PART IV
REX, OR CREATION OF A MONSTER?
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 long, downward spiral for his brother and family. “It seems like ever since my sister got murdered, our family was cursed. It was like that was the beginning of the family plague.”
After his sister’s murder Allan became worse. He continuedto drink heavily and he continued to beat his wife.
“Allan was very good with his hands—very good,” Connie recalled.
Connie spoke of how Allan used to beat her. His favorite method of control was to slug her. He would punch her while the kids were in their rooms. They did not see the violence at first, but they always heard it. Allan also used to kick Connie.
“If you were lucky, he wouldn’t kick you with his boots. I pray to God they didn’t see that. I’m sure that they heard it.”
One time Allan had beaten Connie up so bad that she moved all of the kids into the house across the street from her mother on Walnut Street. One night Allan decided to pay his family a visit. Connie and Marcia stayed in one room. Rex, Lecia, and Tracy all had their own rooms. Allan angrily walked over to the house, stormed up the sidewalk, and banged on the front door. Connie, with Tracy in tow, went to the front door. She knew that it was her husband and that he was furious. According to Lecia, her mother asked Allan to leave and he refused. He somehow made his way inside and began to attack Connie. He tossed Tracy aside, grabbed Connie by the wrist, and dragged her into the bedroom. Repeatedlyhe pummeled the defenseless woman in the face with his fists. When she was as limp as a rag doll, he raped her. Lecia heard everything. So did Rex.
Lecia also recalled another instance when Allan caused a big scene that escalated into violence. While separated from her husband, Connie became smitten with a coworker, a young man by the name of Bob Jackson. Connie thought Bob was a strikingly handsome, sweet, fun guy.
Soon the two became a couple.
One afternoon Bob and Connie went to the Laundromat in Sandpoint to wash several loads of dirty clothes. All of the kids were there. The noneventful day would suddenly change with the appearance of Allan Krebs. The father, furious when he saw Connie with another man, decided to take it out on Bob Jackson. The angry Krebs pummeled the living tar out of the scrawny Jackson in front of the kids and the customers in the Laundromat.
Neither Connie nor Bob Jackson filed charges against Allan. “You did not mess with Allan,” she explained. “You just didn’t. You stayed as far away from him and gave him as little stuff as possible so he would not come after you. It just wasn’t done.”
Connie had enough of Allan’s abusive behavior. She filed for divorce in fall 1971, was granted custody of the children, and attempted to make a life for herself and her kids with Bob Jackson. The new clan lived across the street from her mother’s home.
Allan Krebs, however, was not out of her life just yet.
On the night of February 23, 1972, Allan showed up at Connie’s house in a rage. He was furious because their divorcehad come through earlier that day. Allan came up to the front door and knocked. Connie answered it and let her ex-husbandin. She told him that Rex and Lecia were upstairs in their bedrooms, Marcia was asleep downstairs, and Tracy was sleeping in a crib in her room.
Allan made sure to visit each room and spend time with each of the kids. He then went into Connie’s room and asked to borrow her Polaroid camera. He wanted to take some picturesof his children, he explained. Connie shrugged her shoulders at the suggestion and turned to reach for the camera,which was located above her daughter’s crib. Allan quietly sidled up behind his wife, grabbed her shoulders, and effortlessly tossed the woman onto the bed. He punched her repeatedly in the stomach; he assumed she was pregnant again.
Then he began to choke her.
Luckily for Connie, her brother Roy “Gene” Howell and some of his friends saw what was going on. Gene recalled the scene of his sister lying underneath Allan Krebs. “Both eyes were blackened when we got there. I walked in on them and he was on top of her in the bedroom and I asked him what he thought he was doing.” Gene stated that Allan got “very nervous”and then Gene’s friends called for help. The Sandpoint police arrived and put an end to the abuse. Connie filed a reportwith the officers, but despite being bloody and bruised, she did not file charges against her former husband.
She had other plans.
Less than a week later, Connie, along with all four children and Bob Jackson, packed her car with the barest of necessitiesand slithered away into the cold Idaho night, away from her torturer. They were on their way to Nevada. They escaped the clutches of a demented alcoholic under the darkness of night.
Or so she thought.
EIGHTEEN
Connie Krebs, now Howell, and Bob Jackson ended up almostnine hundred miles away from Sandpoint in Carson City, the capital city of Nevada. Connie hoped it would be the beginning of a better life for her and the children. A life free of verbal and physical abuse. One where her children could thrive and become wonderful people.
