Prosecutors believe James Lee Troutman led the brown-eyed child who neighbors described as outgoing and friendly into a basement at the Souderton Garden Apartments just before 5 p.m. Monday.
There, in the dark, he allegedly raped and strangled her, banging her head against the concrete floors over and over again. And once he had disposed of her body, they said, he quietly crossed the small parking lot back to his apartment and sat down to dinner with his fiancé.
Meanwhile, Kauffman's mother, grandmother and neighbors began a desperate search for a child whose body lay only yards away. And this bedroom community near the Montgomery-Bucks County line began to grapple with the one of the most unnerving crimes it has seen in years.
"Things like this just don't happen here," said neighbor Corey Wagner, hugging her own 2-year-old daughter to her hip. "I just don't know what to think."
Troutman, whose only known previous arrest was for shoplifting, was charged with first- and second-degree murder, kidnapping and several sex crimes. He was arraigned at a hearing Tuesday afternoon held at the district court across the street from the apartment where Skyler lived with her mother and grandmother. The heavy-set man wearing a rumpled black T-shirt and jeans said little as Magistrate Judge Kenneth Deatelhauser denied him bond.
When investigators led Troutman to an awaiting squad car, a crowd of residents and onlookers which grew throughout the day unleashed its fury.
"Burn in hell," one man yelled. Others hurled obscenities as Troutman ducked his head and covered his face.
