Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread: Ricky Fitzgerald Hathorn Sentenced to Life in Prison in 2015 FL Murder of 45-Year-Old Lara Kuchar

  1. #1
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875

    Ricky Fitzgerald Hathorn Sentenced to Life in Prison in 2015 FL Murder of 45-Year-Old Lara Kuchar


    Lara Kuchar and Tommy Skeens





    Arrest made in slayings of homeless couple; deaths shock friends, family


    By Keith Morelli
    The Tampa Tribune

    TAMPA — In the shadow of the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, friends and family of a homeless couple forced themselves Monday to look at the dark bloodstains on the pavement of a decrepit carwash, a stark reminder of loved ones lost in a weekend double homicide.

    Tommy Skeens, 52, and Lara Kuchar, 45, were found beaten to death early Saturday near the abandoned carwash just east of a vacant convenience store on East Hillsborough Avenue, directly north of the casino.

    Late Monday, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office announced it had arrested a 46-year-old homeless man who had been staying in the carwash with the couple. Ricky Hathorn faces one charge of first-degree murder, one charge of second-degree murder and one charge of sexual battery with a deadly weapon.

    Skeens and Kuchar had runs of good and bad luck over the weeks leading up to their deaths, said Roxanne Haynes, 44, and Erik Northrup, 35, who had befriended the homeless couple. Haynes and Northrup were with Skeens and Kuchar late Friday night just before they were killed.

    “I’ve known Tommy and ‘Little Bit’ for a long time,” said Haynes. “I’m sorry, I call her ‘Little Bit.’ They were on hard times. They’ve been together for years.”

    Northrup said the victims had been living out of a U-Haul trailer just west of the carwash behind a vacant building. A few weeks ago, though, someone took the trailer, along with all the homeless couple’s belongings.

    The nearby automatic carwash doesn’t work and the couple had permission to stay there, out of the weather, Northrup said.

    Then, the couple got lucky. About 10 days ago, they won nearly $1,200 in the nearby casino, Haynes said. With their windfall, they headed to the Red Roof Inn on U.S. 301 and spent four nights there until their money ran out, Haynes said.

    Haynes and Northrup, who panhandle occasionally on that corner to pay for cigarettes and other small expenses, got to know Skeens and Kuchar over the past three months.

    “They weren’t like ordinary homeless people,” said Northrup, who shares a small house with Haynes a short distance away. “They were the type of people that if you needed something and they had it, you had it too.”

    Northrup said the last he and Haynes had seen Skeens and Kuchar was about 2 a.m. Saturday. They were in the carwash with Hathorn, he said.

    Hathorn, they said, wasn’t the type to “fly” a sign soliciting cash on the street corner, preferring to approach people and ask for handouts.

    Northrup said Hathorn had been attracted to Kuchar and had propositioned her repeatedly.

    “He had been trying to get Lara to do something with him sexually,” Northrup said.

    A few days before the slayings, the owner of the carwash told Skeens he didn’t want Hathorn around. Skeens told Northrup that he was going to have to “kick (Hathorn’s) ass and run him out of here.”

    Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputies caught up with Hathorn, 46, Monday morning and charged him later in the evening after questioning him.

    On the night Skeens and Kuchar were killed, Haynes and Northrup were headed to the carwash when they were spotted by a chef at the Hard Rock, Northrup said. The chef gave them a steak and french fries dinner, which they brought to their friends.

    When they left around 2 a.m. Saturday, Hathorn was there, Northrup said.

    “When we left, Tommy and Lara and Rickey were all alive,” Northrup said.

    Northrup said the owner of the carwash told him he would have a carwash and donate proceeds to help with funeral costs.

    Philana Marie Skeens has been separated from Tommy Skeens for years but remained legally married to him.

    “Eighteen years,” she said while standing in the parking lot of the carwash Monday morning, moments before she made the emotional walk to the scene of the homicides to see for herself what it was like.

    She was warned by Northrup not to go over there because “they didn’t do a good job of cleaning it up.’’

    “I want to know,” Philana Skeens said, tears welling up in her eyes. “All I can do is think about him and what happened.”

    She said that though the two were estranged, they got along well. Together, they have two children, Annie and Timothy, both in their 20s.

    “He was outgoing,” she said. “He wasn’t a hell-raiser. He was going through a hard time.”

    Roger Skeens came to Tampa from Georgia on Sunday to claim his brother’s remains.

    “I’m going to take him home with me,” he said.

    The brothers grew up in the Tampa Bay area, first near Palm River and then in Manatee County.

    “We were close,” Roger Skeens said. “He was my only brother. I talked to him a couple of weeks ago. I knew he was living on the street. I tried to send him money. He said he didn’t want help. He has always been that way.”

    Roger Skeens struggled Monday to come to terms with what happened.

