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The family that attends horrorcore rap concerts together, is beaten to death together
(Note: Comments begin here.)
As part of an effort to help their daughter through the horrorcore rap phase she was going through, Presbyterian pastor Mark Niederbrock of Virginia and his estranged wife, criminal law professor Debra Kelley, drove their 16 year old daughter Emma and the daughter’s 20 year old horrorcore rap artist boyfriend 16 hours to attend a horrorcore rap festival in Michigan
Two days after the group returned to Virginia, the horrorcore rap artist bludgeoned the entire family to death. Maybe they really got on his nerves during that long car trip.
Debra Kelley, criminal law professor, confused mom,
and her killer, Richard “Syko Sam” McCroskey
Here is the entire AP story. Below that are selections from the article with comments by reader James P., who sent the article.
Slain Va. mom, daughter had counseling over music
By Dena Potter and Allen G. Breed (AP)—7 hours ago
FARMVILLE, Va.—A criminal justice professor and her daughter, who police say were slain by a horrorcore rapper, were in counseling over the teenager’s obsession with the macabre music, and the mother took her daughter to the concerts to keep an eye on her, a family friend said Wednesday.
Debra Kelley, 53, an associate professor at Longwood University, was hoping that Emma Niederbrock was just “going through a phase,” said James F. Hodgson, a former colleague who had known Emma since she was about 1 year old. He said Kelley took her to horrorcore concerts, which feature artists who rhyme violent lyrics over hip-hop beats, in Michigan and Illinois.
“She’s either going to go on her own or I go with her and make sure she’s OK,” Hodgson, a former police officer and now an associate criminal justice professor at Virginia State University, said of Kelley’s reasoning. “She said that she needed to be there for her, and that she was going to grow out of this.”
Kelley and Emma were found bludgeoned to death Friday at their Farmville home in central Virginia along with Kelley’s estranged husband and Emma’s father, the Rev. Mark Niederbrock, 50, and Emma’s friend Melanie Wells, 18, of Inwood, W.Va.
Police have charged Emma’s boyfriend, Richard “Sammy” McCroskey III, 20, of Castro Valley, Calif., with first-degree murder in Mark Niederbrock’s death. McCroskey, who rapped under the name “Syko Sam,” is also suspected in the other killings.
McCroskey and Emma, who went by “RagD0LL” online, appear to have met through the underground horrorcore scene. On Sept. 6, McCroskey flew to Virginia so they could attend a music festival together.
Authorities believe the killings occurred shortly after the group returned from the Sept. 12 concert in Southgate, Mich. The girls last logged onto their MySpace accounts Sept. 14. McCroskey was arrested Saturday at the Richmond airport while awaiting a flight back to California.
McCroskey’s sister, Sarah, said her brother’s friends told her that he and Emma had some kind of falling out at the concert.
Hodgson said Kelley, who specialized in violence against women but has taught classes in homicide, had been struggling since Emma got into horrorcore a couple of years ago. She and her husband separated about a year ago, and all three were in therapy “trying to move through this.”
“Clearly, she was very upset with it and didn’t necessarily approve of it,” he said. “I mean short of locking them in their room or something and putting wires on the windows, I don’t necessarily know what you do.”
Hodgson said Kelley never mentioned McCroskey, but it was clear Emma was smitten with him. She had been sending McCroskey passionate messages on MySpace about his impending visit.
She was also looking forward to the Michigan festival, but complained in a post that her father, a Presbyterian minister, was coming along on the 16-hour drive.
“talka bout a long ass drive sharin the car with a (expletive) preacher,” she wrote. “its gona suck but no doubt is it worth it :D”
Andres Shrim, owner of the horrorcore label Serial Killin Records, said it was not uncommon for parents to accompany their children to these concerts.
“I mean, her father being a pastor, that proves he was a true Christian man,” said Shrim, who raps under the name SickTanicK the Soulless about killing Christians. “The Bible says, `Judge not, lest ye be judged.’ He knew that this was just entertainment. He may not have agreed with what statements we make, but that made him a good father. Because he was interested in being a part of his daughter’s life and the things SHE was interested in.”
Hodgson said Kelley had tried to keep tabs on Emma, even installing software on her computer to monitor the Web sites she visited. She had been home-schooling Emma for the past several years because of bullying and discipline issues in middle school, and some of Emma’s postings talked about smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol.
