Drugs consumed N.J. man charged with killing wife, insiders say
Kyle Crosby, 28, was ordered held on $1.2 million bail in the death of Erica Crippen, 26. As of last night, her body had not been found.
THE MUSCLES that Kyle Crosby piled onto himself didn't make him strong.
Crosby, 28, of Mount Laurel, N.J., a personal trainer, had been straining to hold on to two lives pulling him in opposite directions.
On one end was drug addiction and a history of related arrests. On the other was his wife, Erica Crippen, who'd loved him enough to send him through rehab even though he had stolen her car once, her family said.
Even the birth of their daughter in October wasn't enough to pry Crosby from drugs, and Crippen, 26, felt that the marriage had reached a breaking point, her friends and family said yesterday.
That's why Crosby allegedly killed her, they believe, and allowed the drugs to pull him away.
"She loved him. That was their only problem: drugs," Crippen's friend Amaris Torres said yesterday afternoon in a hallway at the Burlington County Courthouse in Mount Holly. "She pushed him to get clean. That's probably what they were fighting about at the end."
Although investigators had not found Crippen's body as of last night, Crosby was charged with murder yesterday. He was arrested Monday night in Camden County following a traffic stop and foot chase in Bellmawr and Brooklawn.
Crippen's family said investigators told them that Crosby had been in Camden in recent days, buying drugs and paying for prostitutes. Her family believed he abused prescription painkillers and heroin.
Crosby, whose Facebook page said he'd also been a member of the Boilermakers union, had been in Camden before . . . and not to visit the aquarium.
In February, he was charged with trespassing on a Camden property, and in November he was pulled over on a Camden street driving Crippen's car, which she had reported stolen.
He's been arrested several other times over the past five years for aggravated assault, drug possession, obstruction, burglary and other charges.
Crosby has not confessed to killing Crippen, her family said after he was arraigned in Burlington County Superior Court yesterday and ordered held on $1.2 million bail.
They cannot plan a funeral without his help.
"You're in jail now, so what's the point?" Crippen's sister Janiya Crippen said to no one in particular in the courthouse hallway. "Tell us where she is."
Crippen and Crosby lived in Mount Laurel with their baby daughter and with Crippen's 7-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. Crippen was last seen Dec. 31 with Crosby at P.J. Whelihan's Pub and Restaurant in Cherry Hill.
Crosby posted a picture of them together from that night as his Facebook cover photo, the two of them smiling at the bar.
Mount Laurel police performed a wellness check on their home on Jan. 7 after Crippen's older daughter failed to report to school that week, the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office said.
Crosby signed a missing-person report the same day, claiming he hadn't seen his wife since Jan. 1, the prosecutor's office said.
On Jan. 10, police filed a child-endangerment charge against Crosby, the prosecutor's office said, for not properly caring for the children while his wife was missing.
Both children are safe with family members, Crippen's family said.
Members of Crippen's family said they had been suspicious of Crosby as soon as they learned she had disappeared. The home was in disarray when they went there, with bedsheets and a shower curtain missing, they said.
"He was just shady, always was," Janiya Crippen said.
Once police left Jan. 7, Crosby disappeared with Crippen's car and turned off his cellphone. The prosecutor's office said yesterday that investigators had found several items in the car's trunk that had "evidential value," but declined to elaborate. The affidavit of probable cause for the murder charge was sealed.
Crippen's Facebook page was filling up with condolences last night. She worked as a laboratory analyst, according to her page. Her sister said she was in school and wanted to be a doctor.
"She was a good person who wanted to have a good family," her cousin Barbara Kellam said.
Comments on Crosby's Facebook page were mostly on the order of "burn in hell," or worse. But anyone scrolling back through the months could see loads of family pictures of Crosby and Crippen and the children.
Back in July, Crippen posted an inspirational message to her husband's page, the kind that hinted at some problem he needed to overcome.
"I want him to look at me and say, because of you, I didn't give up," the post said.
Crosby never liked it.