Defendant Skylard Grant Sentenced in Murder of Best Friend

It’s quite often said that a man is only as good as his word. On April 26th, 2019 Skylard Grant found how firmly that phrase can ring true.

In Judge Jeffrey Wagner’s courtroom Grant sits, quiet and still, next to his defense attorney Susan Roth. Across the aisle representing the state sits attorney Grant Huebner, a large stack of manila folders rubber banded shut at his elbow. On trial for second-degree reckless homicide, Grant isn’t unfamiliar with a courtroom as he has faced five charges prior. This is, however, his first time being charged with anything as serious as homicide. The person dead in this case isn’t some stranger or aggressor either, but his best friend, Antwone Berry.

“I can’t understand it; this was his guy,” Melissa Berry, the mother of the victim pleaded into the microphone in front of her. But Grant, through it all, sat quiet and still, even when he was sentenced by Judge Wagner to a 23-year sentence: 14 in prison and nine under extended supervision.

Huebner opened his case by reading the charges against Grant. Listing second-degree reckless homicide, possession of a firearm by a felon, and possession with intent to deliver THC coupled with his past charges, he began to paint a picture of a man who disregards the law. From 2004 to 2010, Grant was continuously a ward of the state. Until 2012, Grant had managed to stay out of trouble. On August 21st, 2012, he was imprisoned for felony possession of a firearm. After the sentencing for his August case was completed, he made it 14 months until Christmas of 2017 when he allegedly shot and killed his best friend Berry, seemingly over money that didn’t make it into his account while he was in jail, according to the criminal complaint.

One point that Huebner reiterates throughout his statement is the confusing status of Grant’s admission of guilt. At his plea hearing, he pled guilty and took responsibility for the murder of Berry. However, later Grant told the probation officer performing his presentence investigation report, or PSI, (https://kretzerfirm.com/federal-presentence-investigation-report-psi/) that he was not guilty of the crime. With no eyewitnesses and very little evidence to incriminate Grant, this became a case of he said, she said.

Huebner continued to repeat this point because he thought it pointed at Grant’s character. “The defendant admitted what he did, he said he was guilty,” Huebner reiterated. He was trying to show that a man who has little regard for the law would act this way. That the man sitting in a chair being charged with murder hasn’t taken any of his previous convictions seriously enough. Those charges were fleeing a police officer in 2004, the battery of a person and public intoxication in Indiana in 2005 and in 2006 a felony possession of a firearm charge; both the 2005 and 2006 charges happened while he was on probation. In 2008 he was charged with the battery of a public transit officer and, then, in 2012 another felony possession of a firearm charge.

Going through the list, Huebner’s voice seems to grow more impassioned as he describes Grant and how he thinks that he has taken his chances far too leniently and now, with the family of Antwone Berry in the courtroom behind him he addresses the court telling them that the loved ones Berry left behind will struggle to find closure for the violent removal of their son, their brother, and their friend from their lives on Christmas.

Berry’s family echoes that sentiment when the mother, and then father of Antwone speak their piece. Melissa Berry speaks first, tearfully accepting the box of tissue Huebner has with him. Quietly, and the microphone has to be turned to her, she begins to speak. At first, she talks about how confused she was, about how “senseless” this felt and how she doesn’t understand why this would happen. As she speaks, her voice gets stronger and the tears seem to stop and she ends, not by looking at the judge like she had been the entire time but by leaning forward on her elbows and turning her head. Looking at Grant she said, “I’ll never see my child again.” With that, the court thanked her, and she quietly walked back to her seat next to other members of her family.

The next to speak on the victim’s behalf was Edward Christian, Berry’s father. Seemingly emboldened by the display before and walking to his chair with a purpose, he sits down and launches into a request that the court sentence Grant to “the max, I want the max amount” in regards to his time in prison. “This was my Christmas day, my first vacation in 20 years when I got the call,” Christian said. He said he knows he’ll never get closure, but this is the closest he can get.

The details of the case are mostly circumstantial and rely heavily on the fact that Grant has been a suspect, first alleged to by Berry’s girlfriend and then the Milwaukee Police Department since the beginning of the investigation. Then, there was the testimony of a Mr. Robinson, whose house was the last place where Berry was seen alive. There, Grant, apparently already intoxicated, met Berry and had an argument which ended somehow with Berry in a ditch on the side of Fond du Lac Avenue near Menomonee River Parkway. Nobody knows what happened in the car ride there, or whether the argument was truly about money that Berry did not put on Grant’s books while Grant was in prison.

As the investigation continued, Grant screened several calls from a family member who ported Berry’s number to her cellphone but then did answer calls when she used her regular number to reach out. He is also alleged to have offered to sell Berry’s guns and other possessions to people. Huebner asks the court why a man still insisting on not knowing what happened would do those things.

When Grant’s defense attorney, Roth, began to talk, she acknowledged to what Grant has admitted to in his plea, and tried to clear up the confusion about him changing his statement in the PSI report after. She also explains that despite Grant’s record he is not necessarily a premeditated or violent man. “Grant has the tendency to make very reactionary decisions,” she said. “His offenses aren’t planned.”

When it was Grant’s turn to speak, there were mutters from Berry’s family but, still, they waited for closure. He looked around the courtroom and apologized to the family and friends who are still grieving. “I’m still grieving too,” Grant said, met with scoffs from the benches. “I know I have a history that looks real bad…I’m not proud of a lot of things in my life.” Grant continues to take acceptance for the things he’s done before saying this: “I did not kill Antwone Berry.”

Grant continues to stick to his word, given at the PSI that while he may be involved, he is not the one who killed Berry. “Even though I’m taking the plea I didn’t do it, but I understand,” Grant said as a man resigned to the judgment of the court. He’s never fought the charges, but, as Huebner had mentioned, his wavering degrees of involvement with the murder have made it hard for those looking for it to find closure. With that, he rests, apologizing one more time and thanking the court for letting him speak.

As Judge Wagner prepares to sentence Grant he reads from the PSI report. “You’re [Grant] your own worst enemy,” Wagner reads. “You [Grant] don’t have the capacity for compassion.” As he reads these, small noises of agreement come from the gathering of Berry’s family. Despite Grant’s apparent admissions of guilt or level of involvement, the court decided it was too little too late and sentenced him to 23 years to be served consecutive with any other time. As Grant is led out of the room in cuffs Melissa Berry is found to be being comforted by the rest of her family, quietly crying.