Bio

Crossan David Hoover Jr., known as "Crossie," was born in 1965. As a teenager, he worked for Mark Richards, a Marin County contractor whose home remodeling business was, at the time, nearly bankrupt. Richards had developed an elaborate and delusional plan, which he called "Pendragon," to stage an armed takeover of Marin County's government and install himself as a King Arthur–style ruler over a reimagined Camelot. 

Investigators later recovered maps, aerial photographs of Marin County, instructions for building machine guns, plans for a laser weapon, and notebooks referencing a "new form of government" from Richards's home. As an inducement to participate in the murder that followed, Richards reportedly promised the teenage Hoover he would be made "Duke of Angel's Island."

Murder Story

On July 6, 1982, Mark Richards drove Crossan David Hoover Jr. and another teenage employee, Andrew C., to Richard A. Baldwin’s house. Baldwin was 36 years old and owned a vintage automobile restoration business. Richards had presented the killing to Hoover and Andrew as part of a plan to obtain money and property from Baldwin.

That afternoon, Richards asked Baldwin to show him and Hoover classic cars at Baldwin’s auto shop. Richards, Hoover, and Baldwin left the house at about 2:00 p.m. in Richards’s truck, while Andrew stayed behind and searched Baldwin’s home.

At the auto shop, Richards gave Hoover a prearranged signal. Hoover then struck Baldwin on the head with a baseball bat. After that, Hoover stabbed Baldwin in the head with a screwdriver and in the chest with a chisel. The attack killed Baldwin.

After the killing, Richards and Hoover returned to Baldwin’s house. With Andrew, they took about $3,000 in cash and other property, including guns and marijuana. Later that day, Richards used Baldwin’s money to make a down payment on a boat. Richards, Hoover, and the other teenager then retrieved Baldwin’s body from the auto shop and used the boat to dump the body in San Francisco Bay.

Baldwin’s body was found on July 13, 1982. The body had been wrapped and weighted down. The next day, the Marin County Sheriff’s Department received an anonymous phone call that led investigators toward Hoover and Richards. On July 16, 1982, Hoover and Richards were arrested.

Hoover made admissions about the killing to several people after Baldwin’s death. The prosecution later used those statements, along with the robbery evidence and testimony from Andrew, who received immunity in exchange for his statement and trial testimony. Richards was tried separately and was convicted of first-degree murder before Hoover’s trial.

Hoover was prosecuted as an adult. He was charged with murder and use of a deadly weapon. At trial, he pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. During the guilt phase, the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and the deadly-weapon allegation. Five days later, during the sanity phase, the jury found that he was not legally insane at the time of the killing. The court sentenced him to 26 years to life in prison.

Hoover appealed, arguing in part that the trial court gave the wrong legal instruction on insanity. The California Court of Appeal agreed that the insanity instruction was wrong under state law but ruled that the error was harmless. The court affirmed the conviction on October 29, 1986, and the California Supreme Court later denied review.

Years later, Hoover filed a federal habeas corpus petition. On September 13, 2007, a federal magistrate judge granted the petition, vacated the conviction, and ordered that Hoover be released within 60 days unless California reinstituted criminal proceedings. The ruling was based on claims involving the sanity instruction and the handling of mental-state evidence.

That ruling did not remain final. On January 6, 2009, the Ninth Circuit reversed the habeas grant and remanded the case with instructions to enter judgment for the state. The Ninth Circuit held that the state court’s harmless-error ruling was not objectively unreasonable and that habeas relief was not justified on the insanity-instruction issue.

Hoover remained under California parole-board jurisdiction for years afterward. CDCR Board of Parole Hearings records show a June 4, 2024 parole suitability grant, but on September 17, 2024, the Board voted to vacate that grant because of new information regarding institutional misconduct and ordered a new hearing. Later Board records list a new April 2, 2025 parole suitability hearing result as “Grant,” while a May 1, 2025 entry lists a subsequent suitability hearing as postponed.