Connie believed that Bob Jackson was the man who could provide her such a life.
The dream was short-lived.
Bob Jackson turned out to be as bad a nightmare as Allan Krebs had been.
Just as they had for the first five years of Rex’s life, Connieand the kids frequently moved around. When they first arrived in Nevada, they stayed with a friend of Jackson’s for about a week. Jackson then got a job in construction and they packed up and moved to the small town of Gardnerville. The newly formed family moved into a tiny one-room apartment above the Ritchford Bar and Motel, a popular pool hall and tavern. Bob Jackson, Connie Howell, and four frightened children were living together in one cramped room, with three double beds, directly above the bar and pool hall. Connie and Bob made several trips down to the tavern. They did not go downstairs to play pool, however. They became frequent patronsat the well-worn bar, where they imbibed whenever they could. They usually dragged the kids down into the bar while they drank their problems away. Connie and Bob became such regulars in the ratty, run-down bar that they became friends with the owners. The kids became favorites of the other regulars who frequented the establishment.
Thanks to their friendship with the Ritchford Bar’s owners, Connie and Bob were able to move their family out of the tiny one-room quarters above the bar and into a larger space. A cabin opened up behind the bar and the owners gave Bob first dibs on it. The cabin had all of two bedrooms. Apparently, there was not much entertainment available in the area for kids. According to Lecia, she and Rex used to play in the irrigationditch located behind the cabin.
Bob began to prosper at his job and was able to upgrade his adopted family’s standard of living. They moved away from the cabin and into a four-plex apartment. They moved into an upstairs apartment on the upper left-hand side. Things seemed to be looking up, for they lived there for almost one full year. Quite a long time for this family.
Alas, the fun ended as another move was on the horizon. Bob and Connie took off yet again, this time to the Ranchos area in Gardnerville, where they actually bought a house.
Lecia described what it was like moving from house to house all the time and how it made her life difficult. “I always needed to know where we lived at directly so that if Mom or Bob were too drunk to get home,” she recalled, “I could alwaysmake sure that I got my brothers and sisters home.” Lecia did not know the addresses of her various homes, but she knew how to get home if it was ever necessary. Usually on foot, sometimes by car—with her driving.
The relationship between Connie Howell and Bob Jacksonactually started on a positive note. Connie was grateful that Bob had helped her escape the clutches of Allan Krebs. Bob, however, seemed to travel the same path as Allan with his inability to remain gainfully employed. To make mattersworse, he liked to imbibe the old booze. What compounded the situation was that Connie was also prone to join her new mate in drowning her sorrows. In fact, she often encouraged Bob to get drunk with her. The decreased inhibition brought on by the alcohol consumption led to arguments between the couple. Just like with Allan Krebs, Bob Jackson’s work frustrations began to pile up, so did the abusive behavior.
Lecia recalled that Bob, just like Allan, used to smack Connie around. “He would hit on her,” she continued, “throw her down, sit on her, just general abuse.”
Similar to the Krebs household, the abuse of Connie often took place within earshot of her children, including Rex. “Most of the time I would make sure that Rex and my little sisters were with me,” Lecia recounted. “We’d go in my bedroomor something and just close the door and pray that we would be safe and that he wouldn’t hurt Mom.”
Eventually Bob Jackson’s cruelty went from Connie to her children. It started with the verbal abuse of Rex. Apparently,Jackson felt that Rex resembled Allan Krebs a little too much for his comfort, so he decided to take it out on the five-year-old boy. According to Lecia, Jackson was always picking on her little brother. He also enjoyed calling Rex “the little bastard” to his face.
Eventually the abuse of the children escalated from verbal to physical.
Jackson had taken over the disciplinarian chores in the household whenever the kids screwed up. If they so much as looked sideways at him, Bob would put them over his knee and spank their bottoms. Lecia recalled, “It didn’t matter what you did, you got a spanking for it.” Lecia also spoke of Bob Jackson’s controlling ways when she stated, “He was generallyabusive. He didn’t usually hit me or anything, but I got grounded a lot. He was a real controlling person.”
Bob Jackson seemingly began to lose control after Conniehad a car wreck. She ended up in the hospital for six weeks. While she was bedridden, Jackson would visit her at the hospital during the day. He would spend his nights somewhereelse altogether. Lecia claimed Jackson began to make late-night visits into her bedroom and they were not to consoleher during her mother’s absence.
