Gaskins found what he was looking for. “Here’s her picture.” He watched Berry study the picture. “Maybe Darek was burying a body.”
Awareness grew on Berry’s face. “You think they had to shut her up?”
“I talked to Colebank over at Star City. She’s been going at it pretty hard. She’s got nothing. Now get this—Spurlock’s working that case, too.”
Berry cocked his head. “Really?”
Bank robbery is a federal crime, so naturally Spurlock had been working the robberies. Berry wasn’t surprised to learn about the FBI’s interest in Skylar. He knew that, officially, the FBI didn’t investigate missing juveniles unless they had evidence of a sexual assault or kidnapping. But he also knew the FBI believed Skylar’s disappearance might be connected to the disappearance of Aliayah Lunsford a year before Skylar vanished. Or maybe Spurlock was thinking the same thing as Gaskins.
“Are you thinking this girl’s in on the robberies?” Berry asked.
“No idea. Maybe Skylar helped, but she’s tied in somehow.” Gaskin’s mouth tightened into a line. “You want to ride over and have a talk with Skylar’s parents?”
The two troopers arrived at the Neeses’ address a little before 10:00 a.m. The vinyl-sided, two-story apartment building had a small parking lot that wrapped around three sides. The Neeses weren’t home.
“Guess it’s gonna be Blacksville after all,” Berry said as they headed back toward their cruiser.
When Mary pulled into the apartment parking lot after dropping Dave off before his shift, the first thing she saw was the patrol car. Then she saw the two troopers. Her heart clenched. All of a sudden, Mary could barely breathe. She knew they were there for one of two reasons: either Skylar’s body had been found or they were finally getting off their ass. Mary thought maybe her phone call had done the trick. She parked her car and got out to meet the troopers.
“Mary Neese?” Gaskins asked.
“That’s me,” Mary said. “You’re here about Skylar.”
“Yes, ma’am. Can we talk with you inside?”
She gave them a long, even look, her eyes wary. “You’re not bringing me bad news, are you?”
“No, ma’am. Nothing like that. I’m Ronnie Gaskins, and this is Chris Berry. We just need a few minutes of your time.”
“Come on in,” Mary said, leading the way to the apartment. To Mary, their presence could only mean one thing: the state police had stopped believing that man’s lies about Skylar running away. “That man” was Chief Propst. Neither Mary nor Dave had spoken his name since they’d left the police station.
***
By the time Gaskins and Berry left the Neese home two hours later, both troopers were convinced they would do whatever it took to bring Skylar home. Mary had shown them Skylar’s room and even though Star City officers had searched it, they looked around for any clues that might help them.
What they found was Skylar’s diary. “Do you mind if we take this with us? It might tell us something important,” Gaskins said.
Mary said they could, so the two troopers left with it. Berry began reading as soon as they were inside the cruiser. He couldn’t stop, and reading Skylar’s words made her come alive in his mind. Both men still thought it likely that Skylar was somehow mixed up with the Conaway boys. Dylan was only a couple of years older than Skylar so he could have known her.
But Gaskins and Berry were equally certain Skylar Neese was no armed bank robber. Berry, in particular, was struck by the contents of Skylar’s diary. He could tell “how much she cared about people.”
The troopers eventually made their way to the Star City Police Station to learn more about the case. During the next hour, Colebank brought them up to speed on the information she and Spurlock had gathered. Gaskins and Berry turned and gave each other a long, hard look at Colebank’s next words: Shelia Eddy had been linked romantically to Dylan Conaway.
Chapter 20
About a Boy
Next came the rumors. Skylar disappeared because of a boy. That’s what everyone was saying. What no one seemed to know, though, was whether it was a teen boy or a chance adult pedophile.
Rumors like these are easy to believe when romance is at the heart of so many teenage upheavals, and most crime is committed by males. In addition, people still believe the biggest threat to children comes from a strange man lurking in a trench coat, so-called stranger danger. The truth is, most missing children who aren’t runaways are snatched by people they know—including their own family members. If Skylar’s disappearance had to do with a boy, it was likely someone she knew.
