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Laura Ashley Skinner
December
30,
1983 - January 19, 1987
Find
A Grave Memorial
When
Laura suffered a broken collar bone,
Franklin County Children's Services decided that
she was not being
abused and she was left to live in the home of her
mother and her
mothers boyfriend, who would eventually kill her.
Celia Skinner worked two jobs, one was a temporary
job during the day
and at night, she danced in a bar while leaving
her boyfriend, Bruce
Lower, to take care of her child since he was
unemployed. Laura seemed
to be a happy little girl with a big personality,
even looking at her
picture above, you can see how totally precious
this child was. No on
could know though that inside her home, Laura was
being abused and
tortured beyond anything they could imagine.
Bruce, who looked like the average man next
door, was the cause
of all of Laura's pain and suffering. Only one day
before she died, a
neighbor knocked on the door and when Bruce opened
the door to see who
it was, he had no shame in the fact that he was
wearing nothing other
than a bathrobe and in the background, Laura was
standing in the
background, in a bedroom and could be seen from
the door, she was naked
and crying. For whatever reason, the neighbor
didn't tell Celia or
report this to the police, until after Laura died,
which was the next
day.
Laura had over 80 bruises on her body, was raped,
sodomized, beaten and
had a bit mark on her thigh all because she
refused to give oral sex to
Bruce. Chances are that this had been going on in
this home for quite
some time, where was the IDIOT
mother who of this child while she allowed this
man to brutalize her
daughter?
I am unable to find the original charge against
Bruce Lower, but I know
that reports say he was never charged with the
rape evidence all the
while claiming he was innocent. Bruce said in
court that Laura had
bumped her head while eating oatmeal, that she
went unconscious and he
had not reported it because of the prior incident
involving CPS. Bruce
said that he went about his day, bringing and
carrying Laura with him
while he shopped for furniture and then he took
her to the park where
he
claims she fell down an embankment, which caused
the bruises. When
asked about the bite mark, Bruce said he had
bitten her in an effort to
wake her up after she passed out.
Bruce ended up with a plea bargained deal of ten
to 25 years for
involuntary manslaughter. Common Please Judge,
Daniel T. Hogan, decided
that Bruce was a sexual predator who had tortured
Laura and that he
hoped she was unconscious during his attacks on
her. Unfortunately,
Bruce Lower ended up serving only 16 years of his
term before he was
out on parole. A distraught Assistant Prosecutor
said that he had
provided ineffective prosecution when he failed to
call a witness who
had informed the Police that Bruce had told him
horrible details about
what he had done to Laura, while he and Bruce were
in jail at the same
time. The witness had said that Bruce told him he
was "tanked up on
pornography and liquor" and that he had killed
Laura when he wanted
more sex.
Things don't end there. Since his release in
September of 2003, Bruce
has been picked up twice on parole violations and
both times, he has
been let go. Bruce was released off of parole in
2005 after only having
been out for 2 1/2 years. Since then, Bruce also had
two restraining orders
against him by two different women who say he
assaulted them, still he
walks the streets a free man.
A man named Bret Vinocur decided that this was
just wrong
and he decided to do something about it, since he
has a web site (www.findmissingkids.com) that
tracks sex offenders:
"When
I stumbled on
Lower's name, I thought it was a mistake.
Involuntary manslaughter? So
I called the
sheriff's
office. I was
told it was no mistake"
Bret had trouble sleeping at night, thinking about
Laura's case:
"I
don't know if you
can become a victim by association, but I am.
I can't get this little
girl's story out
of
my head"
Bret doesn't say that it is Bruce's fault he is
out, he says that it is
the fault of the system. Bruce was picked up on
parole violations where
he had liquor and pornography. Todd Marti,
Assistant Attorney
General, was willing to listen to Bruce and
tried to help by
writing a letter to the parole board:
"This
case was kind of
shocking to be honest. I knew that Lower was
not a guy you want on the
streets"
Marti put together and appeal to the parole board
trying to get Bruce
sent back to prison, but the parole board said
they had made a decision
and were sticking to it. IDIOTS,
I use that word a lot and I mean it, IDIOTS!
Will they be there to pick up the piece of the
next family who loses a
child to this monster?
Laura is buried down a little road and her
tombstone reads: "Suffer
little children". Bret says "She did".
Jason
Dhir,
a friend of Bret, donated a
bench to memorialize Laura in
Antrim
Park where
Bret goes in order to get some
peace from all that troubles
him. The
bench has her name and on a
metal plate you can read
Laura's name
and some of the lyrics from a
song about child abuse called
"Concrete
Angel"
I
am unable to find
anything about Laura's
"mother" as far as if she
was ever charged or
not or even how she felt
about the death of her
daughter.
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1-800-422-4453