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Loading ...Fla. man on trial for gay man’s murder
02.18.2009 8:27am EST
(Bartow, Florida) The lawyer for the first of two men accused of killing Ryan Skipper in 2007 has told a jury his client is not responsible.
Joseph Bearden, a known methamphetamine addict, is accused of robbing and killing Skipper, and dumping his body. Bearden’s co-defendant, William Brown Jr., will be tried separately.In his opening arguments, Assistant State Attorney Cass Castillo told the jury that Skipper and Bearden were seen together the night the 25-year-old Skipper disappeared.
Castillo said the two went to a known drug house to try to exchange a broken laptop for drugs. Once there, several of those in the house plotted to rob Skipper and steal his new Chevrolet Aveo.
“They went to this remote area, and he was killed there,” he said.
Skipper was attacked in his own car. When his body was found on the side of a road, he had been stabbed more than 20 times.
After dumping the body, Brown and Bearden allegedly drove to another home where they attempted to clean the car.
When the vehicle was found by police there still was a considerable amount of blood in it. Police say the accused had driven the car around to the homes of several friends, showing off the bloody interior.
Police have said that following the killing Brown and Bearden made homophobic remarks to several people about Skipper.
Defense attorney Byron Hileman disputed Castillo’s arguments.
Hileman said Bearden could not have been involved in Skipper’s death, because Bearden had fallen asleep at the drug house after “coming off a meth high” and awoke to find Brown and another man covered in Skipper’s blood. Hileman told the jury that when Bearden woke up, Skipper was not in the house, although his car was parked outside.
He acknowledged that Bearden’s fingerprints were found on the car, but added: “There is no physical evidence connecting Mr. Bearden with the site.”
The brutality of Skipper’s murder galvanized Florida’s LGBT community. Last year, testimony before a state legislative committee by Skipper’s parents was instrumental in the passage of a safe schools bill to protect gay students from harassment and bullying.
Nevertheless, the Orlando Sentinel reports that members of the LGBT community have been asked not to be conspicuous at the trial. Skipper’s father Lynn Mulder told the paper that Castillo advised him that any conspicuous presence by the gay community inside the courtroom or demonstrating outside the courthouse could jeopardize the trial.
Ryan appears to have gotten sucked “into the wrong crowd.” where the unpredictable can easily take place and apparently did.
Recommended: life in the c”clinker” until death from old age and never any hope for parole for these rotten lowlifes with ZERO CONSCIENCE AND ZERO REMORSE who took the life of a promising, beautiful and much-loved young gay man over material things like a car that can be stolen, can break down, rust, rot, corrode, can be burned and be destroyed.
Things (generally speaking) can be replaced, but not a person’s life.
Life in prison? We have the death penalty here in Florida. Fry him!
Fry them? And give them the easy way out? No way. Make them suffer and live in prison with their new boyfriends, Bubba, for the rest of their natural lives with no chance of parole. Then these homophobic murderers can live the rest of their lives with their boyfriends in prison. Don’t understand why you want to give them the easy way out, TigerTzu.
my prayers goes out to the skipper family, in these hard times the worst possible news that a mother and father can hear is that they child has been murdered! senseless acts of violent crimes should not be acceptable in any community, i only pray that the law hold these men accountable for their crimes. against another human being what a sad world we live in when decent people loose their lives over senseless acts of violents, the punishment should fit the crime!!!
Frank Said: “Don’t understand why you want to give them the easy way out, TigerTzu.”
Don’t understand why you want your tax money supporting these wastes of humanity, Frank. If torture, suffering and vengence is your goal, then maybe the CIA can make room at Gitmo for them, but unless you are offering to pay for their incarceration don’t let your desire for revenge impose a financial burden on the rest of society. Many of the people working to support these murderers don’t have the healthcare for their own families these convicts will receive for the next 50 + years.
P.S. When youv’e survived an intentional electrocution, then come back and tell me how it’s an easy way out.