> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lookoutnews.org/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# A Lifetime on the Margins, and a Manslaughter Case Full of Questions
- URL: https://www.lookoutnews.org/phoenix-police-department-arizona-case-against-connor-schuyler/
- Published: 2026-09-21T19:24:17.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-21T20:27:01.000Z
- Description: Connor Schuyler fled anti-LGBTQ+ abuse as a child and survived homelessness, addiction and prison. After rebuilding his life, he was jailed following a fatal crash that one defense expert says police failed to fully investigate.
- Author: Joseph Darius Jaafari (he/him)
- Tags: SAFETY, #donate_box_1, #TipShare

Every few minutes, an automated recording interrupts the crackling phone line: “This call is originating from the Maricopa County Towers Jail.”

On the other end of the line is 34-year-old Connor Schuyler, who speaks with stark clarity about surviving on wretched jail meals, living without funds on his commissary account and spending whatever money he can gather on phone cards to tell his story.

It’s a costly endeavor, complicated by frequent lockdowns, revoked privileges and the difficulty of finding enough time to make a call. In a moment of grim humor, Schuyler casually joked that the county jail’s rules around phone calls were “more confusing than my sexuality.”

Schuyler has been held in jail for two years following a grand jury indictment charging him with Class 2 felony reckless manslaughter and Class 6 felony endangerment. Both counts are designated as dangerous offenses, meaning a conviction could carry significant prison time under Arizona’s sentencing laws, particularly given Schuyler’s prior felony record.

[![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4c/0d/4c0d7266-d8e0-4201-8dfb-f7b14779cdc4/content/images/2025/02/MEMBER-AD--1000-x-143-px-.png)](https://lookoutphx.ac-page.com/membership?ref=lookoutnews.org)

The charges stem from a Sept. 20, 2023, head-on collision in Phoenix that killed 78-year-old Shokriya Raies. Schuyler maintains that the crash was caused by an instinctive evasive swerve to avoid an unidentified vehicle that entered his path. Prosecutors allege that his speed and driving constituted reckless conduct. But legal experts say that the crash shouldn’t be treated as anything but an accident, and cite the prosecutor leaving evidence out of the grand jury, including how the victim wasn’t wearing a seatbelt that researchers said would have saved her life. Instead, friends of Schuyler said that the county is using his felonious past as a reason to go after him. 

Schuyler carries a long trail of criminal history that dates back to when he was 12 years old and ran away as a queer youth because of what he described as relentless homophobic abuse from his family. Much of his survival in the years after came through drug dealing and fraud. 

Now, despite spending years out of legal trouble and rebuilding his life after prison, that history has followed him, and illustrates how early anti-LGBTQ+ marginalization, severe trauma and a lack of support can shape a person’s path through the criminal justice system.

## **Surviving on 5.5 grams of heroin a day**

Schuyler grew up in East Phoenix near 28th and Van Buren streets, an area that at the time was marked by poverty, street violence and proximity to the Duppa Villa housing projects. He was raised by a single mother and said he never knew his biological father.

By age 9, Schuyler said local street networks had coerced him into selling crack cocaine. He said he routed the money through an older peer to help his mother pay rent without her knowledge.

During the same period, Schuyler said he suffered severe physical and sexual abuse from his mother’s husband. Seeking relief, an older peer introduced him to heroin: “I say this with a lot of love for her ... she knew that heroin took away pain,” Schuyler recalled during a call from jail.

The primary anchor of Schuyler’s life — his mother — was severed on March 5, 2005.

At 12 years old, Schuyler said he was alone in their apartment holding his mother as she suffered a fatal asthma attack on the couch. He said the trauma triggered an extreme escalation in his drug use, eventually driving his daily heroin consumption to 5.5 grams a day, he estimated. (For those with no tolerance, as little as 0.3 grams can kill someone through overdose.)

