Man charged in fatal stabbing of Key Peninsula woman

A man charged with murder in the death of a Key Peninsula woman claims she asked God to forgive him as he fatally stabbed her, according to charging papers.

Duwayne Skillman, 32, pleaded not guilty Thursday to first- and second-degree murder in the death of 69-year-old Lynn Cooper earlier this year.

Charging papers don’t list an attorney for Skillman, whose bail was set at $2 million.

Court records, including information from his interview with Pierce County sheriff’s investigators, give this account:

Sometime between June 18 and July 6, Skillman went to Cooper’s home in the 14100 block of 144th Street KPN, which he thought was abandoned.

He planned to steal items to trade for drugs, and said he had been high on methamphetamine and awake for days, and didn’t remember the exact day he went to Cooper’s place.

While he was there, he went into a bedroom where Cooper was sleeping. She woke up and surprised him, and he turned around with a knife he’d brought.

They struggled for several minutes, and he stabbed her in the neck and torso until she died.

Skillman claimed to investigators that during the attack Cooper said: “Forgive him, God, ’cause he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

After the stabbing, he took some items from the home, put them in Cooper’s car and drove off in it.

He exchanged the stolen goods for drugs, hid the knife in a woodpile at a relative’s home and abandoned the car, which he thought had a tracking device.

A sheriff’s deputy found the car July 6 on the Key Peninsula amid other items that looked as if they’d been dumped.

The deputy thought the car was in too good of a condition to have been left for scrap metal, determined the car was registered to Cooper and went to her home.

The property was overgrown with weeds, and the door was ajar. The deputy, seeing the house looked as if it had been ransacked, did a welfare check and found Cooper’s body.

In August, a cousin of Skillman’s found a large knife with what appeared to be blood on it in a wood pile at the relative’s home, where Skillman had been staying until the cousin asked him to leave.

The relative gave the knife to police, and told them Skillman had bragged about stealing Cooper’s car.

Tests determined the blood was Cooper’s, and deputies arrested Skillman on Monday.

He gave different versions of how Cooper died, first saying two other men killed her, but later stating the “true” story was that he had killed her, and was at the house by himself.

This story was originally published December 3, 2015 at 6:17 PM with the headline "Man charged in fatal stabbing of Key Peninsula woman."