Tag: Ryan Skipper

Looking for Answers in Ryan Skipper Mystery

Trish

All three of us at Pensito Review are drawn to the story of Ryan Skipper.

I was attracted by a headline, “Winter Haven Man Killed for Being Gay,” maybe because I have an inordinate number of gay friends. If it’s true the population at large is about 10 percent gay, my immediate circle is at least three or four times that. I feel like I could have known Ryan Skipper. I can see his face among my friends.

We have made a decision at Pensito Review to follow this story wherever it might lead

Buck spent childhood summers in Polk County, Florida, where the vicious crime recently occurred, and serves as our ambassador to an area neither Jon nor I know well.

Jon’s combined sense of justice and mind like a screenwriter/detective won’t take the official version of the killing at face value. And the fact he is himself gay might help him smell rats that would rustle past straight people unsniffed.

In my initial post on Ryan’s murder, I noted that the local newspaper report, in turn repeated by other news outlets, summed up a story with i’s that don’t dot and t’s that don’t cross. As postulated: Ryan was out cruising for a pickup late one night and made a move on two straight guys. They rebuffed his advances by stabbing him 20 times, dumping his body on the side of a road, and stealing his car but later torching it and abandoning it on a dock one town over. Another angle was of a criminal alliance by the three, involving check forging and drugs.

One of those six degrees moments came for me as I read all this. Years ago, a friend of mine was married to a guy who went on to play the squirrelly preacher in the movie, “The Laramie Project,” Michael Emerson. Because Mike was in it, I saw the movie more than once, and the story of the murder of a Wyoming man, Matthew Shepard, allegedly for propositioning straight men, is a bit ingrained. When I read about Ryan, it was deja vu all over again.

After my post, people who knew and loved Ryan came forward to refute the for-publication version, adding many more questions to a growing list compiled by the three of us at PR.

We have made a decision at Pensito Review to follow this story wherever it might lead. So far, little has been written about the suspects, currently jailed without bail, and awaiting the start of a first degree murder trial whose outcome could be death. Please check back if, like us, you want to know what really happened. And why.

Ryan Skipper: Media Statements Disputed in Murder of Gay Man

Jon Ponder

As the two rural Florida men who allegedly stabbed Ryan Skipper to death two weeks ago await trial in a local jail, questions are being asked about how the events leading up to the murder were described in the press.

At one point, Matthew Shephard’s killers tried to assert the “gay panic defense,” saying they were driven to temporary insanity by their victim’s alleged sexual advances. Later, they said they only wanted to rob him and never intended to kill him when they lashed him to a fence and bashed his head in.

The sequence of events that night as reported seemed not to add up from the start, when a Polk County Sheriff’s Dept. spokesman was quoted as saying:

Skipper was driving around Wahneta on Tuesday night when he found [21-year-old Joseph] Bearden walking along Sixth Street in Eloise about 11 p.m. Tuesday, and offered him a ride. The two went back to Skipper’s house, where they smoked marijuana and discussed using Skipper’s computer to copy checks, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The problem with this statement is that it appears to come from a single source: Joseph Bearden, the alleged murderer.

However, there was at least one other witness who was apparently not consulted by investigators. Ryan had two roommates, one of whom, Kelly Evans, disputes Joe Bearden’s story:

Evans was home the night of the murder and disputes what has been reported in the news. “Ryan went out and never came back,” Evans said. “They keep saying he was here with those two guys, smoking marijuana and taking his computer when they left. I was here. That never happened. He wouldn’t do that.”

Did early reporting get this wrong or did investigators base their timeline solely on the word of a young man whom they suspected of murder?

One investigator also made this odd declaration: “What we do know is that Ryan was out looking to pick up someone that evening.” How could the police “know” this? They might suspect it, especially if that’s how the young alleged murderer characterized Ryan’s motives. Similarly, investigators appear to have accepted without scrutiny the alleged murder’s claim that Skipper was conspiring with him in a forgery scheme.

The reality is, only one person could have actually “known” for certain what Skipper’s intentions were that night, or whether he conspired to forge checks with someone he’d only just met. That would be Ryan Skipper himself, and the fact that he can’t defend himself against these slurs compounds the tragedy of his death.

Bearden and William Brown, 20, whom Kelly Evans describes as a relative of her landlord, are accused of stabbing Skipper 20 times and dumping his body on the shoulder of a road. Brown later told someone that Ryan Skipper was “messing with him,” that Ryan Skipper was a homosexual, so [he] killed him.

All of this brings to mind memories of the murder of college student Matthew Shepard in Wyoming a decade ago. Like Ryan Skipper, who was 25 years old, Shephard was killed violently by two young men and left to die on the side of a rural road.

As the Shephard case advanced, the killers tried to assert the “gay panic defense,” saying they were driven to temporary insanity by their victim’s alleged sexual advances. Later, they said they only wanted to rob him and never intended to kill him when they lashed him to a fence and bashed his head in.

Reports say Skipper’s murder is being treated as a hate crime. But what remains to be seen is whether entrenched homophobia will prevent this heinous crime from being investigated and tried objectively.

Ryan Skipper: Cops’ Statements Disputed in Murder of Gay Man

Jon Ponder

As the two rural Florida men who allegedly stabbed Ryan Skipper to death two weeks ago await trial in a local jail, questions are being asked about how the events leading up to the murder were described in the press by investigators.

