The 14-year-old girl and the 25-year-old man met online and communicated through an app that connects video gamers through their smartphones or computers.
But after the girl stopped talking to the man, he allegedly came to her house — traveling for two days from his New Zealand home to Goochland, Virginia. Along the way, he stopped at a Walmart to buy duct tape and a camouflage folding clip with a 2.75-inch knife, Goochland County Sheriff James Agnew said at a Monday press conference,theRichmond Times-Dispatchreports.
When no one answered at the girl’s front door on Friday afternoon, the man — who also carried pepper spray and was dressed in all-black — went around to the back of the house to a basement-level door. Inside, he spotted the girl’s mother with one of her two daughters, who are 14 and 18, and allegedly asked for help, saying he’d hitchhiked 30 miles to get there, said Agnew.
After the mother refused, the man grabbed a brick and tried to break the door, Agnew said. The mother and daughter ran upstairs, and the man reappeared outside a glass door on the upper deck, this time with a concrete landscape stone that he used to smash through a glass door before reaching in to try and unlock it, according to Agnew.
But then the mother — who had warned the man that she was calling police and was armed — grabbed a .22-caliber handgun and shot him, twice.
“When I sit back and think about it, I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’” Agnew said at the press conference.
He declined to speculate on Skinner’s motives, but said Skinner likely will be charged with breaking and entering with a deadly weapon with the intent to commit a serious offense. The FBI is investigating whether additional federal charges also might be filed regarding Skinner’s alleged contact with the minor girl, the sheriff said, according to the newspaper.
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Skinner was transferred Monday out of intensive care at VCU Medical Center, the sheriff said. His condition is fair, a hospital spokesman tells PEOPLE.
Journey From New Zealand to Virginia
The friend knew of Skinner’s plans to travel to the U.S., but believed he had plans to meet with other American friends in Portland, Oregon. When he didn’t arrive there as expected, the friends searched online for his name and discovered the events in Virginia.
“Then you hear about duct tape, knife and are like, what the hell is this?” the friend said. “He’d been on some medication, had psychiatrists visiting his flat to discuss certain things, apparently there were some antipsychotics, so this sounds like a mental break of some description.”
Skinner had been pursuing studies in law at the University of Auckland, according to the friend.
On Friday morning, Skinner checked out of the hostel and traveled to the Walmart in Glen Allen, where investigators learned he bought the knife and duct tape, according to the sheriff.
The 911 call reporting a man in black attempting to enter the home where the shooting occurred came at 4:27 p.m. Friday, the sheriff said. Simultaneously a second 911 caller reported his wife had alerted him to a man trying to break into their home, the agency said in anews release.
Girl ‘Tried to Stop Communicating with HIm’: Sheriff
“The younger girl tried to stop communicating with him,” the sheriff said, but when she did so, Skinner tried to keep in touch with her through other means. “She did not cooperate with him,” he said.
The sheriff spoke in defense of the mother, who is not currently facing any charges.
The investigation is continuing.
source: people.com