However, Skylar couldn’t be linked to very many boys, and none of the anecdotal reports about boys in her life had romantic overtones. So while rumor had it that a boy was involved, the facts show otherwise.
The only known story about Skylar with any boy showed how inexperienced Skylar was, when it came to the opposite sex. For instance, Amorette remembered Tommy8, the “really cute” boy in dance class that all the girls fawned over.
“He was kinda, like, skaterish,” Amorette said, referring to a look modeled after skateboarder subculture. “He wore T-shirts, and liked skinny jeans. We would never talk to him. We were scared.”
When Skylar did talk to Tommy, she became so nervous she stammered. The most she could do was watch him from afar, and giggle with Amorette.
Not so one of Skylar’s friends, though. That girl chatted easily to Skater Boy.
“Shelia,” Amorette said. “I think they might have gone out on a couple of dates. I remember Skylar telling me about it. I know Shelia said Tommy was awkward.”
Skylar couldn’t have been happier for her friend. “She was like, ‘I’m living my life vicariously through Shelia! I’m not there, but it feels like I am!’” Amorette said.
Accounts that connected Skylar to romance with boys were nonexistent, suggesting only that she wasn’t ready for dating. In fact, Skylar’s lack of interest in boys may have been part of what drove some teenagers to spread rumors that Skylar was a lesbian. (I heard she doesn’t like boys … and those other two girls she always hung around with, weren’t they seen kissing at some party?)
Gaskins and Berry had also heard rumors that Skylar’s disappearance was connected to a boy, although in those versions it wasn’t necessarily a romantic relationship. One name they kept coming across was Eric Finch, a sophomore at Clay-Battelle. Eric, who looks like he could pass for a teenage Dave Neese, then lived on a farm in Fairview, behind Blacksville.
Because Skylar was a daddy’s girl, and because of Eric’s dark hair and stocky looks, people might have thought he was Skylar’s type. But that wasn’t true, either. Eric and Skylar met through Shelia years earlier. They were at some of the same parties and also attended a Snoop Dogg concert at the WVU Coliseum with Shelia and Shania. Skylar had even been to one of Eric’s birthday parties. Since becoming teens, though, their friendship existed primarily through text messages. In fact, they had been texting right before Skylar snuck out for the final time.
Police learned this. They also found out he was the last person who received a text message from Skylar. Eric texted Skylar at 12:11 a.m., and she replied one minute later. At 12:12 Skylar simply texted, Goodnight.
While he denies having had a crush on Skylar, other people say he did. His tweets on March 13, 2013, when Skylar’s remains were conclusively identified, seem to suggest sincere feelings: Easy, the hardest day of my life. Its something that only few understand. Pure brightness turned into darkness. Rest in peace, love you babe and Lord, I ask for strength! You, above all, know I need it. Of course, it’s also possible Eric was another in a long line of teens who saw in Skylar the perfect confidante—and nothing more. In any event, the police apparently never considered him a likely suspect.
Shelia was Eric’s first girlfriend, something he said came about largely because their last names, Eddy and Finch, meant they stood next to each other in the hot-lunch line. Eric was also a friend of—or at least acquainted with—Dylan
Conaway.
The parties at the Conaway house were rumored to get a little wild; some people claim alcohol and drugs flowed freely. Gaskins and Berry learned that Shelia had taken Rachel to these parties.
It was common knowledge around Blacksville that Dylan Conaway had had a sexual relationship with Shelia. The more closely Skylar was connected to the Conaway brothers, state police thought, the more likely her disappearance was linked to the bank robberies. They were equally convinced Darek Conaway was somehow connected to those felonies.
Before they made any more moves on Darek, the two troopers decided to ride out to the western end of the county. They wanted to have a little chat with Eric Finch. Then it would be time to pay yet another visit to the Conaway house.
***
Just talk. It’s easy.
After typing the text into his phone, Daniel hit send. Then he leaned back in his chair and tried to listen to Mr. Snyder. It wasn’t easy. Math came easily to Daniel, and this year he had two math classes: pre-calculus and trigonometry. Yet the way Mr. Snyder went over and over points in trig class made it almost impossible for Daniel to tune in. The fact that Daniel thought the teacher was cocky didn’t help. The only way Daniel could handle his boredom was to go to class stoned.
