Published: Jun 4, 2005 RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) - On concrete ramps under Burnside Bridge in Portland, Ore., Neil Heddings thrashed out his reputation on a skateboard: Raw, talented and more than a little unhinged.
Posted on 06/04/2005 9:48:36 AM PDT by TheOtherOne
Scowling Star of the Ramps Charged With Killing Son
Published: Jun 4, 2005 RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) - On concrete ramps under Burnside Bridge in Portland, Ore., Neil Heddings thrashed out his reputation on a skateboard: Raw, talented and more than a little unhinged.
Tattoos covered body parts not already gashed with "war wounds" from falls at the skate park he helped build, or from beer-fueled battles to fend off outsiders.
A scowling passion blended with a bit of business smarts launched a professional career that took him to Southern California. By November 2002, Heddings had nearly settled into the skate industry's version of a cushy desk job. His Rollmodel Skateboards had a team of riders; he was even able to pay them a little.
"Everything was really starting to come together," he said.
Then one Saturday morning, it all fell apart.
Heddings found his 2-year-old son Marcus dead in bed. The boy had been struck in the head about a dozen times in recent days and died from the injuries overnight, prosecutors said.
They charged Heddings and girlfriend Christine "Pinky" Rams with murder. One of the two hit the boy, according to authorities, and under California law, the one who didn't may also be held responsible for failing to stop the alleged abuse.
Proclaiming the pair's innocence, defense attorneys suggest the boy may have been beaten by someone else. His mother, Susie Moyer, who has struggled with methamphetamine addiction, had custody of him for several days about a week before his death, and then left him with friends before he returned to Heddings and Rams.
Or perhaps an undiagnosed medical condition was to blame: "His head was starting to get bigger," Heddings said.
Heddings, 30, has long cultivated a bad boy image. He bragged of skating naked and drunk. He named his youngest son Budweiser (he's now 2). Big-time events like the X Games weren't even considered - too commercial.
"He's just a hard-core skateboarder that lives that skate life," said pro skater Bob Burnquist, who first met Heddings in Portland in 1995 and also lives in Southern California.
Like others in the skating community, Burnquist worries the tattoos, earrings and devil-may-care image may have painted Heddings as an outlaw in the eyes of the police and courts.
"I think it went against him when it came to police," Burnquist said, "the perception from skating and traveling around, how could they raise a child like that?"
Minutes after Heddings called for an ambulance on that November morning, officers walked through the open front door into his four-bedroom home in the sleepy community of San Jacinto. His girlfriend, her hair bright pink at the time, was frantic. Wearing no shirt to cover tattoos that climb up to his neck, Heddings sat on a bed cradling his son in his arms, crying.
"I think they were shocked from the beginning by who they met," Heddings said in an interview from jail. "We look like crazy tattooed weirdoes, you know?"
But prosecutors scoff at any suggestion that Heddings and Rams were targeted because of their appearance or lifestyle. "It's ridiculous," Deputy District Attorney Kelly Hansen said. "I didn't even know what they looked like when the case was filed."
Hansen, who has prosecuted numerous shaken baby cases, also said he had heard claims of possible pre-existing health problems before.
"It's a disgusting argument, that there's a defective baby," he said.
Prosecutors appear to be prepared to allege that Rams hit Marcus. In a preliminary hearing, a detective testified that Rams had called the boy an "ugly (expletive)" and "retarded (expletive)." Heddings said in a message posted on the Internet that he turned down an offer from a Los Angeles lawyer who told him he had an "easy case" but wouldn't be able to help Rams.
"I am not in here alone. Me and Pinky need to walk together," he wrote.
The two were arrested and charged in March 2003, after a medical exam found the boy had been struck within just two or three days of his death; in that time, he was with his father and Rams, and no one else, according to investigators.
Taken into custody, the two were locked in a patrol car and secretly taped.
"I told you we should have (expletive) ran," Rams told Heddings, according to preliminary hearing testimony. She added that they had the money and time to do so; Heddings apologized and said "I know," a police detective testified.
"Don't turn on me," she later told her boyfriend.
"You don't turn on me, I won't turn on you," he replied.
In recent months, court-appointed attorneys for the couple have sought witnesses to testify that they didn't cause Marcus' injuries.
"The kid had a slow bleed in the brain. He returned from his biological mother's house four days earlier," said Deputy Public Defender Dario Bejarano, Rams' attorney. "When he came back, he had what for all intents and purposes are clear signs of a concussion: lethargic, crying a lot, he was vomiting."
Denying she hurt Marcus, Moyer told the San Diego Union-Tribune that he seemed ill while he was with her and, "I don't know why any of us didn't call the doctor."
Heddings also said Marcus slipped and accidentally hit his head when Rams was bathing him the night before his death. By bedtime, the jailed skater said, "He seemed OK, he wasn't crying or nothing. We walked him back to his room, he was all butt-naked and stuff."
