05-11-2011, 06:36 PM
i didn't even know this child was missing until her body was found. :( 
i hope heads roll. this tragedy could have been prevented.
full story at link below.
Daily Mail
A schoolgirl was raped and strangled by her neighbor, just three weeks after he was reported to police for allegedly locking her in his apartment and threatening to expose himself.
The badly-beaten body of nine-year-old Skyler Kauffman was found wrapped in a blanket and thrown into a rubbish bin behind her apartment block in Souderton, near Philadelphia, after she failed to come home for dinner. on May 9.
Police arrested 24-year-old James Lee Troutman when a detective spotted blood on his shoes, and allegedly found blood-soaked clothes stuffed into a hamper in his bedroom.
Yesterday Skyler's mother, Heather Gebhard, said she believed the tragedy could have been avoided if police had listened to her. She said: 'They blew me off.'
She called police on April 18, after her daughter and a friend came home saying Troutman had locked them in his apartment, and only let them go when they started screaming.
Surrounded by hundreds of mourners at a vigil for her daughter yesterday, Miss Gebhard wept as she said police 'twisted everything my daughter said, they didn't believe her.'
She described Skyler as outgoing and friendly, and said 'it's like a nightmare. She was loved by everybody.'
Troutman was arrested yesterday and charged with murder, kidnapping, rape, deviant sexual intercourse with a child and abuse of a corpse after luring Skyler to a shared basement in the apartment block.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...z1M5PrTvy0
i hope heads roll. this tragedy could have been prevented.
full story at link below.
Daily Mail
A schoolgirl was raped and strangled by her neighbor, just three weeks after he was reported to police for allegedly locking her in his apartment and threatening to expose himself.
The badly-beaten body of nine-year-old Skyler Kauffman was found wrapped in a blanket and thrown into a rubbish bin behind her apartment block in Souderton, near Philadelphia, after she failed to come home for dinner. on May 9.
Police arrested 24-year-old James Lee Troutman when a detective spotted blood on his shoes, and allegedly found blood-soaked clothes stuffed into a hamper in his bedroom.
Yesterday Skyler's mother, Heather Gebhard, said she believed the tragedy could have been avoided if police had listened to her. She said: 'They blew me off.'
She called police on April 18, after her daughter and a friend came home saying Troutman had locked them in his apartment, and only let them go when they started screaming.
Surrounded by hundreds of mourners at a vigil for her daughter yesterday, Miss Gebhard wept as she said police 'twisted everything my daughter said, they didn't believe her.'
She described Skyler as outgoing and friendly, and said 'it's like a nightmare. She was loved by everybody.'
Troutman was arrested yesterday and charged with murder, kidnapping, rape, deviant sexual intercourse with a child and abuse of a corpse after luring Skyler to a shared basement in the apartment block.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...z1M5PrTvy0