Krista Schaaf’s sense of safety in the Tri-Cities was ripped away from her two years ago.
She struggles to leave her home by herself, worries about her children going out alone and now she has a new fear — the man who killed her brother inside the Richland Fred Meyer might avoid prison and go into a psychiatric hospital instead.
She and others in her family believe the former teacher is smart enough to manipulate the system.
“He killed Justin and almost killed Mark Hill and needs to be treated accordingly,” she recently told the Tri-City Herald.
“Sitting in a hospital and not being treated like a murderer is not how he needs to be treated.”
Aaron C. Kelly, 41, is charged with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.
He’s accused of killing Justin Krumbah, 38, an Instacart worker he didn’t know on Feb. 7, 2022, and then wounding store employee Mark Hill, before fleeing.
Since his arrest near Spokane, Kelly has been in and out of psychiatric care facilities. Psychologists say he suffers from schizophrenia, believing a shadowy organization is hunting him.
He’s pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. If found insane, he would be committed to Eastern State Hospital in Medical Lake for indefinite treatment.
But Krumbah’s sister and four other siblings are struggling with that possibility.
They feel Kelly’s actions were too calculated.
Schaaf and another brother, Matt Krumbah, said Kelly looked up after the shooting how to escape to Mexico, took off his car’s front license plate, used mud to obscure his rear license plate and drove on back roads to get out of the Tri-Cities.
And when state psychologist were trying to force Kelly to take his mental health medications after his arrest, Kelly was allowed by the judge to do is own questioning of medical staff.
“He knew what he was doing,” she said. “He was sane in his actions.”
Still, they feel they’re fighting an uphill battle. Defense experts as well as the initial state psychologists who examined Kelly believe he was not sane at the time of the shooting.
Prosecutors have asked for another expert to review the case and make their own determination. The results of that examination are still pending. In the meantime, a trial in Benton County is still set for March 4.
‘Heart of gold’
Krumbah was the middle child of a family of six kids who grew up in Ellensburg in Central Washington. All of them eventually moved to the Tri-Cities.
While Krumbah had a temper, his sister said he also had a heart of gold and would go out of his way to help people.
“He was my hero when I needed him,” she said. “He could fix anything. He was a great mechanic.”
Speakers at a memorial for him soon after the 2022 shooting also recalled how he helped others at work — putting away returned store items, helping customers find things and going out of his way to brighten other people’s days.
He began working for Instacart in November 2021. In that short time, he developed a fan base who appreciated his attention to detail in selecting items for their orders, Schaaf said.
Instacart shared reviews with her from customers about her brother.
Schaaf had worked in the Fred Meyer bakery for three hours that morning. She was preparing chocolate-dipped strawberries for Valentine’s Day.
She had taken a break when she heard the gunfire in the store. It initially sounded like someone was throwing pallets.
“I said, ‘Someone is mad,'” she told the Herald. When she saw people running, she realized someone was shooting. “I said, ‘That’s a gun,” and I told everyone to run. … I’ll never forget the moms carrying their babies.”
It wasn’t until later that she realized that her brother was still in the store. She remembered frantically searching the parking lot for his car, and then finding it.
“They started bringing all of the survivors out, and he never came out,” she said.
2022 store shooting
On the day of the shooting, she was working in the bakery and knew that her brother had been working in the store earlier but had left to make a delivery to a customer. She didn’t know if he’d returned to fill another order.
Store security video showed Kelly come into the store about 11:01 a.m. A few days earlier, he’d been spotted shoplifting at the store.
He was seen on video on Feb. 7 pushing a shopping cart that held a duffle bag and a backpack. He wasn’t seen putting any items from shelves into his cart.
Two minutes after he walked in, Kelly and Krumbah passed each other on Aisle 14 and appeared on store video to have a quick conversation. There is no audio of the exchange, but Krumbah went back to selecting items from shelves to fill customer orders, documents said.
Kelly, however, pulled out a handgun and shot Krumbah multiple times. After Krumbah fell to the floor, Kelly fired several more times before walking away.
As Kelly passed the customer service desk near the exit, he also shot Hill, court documents said.
Before leaving, Kelly reportedly spoke with another person in the store, then wandered around briefly before exiting.
Inside, panicked customers and store employees scrambled for cover and called 911.
Kelly drove off in his Honda and 12 hours later police spotted him driving on Interstate 90 and pulled him over near Spokane. It’s unclear where he was headed.
Sanity evaluations
Criminal court proceedings for Kelly were on hold for more than a year as psychologists decided he wasn’t mentally competent enough to help his attorneys in his defense, then state officials had to get a court order to require Kelly to take medication.
At first Kelly barely communicated with anyone and would barely answer any questions, but as he was treated for schizophrenia — a clearer picture of his mental state emerged.
A defense expert, Daniel Lord-Flynn, testified in February 2023 that Kelly believes there is an “entity” made up of shadowy government organizations that is influencing events around him.
His paranoia is driven by the belief if he shares information it will be used by the “entity” against him, Lord-Flynn testified. Kelly also believes the entities can read his mind.
Kelly’s beliefs extend to thinking the intelligence agencies fabricated the shooting.
His delusions appear to have started after Kelly moved back in with his parents in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, after he’d spent some time as a teacher in Texas.
While in Idaho, he worked on a piecemeal basis doing technical writing. His mother noticed he was becoming more suspicious, believing that someone was hacking into his computer, Lord-Flynn testified.
At one point a relative suggested the CIA was involved and he “caught that idea and seemed to go with it,” Lord-Flynn said.
His parents eventually asked him to leave, and he moved into a Airbnb in west Pasco.
Kelly’s odd behavior and inability to pay rent became a problem that eventually forced the owner of the home to sell his house in order to evict Kelly in 2021.
His parents tried to rent a hotel room for him to stay in, but Lord-Flynn said Kelly would often just continue staying in his car.
At times, he believed everyone in the Tri-Cities was part of the conspiracy.
2 years after the shooting
Schaaf has been on leave from Fred Meyer since the shooting. She hasn’t been able to return to work.
The last time she went in the store was when Hill retired, but she can’t go shopping there or even leave her house without her husband. She’s also home schooling her 12- and 14-year-old, afraid to have them away.
She’s being treated for post-traumatic stress and anxiety.
“It’s just too much,” she said about returning to Fred Meyer. “There are too many emotions. … I can’t do loud sounds at all. If somebody screams, it triggers me really bad.”
Schaaf has followed all of the aspects of the case, collecting and studying all the documents.
“I have every court paper that I can get. I have a couple thousand pages,” she said. “I like to read and reread them.”
She worries she won’t get closure if Kelly is committed to Eastern State Hospital. And she worries what will happen if he is eventually released.
“He will commit another murder. They have got to do something,” she said.