“He did sexually molest me. And he was just a real control freak,” Lecia frightfully recalled. “I remember the first time he came into my room. I don’t want to remember it.” Accordingto Lecia, Jackson’s visits to her bedroom continued long after Connie returned home. She does not remember for exactly how long. She was only nine years old at the time.
Connie’s accident became a financial burden for the family.They had to give up the Ranchos area home and move back into town into another small apartment. Once again Bob’s frustration rose as he began to feel worthless. As was his pattern, Bob took out his frustrations on the children. He seemed to have a special place on his knee warmed up just for Rex.
Rex had a penchant for defecating in his underpants. Insteadof cleaning the boy’s bottom and potty training him, Jackson would take the boy across his knee and swat him repeatedly.As he punished the boy, he yelled at him and called him worthless.
Bob Jackson’s corporeal punishment escalated. One time Rex soiled his underwear and Bob had decided enough was enough. Instead of spanking Rex, he was ready to teach the boy a serious lesson. He forced Rex to wear the dirty underwearon his head for one hour. He then forced Rex to sit on Marcia and Tracy’s potty-training toilet. The experience, to say the least, was humiliating.
It only got worse.
Another time Rex dirtied his underwear. Bob Jackson, believingthat Rex had done it on purpose, grabbed one of the toddler girl’s cloth diapers and pinned it on Rex. He then forced the little boy to go to school wearing the symbol of infancy.Rex was again humiliated.
Two years later, things had not changed much. Bob still worked for the construction company and Connie ran a daycarecenter out of their tiny apartment. Another thing that remained the same was that Connie and Bob continued to get drunk. It became an even greater problem for the kids as their parents’ alcoholic binges became part of their daily routine.
Jackson and his buddies from the construction crew would usually have several beers after a hard day on the job. Connie, who was in charge of baby-sitting several children, was at least conscientious enough not to drink until all of the childrenhad gone for the day. As soon as the parents picked up the last child, she would crack open a bottle. By the time Bob Jackson returned home, the couple was already soaring and neither was ready to return back to earth. To keep the buzz going, Bob and Connie would pack the kids into their car and spend the rest of the evening at the local bar getting hammered.Sometimes they brought the children into the bars and casinos, such as Sharkey’s Club in Minden or the Pony ExpressBar. Eventually a manager would come and tell them they had to take the kids outside because they had been there for such a long period of time. Most times, however, children could not come inside. Rex and his three sisters sat outside, in the dark, until their mom and stepfather stumbled out early the next morning.
Lecia testified that it was a form of prison: “We weren’t allowedto get out of the car if you had to go to the bathroom or anything like that. You weren’t allowed any toys with you.” Apparently, the wardens were not too keen on checking up on the prisoners either. “They would come out and check on us every so often, but usually not that regularly. So sometimes they’d bring out snacks for us.”
At the time these events occurred Lecia was ten, Rex was seven, Marcia was three, and Tracy was two. Lecia was responsiblefor her three younger siblings while Connie and Bob would party it up inside the bars. Sometimes this responsibilityentailed illegal activity on her part. If Bob and Connie were too intoxicated to drive, Lecia was determined to get everyone home alive. The precocious preteen received an early crash course in driving. Luckily, she did not actually crash on any of her ten-to-fifteen-mile sojourns behind the wheel.
More glycerin was mixed into the explosive environment when Connie and Bob started to take foster children into the household—as if four kids and six mouths to feed were not enough. Interestingly, all of the foster children were girls. Lecia does not recall if Bob Jackson ever molested any of the foster children or, for that matter, her own sisters.
“I always figured if he was bothering me, he was leaving them alone.”
She did recall, however, that Bob, like Allan, would not allow the children or Connie to interact with other people while they lived under their numerous roofs. They were not allowed to have friends over.
They did receive a visit one evening from a police officer. Lecia believed that one of the neighbors called the cops to informthem of the abuse and neglect going on. When the officer arrived, Connie and Bob were gone. Lecia answered the door.
“He wanted us to go with him and I knew they were just going to take us away. And there was no way I was going to do that.” Lecia feared the authorities would separate her from her brother and sisters.
“I still don’t know why he didn’t take them. I just pleaded with him not to. I don’t know why he didn’t, but he didn’t.”
In addition, no relatives or neighbors would stop by and visit. Rex, Lecia, and the other girls were on their own. One relative, however, did make a surprise visit.
Allan Krebs showed up in Nevada.