Two decades later, an infamous murder case on the Central Coast is gaining national attention again.
In 1998, Cal Poly student Rachel Newhouse disappeared while walking home from a bar in San Luis Obispo.
Investigators were led to dead ends, but four months later, an eerily similar case appeared.
Aundria Crawford was abducted from the apartment where she lived alone in San Luis Obispo.
A now-retired San Luis Obispo parole officer played a key role in cracking the case.
Known sex offender Rex Allan Krebs’ story about how he hurt his ribs didn’t add up, raising some red flags. He was arrested on a parole violation.
Larry Hobson, a former San Luis Obispo County DA’s investigator interviewed Krebs about ten times before DNA evidence linked him to the murders.
Hobson says he still remembers nearly every detail of the intense investigation.
"Back in 1999 DNA didn’t turn over in a matter of days, it took several weeks," Hobson said. "Once that information came back that blood found in his truck belonged to Rachel Newhouse. And then it became an interrogation at the San Luis Obipso Police Department."
Krebs was convicted of the murders in 2001 and sentenced to death row.
The now 52-year-old remains at San Quentin State Prison.
Oxygen’s true-crime series "Buried in the Backyard" will highlight the case and investigation. It airs Sunday, July 22 at 7 p.m.