Hodgson, who co-wrote a book on sexual violence with Kelley, acknowledged that people might find it strange that someone like Kelley would indulge such a fascination with music that glorifies rape, mutilation and murder. Kelley had been on paid leave this academic year to conduct research and had resigned from the university effective in May, school spokesman Dennis Sercombe said.
Students were shocked when they found that out two weeks before the semester began. Katie Austin, 21, of Portsmouth, said Kelley was a popular teacher who often hosted cookouts for students in Lambda Alpha Epsilon, a criminal justice fraternity Kelley helped form. She would occasionally bring Emma to class.
“I remember instances where she would talk about how she didn’t understand some of the things that were going on with teens these days, and she could have been referring to Emma,” Austin said.
Hodgson last saw Kelley and Emma about three weeks ago, when he and his daughter were driving through Farmville. He remembered joking with Emma about her pink hair. Like his friend, he hoped horrorcore was something she would get over.
“Back in the day, you grew your hair long and wore bell-bottom jeans and listened to rock ‘n roll and who knows what else,” he said. “Our parents thought it was the end of the world, and we were acting so damned crazy. But somehow we grew out of some of that and got jobs and moved on with our lives. I mean, some of us did.”
[end of AP article]
Here are selections with comments by James P.:
“A criminal justice professor and her daughter, who police say were slain by a horrorcore rapper, were in counseling over the teenager’s obsession with the macabre music,”
[JP: This is yet more testimony to the worthlessness of the psychology profession. What that girl needed was discipline, not “counseling”.]
“and the mother took her daughter to the concerts to keep an eye on her, a family friend said Wednesday.”
[JP: Yet exposure to this filth did not cement the mother’s determination to make the daughter stop listening to it.]
Debra Kelley, 53, an associate professor at Longwood University, was hoping that Emma Niederbrock was just “going through a phase,” said James F. Hodgson, a former colleague who had known Emma since she was about 1 year old. He said Kelley took her to horrorcore concerts, which feature artists who rhyme violent lyrics over hip-hop beats, in Michigan and Illinois.
“She’s either going to go on her own or I go with her and make sure she’s OK,” Hodgson, a former police officer and now an associate criminal justice professor at Virginia State University, said of Kelley’s reasoning. “She said that she needed to be there for her, and that she was going to grow out of this.”
[JP: What an incompetent mother.]
“Hodgson said Kelley, who specialized in violence against women but has taught classes in homicide”
[JP: And this woman did not recognize that her daughter’s friend from California was a dangerous psycho??? That sure raises questions about her qualifications.]
“Clearly, she was very upset with it and didn’t necessarily approve of it,” he said. “I mean short of locking them in their room or something and putting wires on the windows, I don’t necessarily know what you do.”
[JP: They live in your house! They are financially dependent on you! If you can’t control them you are a complete nitwit. Of course if you have not established that control before they’re in high school, it’s way too late.]
“Andres Shrim, owner of the horrorcore label Serial Killin Records, said it was not uncommon for parents to accompany their children to these concerts.”
[JP: The mind boggles. If you’re not willing to draw the line at satanic rap, where do you draw the line?]
“Hodgson said Kelley had tried to keep tabs on Emma, even installing software on her computer to monitor the Web sites she visited. She had been home-schooling Emma for the past several years because of bullying and discipline issues in middle school, and some of Emma’s postings talked about smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol.”
[JP: The mother is completely aware of what her daughter was doing, but was too ineffectual to stop it. Sounds like denying access to the internet would have been a good start!]
“Back in the day, you grew your hair long and wore bell-bottom jeans and listened to rock ‘n roll and who knows what else,” he said. “Our parents thought it was the end of the world, and we were acting so damned crazy. But somehow we grew out of some of that and got jobs and moved on with our lives. I mean, some of us did.” [JP: So no matter what they do, it’s just a harmless phase, and parents shouldn’t be judgmental. The blind Eloi philosophy reigns supreme.]
- end of initial entry -
Clark Coleman writes:
It struck me when reading this latest story that there is a puzzling set of circumstances here. The parents are separated; the mother has a job; yet the mother is home schooling the daughter. Does this not mean that the daughter has been without supervision for many hours a day for at least the last year (during the marital separation) and probably for a couple of years before that? Even before the marital separation, a minister cannot be home all day, either.
EVERY home schooling mother I have heard of in my life, before this story, did not have a full time job outside the home, even one with the somewhat irregular hours of a college professor.
