AN ANGELFACE SMILES TO ME
UNDER A HEADLINE OF TRAGEDY
THAT SMILE USED TO GIVE ME WARMTH
FAREWELL – NO WORDS TO SAY
BESIDE THE CROSS ON YOUR GRAVE
AND THOSE FOREVER BURNING CANDLES
NEEDED ELSEWHERE
TO REMIND US OF THE SHORTNESS OF YOUR TIME
TEARS LAID FOR THEM
TEARS OF LOVE TEARS OF FEAR
BURY MY DREAMS DIG UP MY SORROWS
OH LORD WHY
THE ANGELS FALL FIRST?
NOT RELIEVED BY THOUGHTS OF SHANGRI-LA
NOR ENLIGHTENED BY THE LESSONS OF CHRIST
I’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THE RIGHT
IGNORANCE LEAD ME INTO THE LIGHT
NEEDED ELSEWHERE . . .
SING ME A SONG
OF YOUR BEAUTY
OF YOUR KINGDOM
LET THE MELODIES OF YOUR HARPS
CARESS THOSE WHOM WE STILL NEED
YESTERDAY WE SHOKE HANDS
MY FRIEND
TODAY A MOONBEAM LIGHTENS MY PATH
MY GUARDIAN
NIGHTWISH (ANGELS FALL FIRST)
Sheriff Calls His Stabbing Death a Hate CrimeBy Eva Kis & Gabrielle Finley
The Ledger
Nothing about the brutal killing of Ryan Keith Skipper makes sense to Stephanie Strickland.
Ever since a Polk County sheriff's detective came to her door at noon March 15 and informed her of her good friend's death, she has been struggling to understand what happened to him, and why.
"He's the best friend I ever had in my whole life," she said. "I never thought something like this could happen to someone so kind."
Even while talking with the detective, Strickland kept looking out the window of her Auburndale home, expecting Skipper's new powder blue Chevrolet Aveo to come down the road. They were supposed to have lunch, then run errands together - a rare idyllic afternoon for both. She has a 3-year-old daughter; he has done little else besides work and study since enrolling in Traviss Career Center's information technology program about four or five months ago.
"I just fell apart," she said. "It still feels like somebody just told me."
Skipper, 25, was found stabbed to death by the side of Morgan Road near 19th Street West in Wahneta by a passing driver about 1:20 a.m. March 15. Deputies have arrested William David Brown Jr., 20, and Joseph Bearden, 21, charging them with first-degree murder and declaring the slaying a hate crime. A witness told detectives Skipper was killed because he was gay.
Though the Sheriff's Office is investigating Skipper's murder as a hate crime, that fact will not weigh on the prosecution of Brown and Bearden. Designating a crime as hate-motivated is a "sentencing enhancement," not a separate charge, which means it makes the punishment more severe for the crime committed, Chip Thullbery, spokesman for the State Attorney's Office, said Wednesday.
In Florida, the designation doesn't apply to life or capital felonies because the punishments for those charges - either life in prison or execution - are the most severe, and therefore can not be enchanced. "There is no such thing as a hate crime first-degree murder, by the law,'' he said.
'THE GUY WITH A HEART OF GOLD'Messages of love and memories now fill Skipper's MySpace Web page, from the people who knew him best to those who had met him briefly, but remember him.
"I know you are missed by many people ... you left a legacy of your warmth, sweetness and big-heartedness behind," wrote Joshua, 22.
Ranay, 23, posted a photograph of her infant daughter holding her favorite plush toy - a gift from Skipper, who told her, "she will always know who she got it from because of the pretty rainbow colors."
"Ryan was a special person. He made a good impression on people. And he was enlarging his vision to make a better life for himself and his family and friends around him. And they took it away from him," said Nancy Moschetti, who had known Skipper for six months.
Meaghanne, 22, remembered being the new girl at school, and Skipper helping to ease that transition.
"You were one of the first to take me under your wing and make me feel like I belonged," she wrote. "The guy with a heart of gold ... why would anyone ever feel anything but love for you?"
Strickland, 24, has the same question, but doubts the answers that have been released by the Sheriff's Office.
Skipper met Bearden while driving through Wahneta about 11 p.m. looking to pick up someone, according to the Sheriff's Office.
Strickland finds that scenario preposterous. Skipper was handsome and popular, and did not approach men randomly, she said.
