Parents of hate crime victim share their story at USF
By Alexandra Zayas, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Thursday, September 24, 2009
Pat Mulder wipes away a tear Wednesday after telling the story of her son’s murder during the Florida Hate Crimes Awareness Summit held at the University of South Florida. Ryan Skipper, 25, was stabbed 20 times in 2007 in Polk County.
TAMPA — There was a time when Pat Mulder got really nervous speaking in front of people like this. That was when she was just a nurse, a wife, a mother — before she qualified to speak on a "victim's perspective" panel at a summit on hate crimes.
The auditorium at the University of South Florida was full Wednesday. The microphone was on. A box of tissues was within her reach. Her husband, Lynn, put his hand on her back, and she began.
"Umm . . . I get a little emotional, so just hang with me," she said. "Ryan was my son. He was 25 years old when he died."
Ryan Skipper, a gay college student, was stabbed 20 times on March 14, 2007, his lifeless body left near a rural road in Polk County. One of the two accused killers told witnesses he was "doing the world a favor by getting rid of one more f-----."
Pat and Lynn Mulder have spent the past two years traveling to tell their story, lobbying for hate crime and anti-bullying legislation and comforting victims. They're among the most recognizable figures in the statewide gay community.
No, Pat Mulder says, she doesn't get very nervous any more. "The worst thing in the world that can happen to you has already happened. There's nothing else to be afraid of."
• • •
The mother knew he was gay before he did, long before he told her. She says she just felt it.
It stayed in the back of her mind when a 21-year-old gay college student named Matthew Shepard was left bleeding to death in a remote area of Laramie, Wyo. Two men had plotted to rob a gay man. They killed him, too. It was 1998. Mulder was surprised that homophobia still led to murder.
Meanwhile, she watched her son go to high school, unaware that he was getting bullied for the same reason Shepard died.
They were in the upstairs craft room of her Auburndale home when she watched him struggle to find the words to tell her. "Ryan," she said, "when are you going to tell me you're gay?"
His response: "How do you always know?"
She told him, "That's what mothers do." And she would continue to tell him to be careful, every time she saw him wearing a rainbow bracelet. She would learn about the harassment he faced — at the mall, at work. Someone gave him a black eye.
None of that prepared her for the news detectives would bring. Or for the first media accounts spread by Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.
The night of Skipper's viewing, Judd told reporters one suspect said Skipper made advances toward him. Shepard's killers had made that same argument before they were convicted.
Judd also recounted the suspects' accounts that Skipper smoked pot that night and discussed a check forgery scheme.
The Sheriff's Office later acknowledged the accounts conflicted and that the suspects were probably trying to minimize their involvement to make themselves look better.
Skipper, in fact, knew the two suspects, his mother said. Brown was related to his landlord. She thinks they targeted him for robbery, knowing he was gay. She thinks they came to his door.
The Mulders felt the sheriff's original account muted the outrage the public should have felt for their son's death.
They spent the next two years trying to turn up the volume.
• • •
Pat and Lynn Mulder now wear rainbow bracelets everywhere they go.
Any time someone asks about it — the Wal-Mart cashier, the waitress at Beef O'Brady's — they tell their son's story.
"You may relive your pain, but you also relive your love," Pat said. "It keeps Ryan's memory alive and to me, that's an important thing. I don't want his death to have been in vain."
A couple of times, they say, they have also experienced a sliver of the harassment he felt when he was alive.
But for the handful of haters, they have met hundreds of people they wish their son could have met. Along with other groups, Skipper's stepfather Lynn is the Polk county president of PFLAG, an organization for the families and friends of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.
Pat was at a town hall meeting held after transgendered teenager Simmie Williams was shot to death in Fort Lauderdale a year after Skipper died. She introduced herself to the 17-year-old's mother and enveloped her in a hug. At that moment, the woman didn't say much, but she later told Pat how much it meant.
"It's beyond being women. It's beyond being different races, different backgrounds. It has nothing to do with that. It's the hearts of two mothers," Pat said. "For a moment, there's someone who's helping you hold up your pain."
On Oct. 12, they will sit in a courtroom with the second man authorities believe killed their son.
"Initially, I saw them as evil," Pat said. "Now, it's a sadness to see wasted human life. . . . Hate gives someone else power over you. I forgave them."
That same month, she'll attend the wedding of her oldest son, Damien Skipper. Ryan would've been his best man.
Alexandra Zayas can be reached at azayas@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3354.
To donate
Ryan Skipper's family has set up a fund at the Community Foundation of Greater Lakeland, hoping to create a scholarship in his name. Donations can be sent to the foundation at 1501 South Florida Ave., Lakeland, FL 33803. Specify that the donation is for the Ryan Skipper fund.
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