From snowbird to jailbird

SEMINOLE - A 74-year-old woman is in custody in the Pinellas County Jail on charges that accuse her of killing her granddaughter's estranged husband nearly a year ago in central Illinois.

Deputies arrested Shirley Skinner in Clearwater on Monday on a warrant accusing her in the death of 32-year-old Steven Watkins in Cass County, west of Springfield.

Investigators there allege that Skinner shot Watkins in the back of the head when he went to pick up his daughter at an Ashland house.

Investigators say Skinner, the granddaughter and Skinner's great-granddaughter were living in a mobile home in Seminole.

The home looks like thousands of others in Pinellas County -- it is well kept with plastic lawn chairs, real flowers and a Cadillac with out-of-state tags in the driveway.

"They're such wonderful people, absolutely wonderful people," says Eleanor Gray, president of the mobile home park's corporation.

So the arrest of 74-year old Shirley Skinner for first degree murder is "...just out of character, it just can't be."

But Illinois authorities say last November, in her living room in Ashland, Illinois, Skinner shot 32-year old Steven Watkins in the back of the head. He was the estranged husband of her granddaughter and it was the day before a custody hearing over the embattled couple's child.

Pinellas sheriffs deputies helped take Skinner into custody late Monday afternoon.

In a first court appearance Tuesday afternoon, Skinner waived her right to extradition proceedings.

Her Illinois attorney arrived minutes before the short hearing.

"The investigation has been going on since the incident occurred in November of 2008," said attorney Dan Fultz. "So we knew at some point, someone was likely to be arrested. We did not know who they would arrest and did not know what the reason was for the delay in the investigation."

A special prosecutor in Springfield, Illinois provided no additional information. Fultz says Skinner will be returned to her home state Wednesday.