Horrorcore Fantasy Turns Real
McCroskey met Emma online through a shared love of horrorcore, a subgenre of rap that glorifies violence and gore. Emma’s friends told media outlets that she saw it as theater—outrageous and edgy—while McCroskey lived it.
McCroskey was one of three siblings whose parents broke up the same year he met Emma. His sister, Sarah McCroskey, told The Mercury News that her two brothers were teased and picked on at school and that Richard dropped out of high school twice. But he found acceptance in Castro Valley’s underground horrorcore scene, rapping about killing, maiming and mutilating people, according to content he posted on his now-defunct MySpace page.
In a video uploaded to YouTube, McCroskey rapped about "evil voices inside my head" that wanted him to “murder continuously” and to “take lives on a mass murder spree.”
In early September 2009, McCroskey flew from California to meet Emma in person for the first time. Her family drove them to a horrorcore festival in Michigan, but when the young couple returned to Farmville their relationship took a dark turn.
The killings unfolded over several days. Using a wood-splitting maul (a hybrid between an ax and a sledgehammer), McCroskey bludgeoned Emma, Kelley and Wells as they slept. When Mark arrived to check on them days later, McCroskey also bludgeoned him.
Investigators found nearly 100 pieces of evidence, including digital devices and blood-soaked bedding. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, all four victims were bludgeoned beyond recognition but were not dismembered.
Slayings Rattle Farmville
McCroskey’s horrific crime hit Farmville like a bomb. Churches filled with mourners, parents kept children home from school and the local newspaper ran grief columns alongside updates from the courthouse, recalled Burger, who then chaired Longwood University’s criminal justice department where Kelley, Emma’s mother, worked.
“It affected the entire department because we were all fairly close to her,” Burger told A&E Crime and Investigation. “A large number of the students were really shocked about what happened.”
Rev. Sylvia Meadows, a Presbyterian minister who baptized both Mark and Emma, presided over Kelley’s funeral. The murders were “horrific” and “deeply upsetting on many levels,” Meadows told Longwood University’s campus newspaper. She added that it was also “a wake-up call to churches” about reaching out to others in need of help.
Farmville Police Detective Jim Jordan said the quadruple murder broke the town’s sense of safety, in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “You don’t go into that many homicide scenes in one home, especially not in a town this size. It changes how you look at people, how you look at life.”
In September 2010, McCroskey pleaded guilty to two counts of capital murder and two counts of first-degree murder, sparing himself the death penalty. He showed no emotion in court.
His defense attorney, Cary Bowen, later told reporters that “the prospect of the death penalty was a major factor” in the plea. “Four bodies are pretty compelling evidence,” Bowen said. “This is the kind of case where the death penalty arises.”
McCroskey was sentenced to four life terms without parole.
Forensic psychologist Dr. Peter Langman, who has studied youth violence and fantasy aggression, said McCroskey fit “an isolationist profile seen in digital-age crimes.”
“When someone finds belonging in a digital echo chamber that glorifies violence, their fantasy life becomes weaponized,” Langman explained.
However, during McCroskey’s plea hearing, prosecutor James Ennis said the murders were unrelated to horrorcore: McCroskey became enraged because his relationship with Emma “did not turn out to be what he imagined it was going to be like,” and he killed the other victims so there would be no witnesses.