After his mother’s death, Schuyler moved to Florida to live with his grandparents, where he faced immediate hostility over his sexual orientation. His mother had always taught him to be proud of who he was, he said, so he refused to hide his identity.

Shortly after arriving, Schuyler bonded with a boy down the street who essentially became his boyfriend. In response, Schuyler said his grandfather subjected him to daily homophobic slurs.

Weeks later, Schuyler said he discovered his grandmother had spent his deceased mother’s entire life insurance payout on other adult relatives, leaving him and his brother without the financial support he believed should have been available to them.

“I gave them a few choice words and packed my shit and I left and I never looked back,” Schuyler said. 

For the next year, Schuyler survived as a homeless queer youth, hopping freight trains across the East Coast.

To support himself without selling drugs on street corners, Schuyler said an acquaintance taught him at 13 how to produce fraudulent checks and fake IDs.

When he eventually returned to Arizona to seek closure at the apartment where his mother died, he moved in with a friend’s mother who also struggled with addiction, plunging him back into heavy heroin use.

# Want to Share Insider Information? 

## Help keep power accountable. 

LOOKOUT relies on tips from readers to get our news out. Click on the button below to submit a secure email to our team. Any information you send will be kept confidential in accordance with our ethics guidelines. 

[Email a Tip ](mailto:editor@lookoutnews.org) 

Schuyler cycled through juvenile placements, including Canyon State Academy in Queen Creek and group homes, as well as a months-long hospitalization for a severe drug-related infection.

At 17, a temporary window of stability opened when Schuyler was adopted out of the foster care system. He earned his GED and enrolled in college courses. But when a personal relationship ended, his feelings of deep-seated abandonment issues resurfaced.

“Me and my ex broke up and that threw me back into the drugs,” Schuyler said.

Lacking a safety net, Schuyler dropped out of college and returned to check fraud and shoplifting to sustain his addiction. Over the next decade, his life became a succession of arrests, drug possession charges, identity theft convictions, probation revocations and state prison sentences.

Each attempt at community reentry, he said, eventually collapsed back into the familiar mechanics of street survival.

## **“He was doing phenomenal for himself.”**

Following his release from state prison in 2023, Schuyler said he began rebuilding his life.

He was working, sometimes holding two jobs, and bought his first vehicle in his own name, said Laura Youngblood, 39, Schuyler’s best friend since he was 15\. She witnessed the turnaround firsthand.

“He was doing so well when he got out of prison,” Youngblood said. “He was doing phenomenal for himself.”

Youngblood said Schuyler had also become an important male figure and source of stability for her own children after a divorce. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4c/0d/4c0d7266-d8e0-4201-8dfb-f7b14779cdc4/content/images/2026/09/IMG_0227.JPG)

Connor Schuyler (right) with Laura Youngblood (left). After Schuyler was released from his most recent time prison, the two were inseparable, with him even taking on a father-like figure for Youngblood's children. (Photo courtesy of Laura Youngblood)

But Schuyler’s progress imploded on Sept. 20, 2023.

[At approximately 5:19 p.m.](https://www.azfamily.com/2023/09/21/woman-dies-2-hurt-after-head-on-crash-north-phoenix/?ref=lookoutnews.org), Schuyler was driving a black 2019 Chevrolet Equinox northbound on North 35th Avenue approaching West Tierra Buena Lane when his vehicle crossed the center line into oncoming traffic and collided head-on with a southbound Honda Accord driven by Silvia Raies.

The front passenger, 78-year-old Raies, sustained fatal chest trauma and was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at Deer Valley Hospital.

Youngblood lived about a block from the intersection. She said Schuyler called her shortly after the crash, and she arrived at the scene immediately.

What she witnessed, she said, was her severely injured friend focused on helping the people in the other vehicle: “When that accident happened, the first thing Connor is trying to do is get this woman out of the car,” she said. “He’s trying to help. He’s completely, like, distraught. He’s bleeding everywhere. He doesn’t care about anything but helping the people that were in the other car.”