A year older than Strickland, Skipper had taught her to drive a stick shift, to make safe turns - and to never pick up hitchhikers.
"I know he never would've picked up someone on the side of the road unless it was someone he knew, someone who needed help," she said. "To hear them say he picked someone up on the side of the road and solicited them for sex is just ridiculous."
Skipper's family thinks so, too.
"We're appreciative and grateful for the Sheriff's Office. They worked around the clock and in the first 72 hours arrested the individuals. We're disappointed and discouraged by the comments (Polk Sheriff) Grady Judd made that appeared to be blaming the victim," said Damien Skipper, Ryan's older brother.
Sheriff's Chief W. J. Martin acknowledges that what was said was based on comments from the two suspects. "Unfortunately, Ryan Skipper is not here to tell his side," said Martin, who heads the agency's criminal investigations bureau. "In these kind of cases you have two suspects trying to minimize their involvement to make themselves look better."
LATE DINNERThe night of March 14, Skipper closed the Lakeland sunglass store where he worked and had a late meal with co-worker and friend Karl von Hahmann at Mimi's Cafe at Lakeside Village.
The two men met each other at work six months ago. "Just instantly we were like best friends," von Hahmann said.
Lately, Skipper, who had mainly worked at the Sunglass Hut in Macy's department store in Winter Haven, started helping out at the standalone store at Lakeside Village.
The two had either lunch or dinner together every day, depending on what shift they were working, von Hahmann said.
On this night, the two talked about a trip to Miami they were planning and an upcoming visit to see Skipper's brother in Las Vegas.
"He also mentioned to me that he was the happiest he had ever been," von Hahmann said. "Things were just starting to go right for him. He had just come into a comfort zone that was unbelievable."
The friends went their separate ways 10:30 p.m.
Shortly before 11 p.m., von Hahmann said he called Skipper on his cell phone, reminding him he had to drop off a key for a co-worker to open the store the next day. "He told me that he'd call me back in a little while, which was nothing unusual," von Hahmann said. "That was the last time I spoke to him."
Skipper went to his home at 211 Richburg Road in Winter Haven. A roommate said he came in and put leftovers from dinner in the refrigerator.
According to the Sheriff's Office, he was accompanied by Bearden and that the the two smoked marijuana and discussed using Skipper's computer to commit check fraud. After a short time, they took the laptop computer and left.\\
Strickland disputes this account, saying that Skipper did not use illegal drugs and did not own a laptop computer.
It is a portrayal that has deeply hurt Strickland, who said her friend was simply too trusting and naive.
Instead of Skipper picking up Bearden, a more likely scenario, she said, is that Brown was waiting for Skipper when he arrived home.
She said Brown knew a previous tenant at the house, and had come looking for him soon after Skipper moved in. Strickland said Skipper's roommates told her that Brown, who lives two blocks away from Skipper's home, had since come around several times on a bicycle in the weeks before Skipper's death, asking about him, what he was doing, when he would come home.
"The only thing I can understand about it is that he trusted these people enough to give them a ride somewhere," she said.
That somewhere was the home of Brown's uncle, where they met up with Brown. Sheriff's officials say said it was then that Bearden and Brown decided to rob Skipper of the laptop and his car. So they persuaded him to give them a ride somewhere else.
Brown and Bearden returned to the house in Skipper's car about 15 minutes later. Skipper was not with them. The inside of the car was so bloody, according to the Sheriff's Office, that the two cut out a seat belt because they couldn't clean it.
After trying to clean and sell the car, they eventually abandoned it on a dock on Lake Pansy in Winter Haven and set it on fire. But the flames only caused minor damage, and both their fingerprints have been recovered from the car.
Deputies arrested them on March 16. A witness told detectives that Brown had said Skipper was "messing with him," or making sexual advances, that night, and that is why he was killed.
Strickland doesn't think Skipper would do that, but feels he may well have been killed out of hate.
"I feel he was targeted, yes, because he was gay," Strickland said. "But they also had this planned out, to do something to him."
Both Bearden and Brown have arrest records for minor offenses, but neither has previously been charged with a violent crime.
FINDING HIMSELFBorn April 28, 1981, in Winter Haven, he was the son of Pat Mulder of Auburndale and Durl Skipper of Bartow.
His brother, Damien, who is 3 1/2 years older, said he remembers looking out for his Ryan when they were younger.
"Being the older brother you try and show your younger siblings the ropes," he said.