LA replies:
The story says that the mother is on a year’s sabbatical from her job, and that she had announced at the beginning of the term that she would be resigning her job at the end of the school year. So she would have had time to home school Emma starting this month. However, the story says that she had been home-schooling her daughter for the last several years, so your question remains to be answered, especially concerning the last year. Since Kelley has been separated from her husband for a year, and since Emma was apparently residing with Kelley, and since Kelley was working at her job during the 2008-2009 school year, how could she have been homeschooling Emma during that year?
Sage McLaughlin writes:
What I noticed about the article you posted is that it’s very long on details about mom—she did this, she thought that, this was her reasoning—but includes almost nothing about the girl’s father. Where was he? He is conspicuous by his absence, as is often the case in situations such as these. His wife is taking his daughter with some white “thug life” freak to some satanic mosh pit, and he’s just doing his part by being a blank check and a smile. How about this quote, too:
“I mean, her father being a pastor, that proves he was a true Christian man,” said Shrim, who raps under the name SickTanicK the Soulless about killing Christians. “The Bible says, `Judge not, lest ye be judged.” He knew that this was just entertainment. He may not have agreed with what statements we make, but that made him a good father. Because he was interested in being a part of his daughter’s life and the things SHE was interested in.”
Just entertainment? Imagine the gall that it takes for this “Shrim” character to say something like this—that her father proved what a great Christian man he was by sitting back and allowing Satanic rappers to poison and ultimately murder his family. He praises the man’s non-judgmentalism, as if he would have been wrong to assume that this boy was a danger, as if he would have been wrong to assume that this rap scene was not merely “entertainment” but actually lethal poison, as if all the usual “judgmental” conclusions that any sensible parent reached were not proven true and borne out in gory detail. Shrim should at least have the decency to keep his accursed mouth shut, in the wake of a triple homicide inspired by his own bloody-mindedness.
It’s impossible to get your head around such narcissistic depravity.
Terry Morris writes:
Unbelievable! I just read your article and, my God!, I’m stunned, STUNNED! by what I’ve just read.
I agree with everything James P. said.
Michelle R. writes:
If only pastor Niederbrock had gone further. If only he had founded the Horrorcore Rap Church, or the Syko Sam Church. Maybe then Emma would have seen the light. Alas … what could have been …
See this YouTube.
Markus writes:
You wrote:
“Two days after the group returned to Virginia, the horrorcore rap artist bludgeoned the entire family to death. Maybe they really got on his nerves during that long car trip.”
My morning coffee nearly hit my computer screen when I read that line. LOL funny. Yes, the story itself is awful and sickening … but in an almost comical way. SykoSam? Truly, you can’t make this stuff up.
But then, the unintentional humor continues. I was glad to know, for instance, that Andres Shrim, owner of the horrorcore label Serial Killin Records, is of the Crosby, Stills and Nash view that one should “Teach your children well…. Just look at them and sigh” (or is that die?). The dear man is quoted as dispensing this pearl of wisdom:
“I mean, her father being a pastor, that proves he was a true Christian man … He knew that this was just entertainment. He may not have agreed with what statements we make, but that made him a good father. Because he was interested in being a part of his daughter’s life and the things SHE was interested in.”
Of course, this is stupider than stupid, but does it not reflect the educated parents’ whole mindset in raising their child? First, the parents weren’t the boss; they weren’t even friends. They were servants to their child—they were like hired help, paid to chaperone the crazy girl—who, typically, predictably, despises them for it.
Second, the daughter’s fixation on evil is not something to be condemned outright—that would be “judging” according to Mr. Shrim, and the Bible he hates condemns such condemnation—but rather a viewpoint to be agreed or disagreed with. It’s an opinion, and everyone’s allowed their own opinion, right?
It would be too obvious to talk about the fact that the parents were divorced. [LA notes: they were separated.] But I was interested to know the mother was a professor who had taught courses in homicide. Kinda makes me wonder if there wasn’t some part of her that was fascinated by killers, and wanted to gather some field research. Get into the mindset of the whole horrorcore bunch. Just for intellectual purposes, you understand.
Shrewsbury writes:
If I may offer some observations of other people’s children whom I have had the pain of observing (my own having been perfect in every way). Teenage girls can be utterly uncontrollable, especially in fatherless environments. In some cases there is literally nothing a mother can say or do that will have the slightest effect on their behavior, except to make it worse. What is more, they can at the same time be adept at emotional blackmail. “If you don’t let me go to the concert, I’ll just run away and go anyway, and probably get killed, but who cares?” And they do run away, and end up sleeping with older males who ply them with drugs.