At one point, Matthew Shepherd’s killers tried to assert the “gay panic defense,” saying they were driven to temporary insanity by their victim’s alleged sexual advances. Later, they said they only wanted to rob him and never intended to kill him when they lashed him to a fence and bashed his head in.

The sequence of events that night as reported seemed not to add up from the start, when a Polk County Sheriff’s Dept. spokesman was quoted as saying:

Skipper was driving around Wahneta on Tuesday night when he found [21-year-old Joseph] Bearden walking along Sixth Street in Eloise about 11 p.m. Tuesday, and offered him a ride. The two went back to Skipper’s house, where they smoked marijuana and discussed using Skipper’s computer to copy checks, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The problem with this statement is that it appears to come from a single source: Joseph Bearden, the alleged murderer and apparent homophobe.

However, there was at least one other witness who was apparently not consulted by investigators. Ryan had two roommates, including one, Kelly Evans, who says she was home all night on the evening in question:

Evans was home the night of the murder and disputes what has been reported in the news. “Ryan went out and never came back,” Evans said. “They keep saying he was here with those two guys, smoking marijuana and taking his computer when they left. I was here. That never happened. He wouldn’t do that.”

Did investigators interview Kelly Evans — or did they base their timeline solely on the word of a young man whom they suspected of murder? One investigator also made this odd declaration: “What we do know is that Ryan was out looking to pick up someone that evening.” How could the police “know” this? They might suspect it, especially if that’s how the young alleged murderer characterized Ryan’s motives. Similarly, investigators appear to have accepted without scrutiny the alleged murder’s claim that Skipper was conspiring with him in a forgery scheme.

The reality is, only one person could have actually “known” for certain what Skipper’s intentions were that night, or whether he conspired to forge checks with someone he’d only just met. That would be Ryan Skipper himself, and the fact that he can’t defend himself against these slurs compounds the tragedy of his death.

All of these questions lead to the conclusion that the police were ready to believe the worst about Skipper because he was gay.

Joseph Bearden and William Brown, 20, whom Kelly Evans describes as a relative of her landlord, are accused of stabbing Skipper 20 times and dumping his body on the shoulder of a road. Brown later told someone that “Ryan Skipper was messing with him, that Ryan Skipper was a homosexual, so [he] killed him.”

All of this brings to mind memories of the murder of college student Matthew Shepherd in Wyoming a decade ago. Like Ryan Skipper, who was 25 years old, Shepherd was killed violently by two young men and left to die on the side of a rural road.

As the Shepherd case advanced, the killers tried to assert the “gay panic defense,” saying they were driven to temporary insanity by their victim’s alleged sexual advances. Later, they said they only wanted to rob him and never intended to kill him when they lashed him to a fence and bashed his head in.

What remains to be seen is whether local police are so blinded by their own homophobia that they are unable to investigate this heinous crime objectively.

Blaming the Victim: Portrayal of Florida Man Killed for Being Gay Doesn’t Ring True

Trish
William Brown, left, and Joseph Bearden, after their arrests in the killing of Ryan Skipper
William Brown, left, and Joseph Bearden, after their arrests in the killing of Ryan Skipper

It sounds like the Matthew Shepard story all over again, this time in Florida.

The body of a gay man, 25-year-old Ryan Keith Skipper, was found dumped on the side of the road last week in the flyover country between Tampa and Orlando, stabbed 20 times. Two men have been charged with the killing, which police are investigating as a hate crime.

The local paper, the Lakeland Ledger, quotes Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd as being unequivocal on the victim’s intentions.

“What we do know is that Ryan was out looking to pick up someone that evening,” Judd said.

The scenario doesn’t add up, friends say

Skipper was driving around Wahneta on Tuesday night when he found [21-year-old Joseph] Bearden walking along Sixth Street in Eloise about 11 p.m. Tuesday, and offered him a ride. The two went back to Skipper’s house, where they smoked marijuana and discussed using Skipper’s computer to copy checks, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The scenario from the local news being disseminated to regional and national outlets, is that the victim, himself a lowlife, was out trolling for a hook-up and made a move on the wrong hombres. But almost nothing in that story adds up, according to people who knew him.

That’s where it starts to get kind of Pulp Fiction.

They left Skipper’s house with his laptop and went to another home, at 110 First St. in Wahneta, to meet [20-year-old William] Brown.

“At this time, they decided to rip Ryan off for his car and his laptop,” Judd said…

Judd said Brown and Bearden attacked Skipper inside his own car. His body was left by the side of the road, stabbed nearly 20 times.

The two suspects then drove to another home at 2131 Cypress Gardens Road, where they discarded some papers from the car. Their next stop was at 16 28th St. S. in Haines City to try to clean up the vehicle.

“The car was full of blood because the homicide had occurred in the vehicle,” Judd said.

Eventually, the paper said, after “parading” the car around and bragging to friends, the suspects abandoned it on a dock near a lake in the town of Winter Haven.

After they were taken into custody, homophobia was introduced as the motive for the murder and robbery.

Several more witnesses also were interviewed Friday night, and it was during one of those interviews that Brown’s admission was revealed.

“William Brown told (a witness) that Ryan Skipper was messing with him, that Ryan Skipper was a homosexual, so (he) killed him,” Judd said.

So much for the official story. […]