During their younger years, Ryan "liked to be the center of attention, but he always made sure everyone around him was comfortable and happy," his brother said. "He was intelligent. He was very genuine and very honest."
He attended First Missionary Baptist Church of Auburndale as a child, then Grace Lutheran Church and School in Winter Haven, where he was an altar boy.
Strickland remembers meeting Ryan Skipper at the beginning of their freshman year at Winter Haven High School. He had some trouble adjusting to public school, but Strickland said the teenager with the sunny smile easily fit in with her clique.
"I knew him before he even admitted he was gay," she said. Still, when he came out to his friends during their final years at Winter Haven High, it was with some trepidation. Despite being his best friend, Strickland said she was not the first person to know.
"He claimed the reason he didn't tell me was because he thought I wouldn't love him as much," she said. "I told him, 'Ryan, I love you even more for being honest.'"
He endured teasing and harassment from some classmates. "He'd smile at them because they were ignorant," she said. "I don't think it bothered him that he was gay. Ryan was happy with who he was."
Skipper was raised in the church and believed in God; he made peace with his faith and homosexuality in his own way,'' she said. "I know his philosophy was that, 'God's not going to discriminate against me because of my sexuality.'"
A BRIGHT FUTUREAfter graduation from high school in 2000, Skipper drifted for a while, moving in and out of his mother's house. He was arrested twice for marijuana possession, once in 1999, then again in 2001, but friends say he had stayed away from drugs since.
Recently, he had gotten serious and was studying computers at Traviss Career Center. He had tinkered with computers since Strickland had known him, fixing others' machines and building his own.
"He's a complete wiz on the computer," she said. "The past couple of years, he really decided that that's what he wanted to do with his life." He took classes at Traviss in the morning and worked in the evening at either the Lakeland or Winter Haven sunglass shop, striving to keep his finances in order.
Kelly Evans, Skipper's roommate for the past year and a half, said she, Skipper and roommate Joyce Fraley were like family.
The trio were likened to The Three Stooges.
"He came home from work and we would always sit down and talk. The three of us know everything about each other and what we were striving for in our lives. We gave Ryan a lot of praise for going to school."
Since being accepted at Traviss, "I saw his spirit lifted a lot. Ryan was at a point in his life where he was proud of himself."
When he bought the brand-new 2007 Aveo on Valentine's Day, it was entirely with his own money. "I think the car to him was a token of accomplishment," she said.
Ironically, it would become a key piece of evidence that would lead detectives to the suspects who are accused of taking his life for it just a month later.
A MISSING PIECESkipper had a way with children. He related to them and "got down to their level," Evans said.
Skipper and Evans worked together once in a retail store.
A woman once visited the store with her young daughter and Skipper played with the girl while she was in the store, Evans said. Before the girl left Skipper bent down to hug the child and told her she was beautiful, Evans said.
"Now every time (the woman and her daughter) see the store she (the daughter) says, 'That's the man that told me I was beautiful,'" Evans said. "He made an impact. You could meet him one time and never forget him."
When Strickland became pregnant with her daughter, Kayden, in 2003, she knew she wanted the friend she never saw without a smile to have a part in something he may not have the chance to experience.
"You're not manly enough to be a godfather, but you're not girly enough to be a godmother, so you can be her godfairy," she told Skipper.
He laughed - and accepted on the spot.
Skipper visited the hospital and held Kayden the day she was born, and called regularly asking what new things she's done, Strickland said. "He was real excited to be a part of her life," she said. "It bothers me that maybe she won't remember him when she's older."
Angela Justice, another of Skipper's best friends, said his death seems like a nightmare that she tries to wake up from.
She said she'll never forget the promise she and Skipper made to each other one night. Skipper promised Justice, who was diagnosed with stomach and intestinal cancer in 2003, that he'd help take care of her three children, ages 15, 11 and 9, if anything happened to her.
But he made her promise if anything happens to him, that she'd watch after his two roommates.
"I'm going to fulfill his promise to Kelly and Joyce. I'm not going to hesitate," Justice said. "I feel very empty. I feel lost without him. Life isn't the same without him.
Justice said she watches a video of Skipper being a "goofball." It makes her laugh every time she watches it.
That home video and some pictures of him are all she has left. "I'm going to hang onto it," Justice said. "I just want him back."
Ryan Skipper
peaceful
determined