has kept me from wanting to get involved. Seeing Atlantica being banned when he/she was a possible source of loads of information that's still in short supply here was as baffling to me as almost any other aspect of this whole case. I'm amazed and impressed by dangrsmind's ability to hang in through all the abuse which has been tossed his way, which ironically has at times been far more egregious that anything Atlantica did from anything I've been able to determine. I don't have time for that, so you won't be seeing much from me.

I have a few points to address re: Poorhouse Road though. First, it doesn't go to Rice, Virginia. It seems that area is served by the Post Office in Rice, so the addresses there are Rice addresses. A google search for 1400 Poorhouse (make sure its one word) Road Rice, VA 23966 will take you to where Sam was towed from and a street view will put you on the spot. It's hardly a "desolate" area. It's an area with substantial farms, and several new exurban commuter homes probably those of fairly well paid university employees. There are even what look to be two possibly antebellum estates. One being Rotherwood, near where he got stuck and another being Poorhouse Farm. That isn't an uncommon name for a farm. I know of a few others in Central VA. Now of course, none of that would have been obvious to Sam, who is a suburban Cali kid.

I can see two possible reasons for him being there. If he were going to the airport, he would have taken business 460 from the middle of town and would have merged with the 460 bypass right before Poorhouse Rd. If he thought he was gong the wrong way, which is very possible since those mergers can be very confusing at times, he might have tried to turn around at Poorhouse. I drive on roads just like Poorhouse Rd. all the time and have many times been stuck hoping to turn around at the next convenient place and not been able to find one for a very long way, especially if someone is behind me. Central Virginia rural roads are often very narrow with ditches on both sides. Driveways that meet them aren't made for turn arounds. He got stuck trying to do just that, which illustrates the point rather well.

Looking for a dumping spot for something is another very plausible explanation. If that were the case, then it may explain why he turned around where he did. There are several houses there along the road. He may have been looking for someplace with no one around and started seeing more houses, which would be exactly what he didn't want.

I'm a little skeptical of the dumping theory though. Going North East along River Rd. or straight up 1st Ave. to rt. 643 West would have taken him to an isolated area much more directly. He's a kid who probably didn't drive much at home, who has someone else's car, and who doesn't know the area, so I think that would be an important consideration. In the airport videos he seems to have had a bag with him. He was ready to travel. I don't see a reason for him to have been ready to travel if he was just scouting for a body dumping trip that would have had him go back to the house first.

Maybe someone can make more sense of what he was doing there with a closer examination of the map and street view. One thing I'm pretty certain of though is that almost everyone who volunteers on the local rescue squad or who works in the police or sheriff's department, or the local funeral home knows a significant number of the facts that seem to be so elusive and yet so interesting about this case. If Atlantica is from that area with extend family there to boot, he/she can't be more than one degree removed from someone who knows all of those details. That ban was a huge loss for this thread. I'm just stunned that the moderator hasn't invited Atlantica back.

My $.02 for now. Back to lurking.

I live 30 minutes form farmville so I'm very familiar with the area. as for the road names I understand those as well, in va we have a lot of roads with the different names, and actually it does go into rice and back into farmville 3 or 4 times. We also have tons of roads that do that as well. We even have roads that go into different states and back into va. The houses you speak of are at the end of the road I've gone all the way down that road on google maps. There are alot of farming grounds, tobacco fields and such but other than that fences, cows, woods and roads and as i mentioned before a few houses.
Edited to say that I didn't know Atlantica was banned. What for? Darn, that's news to me and I was here all along!
I was just thinking, there are tons of deserted drive ways down that road, why didn't he use a driveway to turn around? I know I can screencap at least 4 that don't have any houses around it that are visible from the road.

 

[blouAngel]

Reportedly he was out on Poorhouse Road at 4AM, then dropped at a Sheetz by the tow truck driver (there appear to be two Sheetz in Farmville) and then he was reported in the restaurant around 6AM. Both Sheetz locations and the restaurant are walkable to the house I think.
.

The Sheetz website only mentions one location in Farmville at 2016 S Main St..
Farmville is a pretty small town. They're trying real hard to give it some hideous sprawl so it can catch up with the big boys, but that's pretty much concentrated South of town where Main St./Rt.15 meets the only major road in the area, St. Rt. 460, which itself doesn't carry anything even close to interstate level traffic. They don't even have a 7-Eleven, which is a good reason to live there if you ask me.