I know of one young lady whose wild career was stopped only when she was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia and suspicion of dealing, and faced the prospect of spending the rest of her adolescence in juvenile hall. She was furious at the entire world, but she cleaned up her act to the extent necessary to stay out of “juvie,” and not one jot more, but it was a vast improvement.
Ten years later, she is to be wed to a fine young man, the type that used to be called a “junior executive,” and thinks she was an utter imbecile during her teen years. Unfortunately Emma Kelley will never grow up to realize how stupid she was.
I agree that “counseling” is utterly useless. Psychologists (psycho logists, I call them) invariably actually encourage teenage misbehavior and self-destruction and locate the source of all problems with the parents’ refusal to “give them their life” or some such twaddle.
Kathlene M. writes:
The slain Presbysterian pastor father exemplifies the feminized state of men, fatherhood, and Christianity in America today. Why didn’t he take strong measures to intervene with his daughter? My husband has said that if our children get into the wrong crowd as teens, he will not meekly stand by. He will put them in something like an Idaho teen boot camp!
The quote by Andres Shrim in which he states: “The Bible says, `Judge not, lest ye be judged.’ is typical of those who know a little about Christianity but not the overall message. I have an acquaintance whose ex-husband, a “Christian,” started hanging out at bars and befriending women. His excuse was, “Well Jesus befriended prostitutes so I must therefore befriend sinners too. It’s the Christian thing to do.” Needless to say this is what led to his divorce and his current state of personal chaos in his life. Jesus taught to the fallen, but this did not mean he condoned sin. He instructed sinners to “Go, and sin no more.”
LA replies:
There are of course gross misundertandings of Christianity that are very common. But what was said by the husband about his befriending women in bars is obviously not a genuine misunderstanding but a sophistical excuse. It’s on the same level as Falstaff’s remark in Henry IV Part One that it’s not wrong for him to steal, since stealing is his profession, and it’s not a sin for a man to labor at his profession.
Terry Morris writes:
Shrewsbury wrote:
If I may offer some observations of other people’s children whom I have had the pain of observing (my own having been perfect in every way) [TM: Ha, ha.]. Teenage girls can be utterly uncontrollable,
Whoa!, stop right there! No they can’t. That’s one of the most idiotic liberal things I’ve ever read. They can be manipulative and all of that if you let them, but they absolutely cannot be utterly uncontrollable. That’s liberal b.s.
N. writes:
A quick search on the murdered Presbyterian pastor found his church, Walker’s Presbyterian. A search on that name reveals that it is part of the Presbyterian Church USA, aptly called PC-USA. The PC-USA is one of the mainline liberalized denominations that began falling away from Christianity years ago. The acceleration continued in the 1960’s, when the denomination increasingly began to dabble in politics while choosing to make the Bible an _advisory_ document rather than the infallible Word of God.
Since then, the PC-USA has taken stands on gun control (urging its members to own none), crime (urging its members never to resist attack), Israel (urging divestiture of investments) and many other popular liberal causes. While there are traditional congregations and regions, who are resisting as best they can, the church governing committees at the national level were captured by liberals years ago.
The late Rev. is unfortunately not at all atypical of ministers in the PC-USA. Because his denomination has taught there are no absolutes for over a generation, it’s unhappily not a surprise that he had no rock to take a stand on.
LA repllies:
This is from Wikipedia:
In North America, because of past or current doctrinal differences, Presbyterian churches often overlap, with congregations of many different Presbyterian groups in any one place. The largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States is the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (PC(USA)). Other Presbyterian bodies in the United States include the Presbyterian Church in America, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Bible Presbyterian Church, the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP Synod), the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the Westminster Presbyterian Church in the United States (WPCUS), and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States (RPCUS).
The territory within about a 50-mile (80 km) radius of Charlotte, North Carolina is historically the greatest concentration of Presbyterianism in the Southern U.S., while an almost-identical geographic area around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania contains probably the largest number of Presbyterians in the entire nation. With their members’ traditional stress on higher education, the largest Presbyterian congregations can often be found in affluent, prestigious “uptown” suburbs of American cities.
