On a May afternoon two years ago, Christyn Akin-Crockett found himself in an unusual situation. Standing in a alley north of center of Columbus, Ohio, the church administrator was dressed in black and looking at a single -family house in deterioration.
Akin-Crockett, 42, had heard that a woman in the area, identified only as “Beckka”, was responsible for multiple murders, including that of her father.
In an interview, Akin-Crockett said he had previously tried that local authorities investigated the death of Wayne Akin as a suspect. When he had gone to his father’s apartment after his body was found on April 17, 2023, he said he found shorts and underwear for women on the floor, and his phone and wallet were missing. But when he went to Columbus police with his concerns, he said, an officer said that his investigators had to wait for the results of the toxicology tests to determine if Akin’s death suspected.
Frustrated, Akin-Crockett said he took the matter in his own hands after someone contacted his family through Facebook with information about his death and that he could have been responsible for it. The Council caused what Akin-Crockett described as a vigilant mission that, according to her. , with fatal doses of fentanyl.
Prosecutors have accused Auborn, 34, to kill men between January and June of that year. She was accused of trying to kill a fifth person in December 2022, shows an accusation.
Auborn declared himself innocent and was found competent to be tried earlier this month. His lawyer has not responded to comments requests.
Akin-Crockett said he finally provided the information, that he came in a series of text messages from a woman who said he had met Akin, a Columbus police detective who investigated his father’s death. But that was months later, said Akin-Crockett, after the death of June 17, 2023 of a fourth person to which prosecutors accused Auborn to kill.
Akin-Crockett had two goals with his trip to alley that day: he wanted his father’s belongings to return and wanted his murderer after bars.
“My intention,” said Akin-Crockett, was “to address it and contain it until the police arrived there.”
A spokesman for the Columbus Police Division did not answer a detailed list of questions about the Akin-Crockett account, but said the department is investigating the matter.
A series of illuminating texts
The messages that led Akin-Crockett to the alley began on May 6, 2023, a few weeks after Akin’s death. Akin-Crockett refused to identify the woman who sent the messages to protect her privacy, but she provided screenshots from the texts to NBC News.
Akin-Crockett described his father, a former 64-year-old postal worker who spent years fighting drug addiction after a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, as a generous family man from whom he separated after his descent to disease and addiction. They began repairing their relationship in the years before their death, he said.
The nature of Akin’s relationship with the woman who approached Akin-Crockett was not clear, said Akin-Crockett, but seemed to be friends.
Akin, the woman wrote in one of the messages: “Is it?
In another message, the woman asked how Akin died.
“It was an overdose because I know who did it,” he wrote.
Akin-Crockett replied that the cause of his father’s death was not yet clear, the authorities had not completed toxicology evidence, but she believed that she could have been drugged and left for dead. Akin-Crockett mentioned that his wallet and telephone was missing.
“Yes, it was called Becka,” the woman replied. “She has been doing it” with some boys. In another text message, he added: “Yes, she murders him, this is the 4 person to whom he has done it, but he will get his, he just wait, you can only do so many bad things before you become something” .
Akin-Crockett asked him to inform the details to the Columbus Police Division, but the woman declined, saying that he had arrest orders and that he could not go to jail or testify, according to the messages. But the woman provided Akin-Crockett with the name of an intersection with a camera that could have captured Auborn and Akin together before her death.
In the same text message, the woman wrote: “I suppose she was not intelligent enough to wear her car, so she would need a return trip, which means that she will be on camera in the subway on the other side of the street of his house. “
Akin-Crockett asked the woman if she knew Auborn’s last name, according to the messages. She did not, said, but provided detailed instructions on where Akin-Crockett could find her: a alley near East Weber Road and Atwood Terrace, to a half mile of Interestal 71.
“When you see any woman, she will simply pretend that you are a family and have money for her or something and they will show you right where she is,” the woman wrote.
A couple of hours later, the woman sent another message saying that Auborn was in a nearby corner store. He described the appearance of Auborn (short hair and dirty blond, shorts and a pink hoodie) and said he had Akin’s phone and that he was talking about him.
“She didn’t care that he was dead,” the woman wrote.
Ready for confrontation
Akin-Crockett described the location identified by women as a fairly difficult part of Columbus. Akin-Crockett grew at one or two miles away, he said, and spent his childhood sailing the bike area with his brothers.
Because Akin-Crockett was familiar with the neighborhood, he said he was not afraid of a possible confrontation. And in addition to using black stretching pants and a black pole, Akin-Crockett reasoned that a “very aggressive behavior” could avoid possible problems, did not take safety precautions when she and her husband parked near the corner store in the afternoon in the afternoon of May 6.
Ittai Crockett said he advised that he did not chase his father’s assailant because he was dangerous and because she “stood out like a sore thumb,” potentially to Auborn and led her to flee.
“Christyn, against my wishes, jumped from the car,” said Ittai Crockett, noting that he is legally blind and remained in his vehicle when his wife began to travel the neighborhood.
By then, none of the women was in the store, said Akin-Crockett. Then he walked to the alley identified by the informant and found what he described as a dreary White House with an old roof.
On the porch, Akin-Crockett saw a woman who seemed to coincide with the description of the informant: she had dirty blond hair and shorts. But there was not a pink hoodie. And he had no way to confirm if the woman was in fact “Beckka”.
In a text message, Akin-Crockett had asked a photo to the informant, but she never replied.
Akin-Crockett looked at the house, he said, and the woman with dirty blond hair remained on the porch for a moment, then entered again. Moments later, a man emerged, seemed to look at Akin-Crockett, then he also entered.
Akin-Crockett said he observed the house for approximately five minutes, a period that was felt as an eternity, and weighs his options.
Because I could not say with absolute certainty that I was looking at the woman described by the informant, she said she did not want to bother the wrong person and “cause chaos for no reason.”
Nor did he call the authorities, although he said he spoke with an officer before leading the neighborhood. The officer told him to mark 911 when he was in the area, said Akin-Crockett.
But given what Akin-Crockett described as long police response times in Columbus and the previous description of his father’s death agency as not placed, he concluded that it was not worth calling.
“I wasn’t sure how seriously they would take it,” he said.
Then Akin-Crockett returned to his car and told Ittai Crockett that he thought he saw the woman but could not be sure.
A couple of days later, they went to the department’s headquarters to obtain a report related to the death of his father, said Akin-Crockett. While he was there, he told an officer about the text messages and the camera that a video of his father could have with his alleged murderer.
“They said: ‘Unfortunately, we would have to wait for toxicology,” said Akin-Crockett to the officer. “Once he came back, then they could pursue something.”
Accused of murder
It was not until September, three months after the death of a fifth person on June 17, that Akin-Crockett realized that the informant had been right, and the woman he had seen in the alley was the person later accused to kill his father.
The confirmation came from a news report that showed Auborn’s photo after his accusation in the murder of one of the four men. His hair looked different, but he had the same sunken cheeks and sickly behavior, said Akin-Crockett.
In October, Auborn was accused of dozens more crimes, including the robbery and murder of Akin.
Akin-Crockett was grateful that Auborn was finally out of the streets, but her frustration has only intensified about what she sees how the inaction of the department in the days and weeks after her father’s death.
“They had the power to pursue justice at that time, but they did not, and that saddens me,” he said, adding: “When I talk to other people, they are outraged to have this information, which we present that we present this information and do not He took seriously. “
“The father, brother, a loved one of someone else should not have had to die,” added Ittai Crockett. “It’s a tragedy.”
