Former Marine Caleb Crew Confesses to Wife's Murder on Chilling Tape

A former Marine who pled guilty to strangling his wife and dumping her body in a river, confessed to the murder in a chilling recorded interview with two detectives. For the first time outside the courtroom, Caleb Crew's confession can be heard in the audio-taped police interview obtained by News4.

"You're going to feel better when you get this off your chest."
"It's obviously painful she's gone. Just walk us though it."
"Take a deep breath and walk us through it. I know you can do it."

Over and over, in calm, measured voices, Fairfax County, Virginia, detectives Chris Flanagan and Eric Deane turned to those phrases to try to get Crew to tell the truth. Their interview was conducted on Aug. 10, 2013 two days after Crew called 911 to report his wife Andrea missing.

Crew pleaded guilty to murder just last month, the confession a powerful piece of evidence that would have been critical at trial.

In the taped interview, the detectives talk with Crew for nearly two hours, urging him to come clean. He finally gets emotional and begins to provide chilling details about why and how he killed his wife.

Crew tells detectives the couple had gone to court on Aug. 8, 2013 where a previous domestic violence charge against him was dropped. On the way home they argued, and Crew stopped his Jeep in a parking lot. Andrea then threatened to call 911.

Crew tells detectives what happened next:

"I took the phone. I grabbed her out of her chair. She only weights 112 pounds. I grabbed her throat and strangled her in the back seat."

A detective asked whether Crew spoke to his wife.

"First thing I said, 'Goodbye.' I knew once I went down that path I couldn't go back. She said, 'Please Caleb.' I started crying but I couldn't stop," said Crew.

He then tells detectives, though he wife lay lifeless in the SUV, he checked and found a pulse. So he took off the tie he'd worn to court and wrapped it around Andrea's neck.

"Tightly?" asks one detective.
Crew: "Yeah"
Detective: "Why?"
Crew: "To finish the job."

Later that night Crew strapped a backpack filled with weights to his wife's body and threw her in the Occoquon River.

"What was the purpose of the backpack?" asked detectives.
"To take her to the bottom," replied Crew.
"Did you think there was still hope you could get away with it," asked the detective.
"Yeah, that's what I was thinking at the time," said Crew.

Crew tells detectives his biggest immediate worry was the couple's two young daughters, one just 11 months old and still breastfeeding.

"I was thinking, I don't know how else I'll live life after this. I don't want to mess up the girls' lives, of course, I already had. And thinking I have to cover it up," said Crew.

The cover-up lasted just two days until the police interview and Crew's confession. Crew is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 9. One of the most recent filings in his court file -- a certificate of completion for the anger management class at the jail.

Contact Us