Shunish Baggett was killed at home, while Richard Skelskey was attacked after accepting what appeared to be a routine Lyft request.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Members of two families stood before a Shelby County judge and described the toll of killings that brought together people whose lives had been separate until one violent afternoon in 2022.
After hearing their victim impact statements, Judge Carolyn Wade Blackett sentenced Joshua Gossett to 150 years in the Tennessee Department of Correction on July 1. A jury had convicted Gossett in April of two counts of first-degree murder and related firearm charges in the deaths of Shunish Baggett and Richard Skelskey. The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office did not publish the relatives’ statements, but their appearance placed the victims and the damage left behind at the center of the final trial-court hearing.
Baggett was killed in her Memphis home on Oct. 30, 2022. Prosecutors said Gossett reached the residence by requesting a Lyft ride. Authorities have not publicly stated why he went there, whether Baggett expected him or what relationship existed between them. A fundraiser created for Baggett’s family after her death said her daughter, who was 12 at the time, found her mother on the kitchen floor. The fundraiser initially referred to an unknown suspect, underscoring how little the family and public knew in the first days after the killing.
For Baggett’s daughter and other relatives, the case began not with a courtroom or a police evidence file but with a sudden loss inside the family home. Officials have released few details about Baggett’s life, age or connection to Gossett. That lack of public information does not reduce her place in the case: She was the first person killed in the sequence prosecutors later proved at trial, and her home became the location from which Gossett requested the ride that brought the second victim into his path.
Skelskey’s day had begun in a different setting. At 80, he had recently started driving for Lyft and Uber to earn extra money, according to his sister, Carol Soto. When a new request appeared, he accepted it and traveled to pick up the passenger. There was no public indication that Skelskey knew Baggett, knew Gossett or understood that police would soon treat the address as a homicide scene. He arrived because the app connected an available driver with a person seeking transportation.
Prosecutors said Gossett shot Skelskey in the head after getting into his vehicle, then stole the car and drove away. Early reports left Skelskey’s family searching for basic information. His sister said at the time that his vehicle and wallet were missing and that his phone was turned off. Before investigators had explained the relationship between the two deaths, relatives were left to understand why a man who had taken up rideshare work had not returned from what should have been an ordinary trip.
Skelskey’s family later remembered a life that reached far beyond the circumstances of his death. An obituary said Richard Joseph Skelskey had lived in Walls, Mississippi, for 14 years with his wife, Yanilda Francisco Skelskey. It described his marriage as one filled with happiness and love and said his remains would be returned to Bristol, Connecticut, where relatives planned to gather for burial. He was survived by five children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, three siblings and other extended family members.
Those details gave a fuller identity to a man often described in crime reports primarily by his age and occupation. He was a husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather and brother who had maintained roots in Connecticut while building a home in Mississippi. His new work as a rideshare driver was only one part of his life, but it became the circumstance that placed him near Baggett’s residence at a critical moment. Prosecutors said Gossett used the same service that had carried him to Baggett’s home to summon Skelskey after killing her.
Investigators eventually turned that sequence into a case supported by digital and physical evidence. The district attorney’s office said Gossett’s digital footprint, surveillance recordings, forensic analysis of electronic evidence and his statement to police established his identity and actions. Lyft records could help show when rides were ordered and who accepted them. Surveillance footage could help establish movement and timing. Prosecutors combined those sources rather than asking jurors to rely solely on the fact that Gossett had used a rideshare account.
The state presented 15 witnesses and 57 exhibits during the trial. Jurors viewed numerous surveillance videos and were presented with about six hours of Gossett’s recorded statement to police, according to the district attorney’s office. Chief Prosecutor Carrie Bush and Assistant District Attorney JD Hamblen prosecuted the case. The office did not release a complete transcript or explain the content of each video and exhibit, but it said the evidence produced guilty verdicts on every count.
The trial findings also resolved an important question from the earliest stage of the investigation: whether the deaths were connected. Baggett was found inside a residence, while Skelskey was attacked in connection with his vehicle and work. The victims were discovered under different conditions, and initial reports did not present the full sequence later described by prosecutors. Electronic records allowed investigators to trace the Lyft trip to Baggett’s home and the second ride request that brought Skelskey there.
Once Gossett was arrested, Soto said her family was relieved that he was in custody. Relief, however, was not the same as recovery. She described her brother’s death as an example of senseless gun violence, placing his killing within a broader concern while continuing to mourn him as an individual. Baggett’s family faced its own lasting consequences, including the experience of a child who, according to the fundraiser, discovered her mother after the shooting.
The sentencing hearing was the point at which those separate losses entered the same courtroom. Victim impact statements give relatives an opportunity to explain how a crime changed their lives, though they do not determine whether a defendant is guilty. Gossett’s guilt had already been decided by the April jury. Blackett heard from both families before imposing the 150-year prison term, a sentence that ensured the proceeding would end with a punishment measured across multiple generations.
The district attorney’s announcement did not provide the specific sentence assigned to each conviction or explain how the terms were combined. It also did not identify a motive for either killing. The relationship between Gossett and Baggett remains publicly unclear, as does the reason he targeted Skelskey rather than simply using the ride to leave. The evidence established what Gossett did, prosecutors said, even though the public record still does not answer every question about why the two victims were killed.
Nearly four years separated the deaths from the sentencing. During that period, the case moved from uncertain early reports to an arrest, forensic review, trial and convictions. For Baggett’s relatives, the legal result followed a loss that began inside her home. For Skelskey’s family, it followed a killing that interrupted a work shift and took away the center of a large family. Gossett is now serving the sentence imposed after both families addressed the court.
Author note: Last updated July 30, 2026.