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Was death an accident or murder?
Ex-boyfriend — charged with murder — said the two were involved in a sex act when she died.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
XENIA — The clock is ticking on an offer from Greene County prosecutors that could mean less prison time for Anthony Shuri in the death of Heather Skelly.
Shuri, 31, has told police Skelly, 24, died Nov. 13, 2007, while they were involved in a sex act — a coupling sex experts and pathologists call auto-erotic asphyxiation, where strangulation is used during intercourse to achieve a brief euphoria.
Extras
Fairborn police said they believe Shuri, an orphan originally from the Seattle area, killed Skelly to keep word about Skelly's second pregnancy by him from his new girlfriend.
He's charged with murder, reckless homicide, and involuntary manslaughter. Two counts of reckless homicide have been added because of the fetus Skelly was carrying.
If Shuri rejects the deal to plead to a lesser crime than murder — which would mean less prison time — his fate might rest with a jury or a judge.
Either would have to decide whether Shuri purposely caused the death of Skelly — who was four months pregnant — or whether it was an accident caused during an incident the legal system is still learning how to discern.
Neither Shuri's defense attorney nor prosecutors will say how much time he has to accept the deal. Either way, Shuri and Skelly's 19-month-old son will grow up facing the same challenges his parentless mother and father faced.
"I just worry about her son more than anything," said Nina Ivy, Skelly's employer at Custom Care Cleaning and Elderly Services in Xenia. "The cycle just continues."
When Fairborn police found Skelly on Nov. 17, 2007, in the bathroom of her Fairborn apartment, she was alone and abandoned. Skelly had been dead four days. Ivy had asked police to check on Skelly's welfare because she had not shown up for work.
Her parents died when she was a teen and her only brother is homeless, Fairborn Detective Lee Cyr said.
Police arrested Shuri on March 6 at the apartment in Kettering he shared with his new girlfriend.
"This case was pretty deep," Cyr said. "There were so many aspects involved in this case. We were finally able to piece together the final hours of (Skelly's) life."
The Greene County Coroner's Office in January ruled Skelly's death was caused by "strangulation during sexual intercourse."
He told investigators that he and Skelly often engaged in auto-erotic asphyxiation. Cyr said there were no signs of rape.
Scott Calaway, Shuri's lawyer, said, "I've never been involved in a case like this. Haven't even come across anything like this (case)."
A look at some cases from across the nation shows that fatalities from auto-erotic asphyxiation are often ruled self-inflicted. Suspects in the deaths are sometimes convicted of manslaughter or negligent homicide.
Last month, a Long Island man was sentenced to 12 years in prison for pleading guilty in Suffolk County, N.Y., to manslaughter and arson. He admitted strangling his friend's wife during "consensual rough sex" and burning her house to hide her death.
Last September, Crystal Boarder, 30, was charged with manslaughter in Ontario for killing her husband while attempting the sex act. The husband, Tony Boarder, 46, was convicted of manslaughter in 1987 for killing a 19-year-old woman during auto-erotic asphyxiation.
Police didn't focus on Shuri as a suspect until four months after Skelly's death. Their first suspect was in the county jail when Skelly died, Cyr said.
Shuri's adopted mother, Vivian Shuri, said from her Seattle area home that he was known to engage in the sex practice.
Shuri had been seeking stability since leaving his childhood home, she said, and decided to settle in the Dayton area after he met Skelly and the two had a son.
Shuri and his new girlfriend were taking care of his and Shuri's son during the week while Skelly worked. His friends and family vehemently deny that he would have been upset if Skelly told his new girlfriend about the second pregnancy.
Hope Walker, a Shuri family acquaintance, said Skelly and the new girlfriend were acquaintances.
"He absolutely adored children. He was happy," Walker said.
Cyr said Skelly and the boy were homeless for a time and slept in their car before she found work at the cleaning service.
Nina Ivy said she got to know Skelly through the Interfaith Housing Network in Greene County, a support service for homeless families in Xenia. Skelly had worked at the cleaning service for a little over a year, Ivy said, and had leased her apartment in Fairborn less than six months before she died.
"She was a real hard worker. Very determined. She was very sweet," Ivy said. "She just believed what everybody said. She believed that people would do what they said they were going to do."
Skelly never even made it to her reserved burial plot next to her mother at David's Cemetery in Kettering, officials there said. Her mother died in 1998 after a heart attack, according to employees at David's.
Ivy said cancer took Skelly's father before she was 18.
According to Conner and Koch Funeral Home in Fairborn, someone claimed her remains and there was no funeral.
Meantime, Shuri and Skelly's son is with Vivian Shuri, in Seattle. "I love Anthony dearly and I always will, but (his son) is the innocent victim in this. That's where my focus is," Shuri's mother said.
