Family at the Vigil: Ryan Skipper’s stepfather, Lynn Mulder (left), his mother, Patricia Mulder, and brother, Damien Skipper. Photo courtesy of Karl von Hahmann

The Ledger

To my pleasant surprise, the Lakeland Ledger covered the vigil for Ryan Skipper in Winter Haven yesterday. The newspaper had failed to cover preparations for the vigil until the morning of the event, and buried the announcement on its website by not linking to it from the homepage. But today’s story appeared on the homepage, with a photo.

The coverage was fine, except for this bit, which was a lost opportunity to set the record straight:

Damien Skipper said the lack of media coverage since his brother’s murder could be because of the account first released by authorities – that on the night he was killed, his brother was cruising for sex and picked up Bearden.

He feels that reinforcing such negative stereotypes marginalized the crime.

On March 17, the Ledger published a version of events leading up to the murder that it attributed to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd. According to the sheriff, Skipper was seeking anonymous sex, picked up a stranger and took him home, where they smoked pot and conspired to forge checks.

What the sheriff failed to note was that this version of events came from a very suspicious source: the accused killers. The suspects’ negative spin was unwittingly reported in the local media, including the Ledger — where it was picked up by newspapers across the country. The misinformation about Ryan appeared to dampen interest in the story, however, especially in the mainstream press. Now there are strong indications that none of the allegations against Ryan are true.

On Friday, a sheriff’s department spokesperson acknowledged that Sheriff Judd was wrong when he claimed Skipper was involved in a check-forging scheme with the alleged murderers. The sheriff’s office has also admitted that Judd’s version of events was based largely on statements by the accused.

In an email to a reader earlier this month, Ledger managing editor Lenore Devore promised, “Everything we printed that you dispute has come from the Sheriff’s Office. If they change what they think happened at some point, we’ll report on that. But for now, that’s its official report.”

Today’s story would have been a good place to note that the sheriff’s “official report” had changed, and that Ryan didn’t pick up a stranger, take him home and conspire to forge checks with him.

Winter Have News Chief/Polkonline.com

The Winter Haven News Chief covered the story, with links and a photo on its homepage at polkonline.com:

Damien Skipper, brother to Ryan Skipper, read statements the [Equality Florida] and family have received from state Rep. Marty Bowen, Polk County Commissioner Bob English and Winter Haven Police Chief Mark LeVine. County Commissioner Jean Reed made a quick statement at the vigil.

“But we haven’t heard back from (U.S. Rep.) Adam Putnam or (Gov.) Charlie Christ,” Damien Skipper told the crowd.

Both Rep. Putnam and Gov. Crist are Republicans. (During his campaign for governor last year, Crist, who is in his 40s and unmarried, faced rumors he is gay.)

Rev. Phyllis Hunt from the Metropolitan Community Church in Tampa noted that one group in particular was under-represented at the vigil:

“It’s sad this park is not packed with ministers,” she said. “No one stepped up and said, ‘This is not OK.’ I believe as a person of faith it impacts us spiritually.”

Amen.