Heddings and Rams are jailed in lieu of $500,000 bail, awaiting a much-delayed trial now scheduled to begin Aug. 8. But Heddings hasn't lost the backing of sponsors or fellow pro skaters. Benefits in Oregon and other efforts have raised $35,000 so far to defend him and Rams.
Heddings' mother, Shirley Bookey, said she has received donations - some as small as $2 - and e-mails of support from Honduras, Japan and other countries. She's selling skateboards reading "Free Neil Heddings" for $35 apiece.
"The skate community's pretty small, tight-knit," said Chris Reed, a developer for Nike who has donated shoes to be auctioned off for the cause. "People feel that it's a family. So when someone's in trouble, people want to help out."
Heddings had been in trouble before. When he was 21, he spent two months in a San Diego County jail on a felony assault conviction - "for hitting a kid over the head with a skateboard," Bookey said.
But he has also spent much of his life avoiding trouble, said Independent Truck Co. team manager Joey Tershay, who met Heddings when the skater was 13 and began sponsoring him three years later.
Heddings has helped a number of the guys with whom he used to kickflip and ollie - bailing them out of jail, linking some to real jobs, and helping others quit drugs.
"All his other friends became heroin addicts, speed freaks, and he was the only one that kept his head on straight," Tershay said. "I don't think he ever lost a sponsor.
"He works, he skates hard."
AP-ES-06-04-05 1233EDT
Daddy Dearest.
Can't understand this. This diabolic tattoo usually symbolizes wholesome family values.
Gee, ya think? Lock him and trashy wife and mother up and throw away the key.
Now we're probably going to get some postings from some of those guys who say, basically, gee, it's too bad about his kid but he's such a really, really neat skateboard guy, and he's suffered enough, they ought to just let him go because he's such a really, really neat skateboard guy.
Taken into custody, the two were locked in a patrol car and secretly taped.
"I told you we should have (expletive) ran," Rams told Heddings, according to preliminary hearing testimony. She added that they had the money and time to do so; Heddings apologized and said "I know," a police detective testified.
"Don't turn on me," she later told her boyfriend.
"You don't turn on me, I won't turn on you," he replied.
Souldn't he be featured in that skateboard movie, "Lords of Dogsh!t" before they arrest him?
That would be a DNC talking point memo tactic, forget the facts lets get "emotional" and make a case that way. Wasn't it Dan Rather that said something to the effect that forget that the memo is fake, the seriousness of the charge should be answered or some other verbal diarrhea like that?
"Don't turn on me," she later told her boyfriend.
"You don't turn on me, I won't turn on you," he replied.
And they're innocent of course!
LOL!
Just think of what they could hear if they put tapes in the room when they visit with their lawyers.
No defending this creep but it is hard to see the left getting worked up over this when they are for abortion and even support euthenasia for "troubled" children.
"Every child a wanted child." The problem has been solved.
Child abuse is a horror but 45 million babies have been murdered in America and the media calls it a "right".
Funny thing how skateboarding always gets dragged into the dirt every time someone who happens to be a skater gets in trouble. Mark Rogowski (murder), Christain Hosoi (drugs), now Heil Heddings. In each case the headline is always "Skateboarder charged with....".
Neil Heddings hasn't been tried yet, last I checked. As a skateboarder and someone familiar with Heddings over the years, I concur with most of my peers that if he's found guilty they should throw away the key. If those close to Neil continue to support him and believe in his innocence, they can knock themselves out.
I'm going skateboarding.
The skateboard guy on the surface represents all that is good about America. 150 years ago, he would have been the prototypical "John Wayne" cowboy. Anti-authority. His own man. That kind of thing. Cowboys of today just don't have the same outlets. SO they take to skateboarding, auto-racing, jet-fighter flying, and other such pursuits.
I doubt it. But you never know.
The left says things like this, and then they call US Nazis?
Always the mark of a quality citizen. ;)
How is Christian Hosoi doing? I read an article about him in Sports Illustrated about a year ago and was fascinated with him. I hope he came to his senses and started living life and using his talent the way God intended. The kid's family was messed up and it's hard to rise above that.
That said, these two and the "mother" need to see some jail time. Poor Marcus.
You must be using good in a way unfamiliar to me.
I was really into skating when Gator got charged. Heck, I even had one of his boards. It did not change my opinion of the sport but Gator lost my respect.
This guy, however, is trash. He may be talented trash but he is trash. Anybody who would name a child after a beer (the X-Games is to commercial but he names his kid after the most commercialized beer in the world?) and have a pentagram tatooed on his chest is a piece of crap at best. I am still fond of the sport, though.
So their lawyer says the child had a "slow bleed" in his brain, but the father says the child fell and hit his head the night before he died?
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