Daniel imagined Rachel receiving his text. He’d sent her texts regularly in the two weeks they’d been back and he knew he was annoying her. He thought Rachel was beautiful, had an incredible voice, and was a great person—even if she was a little over the top. After all, Daniel knew he was, too. They’d spent hours and hours together, in and out of class. Working under Mr. Kyer’s direction or driving around town getting high with Skylar and Shelia.
School wasn’t turning out to be as much fun as Daniel thought it would be. Of course, after Skylar disappeared, everything had changed. Daniel was having trouble remembering the things he liked about Rachel. He kept thinking it wasn’t fair, the way Rachel and Shelia were being all quiet and sneaky. They seemed to be keeping to themselves a lot more than they used to.
As if that wasn’t enough, Rachel’s attitude was really beginning to annoy him. Daniel had seen the pair several times—in the cafeteria, at Shelia’s locker, even just walking down the hallway. Their heads were always close, they were always whispering. There was something so secretive about them now.
If he could get Rachel to talk about it—whatever it was, she could tell him and it wouldn’t go any farther. He was going to keep pressuring her until she did. He didn’t even try bugging Shelia; once that girl decided something, she didn’t change her mind. Instead, Daniel completely ignored her.
He keyed his phone again:
Hey Rachel. We really need to talk in 4th period. You know what about too.
Daniel hit send.
Chapter 21
Search
The search for Skylar gained intensity when Gaskins and Berry joined the investigation. As Colebank had predicted, the two troopers only had to speak with Shelia and Rachel one time before they, too, suspected something was amiss. But what were the two girls hiding?
It was time for a new tactic. Investigators asked a local judge to find probable cause to search the Clendenen-Eddy and Shoaf homes. On Monday, September 3, the first warrants in the case were served. The girls weren’t suspects, but law enforcement wanted to find out what they were hiding.
The warrants included the power to seize any and all devices that could be used to transmit vocal or electronic signals. The search began at UHS and was conducted by Gaskins, Berry, Spurlock, and Colebank. When Vice Principal Cheesebrough learned the officers had warrants to search Shelia and Rachel’s lockers, he was skeptical of the need for police involvement. “Those girls are good. Their skirts are too short sometimes, but they don’t do anything wrong,” he told Colebank.
Colebank wasn’t impressed. Neither, it turned out, were the other three officers. Gaskins said it was odd, the cold welcome they received at the high school. The sense of being unwelcome extended beyond the administration, even to the teachers. “It felt like we were a nuisance to the teachers,” he said.
Nothing was discovered during the locker search, but then the officers asked that the girls be called to the office separately. Both girls’ cell phones were confiscated. They also discovered a marijuana pipe and a bag of weed inside Shelia’s purse. Recreational drug use was hardly a priority at that moment, so Colebank turned it over to the administrator.
“Here’s your little angel’s weed,” she said, tossing Cheesebrough the bowl and bag. “You deal with it.”
Once outside, Berry was the first to speak. “Lockers didn’t have anything, but I’d bet a pizza their cell phones are golden.”
The four would continue the search for the secrets the girls were hiding at their homes.
“Chris and I will take Rachel’s place,” an unsmiling Gaskins said. Of the four, Gaskins was the most reserved. “We know how much you want to search Shelia’s home, Jessie.”
When Colebank saw the small grin on Gaskins’s face, her own split into a wide grin. Colebank had grown to especially dislike Shelia. She and Spurlock got into her cruiser.
“It’s go time!” Berry said as Gaskins pulled away from the curb. He couldn’t wait to see what they would find at the Shoaf house.
***
Patricia Shoaf’s modest residence sits in a tidy, upscale housing development in the Pierpont area. The property is almost bereft of trees, and an open expanse of lawn stretches behind the home Rachel shares with her mother. It’s a house many teens would love to live in.