Later that night at Deer Valley Hospital, Youngblood said Schuyler called officers to ask about the condition of the elderly passenger.

“They had told him that she didn’t make it,” Youngblood said. “And I can honestly tell you, I’ve never seen a man break down the way that he did. I mean, he literally collapsed to the floor.”

[Lawsuit Prompts Safety Changes At Colorado LGBTQ+ BarsA federal appeals court says Club Q shooting victims can’t sue the bar’s owner over its security. Across Colorado, queer bar owners are left to figure out how much protection is enough.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4c/0d/4c0d7266-d8e0-4201-8dfb-f7b14779cdc4/content/images/icon/lookout-favicon@4x-85fc3ab2-a354-4f34-8383-829a94cb0dd7.png)LOOKOUTAlec Berg (he/him)![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4c/0d/4c0d7266-d8e0-4201-8dfb-f7b14779cdc4/content/images/thumbnail/JAAFARI_SAFETY--2--af20f0c9-c0e0-491b-8018-69d3d5acba2a.png)](https://www.lookoutnews.org/club-q-lawsuit-recent-ruling-and-owner-liability/)

For Schuyler, the tragedy could have triggered the same cycle of drug use and instability that had followed previous emotional crises.

Instead, Youngblood said, he remained sober.

“Connor sat there and he faced his emotions,” she said. “He wanted to go and put up the little flowers and the candles where it happened. Connor didn’t care about what happened to him. It was just what happened to them.”

## **A flawed investigation**

A drug recognition expert evaluated Schuyler at the crash scene and found no signs of impairment.

In a detailed audio interview with Phoenix police, Schuyler said he was preparing to make a left turn when an unidentified vehicle unexpectedly entered the two-way left-turn lane near his front-right bumper. He said he swerved left into oncoming traffic to avoid a direct collision.

The surviving driver, Silvia Raies, similarly told police at the hospital that “a black truck came out of nowhere and hit the side of her vehicle.”

But Vehicular Crimes Unit Detective Joseph Mayfield reached a different conclusion after reviewing Event Data Recorder information, commonly referred to as a vehicle’s “black box.”

Mayfield wrote that the data showed Schuyler was traveling 69 mph in a 40 mph zone two seconds before impact. He concluded Schuyler “could not have made a left turn at the intersection based on those speeds” and that the speed was “not consistent with an operator preparing to make a left turn.”

Mayfield also wrote that investigators found no video evidence confirming the presence of a third vehicle.

Months after the crash, Schuyler was arrested for a probation check-in violation. As he prepared for release, prosecutors added the felony manslaughter and endangerment charges. 

The Phoenix police report documenting the crash also includes Schuyler’s previous felony convictions alongside the officer’s request that he be charged with manslaughter and endangerment.

A Maricopa County grand jury later indicted Schuyler on Class 2 felony reckless manslaughter and Class 6 felony endangerment. The indictment designates both counts as dangerous offenses.

If convicted, those designations and Schuyler’s qualifying prior felony record could significantly affect the prison sentence he faces.

But defense experts who reviewed the case have questioned the investigation and the conclusions drawn from the vehicle data.

Kevin Stonebarger, a retired California police officer and subject matter expert in police policies and procedures who reviewed Schuyler’s case pro bono, said investigators failed to conduct basic steps he would expect in a serious crash investigation.

“This is simply a traffic accident,” Stonebarger said. “It didn’t appear to me that they did much investigating at all. The reaction and what the police did was absolutely abysmal. ... And that hurts my feelings to say that, as a former cop.”

Stonebarger said he personally visited the crash scene and identified several potential sources of surveillance footage that he said police did not obtain.

“I found five or six surveillance cameras that point right at the intersection that had never been downloaded, had never been located,” he said. “The traffic accident occurred in front of two large businesses, both with giant windows facing the intersection, and not a single person from either one of those businesses was ever interviewed.”

