Skinner v. State

2009 OK CR 19, 210 P.3d 840, 2009 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 18, 2009 WL 1620652
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedJune 11, 2009
DocketF-2007-1101
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 2009 OK CR 19 (Skinner v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Skinner v. State, 2009 OK CR 19, 210 P.3d 840, 2009 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 18, 2009 WL 1620652 (Okla. Ct. App. 2009).

Opinion

OPINION

CHAPEL, Judge.

T 1 Gordon Todd Skinner was charged and convicted of Conspiracy to Commit Kidnapping AFCF, under 21 0.8.2001, § 421 (Count I); Kidnapping AFCF, under 21 0.98.2001, § 741 (Count IID); and Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon AFCF, under 21 ©.9.2001, § 645 (Count III), in the District Court of Tulsa County, Case No. CF-20083-4218. 1 In accord with the jury's recommendation, the Honorable Gordon D. MeAllister sentenced Skinner to imprisonment for thirty (30) years and a $10,000 fine on Count I, imprisonment for sixty (60) years and a $10,000 fine on Count II, and imprisonment for life and a $10,000 fine on Count III, to be served consecutively. 2 Skinner is properly before the Court on direct appeal.

FACTS

12 Even a careful review of the record in this case leaves unanswered many questions about what exactly happened to eighteen-year-old Brandon Green, beginning over the Fourth of July weekend in 2003, at the hands of defendant Gordon Todd Skinner ("Skinner"), and with the assistance of his co-defendants Krystle Ann Cole Skinner ("Cole") and William Earnest Hauck (Hauck"). 3 It is even more unclear why it happened.

T3 What is fairly clear, however, is that Green joined Skinner and Cole, who were staying at the downtown Tulsa Doubletree Hotel, in early July of 2003. 4 Skinner was *842 known for hosting gatherings at this and other locations, where ilegal psychedelic drugs would be given out, often his own concoctions and often as part of a pseudo-religious ceremony that Skinner would lead. Green was expecting to party with Skinner and Cole and to prepare for some kind of business venture with Skinner, which involved harbor dredging work in the Caribbean. Green considered Skinner to be his "friend" and referred to Cole, whom he had been dating for a few months, as his "girlfriend," even though she had apparently just married Skinner. Cole had previously been involved with Skinner, but she had recently been trying to "get away" from him, with the help of Green, because Skinner was so violent and controlling. 5

1 4 It is also clear that on July 3, 2003, at the request of Skinner, Green drove from Tulsa to Oklahoma City to pick up Bill Hauck, whom Green had not met previously, and bring him back to the hotel. Hauck was a truck driver and had a long history of working for and with Skinner, and he expected to be involved in the dredging venture. Hauck had his own room on a different floor and was in and out of the hotel and Skinner's rooms over the next five days. Meanwhile Cole remained in and around the adjoining 14th floor rooms during this same time. The exact extent of Hauck and Cole's willing participation in the subsequent kidnapping and torture of Green at the hotel was a matter of some dispute at trial, but there was no dispute among the testifying witnesses who were there at the time-Green, Hauck, Cole, and later Kristi Roberts-that Skinner was very much running the show. 6 On the other hand, Hauck and Cole freely admitted that they did nothing to try to stop Skinner and that they made no effort to get Green any kind of help, even though they could see his injuries and hear him moaning in pain and begging for help. 7 Nor did they contact law enforcement authorities or anyone else on Green's behalf.

T5 Brandon Green remembers that on July 4, 2003, he voluntarily ingested several of what Skinner described as "the Eucharist," believing that the Catholic communion wafers that Skinner provided would be laced with LSD, as on previous occasions when Skinner had given them to Green. Green expected that the wafers would cause him to "trip," but instead he was rendered completely unconscious. 8 Green testified that his *843 next memory was of waking up naked on the hotel bathroom floor, with his hands, legs, and mouth duct-taped, and with Skinner standing over him, kicking him in the groin area as hard as he could and saying, "You should never have touched my fiancée; you should never have touched my fiancée. 9 Green remembers that he eventually passed out during this assault and that when he woke up, Skinner was kneeling over him with a hypodermic needle, injecting something into his penis. Green's comprehension then got "extremely blurry," and he has very few clear memories of the incredible torture that he was subjected to over the next four days at the Tulsa Doubletree and then at a Houston area motel after that.

T6 Evidence presented at trial established that the torture at the Tulsa hotel included numerous and repeated injections by Skinner into Green's penis, testicles, buttocks, and other parts of his body, with the apparent dual purpose of permanently disabling and disfiguring Green sexually and of keeping him in a prolonged state of unconsciousness, while he was being physically, sexually, and emotionally assaulted by Skinner. 10 Skinner also brutally punched and kicked Green in the genitals, lifted Green's unconscious body up off the bed by grabbing him at the base of his genitals, 11 and wrapped a phone cord about Green's penis, put his foot on Green's stomach, and jerked until he heard "the cartilage snap."

T7 Kristi Roberts testified at trial that she met Green, Skinner, and Cole earlier in 2008, that she had taken psychedelic drugs provided by Skinner, including "the Eucharist," and that she had a "very close friendship" with Skinner. Roberts testified that she stopped by the hotel during the early morning hours of July 2, 2003, but then did not return to the hotel until late evening on July 5, after being picked up by Hauck in Green's car. < After chatting with Skinner and Cole, Roberts discovered Green lying on the bed in Room 1411 "in a sedated state." 12 Skinner and Cole told her that Green had "tried to keep up with [Skinner] taking the Eucharist." Roberts left again that night and did not return until the next night.

T8 "When Roberts arrived on July 6 and asked where Skinner and Green were, Cole directed her to Room 1411, saying, "It's not as bad as it looks." Roberts found Green lying on the bathroom floor, with duct tape around his head and face, his hands duct-taped to his feet behind him, and with a "KFC" cup over his penis. Roberts testified that Green was very upset, "tripping really hard," and that when she finally got the duct tape off his mouth, he was talking but not making a lot of sense." 13 Roberts testified that Cole told her that Green had "gotten into something" (the green liquid) and that Roberts should wear socks on her hands and not touch any of the substance that was on Green.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2009 OK CR 19, 210 P.3d 840, 2009 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 18, 2009 WL 1620652, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/skinner-v-state-oklacrimapp-2009.