The Price of Murder

Paul E. Krueger has two doctorates and one big secret. Or rather, he used to have a

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secret. Now, a local television news report and the wave of coverage that followed have revealed the past that Mr. Krueger, a professor of work-force development at Pennsylvania State University, kept from his students, professors, and colleagues: In 1965, at age 17, he killed three men near Corpus Christi, Tex., and a year later was sentenced to life in prison.

Less than a week after a television station in State College, Pa., broke the news of Mr. Krueger's past, National University, in La Jolla, Calif., rescinded a job offer that he had already accepted. A day later Penn State announced that the professor had resigned, leaving his academic future in doubt.

"For years, I lived this clandestine life," Mr. Krueger says. "Women wear makeup. I hid behind my credentials."

With his secret exposed, he has returned to Texas to try to figure out his future. On this day in late August, he sits in his red, 14-year-old Mazda Miata in Austin, outside the office of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. A 55-year-old man with a healthy head of dark hair and bookish glasses, he is dressed casually: red shirt with white stripes, shorts, sweat socks, and hiking boots. He speaks rapidly, spilling details from every part of his life. One story flows into another so quickly that after a few minutes, he has touched on the Orlando, Fla., convention center; the history of citizen initiatives in California; beer pubs in South Dakota; politics in Florence, Italy; and Prince Charles's height. But after wading through those topics, he spends nearly nine hours talking about murder and its aftereffects, about whether there is really any way to pay for committing such a crime, about raising a family and building an academic career only to have it crumble beneath him. In this parking lot, and then over dinner, and finally on a long walk through Austin, he relates how he went from depressed, even suicidal teenager to enthusiastic, energetic professor, one who would jump onto a table to emphasize a point. As numerous letters of reference point out, he makes a great first impression.

So how did Paul Krueger, the teenage killer, transform himself into Paul Krueger, the college professor? In some ways, being ensconced in academe made it possible. College teaching, it turns out, is one profession where criminal background checks are rare. Many colleges are more likely to check up on janitors than professors. Faculty members are different, some officials say -- to check might unnecessarily hurt recruiting.

But what happened to Mr. Krueger raises questions more important than whether colleges should change their hiring policies: At what point has someone been punished sufficiently for a crime for which he has been sentenced and served his time? Does a murder conviction alone make him unfit to be a college professor? Do the years of degrees and accolades count for nothing? Or, in the end, is society -- especially colleges, given their prestige -- justified in rejecting someone who took three lives?

Even his former colleagues are split. "His victims didn't get a second chance," says one. "Why should he?" Says another, "If Texas says he's rehabilitated, that's good enough for me."

Maybe, some suggest, they would feel differently if he had had some reason for killing the three men -- self-defense, an argument, high on drugs, something that might help explain why. But there isn't anything. "They never found a motive, because there wasn't any," Mr. Krueger says now. "There was no plan. It was stupid. It was capricious. We were a couple of stupid kids. And the further it went, the more desperate it became."

It all began with a speeding ticket. Paul Krueger was driving along the Santa Ana Freeway, in Southern California, around 4:30 p.m. on April 9, 1965, when he was pulled over. He got angry, according to a friend sitting in the passenger seat, and insisted that they leave "right then, that night" for Venezuela. Later, the friend would say that they figured they'd become "freedom fighters." For 17-year-old Paul, they were just running away.

The two returned to Paul's beachfront home in San Clemente, Calif. They loaded his mother's car, a brown 1963 Ford Thunderbird, with canned food, liquor, camping gear, guns -- four rifles, two pistols, and a shotgun -- and a wooden crate of ammunition.

Originally Paul got the guns to protect himself from mountain lions; as a boy, he had developed a phobia about mountain lions that was so strong he often awoke screaming in the night. He began buying weapons through the mail. The collection, which he kept in his bedroom, grew and grew. He had dropped out of military school months earlier after accidentally shooting himself in the leg with a pistol.

Paul's father, Richard Krueger, was a successful engineer who designed the world's first supersonic wind tunnel, founded his own engineering company, and served on the Orange County Planning Commission and the board of a local hospital.

