The mystery of Andrew McCrae

This is the posting he made. http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2002/11/25/15453261.php There was a lot of concern about the false association with the website that might be made to the public, and it lead to discussion at indymedia meetings of how to deal with future anonymous confessions which could result in IP trace requests.

This article fills out some of the details of his life.
http://www.newsreview.com/chico/content?oid=12067Even with the presence of more than 2,000 people, the Sun Country Fairgrounds were quiet save for the sound of wind scraping dry leaves across the asphalt and the soft, gentle idling of a silver hearse. Hundreds of police officers and emergency workers stood in rows at solemn attention, many wiping at tears, others with their heads bowed or staring into empty space. Through the hearse’s windows, glimpses could be seen of a coffin wrapped in an American flag.Bagpipes moaned out their traditional farewell. A bugle played taps. As the first volley of a 21-gun salute cracked through the silence, a beefy-looking cop jumped nearly out of his skin, then looked around sheepishly to see if anybody noticed.

The rituals at an end, a convoy formed. Led by two cops on motorcycles, an officer walked a riderless horse, symbolic of a fallen comrade. As the hearse containing the body of David Mobilio, 31, Red Bluff’s first police officer to be killed in the line of duty, turned south down Highway 99, a long line of police cars followed, making a black and white procession that stretched several blocks.

At the same time, on the other side of the continent, in Concord, N.H., Mobilio’s alleged killer was being processed into Merrimack County Jail. Later that night, TV news would carry photos of the gaunt 23-year-old, a green jail blanket covering his naked shoulders and a bandage wrapped almost comically around his head.

For folks in Red Bluff, it was their first glimpse of Andrew Hampton McCrae, a.k.a. Andrew Hampton Mickel, the man who confessed to a reporter and over the Internet to murdering Mobilio a week earlier, on the night of Nov. 18, as the young officer was gassing up his patrol car at a station in Red Bluff.

But the capture of the suspect would provide little relief to the town of Red Bluff, population just over 13,000. In fact, investigators are gearing up for a trial that promises to be, at the very least, full of surprises.

Because investigators want to avoid tainting the trial, and likely because they hope McCrae will provide them with details about the crime that only the killer would know, they are keeping a tight lid on the facts of the case. What is known comes mostly from personal interviews and the piecing together of news accounts from several sources.

McCrae was captured after a four-hour standoff at a Holiday Inn in Concord, N.H., after he was traced there by FBI agents working out of the Sacramento office. Exactly how they found him only a week after the killing isn’t being discussed, but with all the clues McCrae provided, it’s hard to imagine that he didn’t want to be caught. It is also hard to fathom how and why the crime occurred.

Although McCrae, in a pair of long Internet-posted rants against corporations and the U.S. government, claimed he killed Mobilio to protest what he termed “police-state tactics” and “corporate irresponsibility,” he fails to tell what he, a resident of Olympia, Wash., was doing that night in Red Bluff. The question is at the heart of the mystery surrounding the death of Officer Mobilio.

The scene of the crime is a desolate spot at night, a lonely gas station flanked by a railroad track sunk into an embankment. Down Main Street—well-traveled in the daytime but mostly empty at night—is a mini-mart that closes at 11 p.m. Across from the station is a commercial complex in the midst of renovation. A sign in front of the project reads, “Red Bluff, A Great Place to Live.”
The gas pump Mobilio was using when he was shot was covered in flowers and flags by mourners.
PHOTO BY TOM ANGEL

Mobilio was shot sometime after 1 a.m., twice in the left side and once at close range in the back of the head, according to an affidavit filed in Merrimack County, N.H. Investigators won’t say what type of weapon was used, other than that it was not a shotgun.

Mobilio, known to kids in town as “Dareman Dave” for his work with sixth-graders in the D.A.R.E. anti-drug-use program, was fueling his car at Warners Card Lock gas station on Main and Adobe streets, near the outskirts of town. There was only about a 10-minute window for the shooting, as Mobilio had radioed in his location at 1:27 a.m. When he did not respond to a dispatcher a few minutes later, another officer was sent to the scene.

That officer found Mobilio face down in a pool of blood at 1:40 a.m. His sidearm, the safety off, lay near the left front tire of his patrol car, just a few feet from his outstretched hand. It had not been fired.

The search for his killer began before first light, with investigators from the FBI, Department of Justice, Chico Police Department, Tehama County Sheriff’s Department, California Highway Patrol and a host of other agencies pitching in to help the Red Bluff Police Department, which employs only about 21 sworn officers. Together, they cordoned off the station and searched for clues on the parking lot, in the street and on the railroad tracks.

The people of Red Bluff, not used to high-profile crimes, let their imaginations wander, and soon many were speculating that the shooting was in retaliation for the accidental death of a man two weeks earlier who had been in Red Bluff police custody.

Speculation increased when police issued a composite sketch of a man they described as a witness in the case. The long-haired, unshaven man in a beanie was never found. Though police say they would still like to talk to him, the focus of the case is now directed almost solely at McCrae.

For all the efforts of the investigators in Red Bluff, it was McCrae himself who facilitated his own capture. According to Red Bluff Police Chief Robert Petitt, McCrae called his parents in Springfield, Ohio, to tell them what he’d done. They called Springfield police, who tipped investigators in Red Bluff.

When reached by phone, McCrae’s parents read twice from a prepared statement.

“We love our son dearly but absolutely denounce his alleged actions. Our hearts are breaking for the family and friends of Officer Mobilio,” said McCrae’s father, Stanley Mickel, a professor of East Asian Studies at Wittenberg University.

Mickel also said he had talked to his son the day before the killing. He would not say where Andrew was calling from but indicated that nothing unusual came up in that conversation. Mickel did not divulge that Andrew had told them that he’d shot a police officer. He did, however, ask that our reporter not describe Andrew as a “drifter,” as another paper had done.
Officer Mobilio’s memorial service was attended by about 2,500 people, including the governor and police from as far away as Modesto and Medford, Ore.

“I’ve probably said too much,” he said, adding, “I want to clear up something that’s been said about him. He is not a drifter; he is enrolled at Evergreen College in Olympia.”
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