By Neena Strichart
Most folks look forward to the three-day weekend associated with Labor Day. I, however, do not. “Why?” you may ask. Well, you see, 20 years ago this past Wednesday my best friend Charlene Hopkins-Babcock and her husband Joe were murdered in Arizona, and I subsequently spent my 1994 Labor Day weekend with their families scattering the ashes of our loved ones in the desert.
Charlene and I were best buddies since second grade at Signal Hill Elementary School. Living just around the corner from one another made it easy for us to spend time together after school, on weekends and on school breaks. We were pretty much inseparable until junior high, when she went off to school to Long Beach’s St. Anthony School and I to Jefferson Junior High and then to Wilson High School.
We stayed close in our adult years even when she moved to Arizona to, in her words “get away from all the people and the crime.” Unfortunately, we didn’t have Internet or Facebook in those days but visited each other often and spent time on the phone sharing stories as often as we could.
The morning after the murders, August 28, 1994, I received a call from Charlene’s brother Alvin telling me of the horrible tragedy surrounding her death and the death of her husband. According to Alvin, two men named Allen Nicklasson and Dennis Skillicorn got their car (a stolen vehicle) stuck in a ditch and walked to the Babcocks’ home to ask for help. Joe went with them and tried to pull the car out of the ditch, and when he couldn’t, they executed him. The killers then went back to the Babcock home and murdered my friend Charlene. The men then stole the Babcocks’ truck and took off down the highway. The killers had also murdered several other innocent people on a cross-country rampage before and after they took the lives of my friends. Thanks to the television show America’s Most Wanted, the murderers were eventually apprehended and convicted.
With the 20th anniversary of this tragedy so vividly on my mind, I recently decided to check the Internet to see the status of the killers. I guess I was afraid that, after 20 years, they could be paroled. (Trying to put the whole thing behind me as much as possible, I had not followed the case after the men were convicted). Much to my surprise, last week I discovered that Skillicorn had, in 2009, been put to death in Missouri as part of a death-penalty conviction for a murder he committed in Missouri before the Babcock killings. Nicklasson, who was convicted of all the above as well, was executed in Missouri in December of 2013.
When I read the news of the killers’ deaths, I didn’t know what to feel. I didn’t feel happy, sad, angry, elated or any of the other usual emotions one might expect. In fact, I didn’t know how to categorize my feelings at the time. I do know that I was relieved that these two dastardly individuals, now deceased, will never again hurt another human being or break the hearts of those who were left behind to grieve.
My darling, sweet Charlene was the kindest soul I’ve ever known. She was an angel on Earth and is celebrating this week, her 20 years as a true angel with wings.