Paul had, it seemed, enjoyed a life of comfort: living at the beach, educated in private schools on the East and West Coasts. But that facade hid a troubled family. His father beat him when he awoke with night terrors. He struggled with depression for years. Once, he says, his mother opened the door to the guest room just as he had a pistol pressed to his temple. Neither of them said a word. He cried. She turned and left the room, closing the door softly behind her. He was so startled that he put the gun down. Mother and son never spoke of what had happened.

Sitting next to him in the Thunderbird that day on the freeway was John Phillip Angles, a 16-year-old former classmate whose father, an accountant, had worked for an oil company in Venezuela. In recent years, he had bounced around, running away from or getting kicked out of several high schools. To Paul, he was a renegade.

With the car loaded, the two teenagers headed east, through Arizona and into New Mexico. According to John, they planned first to cross the border at El Paso, Tex. But along the way they decided it would be easier to get into Mexico by water. So they kept driving toward Corpus Christi, toward the Gulf Coast, toward a lonely wooden dock.

Students like Professor Krueger. One former graduate student on Penn State's University Park campus calls him a "great mentor." The students he worked with at Augustana College in South Dakota remember a man with a solid reputation who was seen as a good instructor, though not an easy one. The department chairwoman there remembers students hanging around the professor's office door.

None of them could have known of the circuitous route that had brought him to the front of the classroom. His new life had begun on January 11, 1979, the day he walked out of the state prison in Huntsville, Tex. He was not entirely a free man -- he will be on parole for the rest of his life -- but he was no longer locked up by the Texas Department of Corrections. He had been there for nearly 13 years, during which he had become a model prisoner. Two years before his release, a note was added to his parole file: "This is probably the most exceptional inmate at TDC. There is nothing further he could do to rehabilitate himself."

Prison had not started off so well. When he arrived, in 1966, he tried to starve himself to death. When officials threatened to strap him down and feed him intravenously, he considered walking toward the fence, hoping that a guard would shoot him. Eventually, though, he found a teacher.

David Willingham, a biology professor from Lee College, lit a spark within the young prisoner. "He was feeding me a lot of praise," Mr. Krueger says. "Up until that stage, no one treated me like a person. He didn't make a distinction between doctor and students. We were all students, which was very different from out in the fields, where they called us 'ole thing' or 'boy' and we answered, 'Yes, boss.'"

Mr. Willingham, still a professor at Lee, remembers Mr. Krueger as a hard worker: "He was a very, very good biology student. One of the best."

For Mr. Krueger, the prison classes became "my escape." Nevertheless, when he started taking courses, he wasn't dreaming of a future outside the walls. "I never thought I'd see the light," he says.

In prison, he earned a high-school diploma and an associate degree, graduating summa cum laude from Sam Houston State University in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in psychology and a perfect 4.0 grade-point average.

He had been a construction clerk and an aide to the prison psychiatrist. He had worked in the prison's alcohol- and drug-abuse programs. He hoped to earn a graduate degree and become a postconviction counselor.

After his release from prison, he enrolled in graduate school at California State University at Los Angeles. Only one person there ever knew about his crime. He earned a master's degree in psychology and worked in human resources for several companies in Southern California.

By 1985, he had returned to college, as a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at South Dakota State University. With his doctorate -- his dissertation was titled "Structural Differentiation, Technology, and Employee Fringe Benefits" -- Mr. Krueger taught as a visiting professor at Idaho State University in 1989. He then returned to the business world, working in California as a human-resources manager at Bio-Rad Laboratories and Johnson & Johnson Corporation.

He meticulously avoided any travel to Texas, a prohibition that was part of his parole. His secretary was confused when he declined plane itineraries if they involved so much as flying over Texas. He feared a malfunction that would require an emergency landing.

Several times along the way, background checks were done. He gritted his teeth, but nothing ever turned up.

In 1994, he landed his first full-time faculty job, as an assistant professor of business administration at Augustana College, a liberal-arts college of 1,600 students in Sioux Falls, S.D. He arrived that fall with a wife and a 10-month-old son. She had known his secret since before they were married -- one of the few people he had ever told about his past.