Instead, Stonebarger said, investigators relied heavily on electronic data extracted from the vehicle’s Airbag Control Module.

“What it sounds like to me is that law enforcement basically guessed,” Stonebarger said. 

The defense’s forensic analysis also challenges aspects of the prosecution’s interpretation of the crash.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4c/0d/4c0d7266-d8e0-4201-8dfb-f7b14779cdc4/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-21-at-10.21.58---AM.png)

A photo taken by Phoenix Police inside the car that Silvia Raies was driving. (Photo from Phoenix Police)

Police cited the vehicle’s recorded throttle position shortly before impact as evidence that Schuyler was accelerating rather than preparing to turn. Independent defense reconstructionists, however, said heavily pressing on the gas pedal can occur as part of a human response during a sudden evasive maneuver.

Schuyler had told police from the beginning that an unidentified vehicle entered his path and forced him to swerve.

A separate analysis by a biomechanical engineer concluded that Raies was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of impact. The analysis attributed her death to Raies’ unrestrained body being thrown into the center dashboard and concluded that it was “extremely unlikely that a properly restrained Ms. Raies would have sustained her fatal chest trauma.”

The defense has argued that the report is significant to understanding the circumstances of Raies’ death. But a judge ruled that it could not be admitted into the trial proceedings. 

“If I were looking at this and I saw that somebody wasn’t wearing a seat belt, would I have recommended charges? No, not in this instance,” Stonebarger said. “This is a traffic accident. It is a tragedy, but it’s not a crime.”

Stonebarger also questioned whether Schuyler’s criminal history influenced the decision to prosecute him.

“It sounds to me more like the prosecutor saw that he had this criminal history and decided to use that and hammer on him,” he said.

## **The legal ramifications of queer survival**

Schuyler’s experience also fits into a broader pattern documented by researchers studying LGBTQ+ incarceration.

[A 2021 analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative found that LGBTQ+ adults](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2024/06/04/lgbt%5Fincarceration/?ref=lookoutnews.org) were more than twice as likely to be incarcerated as non-LGBTQ+ adults. The analysis found even higher rates among transgender and lesbian populations, who [researchers found often rely on illegal sex work](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5227944/?ref=lookoutnews.org) or drug dealing due to employment and hiring discrimination.

The organization also reported that [LGBTQ+ youth made up a disproportionate share of young people](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2019/01/22/lgbtq%5Fyouth/?ref=lookoutnews.org) in juvenile detention.

Research into LGBTQ+ incarceration and reentry [has identified homelessness, employment discrimination, substance use and a lack of supportive services](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/incarcerated-lgbtq-americans-find-little-to-no-support-system-upon-release?ref=lookoutnews.org) as factors that can contribute to contact with the criminal justice system.

For Schuyler, those forces were intertwined from childhood: Family rejection pushed him onto the streets while homelessness exposed him to drugs and criminal networks. Addiction repeatedly undermined attempts to establish stability. And his criminal record now forms part of the backdrop to a prosecution stemming from a fatal crash.

Yet even while speaking over a crackling jail line with time running out, Schuyler refuses to wrap his life in self-pity.

“I don’t like people feeling sorry for me. Please don’t,” Schuyler said before the automated system signaled the end of the call. “It is not a good story. It’s not a great story, but it is my story. It made me who I am. It is what it is. Don’t feel sorry for me, please. I hate that shit.”

## Before you go... 

At **LOOKOUT**, we believe in the power of community-supported journalism. You're at the heart of that community, and your support helps us deliver the news and information the LGBTQ+ community needs to thrive. 

### Two ways to support LOOKOUT: 

[Become a Member  Get exclusive benefits. ](https://www.lookoutnews.org/?form=donate) [Make a Donation  Make an immediate impact. ](https://www.lookoutnews.org/?form=one-time)