“But he couldn’t resist the urge to bring people to the pond where he buried Skyyler to show off his handiwork,” said Browne’s mother, Sherrie Lackings of Clayton. “It was like something out of a horror movie.”
Browne was missing for two weeks before Pitts reported the crime. “He took so much,” Sherrie lamented. “There wasn’t even a body to bury, because it was too badly burned.”
The past 10 years, for Sherrie, have been a journey from shock and overwhelming grief to healing and forgiveness. It is a journey that will culminate when the Lackings travel to Texas for Druery’s execution, slated for Aug. 1.
“It’s the last thing I can do for Skyyler,” Sherrie said.
Yet the couple’s journey is less about justice and more about the healing power of forgiveness and their Christian faith. In an unusual gesture, they hope to meet with Druery before his execution to offer him their forgiveness.
“It’s important that he knows that before he dies,” Sherrie said.
The couple has made the request through the victim/offender mediation dialogue program of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Spokesman Jason Clarkson said the process takes approximately six months if all parties choose to participate. “The intent is to facilitate the victims’ healing and recovery and to provide the offenders with the opportunity to take responsibility for their actions,” Clarkson explained.
If Sherrie is not able to meet with Druery, she hopes to deliver a letter expressing her feelings.
“There are questions I’ll always have — why take it that far, why kill him, and do you regret it?’” she said. “That’s what I’d like to ask him.”
Observed Nelson, “It would be torture to have regrets that deep and not to be able to release them. He will never be able to talk to Skyyler and ask his forgiveness, so talking to his mother is the closest he’ll ever get to that.”
Druery is one of 10 death row inmates scheduled to be executed in Texas this year; four have already taken place. Harris and Pitts were not charged in Skyyler’s murder because authorities said the pair was never involved with planning or committing the crime.
Texas has put to death 481 inmates since capital punishment was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976 — vastly more than any other state and more than one-third of the 1,289 executed nationwide.
Sherrie is not a proponent of the death penalty, but she observed, “He did it in Texas, and that’s the way they play in Texas. There’s no joy in it, but I’m grateful he was caught and punished. It could have haunted me the rest of my life that someone who did this was walking around and might do this to someone else’s child.”
His mother recalled Browne as a “really fun, happy-go-lucky, quick-witted kid” who was studying fiber optic cable installation at Texas State Technical College in Waco, Texas, where Druery was a fellow student.
“Skyyler made friends very easily,” Sherrie said. “His friends said the killer was watching him very closely and had seemed to befriend him.”
Police said robbery was the motive; but Sherrie believes it went deeper: “I suspect this young man wanted attention, wanted to be popular, and snuffed Skyyler’s life out in an attempt to get what he had.”
Her son was only 2 years old when Sherrie, a divorced young mother, dated Nelson for several years and became engaged to him. They broke up when Nelson decided to go into the ministry and Sherrie enlisted in the Army. She had been stationed in Korea for 45 days when word reached her of her son’s death.
In 2007, Nelson — by then a divorced father of nine children — went looking for his former sweetheart only to learn of Browne’s murder. They bonded again instantly in their shared grief, and the blossoming relationship provided balm for Sherrie’s pain.
“We talked on the phone for hours,” she recalled. “It was almost like we never lost touch.”
They married in 2008, the same year that Sherrie retired from the Army. Yet it was only when she embraced her Christian faith more deeply that Sherrie’s burden began to be lifted.
“Anything we are given is a gift from God, for any amount of time he deems proper, whether five seconds or 50 years,” she said. “I am grateful and thankful to have 20 years to enjoy this kid. After all, God gave his son for the whole world.”
Nelson said, “The more she has grown in her walk in Christ, the more she has healed. She has grown so much, and I am so proud of her for that. By forgiving Marcus Druery, she has not allowed him to get away with two murders. You can’t live unless you forgive.”
It is a lesson the couple cannot help ponder this Easter Sunday, as they prepare to perform one final task for their beloved Skyyler.
“In the eyes of God, no acts of men preclude redemption,” Nelson said. “If God can redeem, then surely we can forgive.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty@ DaytonDailyNews.com.
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