 

[Heroine]

1400 block ph road /co road 636
see images
There is one for both directions. kinda like turning all the way around, just in case you didn't know what i meant.
I just looked at the maps you posted blouangel and if you look at it the houses are all bunched together then you have tons of space where there are no houses not to mention some of the houses you can see on the map can't be seen from the road because the map makes them appear to be closer together. Also even the police officer said he was on the desolate stretch of road. In his own words.
Okay I'm going to add more pictures, because I find this very interesting, even if it means nothing, still interesting,
Okay as you see I have an image labeled 1400 Block ph road, that is exactly what you see when you type that into google maps that is what comes up....okay now the image labeled other direction is just a view of where I turned all the way around and looked in the other direction, from there I continued in that direction for about maybe .5 miles, there are 2 deserted driveways or turnaround spots, whatever you want to call them, within the 1400 block. They are labeled 1400blockright and 1400 left.
I can only add 5 images to this post so i'll finish in another post.

 

[Heroine]

Okay in my last post as I was saying I kept heading in that direction after i realized there were 2 turn around spots so the images you see in this post are images heading back in yet the other direction so you can get a picture of what the road looked like in between both spots and also so you could get an idea of how close these 2 spots were together.

 

[Heroine]

Alright a couple more pics. I went directly in front of each driveway so you could see what the area looked like from in front.... they are labeled onedriveway and otherdriveway and since i only got a shot of what one side might have looked like I got another shot of the other side of the road which is all trees all through there. The side where the driveways are are all fields and trees back past the fields as you can see.
Anyway thought you might wanna look.

 

[tapu]

So... that road is looking (and being described as, by police) pretty desolate in that spot. Maybe that's why Sam turned around there--he had found a good spot for dumping, in accordance with Plan A. Wrecks car--goes to Plan B.

Dumping the bodies but leaving all evidence at the house does not seem like a feasible plan, though. I suppose he may have thought he could clean up after, but it seems like he'd know more about blood, given his proclivities.

I was thinking about Leilah.... Sam doesn't seem like much of a sexual guy to me. I don't recall any of his lyrics as being overtly necrophiliac or even living-body sexual in nature. (Could be wrong there--I didn't read all that many.) Just a feeling, but I don't see him engaging in such.

 

[Heroine]

So... that road is looking (and being described as, by police) pretty desolate in that spot. Maybe that's why Sam turned around there--he had found a good spot for dumping, in accordance with Plan A. Wrecks car--goes to Plan B.

Dumping the bodies but leaving all evidence at the house does not seem like a feasible plan, though. I suppose he may have thought he could clean up after, but it seems like he'd know more about blood, given his proclivities.

I was thinking about Leilah.... Sam doesn't seem like much of a sexual guy to me. I don't recall any of his lyrics as being overtly necrophiliac or even living-body sexual in nature. (Could be wrong there--I didn't read all that many.) Just a feeling, but I don't see him engaging in such.

That's exactly why I posted those 2 spots and found them of interest. I mean I could be wrong, i often am, but if I wanted to hide some bodies that road sure looks like a good place to do it. Not to mention with those driveways as long as they are he could have driven down in there and near the edge of the woods and noone would have ever seen him from the road especially if they didn't know what they were looking for and in the dark. But yeah it seems as though he found what he was looking for and then tried to head out, but to no avail the idiot ran into the ditch, probably in a panic no doubt. Or maybe from just being in a hurry before anyone found the bodies or found him on that road.
Another reason I believe he wanted to get rid of the evidence is because that and not having any extra money is what i believe kept him there as long as he was. BUT with that being said maybe he didn't already have murder in mind when he came from CA in the first place because if so wouldn't he have planned to stay for a shorter time?
I just think that after he had been there for so long and things started to get hot (police checking on mel) he just decided that he had to do something and fast all while he thought of ANYTHING (stupid excuses) to hold them off of him just long enough to either get those bodies out of there and get him to CA or at least to hold them off long enough for him to get to richmond. If the bodies weren't there and neither was he they would have had to look for more evidence before they could take a warrant out on him. Or maybe the dumba** just thought he could get away with murder?

 

[gxm]

Reportedly he was out on Poorhouse Road at 4AM, then dropped at a Sheetz by the tow truck driver (there appear to be two Sheetz in Farmville) and then he was reported in the restaurant around 6AM. Both Sheetz locations and the restaurant are walkable to the house I think.

