The Savage Murder of Skylar Neese: The Truth Behind the Headlines

by Berry, Daleen

  “Jim was so gracious with his money, so gracious,” Shelia’s longtime friend Crissy Swanson said. “He just gave and gave and gave and gave, and if Shelia wanted the best, she got the best.”

  Her new stepfather’s generous income added luxuries to the lives of both mother and daughter. Jim sent flowers to his new wife, Tara, every month on their anniversary date.5 And Shelia could wear the expensive labels she’d always coveted. Now she could get her hair styled, go to the mall for mani-pedis. Even so, Shelia was still not quite occupying the same upper echelon as the daughters of the local business moguls or the sons of prominent lawyers.

  Shelia had been popular at Clay-Battelle, but she had grown up with other students who came from the rural area. So they knew her well there. Not so at UHS, where she was an unknown. Shelia soon found her hometown popularity didn’t translate well with the much larger UHS student body. In fact, many students said Shelia appeared to be using her budding sexuality as a tool to become popular. As a result, she quickly gained a bad reputation and was not well liked. The only students who tended to speak well of her were a handful of boys who considered themselves modern-day hippies.

  One of these boys, a UHS student named Frankie6, had known Shelia since third grade. “She was just like the sweetest girl,” he said.

  Frankie said Shelia and he smoked weed, did coke, and took Roxicet—a form of oxycodone—many times.Frankie believed Shelia’s unpopular status had more to do with her arrest than people were willing to say. “She was cool. She was funny, and nice,” he said. “I’m probably the only one who would admit it.”

  Many students liked Shelia before Skylar disappeared, Frankie said. But later he believed they were afraid to say they’d ever liked her, because she’d been labeled a murderer.

  Whatever the truth about Shelia’s popularity, there was no doubt that once she arrived at UHS, she and Skylar became inseparable. Soon, nothing was the same.

  ***

  Long before Shelia came on the scene, Morgan Lawrence and Skylar were best friends. The two blonde toddlers first met briefly at preschool and then reunited as kindergarteners at Cheat Lake Elementary. The first day of school the two towheads passed each other in the hall, made eye contact, and sensed they knew each other from somewhere.

  “We just never stopped being friends after that,” Morgan said.

  Unlike Skylar or Shelia, Morgan did come from that upper social echelon: she was the daughter of a physician, the chief of the Monongalia General Hospital Emergency Department. But for all their advantages, the Lawrences were about as down to earth as anyone else in that small community. They took the bus to ball games, drank beer with other rowdy fans, and taught Morgan that when it comes to having friends, money means nothing. Appreciation means everything. “You can have anything you want—until you stop appreciating it,” David Lawrence would tell his daughter. One day he stood by his word, confiscating all of Morgan’s toys when she was behaving badly.

  Money had another outcome, too. Unlike Skylar’s parents, who both worked full-time, Morgan’s mother, Cheryl, was usually available to pick up the kids after school. All through kindergarten, she brought Skylar home with Morgan until Mary got off work.

  It’s no secret that the Lawrences considered many of Morgan’s friends their “second daughters,” including Skylar. Mary recalled the time she worked in the Mon General ER, years before. “David [Lawrence] came to me one night and he said, ‘I need to show you my latest picture of my daughter,’” Mary said. “Then he pulled out his cell phone and pulled up a picture and there’s Skylar.”

  The Lawrences and the Neeses shared the same family values, and Morgan’s parents even viewed Skylar as a good influence. As a result, they invited Skylar with them everywhere: she went on their beach vacations, to Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games, to family weddings, and even to one of Morgan’s dance auditions.

  Morgan believed she and Skylar would be best friends forever. She knew that in fifth grade, when they were in honors science class. A poll they read about predicted that by age eighteen, only five percent of people would still have contact with their first friend. “We were like, ‘Boo! Boo! That’s not going to be us. We’re lab partners, and we have classes together,’” Morgan said. “I remember looking back and being, like, ‘Suck it, world, ’cause that’s not us! We’re still in contact.’”