Anne Oppegard, the department chairwoman, remembers that Mr. Krueger "had a great rapport with his students."

For three years, he served as faculty adviser to the student government. Alan Matzner, one of the student-body presidents during that time, remembers him as a well-regarded professor who was candid and forthright. "He often informed us of things that he didn't have to," Mr. Matzner says.

Once, while Mr. Krueger was the adviser, the student government debated whether background checks should be required for staff and faculty members.

Carrie Melcher, a fellow professor at Augustana, remembers Mr. Krueger as a friendly colleague, who took his little boy to college ball games and talked about how his investment portfolio was doing. Twice in the city he held workshops about stock-market investing for beginners.

He left Augustana suddenly, however, in 1999, informing the department in July that he was taking a job at Penn State. The reason, he says now, was that he had been called for jury duty. "I wasn't going to lie to the court," he says as he drives through Austin. "If somebody had asked, I would have told them." He informed the court that he was a convicted felon on parole. He feared then that the news would get around in such a small town.

At Penn State, he became an assistant professor in the College of Education and director of the Institute for Research in Training & Development. That same year he earned his second doctorate, this one in education from the University of Southern California.

Almost 1,500 miles lay between San Clemente and Corpus Christi. Most likely, the teenagers reached the Gulf Coast on a Sunday, after two days of driving. Once there, they did not go unnoticed: A local policeman checked the license plate of their Thunderbird. The two, who had five-day growths of beard, appeared to be in their 20s. "They looked like beatniks enough to draw our suspicions," the officer said later.

On Sunday night, Paul and John, using assumed names, checked into a motel near the causeway to Padre Island. In the morning they went shopping. At a sporting-goods store, they bought three five-gallon fuel cans, some marine fuel, and fishing gear. Paul paid with his mother's credit card. According to a store employee, they asked about ammunition for a high-powered rifle, but it was not in stock, so he referred them to a gun shop.

By 2 p.m., they were at Graham's Bait Stand, near the causeway. For $12, they rented a 14-foot aluminum boat, with an outboard motor, for three days. The bait-stand employee said later that he had shown Paul how to operate the motor while the other teenager drove the car away.

Meanwhile, three Corpus Christi men were setting out for an overnight fishing trip.

Noel D. Little, a 51-year-old automobile mechanic, was the oldest. The father of two girls -- about the same age as Paul and John -- he had once been a circus clown. Van D. Carson, 40, who was running a gas station after retiring from the Navy, had enrolled in an accounting course at a local business school. He and his wife had one son. Joel D. Fox, 38, was the parts manager at a local auto dealer. His two 14-year-old sons and 5-year-old daughter were at home when he left for the fishing trip. The three men planned to return on Tuesday afternoon.

The California teenagers steered their boat southward that afternoon, planning to land in Mexico and then make their way south to Venezuela. But as the small boat struggled against the current, the pair soon realized that they needed a new plan, according to John's later testimony to which Paul assented. After several hours they turned back. About six miles south of the causeway, they spotted three men fishing from a dock. Lanterns illuminated the scene. Another boat was moored nearby.

"I'm going to kill those people," Paul said, according to John.

The boys beached their boat about 100 feet north of the pier. Paul put a .38-caliber pistol in his pocket and walked toward the three men. He asked for directions about getting back to the mainland and then suggested that he and John camp there because the fog was getting heavier. The men, according to John, did not object.

The pair walked back to their boat. Paul picked up an AR-15 rifle and handed a carbine to John, telling him to carry it hidden against his side. Then Paul, according to John, put the rifle to his shoulder and fired at the men. All three fell into the water.

Paul walked farther down the dock, according to John. He fired at the floating bodies, emptying his rifle of bullets. Paul then took the carbine and, John testified later, fired it at the men until it ran out of bullets.

The two fled in their rented boat, tossing rifles -- including the murder weapons -- a portable radio, and camping supplies into the water to speed their escape. They beached the boat, returned to the Thunderbird, and drove through the night to San Antonio.

Back near Padre Island, the bodies of the three men floated in two feet of water under the pier. Mr. Fox's and Mr. Carson's wallets were still in their pockets. Mr. Little's wallet remained in his nearby cabin, right where he had left it.

In mid-March 2003, Mr. Krueger opened his mail to find a letter from the Pennsylvania parole board. He was living illegally in the state, it said, and had two weeks to move out. Since 1985, he has been on "annual report" status, meaning that he simply sent a letter once a year to officials in California, who administered his parole. Although he had been in Pennsylvania for four years, Texas had told Pennsylvania about him only this year.

Lauren Taylor, director of legislative affairs and communications for the Pennsylvania board, says it was the responsibility of Texas officials to inform Pennsylvania, which investigates every case before allowing out-of-state parolees to live there. "It's illegal to be here until the compact is approved," she says. "That's why he was asked to leave."

Mr. Krueger landed a job back in California at National University, a private institution with 30 locations around the state. He had signed the contract and was prepared to start on September 1.

Then his secret came out. Tipped off by a local police officer, a reporter for WTAJ-TV, John Clay, went on the air with a scoop: "A Penn State spokesman tells 10 News the university learned just two weeks ago from a state parole officer that a faculty member here is a confessed murderer." An Associated Press account quickly showed up in dozens of newspapers around the country.

Administrators at National were, of course, stunned. For a few days they dodged the question of whether Mr. Krueger was still welcome. Then Shahram Azordegan, dean of the School of Business and Information Management, announced that after consulting with its lawyers, the university had decided to rescind Mr. Krueger's contract.

In an accompanying statement, National said, "While the university recognizes Dr. Krueger's efforts to rehabilitate himself in the years since the conviction, his employment as a faculty member would be inconsistent with National University's institutional values and the best interests of its students, alumni, faculty, and staff."

Repeated attempts by The Chronicle to speak with Mr. Azordegan or other National University officials about how employing Mr. Krueger would be inconsistent with the institution's values were unsuccessful. Before Mr. Krueger's past became public, Hoyt Smith, a spokesman for the university, had called the professor's hiring away from Penn State "a coup" for National. Now, Mr. Smith says, he cannot elaborate on the subsequent official statement.

A day later Mr. Krueger's job at Penn State evaporated as well. In their statement, officials on the University Park campus said, "The university and Dr. Krueger both recognize that his ability to carry out his responsibilities effectively as a faculty member in Penn State's College of Education has been compromised in light of the revelations about his history."

David Monk, dean of education, called Mr. Krueger "an exemplary faculty member who has been highly regarded by his colleagues and students." Bill Mahon, a Penn State spokesman, says he cannot speculate about whether the university would have kept Mr. Krueger on the faculty had he not arranged to leave. "It appeared that he had decided to move on to California even before we knew of his history," Mr. Mahon says. "It's hard to speculate on 'what if.'"

Penn State does not ask faculty members about their criminal backgrounds, although it and other Big Ten universities were already reviewing that policy when the university learned about Mr. Krueger's past. A new policy requiring such checks should be in place this fall, Mr. Mahon says.

The student newspaper, The Daily Collegian, said the incident should be a wake-up call for Penn State. Background checks need to be mandatory, according to the editorial. "Maybe Krueger is a changed man, and he was a model inmate at one time," the newspaper said, "but should he be granted the liberty of working at a university teaching education?"

Maybe the police would have pieced it all together. They had seen the car. And the boys had not laid low during their trip. They left bits of evidence around -- the battery-powered lantern from a San Clemente hardware store found at the scene of the killings, a receipt for $130 in ammunition later found in the Thunderbird. But little detective work was necessary. John Angles could not bear to keep silent.

The morning after the killings he woke up to find his friend gone. John took a bus north to Kerrville, Tex., where he was picked up by the police while hitchhiking. He told the officers everything. At first they didn't believe him. "We thought he was just telling a wild story," one said at the time. They checked it out, though, calling Corpus Christi with the tip.

Sheriff's deputies found the boys' boat, still holding four rifles and a shotgun, and called a Navy helicopter to search for the bodies. At 10:18 p.m., the first wanted bulletin was broadcast for Paul Eric Krueger. He was already headed to Mexico.

The next day, a Wednesday, he waded across the Rio Grande, spending the night at a motel in Juarez to get out of his muddy clothes. With $2.43 in his pocket, he continued south, detouring around border checkpoints, trudging for miles through sand dunes.

During the next week, Paul's parents, in California, pleaded for his return. "Don't be frightened," his mother told her son in a public appeal published in the Los Angeles Times. "No matter where you are, we will come to you." The police back in Corpus Christi suggested that Paul might be dead. Divers searched the murky waters for the murder weapons and his body.

Paul wasn't dead. He was staying in a small Mormon community in Chihuahua. The insular community provided the perfect cover for a white boy who spoke no Spanish. He could have lived there forever, he believed, but the guilt was too much.

After several days, he called his parents. The phone, he imagined, was tapped. The next day, the Mexican police found him near Nuevos Casas Grandes, a village 145 miles south of the border. He offered no resistance. Police said he had a loaded .38-caliber pistol, two extra clips, and a tear-gas fountain pen. At the Juarez jail, reporters said, he sobbed, "My God, my God. What did I do? Tell me." During the arrest, the police discovered a letter he had written during his travels. They released it to local newspapers.

"Dear Mom," Paul had written. "I love you very much. Please believe that much about me. The whole of last week has been one awful nightmare. I couldn't have been in control of my scences to do what I had done. This I'm sure is obvious. God knows I am sorry for I have suffered greatly. The authorities will probably trace this but that makes no difference for all that counts is that you know how I feel about you."

No one has suggested that Mr. Krueger has ever lied about his criminal record. Penn State didn't ask. National University's application asks about convictions in just the past seven years -- and officials there were unclear even about whether he had filled out the form. But some people think he had a duty to tell his colleagues.

Bill Powers, director of the prison-education program at the University of Houston at Clear Lake, says he tells inmates that they have to make sure that prospective employers know about their criminal past -- even if no one asks. "We tell students that you've got to come clean," he says. "In an interview they need to say, 'Before we get started, I need to tell you something. I was incarcerated. I made some mistakes.'"

At that point, he says, "you stop and say, 'Do we need to continue this interview?' You give the employer the chance to end it."

"No one," he asserts, "wants to get blindsided."

In another case, a professor who was convicted of murder, sentenced to life, and paroled after 12 years never hid that background from his college. That was easier, though, since he ended up working for the same institution from which he had earned a bachelor's degree while in prison. At the college, he eventually taught both prisoners and regular students. But the regular ones, he says, never knew of his background. The stigma remains so strong that even now, decades later, he does not want his name used. "I'd hate to have this out there," he says. "My grandkids don't know."

In the end, though, Mr. Powers believes that Mr. Krueger may have a chance to stay in academe. "We're supposed to be a more forgiving group of people," he says. "I'm naive enough to believe that."

The State of Texas wanted to execute Paul Krueger. His was, as one district attorney said, "the most heinous crime in the history of the Gulf Coast." As for Paul, he cared little one way or the other. His life, he thought, was already over. But for prosecutors, finding a jury that would consider the death penalty was difficult.

The notoriety of the case in Corpus Christi prompted a judge to transfer the trial to a rural county west of Houston. There, more than half of the 84 prospective jurors questioned were disqualified because they were opposed to the death penalty. A mistrial was called after attempts to seat a jury failed, and the case was transferred again, to Dallas County, where finding a jury once more proved difficult. After two days, lawyers had agreed on a single juror. Then, on the morning of May 11, 1966, nearly 13 months after the killings, Paul Krueger was given a chance -- however small -- at life instead of the electric chair.

While yet more prospective jurors waited in the hall, lawyers met in a conference room with Paul, his mother, and the three widows. After the hourlong meeting, prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty. In return, Paul would plead guilty to all three murders. The judge sentenced him to three concurrent life terms.

"This ultimately was what we wanted in all three cases," Sam Jones, the Corpus Christi district attorney, said at the time. "The families of the victims were reluctant to think about the death penalty. Most of the relatives, in fact, didn't want the death penalty."

