News / Crime

Death at motel costs culprit 6 years in prison
By STAFF REPORT, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 22, 2001

NORFOLK -- A Newport News man was sentenced Monday to six years in prison for his role in the slaying of a door-to-door salesman last year in Ocean View.

Yannick Marsala, 20, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and a related gun charge. His first trial ended with a hung jury, but Marsala agreed to a plea bargain with prosecutors Monday just before his second trial was to begin.

In January, his accomplice, Arthur Matthews Jr., 21, of the 200 block of Maple Ave. in Newport News, received 43 years for his guilty plea to murder and gun charges. Police said he was the trigger man in the slaying.

Their victim, John W. Skyles III, 31, was in town selling magazine subscriptions when he was shot to death on March 15, 2000, in a room at the Quality Inn on West Ocean View Avenue. Skyles, originally from Luther, Mich., worked for Palmetto Marketing in Coral Springs, Fla. He was here with a group of salesmen.

``Each day, we relive yesterday when the call came that our son was shot and killed,'' his parents, John and Brenda Skyles, wrote in a victim impact letter read Monday by Circuit Judge Marc Jacobson.

Matthews had said the shooting was an accident, but police said the killing involved a dispute over drugs.