  Which was why Morgan wasn’t concerned when she first heard Skylar was missing. She thought Skylar was just mad at “Miss Mary.” Morgan knew Skylar would be back as soon as she cooled off.

  When Skylar was still gone a week later, Morgan’s thoughts turned dark.

  “She’s not coming back,” Morgan told her own mother.

  ***

  Looking back, the Lawrences all agree: eighth grade was the turning point in Skylar’s life. They realized this when Cheryl took Morgan, Skylar, Daniel, and Shelia to a haunted amusement park, Fright Farm, before Halloween. It was the first—and only—time that Morgan and Shelia socialized together.

  Morgan recalled that Skylar seemed to change right before high school: “Skylar as a seventh grader, I don’t think I ever could have seen her doing the things she did as a sophomore. She was always very goody, very innocent in everything. Then we got to freshman year, and Shelia showed up and things started changing.”

  At that point Morgan advised her friend against hanging out with this new crowd of kids, but Skylar wouldn’t be dissuaded.

  “That crowd” was composed of girls who were experimenting with drugs, who were sexually active, and who ran around with older boys—even college-age ones. Boys Morgan didn’t know—and didn’t want to know.

  And ever so slowly, Morgan’s relationship with Skylar slipped through her fingers. Even though the three girls—Morgan, Skylar, and Shelia—had freshman history together, Skylar was pulling away from Morgan. And vice versa.

  “More and more, every time you had to pick a partner, it was them. Every time you had a conversation, it was just them,” Morgan recalled.

  ***

  Skylar wasn’t just leaving longtime friends like Morgan Lawrence behind. As with most teenagers, Skylar had begun drawing away from her parents. She still loved Dave and Mary and spoke highly of them—even to her peers. However, independence was coming too quickly and Skylar was forging ahead in her own world.

  When Skylar’s relationship with Shelia intensified, the entire social foundation that Skylar had built over the years began to shift. Many of Skylar’s other friends drew away because of how they felt about the new girl. They preferred not to be around her. A few even described Shelia as “bad news” long before the murder.

  Skylar may or may not have been consciously aware that her friends were uneasy about Shelia, but it probably wouldn’t have mattered either way. When Skylar wanted something, she couldn’t be denied, and her obsession with Shelia was tenacious. By nature, Skylar was caring and responsible, but right then, more than anything, she wanted to have fun, and Shelia was fun. Shelia was cool.

  Even Officer Colebank agreed. “Shelia carries herself well in front of other people. She’s pretty. She has pretty hair.” In short, Shelia’s looks perfectly fit the standard for teenage beauty. Colebank believes Skylar compared herself to Shelia and wanted to do all the things Shelia could do and get away with.

  Skylar also met people through Shelia—Crissy Swanson, Shania Ammons, Eric Finch, Chris Boggs, Dylan Conaway, and even Rachel Shoaf—people she might never have met on her own. During her freshman year, while hanging out with this edgier crowd and experiencing the world in a new, adventurous way, Skylar began habitually sneaking out of the house at night.

  As teenage mischief goes, Skylar’s was fairly benign at first. She mostly snuck out on weekends during the school year and typically just rode around with her friends. They smoked pot sometimes, but that doesn’t seem to be the primary reason Skylar snuck out. Skylar left mostly to socialize. At night, in the dark and in secret, Skylar was becoming her own person.

&nb
sp; ***

  Mary believes Skylar’s problems began when Shelia moved to town: “They were always together at school, always together [after school]. That is when Skylar seemed to start getting in trouble. Her attitude changed. She was nastier, more argumentative.”

  One huge regret for both Mary and Dave is that they didn’t pay more attention to the changes in Skylar’s behavior. Even more, they regret that they didn’t realize where those changes were coming from—since they now know Skylar’s behavior was tied to her friendship with both girls. Shelia, especially, seemed to be a bad influence.

  Like the time Mary and Skylar got into a screaming fight while Skylar was on the phone with Shelia. Skylar was using language her parents rarely heard from her, as she accused them of trying to control her. Looking back, Mary realized Skylar was talking like she was a clone of Shelia. She was calling Mary disrespectful names, just like the ones Shelia called her mother.