The PC (USA), beginning with its predecessor bodies, has, in common with other so-called “mainline” Protestant denominations, experienced a significant decline in members in recent years. Some estimates have placed that loss at nearly half in the last forty years.[3]
Laura Wood writes:
James P.’s comment that Debra Kelley could have taken to steps to stop her daughter’s activities reminds me of a story I recently heard.
A man’s 16-year-old son came home one day wearing a pierced earring. The father thought about it for a few hours and then approached his son. He said, “Hey, I really like that earring. You look swell. Listen, I want you to enjoy showing that earring to your friends over the next couple of days and have a good time wearing it. Then by Monday morning, if you haven’t thrown it away, here’s what you can do. Jack Donne down at the service station has a rented room over the garage. I’ve already talked to him and told him you will be getting a job and taking the room on Monday if you so decide.”
The earring didn’t last. Many parents, on the other hand, don’t think the appearance of strange, anti-social clothing or jewelry is anything but a delightful costume show, a form of wholesome experimentation. They fail to act at the first signs of trouble and subsequently have no authority when the show gets really interesting.
Kelley is an immensely familiar figure: the mother as spectator.
Gintas writes:
About Laura Wood’s story:
When I was single in California, I lived in a house with some other single guys from the church, and we got to be something of a halfway house for new converts, because we could whip them into shape. So one guy moves in, but doesn’t have a job. One of my roommates and I sat down with him and told him, “if you don’t have a job by Tuesday, we’re loading up your stuff and dropping you off at the shelter.” He had a job in no time. Another time, a guy wanted to move in, he had to move out of an apartment, but he was already known to be somewhat troublesome, and I wanted to levy some stiff requirements. He said he had money to pay rent, but wouldn’t show me the money. I called him a liar, and left. He was hollering at me across the parking lot of his vacant apartment, “some Christian you are!”
Good t’ing I got no emotions, see, ‘cuz I woulda beat da punk bloody wit’ my brass knuckles.
Kristor writes:
It was a family therapist, herself a devoted mother, who gave me the best and most important advice I ever heard about being a parent: set reasonable limits early, define them clearly, enforce them absolutely and inarguably, and your children will be both more obedient and suasive, on the one hand, and happier and more creative, on the other. My wife and I followed this advice religiously, beginning when our kids were little and wiggly, and I think it was the main reason we never went through a phase of teen rebellion with any of them. Our kids all still admire us, mirabile dictu; and that, notwithstanding their intimate knowledge of our many faults.
The idea is that humans are built to discover the limits of their operation, so that they can devise plans that are really relevant to their situation. If you don’t know the limits, you don’t know how to behave—a terrifying situation (this is why going off to college or the service is so fraught). If you perceive no moral limit, you will keep pushing the envelope until you do. As the child searches for the limits, his behavior will grow ever wilder and more frantic, and he will grow more and more fearful and desperate. In two year olds, this takes the form of violent tantrums (we never had any). In teenagers, well, it can go so far as suicide and homicide, as the McCroskey case demonstrates. Humans need limits. They make us feel safe, because they begin to make the world comprehensible, domesticable. They are the first requisite of the mature control of behavior, and thus of the environment.
It’s quite simple, really, when the kids are young and they don’t know any different. Give them a set of inviolable rules, that are very clear, and they will settle right down and get on with their business. Oh, they’ll test the limits, to be sure; that’s how they verify the limits, and such testing is the child’s job, or rather vocation (it is one of the important functions of play). The older they get, the harder it is to impose this discipline. And here’s the key, without which the whole thing falls apart: Mom and Dad have to be prepared, and willing, to be the Voice of Doom, and to impose Punishment and Penance. When my kids failed to respond to an order promptly, I would say, “Son, I’ll give you to the count of 3 to get in here and get started on that. 1. 2. ” I never once got to 3. My kids still tease me about what I would have had to do in such a case, and I still won’t tell them what I would have done: “you don’t want to know.” The persistence of this ultimate moral mystery still makes their skin crawl with horror, a bit; what would happen if immense and supremely powerful Father really blew his stack? One doesn’t want to think about it, much.
Of course, the flip side of it (for fathers especially) is that they should never ever wholly blow their stacks. If they do, they have played their last card, and are morally busted. Doom must ever loom, but never quite wholly fall.
Debra Kelley and Pastor Niederbrock obviously never succeeded in teaching their daughter about the Limit.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 24, 2009 02:40 AM | Send
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