Suspect in Granbury motorcycle accident threatened youths in 2007

Before he fell asleep Monday night, Fisher Rinderknecht decided to check Facebook one more time. The weekend motorcycle accident near Granbury — and the growing popularity of its video on social media — had him curious. Then he heard William Crum’s name on television, and it all made sense.

“I knew exactly who it was,” Rinderknecht said Wednesday. “I called my parents. They were freaking out, saying, ‘He’s still up to no good.’ ”

Crum, 68, remained in Hood County jail Wednesday on two aggravated assault charges stemming from his involvement in the motorcycle accident.

Footage from the wreck, taken from a trailing motorcycle, showed Crum’s 1996 Mercury sedan cutting off Eric Sanders’ Kawasaki as it passed illegally. The collision shoved Sanders and his passenger, 38-year-old Debra Simpson, off the road. Simpson spent three days in intensive care at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth.

Crum, who was shown on the video responding to the wreck at the scene by saying “I don’t care,” was arrested and charged Monday night.

He’s been in legal trouble several times over the last decade.

Crum was convicted in 1994 in Somervell County of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and in 2007 in Somervell County of reckless driving and making a terroristic threat.

The last two charges stemmed from an incident involving Rinderknecht, who was then 12.

At the time, Rinderknecht lived two houses from Crum outside Glen Rose on County Road 323. On a weekday afternoon in March 2007, he and a friend were driving an electric golf cart down the road.

As Rinderknecht and a friend approached Crum’s home, Rinderknecht, now 21 and a junior at Tarleton State University, said he noticed Crum in his car near the end of the driveway.

“You can’t really see his driveway from the road,” he said, “but we could see he was waiting in his car. He shot out of his driveway trying to hit us.”

Crum missed, narrowly, before yelling at the two boys, Rinderknecht said.

According to a Somervell County police report, Crum told the boys to “Get off my [expletive] road, or I will run you down.”

Rinderknecht said he saw Crum holding a shotgun out the window of his car.

“He said he was going to shoot us, because we woke him up from his nap,” Rinderknecht said.

Crum then chased the boys in his car about an eighth of a mile back to Rinderknecht’s house.

“Luckily it was all downhill,” Rinderknecht said. He said he swerved onto the shoulder on the left, then back onto the road and then went on to his parents’ home.

Rinderknecht said he told his parents what happened, so his father, Brett Rinderkecht, went to the end of their driveway, where Crum waited, and blocked the entrance with his truck.

Brett Rinderknecht told Somervell deputies that Crum then said “he would kill us if we didn’t get off his road.”

Crum, still furious, spun donuts in the gravel and sped home, Fisher Rinderknecht said.

Crum was arrested and charged three days later, according to Somervell County records. He was sentenced Oct. 23, 2007, to 24 three-hour anger management sessions and placed on probation for two years, the county attorney’s office said.

Crum was also arrested by Arlington police in 1989 for assault-family violence and was later convicted, according to public records.

In 1993 he was arrested by Hood County sheriff’s deputies for silent or abusive calls to a 911 service, but the case was dismissed, public records indicate.

When Fisher Rinderknecht saw Crum was a suspect in Saturday’s motorcycle accident, he tried to contact all four DFW television stations and local papers, first recalling his experience with Crum to the Glen Rose Reporter.

“He’s definitely not a sane individual,” Rinderknecht said. “I don’t think this will be the last thing he does unless he gets put in jail.”

This story was originally published October 21, 2015 at 3:24 PM with the headline "Suspect in Granbury motorcycle accident threatened youths in 2007."