I think a lot depends on where the bodies where moved to and how they were moved. Did he drag them one by one towards the door? Then in all probability he was looking for a disposal location. Otherwise he had other reasons to move and manipulate them I think. In which case I have a hard time explaining his trip to Poor House Road unless he got lost as was suggested by blouAngel. But if that is true he sure drove a decent distance before trying to turn around. A little odd to me, but not mystifying like the call to the police.

That's an interesting angle. Maybe the bodies were moved (out of bed) to get them closer to the door. And, that may be why the cops finally smelled the decay when they came by the house for the third (or is that fourth) time.

 

[deita]

is there any information in which part of the house the bodies were found?..

 

[dangrsmind]

So thats 2 hours but I remember a press report stating that the guy he talked to in the restaurant talked to him for at least an hour. Maybe two. I will have to go back and try and find it.

BUT again, what if he had plan A and plan B. He was at the house at thought, Ok.. time to dump the bodies.. but I have no idea where I am at. He packs his bag just in case.. (if it wasnt already pretty much packed). I have boys and I know they pack light (in my experience)..lol.

So he thinks, just in case, Im taking my stuff. (what is weird is he left his charger to his phone according to earlier news reports). So he wasnt that prepared.. which leads ME to believe he wasn't ready.. came home from the tow truck ordeal.. spooked.. throws things together and leaves.

Of course sleep depredation and psychosis could have played a part in all his decision making and probably did to a certain extent.

Still.. back to the original theory. If he wrecked the car and his plan was foiled... then he just left and went to get out of there. No sleep.. probably no food. He was hungry. Eat then figure it out.

Now no car, just get away.. go home..

I also wonder when he wrecked the car why he hung around though. Again, most criminals (he knows he has a car thats not his) WHY did he even hang around for that?? Why not just walk away? Did someone see him wreck? Most criminals that have killed people and stolen their car and wrecked would RUN.

I agree. Most criminals immediately leave the scene of the crime and most murderers seek to quickly dispose of the bodies. They certainly don't call the police to the scene before doing so, they in fact do everything they can to avoid the police, and they will try to flee if possible when they are approached. There are of course rare exceptions to all of the above, but this case seems pretty extreme so I find it odd that doesn't seem to be worried about being caught at various different times.

I previously suggested that he might have believed he had some sort of magical protection possibly due to the odor of death itself. Ok, this is clearly a crazy idea but IMO the whole scenario is pretty inexplicable.

 

[dangrsmind]

That's exactly why I posted those 2 spots and found them of interest. I mean I could be wrong, i often am, but if I wanted to hide some bodies that road sure looks like a good place to do it. Not to mention with those driveways as long as they are he could have driven down in there and near the edge of the woods and noone would have ever seen him from the road especially if they didn't know what they were looking for and in the dark. But yeah it seems as though he found what he was looking for and then tried to head out, but to no avail the idiot ran into the ditch, probably in a panic no doubt. Or maybe from just being in a hurry before anyone found the bodies or found him on that road.
Another reason I believe he wanted to get rid of the evidence is because that and not having any extra money is what i believe kept him there as long as he was. BUT with that being said maybe he didn't already have murder in mind when he came from CA in the first place because if so wouldn't he have planned to stay for a shorter time?
I just think that after he had been there for so long and things started to get hot (police checking on mel) he just decided that he had to do something and fast all while he thought of ANYTHING (stupid excuses) to hold them off of him just long enough to either get those bodies out of there and get him to CA or at least to hold them off long enough for him to get to richmond. If the bodies weren't there and neither was he they would have had to look for more evidence before they could take a warrant out on him. Or maybe the dumba** just thought he could get away with murder?

Also helps explains why he out there at 4AM...

Actually I remember reading somewhere that someone did call the police to report a suspicious vehicle out there. If he was scouting for a disposal site he might have driven slowly, stopping to look for a good location, and thereby aroused suspicion from the residents out there. Haven't had my tea yet this AM so I may be mistaken about this point.

 

[dangrsmind]

The Sheetz website only mentions one location in Farmville at 2016 S Main St..
Farmville is a pretty small town. They're trying real hard to give it some hideous sprawl so it can catch up with the big boys, but that's pretty much concentrated South of town where Main St./Rt.15 meets the only major road in the area, St. Rt. 460, which itself doesn't carry anything even close to interstate level traffic. They don't even have a 7-Eleven, which is a good reason to live there if you ask me.

I found two using Google Maps...may be a formerly used address or an error.