    “I want to wish evil on the man who did this,” he said, “but the Lord won’t let me. Tommy wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t deserve to go the way he did. Neither one of them deserved what they got.”

    He said he visited family in Tampa on Monday morning, including his brother’s 8-year-old granddaughter, Dixie.

    “She counted up all her $1 bills and gave them to me to help pay for the funeral,” Roger Skeens said in a voice choked with emotion. “$20.”

    http://www.tbo.com/news/crime/deputi...uple-20151130/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #2
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    Edited:

    August 26, 2017

    Fewer face death penalty eight months into term of Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren

    Hillsborough County District Attorney Attorney Andrew Warren is reviewing all DP cases.

    Currently Ricky Hathorn's case is under review.

    http://www.tbo.com/news/courts/crimi...-state/2335095
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #3
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    ‘You took two lives.’ Man gets life sentence for killing homeless Tampa couple

    A jury found Ricky Fitzgerald Hathorn guilty in the 2015 slayings of Tommy Skeens and Lara Kuchar. He will spend the rest of his life in prison

    By Dan Sullivan
    Tampa Bay Times

    TAMPA — In their last days, Tommy Skeens and Lara Kuchar panhandled for cash and sought shelter in an abandoned car wash with their 10-pound terrier, Tiny. Some of those who knew them didn’t know they were homeless.

    But in a courtroom Friday, it was clear that they are missed by many.

    "He still had a family that loved him,” wrote Skeens’ sister, Kim Watson, in a letter to Hillsborough Circuit Judge Christopher Sabella.

    The judge listened to their words. Then he sentenced the couple’s 50-year-old killer to spend the rest of his life in prison.

    Ricky Fitzgerald Hathorn had been homeless himself before his arrest in November 2015, two days after the murders. This month a jury found him guilty of murder and sexual battery.

    Sabella expressed surprise when told that Hathorn’s only prior criminal conviction was for a misdemeanor assault charge.

    “That makes this even sadder,” the judge said.

    Skeens, 52, and Kuchar, 45, had lived together as a couple for several years. Both had children from prior relationships. In 2015, they became homeless and turned to panhandling to get by.

    They lived in a U-Haul trailer, and later a hotel.

    Weeks before they died, they took up residence in an abandoned gas station car wash at 7701 E Hillsborough Ave., near the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. It was there the morning of Nov. 28, 2015, that someone found Kuchar lying partly nude, her head and face bloodied. A 3-foot piece of wood lay nearby. She appeared to have been beaten with it.

    After a 911 call, Hillsborough sheriff’s deputies arrived to find Skeens steps away from Kuchar. He had also been beaten to death.

    Witnesses told detectives that Hathorn was with the couple at the car wash a few hours earlier. A few days earlier, they were told, he asked Kuchar for sex. She refused.

    Another witness said that the night before the killings, Hathorn talked about wanting to “touch some girls.”

    An autopsy revealed indications that Kuchar was sexually assaulted before she died. Two condoms, one used and another unused, lay near her body.

    Detectives found Hathorn about 10 miles away, at the corner of W Kennedy Boulevard and S Orleans Avenue in South Tampa. He had blood on his pants. The tread on his shoes was consistent with a footprint on the car wash floor.

    Later, Hathorn sat alone in an interrogation room. He stood and knocked on the door. When a detective entered, the Sheriff’s Office said he made a spontaneous confession.

    “Yeah, I did it. I did it,” he said. He went on to admit that he beat the couple, but said he thought someone else may have come afterward and “finished it.”

    “They was trying to run me ... nuts,” he said, according to court records.

    Letters read in court Friday echoed each other. The families of the dead hoped that Hathorn would spend every day in prison being reminded of what he had done.

    As she stood at lectern, Jackie Gaskey, Skeens’ sister, spoke through heavy sobs. She remembered her brother as man who made everyone laugh, one who brightened any social gathering. She is haunted by thoughts of the horrific manner in which he and Kuchar died. But she also spoke of forgiveness.

    “As hard as it is to hear and say it," she said, "I forgive him.”

    Hathorn sat in the jury box during the brief hearing as his victims’ relatives addressed the court. He remained stone-faced throughout the hearing. He did not speak.

    Assistant Public Defender Jennifer Spradley told the judge the defense was prepared to introduce evidence to mitigate a potential death sentence — evidence that would be used to convince a jury to spare his life. But prosecutors decided before the trial not to pursue the death penalty.

    The jury found Hathorn guilty of first-degree murder and sexual battery in the assault on Kuchar, and second-degree murder in the death of Skeens. A life sentence is the only sentence possible for first-degree murder.

    “You took two lives,” the judge said. “And you clearly affected the lives of many.”

    https://www.tampabay.com/news/hillsb...-tampa-couple/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •