Dead And Buried: A True Story Of Serial Rape And Murder. Corey Mitchell
on her face,” Lecia recounted, “just mortified that he’d found us.”
It was Allan Krebs. Rex followed his father up the staircase and opened the door.
Connie, frightened by the appearance of her former husband,called Bob Jackson at work. She told him to hurry home and help out. Meanwhile, Allan left the house to go pick up some dinner. Bob arrived and prepared to defend his wife.
He loaded up his rifle with ammunition.
Allan showed up and entered through the front door. He walked over to the couch and made himself comfortable. As he began to eat, Bob greeted him with the barrel end of his rifle.
Bob Jackson did not say anything. He simply held the gun directly at Allan Krebs’s face.
Allan instinctively raised his bulky arms slightly above his head. He was in full protective mode. He quietly and calmly pleaded with Bob that there was no need to point the gun at him. He could sense that Bob was the more nervous of the two men. Allan did not make any sudden moves toward his ex-wife’s new husband.
Instead, he moved closer to Rex.
Somehow Allan distracted Bob, who turned his head away. Allan stealthily grabbed Rex and pulled him in front of his body. He was using his own son as a shield. Rex began to cry—he was actually wailing in fear. He began to scream out at his father, “What are you doing, Dad?”
But Bob Jackson did not put the rifle down.
Finally Allan let Rex go. He grinned as he left the house.
TWENTY
Allan Roger Krebs was a New Year’s Day baby. He was born on January 1, 1946, in the tiny town of Logan, Utah, near the northeastern portion of the state. He was the youngest of eight children born to Alfred and Florence Krebs. The Krebs family moved 666 miles northwest to Sandpoint, Idaho, in 1956, when Allan was ten. Alfred Krebs bought land on Colburn Culver Road and set up shop for a dairy farm. His father was a hard worker who often held down two jobs at a time to support the large family. He also worked in a nearby sawmill and for the railroad company.
Both Allan Krebs and his sister spoke highly of their early family life. Allan believed everyone in his family was close to one another. Katherine described their relationships as “pretty darned good.”
Allan attended Sandpoint High School, where his favorite subjects were girls and playing hooky. He met Connie Howellat school and became infatuated with her. He was disappointed when Connie gave birth to Lecia in 1963 and married the father.
Connie’s first marriage lasted only three months. Soon she was on the lookout for someone to take care of her and Lecia.
Her savior was Allan Roger Krebs—or so she thought.
In 1965 Allan impregnated her with Rex. Confused as to what to do next, he asked for her hand in marriage. Better yet, he did not want his first child to be born out of wedlock. The couple tied the knot on June 22, 1965, in Sandpoint. They moved into his mother-in-law’s home in town. Rex was born just over seven months later.
Allan Krebs was not the brightest bulb in the batch. He was, however, a strong man who was good with his hands and capable of lifting heavy objects. These traits suited him well for a job on the railroad, just as his father had done on the side. From 1966 to 1969 he bounced back between Sandpoint and St. Paul, Minnesota, where he worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad.
After Connie, Bob Jackson, and the kids left, Allan withdrewinside himself even further. His sister Katherine felt sorry for her brother, who almost never got to see his own children. She claimed that Connie was manipulative and used the kids against Allan. To deal with the loneliness and bitterness,Allan found comfort in the arms of another woman. He spent four years, from 1972 to 1976, with Sandy Mondgan in a common-law “marriage.” They never officially married, but everyone considered them husband and wife.
When Sandy could not please Allan, he sought solace in the bottle. He continued to drink more and more. To make matters worse, Allan also worked another job out of state. From 1973 to 1976 he labored as a pipe fitter in Rock Springs and Green River, Wyoming.
By the time he returned from the job, Sandy had already left him. At the same time Connie could not control Rex and decided to dump him off with Allan in Sandpoint. Allan had no idea why she would leave ten-year-old Rex with an angry, bitter, lonely man like himself.
Nevertheless, she did.
TWENTY-ONE
Back on the farm with his father was the last place Rex Krebs wanted to be. In 1978 Rex attended fifth grade at the Northside Bonner County School, which catered to the childrenin the rural areas of Sandpoint. Many of the kids, like Rex, rode a bus in to school from several miles away. There were at least 150 other students, most of them farm children from the valley area, and some of the poor kids from the area known as the Huckleberry Commune who also commuted to school.
Rex did not make many friends at Northside. He tended to be a loner and an outcast. Most of his fellow elementary school classmates would snicker at his clothes, which always seemed to be dirty or disheveled. Sometimes it appeared as if Rex did not bathe for school either. Most of the kids stayed away from him.
Anthony Poelstra met Rex Krebs in third grade at NorthsideElementary. He had classes with him for five years. He recalled that Rex was a bit of a loner whom the other kids picked on. Sometimes the other kids would “antagonize him to fight,” Poelstra recalled. However, he did not think the teasing toward Rex was harsher than what some other kids received.Poelstra stated that Krebs definitely reacted negatively when the bigger kids picked on him.
Another student who noticed Rex’s outsider status was classmate Debbie Simmons, now Debbie Rogers. Debbie’s best friend, Rebecca Wise, lived down the road from the Krebs family farm. The two girls often rode their bicycles down to a creek near the Krebs farm. Many times they saw Rex standing out in the field by himself. Sometimes Rex would walk up to the road and speak to the girls. They tried to get him to come to the creek with them, but he always begged out. Debbie noticed that Rex usually looked nervous and constantly glanced over his shoulder back toward his house. He was making sure that his father did not see him speaking to the girls.
Debbie also saw Rex look nervous at school. Her impressionwas that other kids picked on him for his out-of-style appearance. “Whether it be he didn’t have the right pair of shoes, or they didn’t fit appropriately, or his hair wasn’t clean enough or the right style,” Debbie recalled that Rex just did not fit in.
“There were a couple of people that would often antagonizeuntil they could get him to react and then they would step back,” Debbie remembered. “It would look like he was the one doing the picking, or being the antagonizer, and then he would get in trouble and they would go laugh in the corner.”
Debbie Rogers and Anthony Poelstra recalled seeing bruises on Rex. At different times they both noticed that Rex had big scrapes on his arms. Neither was sure if they were the normal scrapes and bumps of a young boy. Debbie Rogers had suspicions, however, about the black eyes that Rex occasionallysported.
Dorothy Thompson, Northside Bonner County School’s principal, remembered that Rex made several visits to her office.It was not for disciplinary reasons, as may be expected.
“He seemed to be a lonesome boy for attention from adults,” Thompson recalled. “He would come in, and our secretary,who had been there several years, so she knew him well, and he would come there and stand at the desk and just kind of want to talk to her. She would encourage him and so he was in the office very often.”
Other than hiding out in Principal Thompson’s office for company, Rex did not fit in anywhere. His dad berated him and beat him at home. His classmates taunted him at school. Only one person became his friend. Jimmy Maddox. Unfortunately,Jimmy would only attend Northside for a couple of years, but when the two were together, they stuck together. As outsiders, they had to.