A funeral service was held Monday for Skyler Kauffman, the nine-year-old Souderton girl who was raped and beaten to death on Monday, May 9. Family, friends, neighbors and third-grade classmates from EM Crouthamel Elementary School attended the funeral at Calvary Church on Route 113 in Hilltown.  The service was a collaborative effort among several local churches.  The mourners included a Girl Scout leader wearing a number of badges.  Skyler Kauffman had been active in scouting for several years.  She was also a dancer who attended classes at Marlyn Abramson’s New Dance Workshop in Lansdale, and she spent part of the last five summers at the Hopwood School and Camp in Towamencin Township.

She was remembered for her bright spirit and smile.  The Reverend Jason Blair of Grace Bible Church in Souderton said, “This community, this family, has been fractured in a way that time cannot heal, but I refuse to let evil prevail.”  He urged funeral guests to honor and celebrate her life and to live well for her sake.  

Several media outlets and at least one elected official have called on Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman to make public a police report on an April encounter between Skyler Kauffman and her accused killer, 24-year-old James Lee Troutman.  Ferman refused, saying such reports are not public and its release would be inappropriate.  County Commissioner and Former DA Bruce Castor says he has read many thousands of police reports, but he never released one because they contain flash information collected right after an incident, and they usually change.

“You assign detectives to run it out and determine whether the facts in the flash information are true.  A police report is a way of documenting what you thought you knew at a particular time.  It is far, far down in the process of an investigation.  The entire process from an event to a courtroom is a continuum where you are constantly refining the evidence so that you can ultimately present evidence that you believe to be true beyond a reasonable doubt.”

He says some people may think of a police report someone gets after a car crash, but one is generally for an insurance company while the other is for preparing for a criminal trial, and they are completely different.  He says there are many reasons not to release such reports in criminal cases.

“It has addresses and identifiers and all kinds of stuff you wouldn’t release.  I can’t believe it would have even gotten anybody’s notice had someone not tried to cast doubt on the propriety of the police investigation by complaining about it.”

Castor says the idea that police could have responded differently in the earlier incident and saved Skyler Kauffman’s life is a big stretch.  He appeared Monday on the WNPV talk program “Comment Please by Univest.”