  In hindsight, Mary now believes Skylar was simply putting on a performance for Shelia’s benefit, to gain her friend’s approval. Skylar wanted Shelia to see that she was cool.

  Mary wishes with all her heart that she had simply understood what was really going on back then.

  Chapter 17

  Roll Call

  Everyone had a message for Skylar. People from around the world posted greetings and other words of comfort on the TeamSkylar<3 page the week before school resumed. Above all, they wrote that they hoped the pretty teen was safe. They hoped she could read their messages to her. And they prayed Skylar would return home, so she could start school with the classmates who missed her.

  Shania Ammons’s poignant message told Skylar that no problem was too big to prevent her friend’s return: come home babe. that’s all we ask. our junior year starts this week and you need to be here…. whatever is bothering you we can work through it…. <3

  Longtime friend and fellow Wendy’s employee Hayden McClead added a moving message: Skylar, it’s been wayyy to long since we last talked. schools starting in 4 days and I don’t know what I’ll do without you there. I miss having you there when I need advice on something…. I hate going everyday and you not being there….

  Even Shelia’s mother, Tara, had a message: Hello Skylar. I hope that you are reading this post. You need to come home. Shelia is really missing you…. Your friends need you to be in school Thursday morning. I love you and hope that you come home soon.

  While words of love and encouragement were pouring in, fissures were forming in TeamSkylar<3. Among the more than 3,000 members, sniping and insinuations were becoming the norm. To make matters worse, the Hunts took away Mary and Dave’s administrative rights. While Mary and Dave wanted to control the sniping by denying access to “haters,” the mother-son administrative team refused to monitor what people said in their posts. Censorship was not part of the group’s plan. Jennifer Hunt claimed the decision to remove Mary and Dave as administrators was made for “legal reasons” that no one else understood. As a result, TeamSkylar<3 was rapidly becoming a place to bicker. More and more, it was attracting mean-spirited people.

  Mary and Dave could only watch in growing pain and horror as one person after another made accusations that weren’t true. They both had seen suggestions that they had caused Skylar to run away, that Dave was abusing Skylar, even that Dave had gotten Skylar pregnant. Wild speculation was rampant. The site that began as a tool to help find Skylar slowly turned into one that accused her own parents of being responsible for her disappearance. Dave and Mary finally turned off their computer in heartbroken disgust.

  Stressed and alone in their Star City apartment, Skylar’s parents couldn’t even look at each other, much less speak. They were afraid the poison spilling over onto the public TeamSkylar<3 page would somehow find its way into their home. They vowed not to let that happen. When Skylar walked through their apartment door, they didn’t want her to see them snapping and screaming at each other.

  One day, after having a cigarette on the back deck, Mary went to their bedroom and wept. Dave dialed up the volume on the remote until the TV was so loud he couldn’t hear his own thoughts. Hours later, with a little help from the sleeping pills their doctor had prescribed, Mary and Dave finally found a bit of respite. Exhausted by the worry, they slept for hours.

  The next day Mary and Dave took control of the situation: they started their own Facebook group. Weariness with the growing discord had been overtaking members of TeamSkylar<3 for a while. Skylar’s parents weren’t the only ones who were fed up. Another member took the step of deleting herself—but not before trying to reach out to the rest of the group. She asked, in part, that all family members and friends of the family and the good people who are trying to help us find [Skylar] … please leave this group and come to the teamskylar 2012 group this group has denied administration rights to the parents of skylar…. We don’t think this is right.

  With that, the fracture was complete. TEAMSKYLAR 2012, a closed group, was up and running. Now there were two main Facebook groups—amongst a dozen smaller groups or tribute pages—and the two groups were at war.

  Meanwhile, Skylar’s absence didn’t keep school from resuming. Many of her good friends thought she might actually show up for the first day back. But on August 16, 2012, Skylar was no less gone than she had been on July 6, when Dave Neese found his daughter’s bedroom empty.

