FRIENDS, FAMILY SAY GOODBYE TO SKYLAR KAUFFMAN

IT WILL be a sad day in suburban Philadelphia today as friends and family say goodbye to Skylar Kauffman. The pretty 9-year-old was raped and murdered, allegedly by a neighbor, last week after she disappeared from the parking lot where she was playing.
Her funeral will be held today in suburban Montgomery County. Last night the Grade 3 student was remembered fondly as a little girl who loved swimming and dancing and always had a big smile.
Family friend Lana Goldstein said: "She was just a happy, great, fun loving, little girl. She used to come to Lutheran Community and visit
her great-grandma, with the biggest smile and her grandma would smile and it would just lighten up the day."
Cops say Skylar was murdered in the basement of her apartment complex. They arrested James Lee Troutman, 24, a neighbor who they say battered and strangled the child after raping her. he then dumped her body in a trash bin. He faces kidnapping, rape and murder charges. And, if he's guilty could potentially face the needle. Meanwhile, Skylar's family is devastated.
Friend Jen Kilgore told ABC6: "There's nothing you can do for them, you wish there was something you could to do to make their situation better, you would do anything to bring her back, but you can't. So the best thing you can do is to come and show you care. What a sweet, cute, little girl she was, I can't imagine something so awful happening. It's bad enough to lose a child, but to lose a child that way, I couldn't imagine anything worst."
SAYING GOODBYE TO SKYLAR

SKYLAR KAUFFMAN: TROUTMAN LOCKED HER IN HIS APT.

KILLER?

TERRIFIED and surrounded by pictures of naked women Skylar Kauffman and her friend realized her alleged murderer, James Troutman had locked them in his apartment after offering to: "show them his bird."
But three weeks to the day before her death, the nine-year-old and her pal were able to escape from his Philadelphia, PA apartment where cops later found a pool of her blood and a single shoe of hers. The girls went willingly, but when they saw the pictures, when Troutman offered to show them his "bird," and when they
realized that he had locked the apartment door behind them, they ran away and told their parents, according to court documents.
Cops said that they responded and interviewed Troutman, but they never charged the 24-year-old with any crime, although they remained tight lipped as to what was actually said.
Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman told The Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday that no crime occurred that rose to the level of filing charges and that Troutman had no criminal history that would have led police to suspect that he was capable of something more sinister.
She added: "It's one of those situations where everyone did what they were supposed to do, and, unfortunately, we couldn't prevent the death of a child."
Sadly less a month later Skylar would be dead.
In a confession Troutman reportedly said he had taken Skyler in the basement, choked her, hit her head on the floor and then "got rid of her" in the Dumpster.
He told police he had to kill her "because once I took her down the basement, I knew she could get me in trouble," according to court documents.
Astonishingly he then returned to his apartment and ate dinner with his fiance, apparently without a care in the world.   
An autopsy performed yesterday determined that Skyler had died of asphyxiation and blunt-force trauma and that she had "significant genital injuries."
He has been charged with her murder.

SKYLAR KAUFFMAN MURDER: JAMES TROUTMAN NABBED

P.M. UPDATE: POLICE in Pennsylvania have charged a 24-year-old man with first-degree murder in the sickening sex slaying of 9-year-old Skylar Kauffman. Sources say James Lee Troutman, a neighbor, confessed to the murder. The little girl went missing Monday and her body was found around midnight, wrapped in a blanket and dumped in a trash bin. She had been sexually abused and strangled. Police sources say Troutman wasn't very hard to find: he was in the vicinity and had blood on his shoes.

Police Chief James P. O'Leary said cops interviewed the man  and felt something was amiss. They questioned him again, which is when they allegedly spotted the blood.
"Each time they noticed something more and more alarming about his conduct and his response to the questions," Leary said. "… As they interviewed him, they noticed some blood on his person. And we have been able to gather some physical evidence that has linked him to the crime."
EARLIER IN CRIME SCENE USA

MURDER OF SKYLAR KAUFFMAN, 9, 'TERRIBLY VIOLENT'

A SEARCH for a 9-year-old Philadelphia-area girl has ended in heartbreak. The body of Skylar Kauffman was discovered in a  dumpster around midnight Monday after detectives followed a bloody trail. Cops have arrested a 40-year-old neighbor and expect him to be charged within hours in the "terribly violent" slaying.
Skylar had been playing outside her parents apartment in suburban Souderton Monday when she disappeared. But when the man grabbed her in the sex-fuelled attack, cops say she put up a heroic struggle that may ultimately send her killer to his death.
Police chief James P. O'Leary told Fox 29:
"Unfortunately this was a terribly violent crime, but with violent crimes comes a tremendous amount of physical evidence. There's no doubt the evidence will link the suspect, who is the perpetrator ... the perpetrator and the victim to the crime."
Witnesses last saw Skylar playing in a parking lot at about 5 p.m. local time, and that her parents called the police when she failed to return home for dinner.
O' Leary added: "There are indications that she struggled and I really, really am so saddened by her death, but I hope that in that struggle that there was an exchange of evidence so we can link him even more completely to the crime."
Sources say Skylar and the suspect were involved in an incident two weeks ago when she ran sobbing and screaming away from his apartment. Cops have confirmed but would not provide any further details.

HOW THEY FOUND SKYLAR'S KILLER