Rachel wasn’t one of them. Ever since her parents’ divorce, Rachel wanted just one thing: to live with her father. Her relationship with her mother was filled with conflict, and everyone knew it. A self-proclaimed “daddy’s girl,” Rachel was not beyond acting out to spite her mother, which only made the situation worse. Word from observers was that Patricia could be equally difficult.
Many teens observed the mother-daughter trouble firsthand, before and after Skylar disappeared. Like the time Rachel was coming home from one of her Young Life meetings. The popular religious group known for its teen ministry has a branch in Morgantown, and Rachel was a devoted attendee.
One night in late spring 2012, Rachel was in a car with three other members when her cell phone rang. “Hi, Mom, I’ll be home—” Her words were cut off by the sound on the other end of the line. Everyone in the car could hear Patricia screaming. “Mom, calm down! I told you, we’re almost there,” Rachel said, ending the call as quickly as she could.
“Psycho bitch!” she seethed, cramming her cell phone deep into her purse. “I so want to move in with my dad.”
“We actually felt sorry for Rachel,” one girl said later.
So it made perfect sense that around 4:40 that afternoon, right after Gaskins and Berry hauled away her electronic gadgets, Rachel tweeted that she was jealous of Shelia’s relationship with her mother, Tara. She sent the tweet from her mother’s computer, which the police left behind because Patricia needed it to work from home.
Of the three teens’ parents, Patricia was the most restrictive. Rachel was allowed to do very little in the evenings. In fact, fellow students said Patricia even refused to allow Rachel to try out for the swim team at UHS, which the girl had set her sights on since early in middle school. Rachel was a real water baby, and had been swimming all her life. But Patricia denied Rachel the opportunity because it would have meant picking her daughter up after swim practice, which often ran as late as nine or ten at night.
***
“Why are you doing this? Why are you picking on my daughter?” Tara asked Colebank and Spurlock when they showed up with the warrant. “She didn’t do anything. She doesn’t know anything.”
According to Colebank, no sooner had the girls’ cell phones been seized than Tara bought her daughter another one. “Shelia had a new cell phone five minutes after we took hers,” Colebank said, “because she couldn’t live without one.”
Rachel thought
that was terrific. She tweeted, sooo jealous of the relationship @_sheliiaa and her mom have. At the same time, it let Rachel get in a little dig at her own mother. Just four minutes later, Shelia retweeted, adding we’re buds :).
In fact, all three girls—Skylar, Rachel, and Shelia—liked going to Shelia’s house best. Tara was laid-back and permissive; she simply let the girls do whatever they wanted to do.
Before Tara married Jim, she never could have afforded such an indulgence as a new cell phone. With finances tight, Tara had to choose luxuries carefully. Life in Blacksville had been hard for mother and daughter until Jim came into the picture, bringing marriage and a move to Morgantown. It was a big change, from financial insecurity in a rural area to relative luxury in an urban setting.
Soon after the searches, both girls began a pattern of skipping school and getting into various kinds of trouble. Their behavior forced school counselors to call the girls’ parents repeatedly. No doubt, Cheesebrough then wondered what had happened to cause their change in behavior. It’s difficult to know if he attributed it to Skylar’s disappearance, or just “normal” teenage angst, because UHS administration has had a gag order in place almost since school resumed in 2012.
***
On a regular basis, all four officers—Colebank, Spurlock, Gaskins, and Berry—would gather around and watch the surveillance video again and again. Finally, they blocked out half a shift and huddled around a large-screen computer monitor. Over and over, they watched the surveillance video that showed Skylar sneaking out her bedroom window. They played it from the beginning, in slow motion. They played it backwards, just as slowly. They looked at every single frame, trying to figure out what they had missed. Because surely there was something there—something so obvious they were missing it.
Over the course of the next several weeks, the officers continued watching the video, looking for that tiny clue that would tell them whose car Skylar got into that night. One morning, Spurlock, Gaskins, and Berry turned on the video at 8:00 a.m. when their shift began and then studied different car makes and models for hours online.
The Savage Murder of Skylar Neese: The Truth Behind the Headlines Page 10