Dead And Buried: A True Story Of Serial Rape And Murder. Corey Mitchell

      SEVENTEEN

      Rex Allan Krebs came into the world on a cold, blustery day of January 28, 1966. He was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, in the northern panhandle, approximately five hundred miles north of Boise, Idaho, and less than twenty miles south of the American-Canadian border. His father, twenty-year-oldAllan Krebs, and his mother, nineteen-year-old Connie Krebs, had only recently married due to Connie’s pregnancy. It was the first marriage and child for Allan. It was the second of each for Connie. Her first child, Lecia, was born three years earlier when Connie was sixteen.

      At the time, Sandpoint, Idaho, was a tiny rural town with less than three thousand people. Shadowed by the 6,400-feet-highSchweitzer Mountain, known for its excellent snow skiing, the town was primarily a farming community. Most Sandpoint residents lived on large farms spread out across vast distances from one another.

      Allan grew up on a farm on the outskirts of Sandpoint. Connie had grown up in town. Allan met Connie at Sandpoint High School.

      Connie, who struggled as a parent, would often nip at the bottle. Connie seemed to struggle quite often. On January 31, 1963, at the age of sixteen, she gave birth to Lecia. The father was not Allan Krebs. By 1965, however, Connie ran into Allan again and the two began to date. Soon thereafter, Conniegot pregnant for the second time. Allan decided to make her an “honest woman,” so they got married in Sandpoint on June 22, 1965. After Rex was born, Allan, Connie, Lecia, and the newest addition moved in with Connie’s mother, Arleta Howell, on Walnut Street.

      The Krebs family lived here for a short period before they moved in with Allan’s mother, Florence Krebs. The family then moved to Allan’s father Alfred Krebs’s farm on Colburn Culver Road, located fifteen miles north of Sandpoint. Alfred Krebs, “Grandpa,” was a quiet man, with a quick temper, who worked hard on his dairy farm.

      Allan Krebs got a job with the Burlington Northern Railroadcompany. While Rex was still an infant, Allan uprooted the family and relocated to Lester, Washington, into a house built by the railroad company. Not the largest man, Allan held his own. He was able to do heavy lifting and always managed to stay in top physical shape. Allan would usually wind down from a hard day on the job with a bottle of liquor.

      Preferably vodka.

      According to Lecia, the Krebs family lived at four or five different locations during the first five years of Rex’s life. The uprooting of the family was always a result of Allan’s sporadicsuccess with employment. He was not one to remain gainfully employed. Allan worked numerous jobs from the railroad to farming in such different locales as Spokane, Washington, and Thompson Falls and Plains, Montana. Despiteinitial feelings of prosperity whenever a new job appeared on the horizon, the result was the same: Allan would somehow find a way to screw things up. As a result the unstableKrebs clan always seemed to be packing up their belongings and hitting the road for the latest pipe dream.

      After another firing the Krebs family returned to Sandpoint.They moved back in to Alfred Krebs’s farm and helped Grandpa Krebs with the dairy.

      The uncertainty of Allan’s work situation was a major source of frustration and anxiety for Connie. Having nowhere else to turn, she directed her anger toward her husband. Their tongue-lashings often took place in the bedroom, behind thin doors through which the children could hear. Their heated discussions usually centered on her disappointment in her husband and his failure to provide properly for her and the children. Her screams usually resulted from the punches he threw in her face when he could not stand the attacks.

      Lecia Dotson recalled several instances when Allan Krebs brutally assaulted Connie Krebs. She remembered “when she’d come out from their bedroom, she’d have a huge black eye or her face would be swollen or her arm would be black and blue from him grabbing her and throwing her around.”

      Lecia remembered how she and Rex responded to the unrestin their home. “We were usually frightened. We spent a lot of time together, you know, trying to avoid it.”

      It was impossible, however, to avoid.

      Arleta Howell, Rex’s grandmother and Connie’s mother, recalled a horrifying incident outside her home after Connie and she had returned from the grocery store. Allan wanted them home by 4:00 P.M. They were thirty minutes late. As the women pulled up into the driveway, Allan blasted outside to confront them.

      “He came around the car and opened the door,” Howell rememberedclearly. “He jerked Rex out of my arms and Rex screamed, like any baby would scream. I told him, ‘You’re hurting the baby!’ And he said, ‘Who cares?’ ”

      Howell was ready to get out of the oncoming bad situation, but she realized it would be better to stay, just in case somethingmight happen to her daughter and grandson. She saw her daughter and son-in-law walk toward the house on either side of the car. Allan was holding Rex in his arms. Suddenly, without warning, Allan yelled out to Connie, “Catch him,” and he threw Rex over the top of the car. “Luckily, she caught him,” Howell recalled.

      After the baby-tossing incident, Arleta Howell became truly worried. “From then on, I was really scared for Rex and Connie both, and Lecia also, because you never really knew what he was going to do.”

      Especially as more children were born. Two more sisters, Tracy and Marcia, cluttered up the tiny Krebs household and made life even more difficult for Allan Krebs. Tracy, a healthy girl, was born in January 1970. Sister Marcia was born the following year in January, but to add to the difficultiesin the Krebs household, Marcia developed a nasty fever when she was less than one year old. The family doctorinitially diagnosed the problem as an ear infection; however, it was much worse. The undetected fever lasted for several days and caused permanent brain damage to the youngest Krebs sibling. To this day she has the mental capabilityof a thirteen-year-old.

      As the frustrations mounted in the Krebs household, so did the violence. In April 1970 tragedy struck hard. Allan’s sister was murdered in Spokane, Washington. The thirty-year-old woman had been shot in the head and her body stuffed in the trunk of a car.

      Allan’s brother, Art Krebs, believed the homicide was the beginning of the