  ***

  On that first day of what should have been Skylar’s junior year, everyone who knew her almost expected to see the famous trio stationed in their usual place at one of the four pillars in the UHS cafeteria. Logic told them Skylar had been gone since July, but something in their brains anticipated seeing her there, still hanging out with her two best friends.

  “It was always Skylar, Shelia, and Rachel,” a student recalled.

  But not that day. As other students filed in, Shelia and Rachel stood by themselves. Keeping their heads close together, they talked only to each other. They kept their voices as hushed as possible in the din of arriving students. Seeing the two together only made Skylar’s absence more pronounced, and it was jarring for many teens who passed by them.

  By this time everyone knew about Skylar’s disappearance. The students knew about Shelia and Rachel’s involvement, too—or thought they did. They had seen the various rumors texted, tweeted, and posted all over each other’s cell phones and social media sites. They had heard the gossip as it spread through town—at coffee shops, fast-food restaurants, and all the other places where teens hang out. Of course, few students then thought Shelia and Rachel were responsible for Skylar’s disappearance.

  At least one person was sure of it: Daniel Hovatter. He knew Skylar wouldn’t be at school when she wasn’t on the bus that morning. He had even worn his brand-new grey and orange pullover with a pair of black-and-white plaid shorts and Nike sandals just to hear her tease him. The two shared a trust that allowed them to banter with each other, and both teens enjoyed it.

  As they continued along the familiar route, Daniel and another friend talked about how strange it was to have someone from their school missing. It was all they talked about the entire bus ride. For Daniel, riding bus 257 would never seem the same again. Not without Skylar sharing the seat beside him every day.

  Like most students, Daniel entered the building through the back door of the school cafeteria. He greeted Mr. Kyer, the drama teacher, on his way in. Then Daniel stood with the rest of the student body, corralled there until the main doors opened. He texted on his cell phone, waiting for the buzzer to sound that would signal the start of the new school year.

  Assistant Principal Pete Cheesebrough waited near the back entrance, greeting students. That was one of his jobs at UHS, as he was arguably the primary student liaison at UHS, the “face” of the administration. The vice principal tried to enjoy his job as much as possible; his reward was the number of students who liked him. Cheesbrough knew most of them by name, like Jordan Carter. As she entered he said her name singsong fashion, clapping o
nce with each syllable: “Jor-dan Car-ter.”

  Jordan had been worried about Skylar since Jordan’s mom first texted her, saying a girl from UHS was missing. Jordan’s mom was a big fan of Facebook and had seen the news there.

  Omg! Jordan texted back that day. That’s Skylar, my friend from Kaleidoscope! She recalled the summer program where she and Skylar had met years before. Skylar had been the only girl who would get ice cream with her. Because Jordan was two years older than Skylar, their only other interaction was brief, during middle school band. Skylar had played flute, Jordan the cymbals.

  However, Jordan dated one of Mikinzy Boggs’s bandmates. She knew Mikinzy and Rachel were an item, so she was eager to see her school friends. She hoped they’d be able to tell her they had good news about Skylar.

  More than anything else that first day of school, Jordan just wanted her childhood buddy to show. So did Daniel, which is why he kept watching the pillar where Rachel’s red head was bent close to Shelia’s blonde one. By the time the bell rang and students scurried off to class, Skylar still hadn’t turned up.

  Daniel was afraid she never would.

  ***

  What happened next characterized the large gulf that existed between teens and adults. Many students knew about Skylar’s disappearance and followed the unfolding events online. Yet many teachers did not. In at least three classes that day—chemistry, algebra, and AP English—teachers called Skylar’s name during roll call. The silence afterward was deafening in one class.

  “Skylar?” said Mr. Fisher. “Skylar Neese?”

  The deep voice of a male student spoke up. “Uh, she’s not here.”

  “Our first absence, then,” the teacher said, bending down to make a mark next to Skylar’s name.

  “No, she’s missing,” a small female voice said.

  Mr. Fisher glanced up—and saw that every student was looking at him. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.” In his peripheral vision, the teacher saw more than one girl wipe a tear from her cheek.