Notorious Outlook killer is seeking bail

Joel Ramos sat in a Yakima County courtroom 15 years ago and pleaded guilty in the county's worst murder case.

Now 29, he was back in court Thursday, but this time he wants to be released on bail while appeals court judges consider his claim that he was coerced into making the plea.

Judge James Gavin is scheduled to hear his motion at 10 this morning.

Ramos pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree felony murder in exchange for an 80-year sentence. His earliest release date would be in 2061, when he would be 82.

His co-defendant, Miguel Gaitan, opted to go to trial. They were both 14 at the time.

Gaitan was found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to four consecutive life terms in December 1993.

The victims were an Outlook family of four -- parents Michael and Lynn Skelton, both 34, and their children, 12-year-old Jason and 6-year-old Bryan.

They were bludgeoned and stabbed to death in their Liberty Road home on March 24, 1993.

Ramos, in the plea agreement he is now contesting, took personal responsibility for hitting the youngest boy on the head with a piece of firewood. Tucked in his bed, Bryan peeked out from under the blankets before he was killed, according to accounts of the case in the Yakima Herald-Republic.

The case stunned the Yakima Valley and left investigators looking over a blood-spattered display of brutality that many in the community considered the worst murder case in the county's history, both because of the number of victims and the violence used to kill them.

According to a summary of the events given in news accounts:

The father was beaten, stabbed and kicked as he confronted the intruders at the door, then killed when he rose again in a last attempt to defend his doomed family.

The mother was surprised in the shower, then stabbed dozens of times until she died.

The elder son died as he pleaded for his mother's life.

Prosecutors never pinned down a motive at trial, though suggestions ranged from a gang initiation rite to a botched burglary.

Ramos' return to the Yakima County jail late last week was the result of an appeal that he filed in 2005 arguing that he was forced into pleading guilty.

That's a distinct change from his stance in 1993, when he authorized his attorneys to negotiate a deal that would give him the possibility of living on the outside for a few years late in life.

Herald-Republic reports from 1993 show that his mother brought in an outside attorney to review the terms of the plea before telling her son he should accept it. Ramos has indicated he now wants to argue that his mother forced him to sign off.

Despite several rejections at lower court levels, Supreme Court Justice Gerry Alexander eventually ruled that Ramos deserved a chance to make his case.

That appeal is being heard separately before Division 3 of the state Court of Appeals.

But a Yakima County judge was asked to consider Ramos' request that he should be released while that appeal is pending.

Gavin held a hearing Thursday on Ramos' request for new attorneys, but he ultimately decided that the bail hearing could proceed with the two public defenders currently assigned to the case.

If Ramos were to win his Court of Appeals case, he would likely get an opportunity to argue that he should be tried as a juvenile. He waived that right as part of the plea deal and was convicted in Superior Court as an adult.

The maximum sentence under juvenile law would be confinement until age 21, meaning that Ramos would be released.

Gaitan lost a similar challenge before he went to trial.

* Mark Morey can be reached at 577-7671 or mmorey@yakimaherald.com.