South Hill man killed mom with rocks ‘so she would be in a better place,’ records say
A South Hill man was on drugs when he killed his mother with a large rock and believed he was putting her out of her misery, according to court documents.
Pierce County prosecutors on Friday charged Skyler Yeaman, 27, with first-degree murder for Thursday’s homicide.
The victim has not been identified.
Yeaman pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in Superior Court, and bail was set at $1 million.
A deputy prosecutor said in court that while the defendant has no felony arrests or convictions, he has been previously referred for involuntary commitment due to mental health issues and has admitted to hallucinating and ingesting drugs.
Charging papers give this account:
Yeaman lived with his mother and her fiance at the Aspen Creek Apartments, 12724 104th Ave. Ct. E.
About 9 a.m. Thursday, several neighbors called 911 to report seeing a man assault a woman with rocks. They reported the woman was bleeding heavily and appeared to be unconscious.
Deputies arrived and found Yeaman sitting on an electrical box nearby. He was taken into custody.
His mother was lying about 20 yards away next to three large rocks.
She was pronounced dead at the scene.
An autopsy showed she suffered multiple skull fractures and died of blunt force trauma, according to the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office.
A witness said she heard a woman screaming and saw Yeaman throwing rocks at her while making “weird noises,” records say.
One rock struck the woman in the head and knocked her to the ground.
“The male then picked the rock up, stood over the female, and slammed the rock on her head,” prosecutors wrote in charging papers.
Neighbors estimated the rock was bigger than a basketball.
After the attack, Yeaman allegedly broke a windshield wiper off a vehicle, kicked over a motorcycle and threw a rock through a car window.
He then sat and waited for deputies to arrive.
When investigators asked Yeaman what happened, “he replied that he had just smoked some weed, and said that his mother suffered from some medical issues, and he decided to kill her so she would be in a better place,” records say.
The victim’s fiance told detectives he was sleeping when Yeaman burst into the apartment yelling that he’d killed his mother.
The fiance was still looking for Yeaman’s mom outside when deputies arrived to arrest Yeaman.
While being interviewed, investigators noticed Yeaman looked particularly sweaty and uneasy.
“When asked if he was OK, he said that he had just killed his mother and he was trying to deal with being alone for the rest of his life,” records say.
Yeaman allegedly denied having mental health problems but said he has an “explosive disorder.”
It was not immediately clear whether his mother suffered from medical issues.
Yeaman said he was hallucinating from smoking too much marijuana and threatened to kill his mom when she followed him outside. She continued following him so he threw a rock at her, knocking her down. He then smashed another rock on her head and even though his mother went quiet after that, he hit her again with a bigger rock to make sure she was “full brain dead,” prosecutors wrote in charging papers.
“He also stated that he was sorry for what happened, but said he was feeling more calm after it happened,” records say.
This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 12:39 PM.