On that last day in court, as Paul was being sentenced, his mother broke into tears as the coroner's report on the death of Mr. Little was read. Two rows behind her, Mrs. Little cried as well -- and then, trying not to hear anything more, she placed her hands over her ears.

Thirty-seven years later, nearly everyone who knew him was shocked at the news of Mr. Krueger's crime. "My heart is racing," one of his former graduate students said when told about Mr. Krueger's past.

Others would never have guessed that he had such a secret. "He didn't talk about the past," says Ms. Melcher, his former Augustana colleague. "But he didn't hide anything of his current life."

Students and faculty members are divided over whether Mr. Krueger can continue living the life he has built in the past two decades. "Not to say that it would be easy," says Mr. Matzner, the former Augustana student, "but I think I could understand someone who had served his time and been a good instructor being worthwhile to have on the faculty. And they may have some character from life experience that others couldn't have. Others I know are far more harsh and feel a sense of betrayal. ... People don't like having secrets kept from them."

Ms. Melcher says she does not think she could work next to Mr. Krueger any longer. "It would always be there in the back of my mind," she says. She isn't sure what to think. "My feeling is," she says, "he's either the poster child for rehabilitation, the biggest one ever, or he's a sociopath waiting to explode again."

Other former colleagues are more sympathetic. "Some people talk a good game about rehabilitation, but now it's been 25 years since he got out of prison," says Richard D. English, another former Augustana colleague. "When in the hell is it over?"

Yet everyone at any college where he teaches now will surely know of his past. What about his students? Does he have to tell everyone he ever meets? Does he have to put it on his CV? His syllabus?

Mr. Willingham, his first college instructor back in prison, says he never knew what Mr. Krueger's crime was. "It's disappointing," he says of what has happened to his former student's academic career. "I hope he can work it out. It's all way, way in the past."

Since leaving Pennsylvania, Mr. Krueger has been living in motels around Austin, staying near parole officials in the state capital as he figures out his next move. He leaves early in the morning and does not return until late, spending the day at Internet cafes. He has taken on the mildest disguise he could think of -- a baseball cap. Still, several police officers at a pizza parlor recognized him. So did one of the motel maids.

And now every comment from a stranger is tinged with double meanings. Once at a cafe the man sitting next to him asked Mr. Krueger to watch his laptop while he stepped away. "If anybody tries to take it," the man said, "kill them for me." Mr. Krueger didn't know what to think. "Maybe he was joking," he says. "Maybe he knew."

For years, he has not had to confront what happened in 1965 so directly. But he has not ever locked it away in some box in the far reaches of his mind. He still dreams about waking up behind bars, about the rat that bit his hand while he slept on the bottom bunk in his cell. During all those years, he never talked to the families of the men he killed -- their widows, the six children he left without fathers. His lawyer told him never to try.

"How do you say you're sorry for something like that?" he says. "There are no words for that in the English language. The only thing to do is resurrect those people and give them back all those years. If I could have a time machine and go back and make them whole, by God, I would have done it."

The only thing he can do, he says, is try to build a worthwhile life. He thought he had. Now, with his career crumbling, he is willing to start over. "Tell me what to do," he says. "Just something that's possible. It can even be improbable. ... Is there a magic number? Do I have to come back in another 24 years?"

Mr. Krueger remains hopeful that some college will give him another shot. Even if institutions decide that he cannot be close to students, he wants to stay in academe. "If you won't let me teach, then allow me to do research and give me a room," he says. "You can feed me papers through a slot in the door, and I'll feed it back through."

Of all professions, he says, it seems that academe should embrace the idea that people can learn, grow, and change. "What is teaching about?" he asks. "The whole spirit of it is transformation." Is his life, one of such extreme transformation, indeed incompatible with some "institutional value"?

For two years while in prison, Paul Krueger wrote a monthly column for the inmate newspaper, The Echo. Often, he says, he wrote in metaphors and parables, preferring them to dry facts. One column turned Kafka's Metamorphosis on its head. In it, Mr. Krueger wrote of a bug entering a cocoon, where it is changed into a human being. But the new man is not treated by others as a human being. The column's last words: "Once a bug, always a bug."