FORECLOSURE ACTION

The Ashland home where Steven Watkins was gunned down in 2008 has gone into foreclosure. PNC Bank filed the foreclosure lawsuit last month in Cass County Circuit Court. Presuming the bank prevails and gets title to the home, it may face a challenge finding a buyer for the house that was the scene of one of the most infamous killings in recent central Illinois history. Watkins was shot once in the back of the head when he went to the house to pick up his two-year-old infant daughter, Sidney, for a court-ordered visit in the midst of contentious divorce proceedings. Three generations of Watkins’ in-laws lived in the home at the time of the slaying, and a jury in 2010 convicted Shirley Skinner, the grandmother of Watkins’ estranged wife, of murder. Skinner, 79, received a 55-year sentence, essentially guaranteeing that she will die in prison. Ed Skinner, Shirley Skinner’s son, said that the home has been empty since June, when his father, Kenneth, Shirley Skinner’s husband, moved out. Ed Skinner said that his father is now living with him. “I told him ‘You’re too old to be living by yourself,’ so he moved in with me,” said Ed Skinner, who has said that he believes that Jennifer Watkins, Steven Watkins’ estranged wife, fired the fatal shot. Jennifer Watkins, who is believed to be living in Florida, continues to defy a court order requiring her to allow visits between her daughter and the child’s paternal grandparents. The Skinner family’s pallet company in Beardstown closed in the summer of 2013.