COURTS: Merced jury hearing case Encinitas man's slaying

Man admitted killing Bob Mixer in Santa Nella motel room three years ago

By TERI FIGUEROA - Staff Writer | Saturday, July 26, 2008 5:10 PM PDT ∞

Nearly three years ago, Sally Mixer kissed her 85-year-old husband in their Encinitas home and told him to drive safely during his solo trip to kayak in Washington state.

"It never entered my mind to say, 'Don't open the door to strangers,' " the 77-year-old woman said Friday. "It never entered my mind."

Bob Mixer did open the door of his motel room in Santa Nella, a pit-stop community along Interstate 5 in the Central Valley, and headed outside when the stranger at the threshold warned Mixer that he'd left his car lights on.

Benjamin Crosby has admitted that he used that split-second opportunity to slip inside Mixer's room and hide behind the door.

Crosby, who is now on trial for killing Mixer, was on the run from the law, out of cash and out of gas when he spotted Mixer checking in moments earlier on Sept. 8, 2005.

Crosby slammed the tire iron in his hands against Mixer's head and body 20, maybe 30, times when the Encinitas man came back into the motel room, according to authorities.

Mixer fought back during the ambush, the defensive wounds on his hands and arms show as much, said Harold Nutt, a chief deputy district attorney in Merced County, where the brutal attack took place.

But when that didn't kill Mixer, Crosby has admitted placing a plastic bag over his elderly victim's head to suffocate him, Nutt said. Finally, Crosby strangled Mixer with a cord from the victim's glasses.

Crosby, 26, is not disputing the facts, and has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. And sometime this coming week, a Merced County jury is set to begin deliberating whether Crosby was sane when he killed Mixer.

If they find Crosby was sane, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. A finding of insanity means he would be committed to a state mental hospital, with the chance that he could later be released if doctors someday deem him sane.

Crosby's defense attorney, Wayne Eisenhart, said Friday that two doctors testified that his client suffers from a bipolar disorder, that he was in a manic episode when he killed Mixer.

Eisenhart is arguing that the evidence shows Crosby suffered from a psychotic break from reality.

Sally Mixer, along with friends and family members, spent a few days at the trial last week. The widow said in a phone interview from her Encinitas home on Friday that she testified about her husband, and identified his belongings for the jury.

Bob Mixer was looking forward to the trip to the Northwest, and the opportunity for a solo kayaking trip down the Columbia River, his wife said.

The man who loved the music of the Moody Blues surfed for much of his life "until he got too old for that," his wife said. So he took up windboarding and kayaking. He traveled the world, places like Alaska and Chile, where he trekked alone to kayak when he was 78.

Age was simply not a barrier for Mixer, who had a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley and eventually graduated from UC Los Angeles with a doctorate in chemistry.

When he was in his 50s, Mixer headed back to school to pick up his master's degree in business administration from Cal State Long Beach.

The man whose widow describes him as "brilliant" spent 14 years as the director of NASA's Industrial Application Center at the University of Southern California.

The couple was married for 34 years, a second marriage for both of them. Between them, they had five kids and three grandchildren.

In 1971, they bought a little cottage near Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, where they went most weekends for getaways from Los Angeles. It became their primary home when Bob Mixer retired in 1986, and every day the couple would take a morning walk along the water at Swami's.

They later moved to another Encinitas home, where Sally Mixer still lives. It is where she gave her husband that final kiss goodbye before he headed on a journey that put him in Crosby's path.

The killing came midway during a crime spree that stretched from Crosby's home in Olympia, Wash., to Indio, where he crashed the 2004 Honda Prius he'd stolen from Mixer.

Crosby fled his rental home after setting it on fire, and ended up at a gas station near I-5 in Washington where Merced prosecutor Nutt said the defendant stole a car "and drove it until he ran out of gas and money, which just happened to be in our county."

Nutt said Crosby "pulled off in Santa Nella and waited for a victim."

After the killing, Crosby showered in Mixer's room, changed clothes, and swiped his victim's cash, credit cards and car. He also cleaned items out of the motel room, Nutt said. Crosby covered Mixer's body with a bedspread.

Crosby has admitted that before leaving town, he set fire to the car he stole in Washington state, then fled the area in Mixer's car, heading south.

A maid discovered Mixer's body the following day.

Crosby was arrested the same day Mixer was found, after he twice crashed Mixer's car near Indio, according to authorities.

At the end of a court day last week, the man who has admitted killing Bob Mixer wanted to talk to the victim's family. Sally Mixer said that after the jury left, Crosby "said he was sorry for his sins against God and us."

"I just said to him, 'I'll never forgive you," Sally Mixer said. "If God does, he is better than I."

She said "I just pray" the jury finds Crosby was sane when he attacked her husband.

"He was a good man, he was an honest man, he was a hardworking man, an intelligent man," Sally Mixer said of her husband. "He just left a big hole in our family, and we miss him every day."

Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 740-5442 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com.