Pretty Little Killers

by Berry, Daleen, Fuller, Geoffrey C.

  Tom Bloom | A Monongalia County commissioner and retired high school counselor, Tom is familiar with Skylar and many of the students involved in this case. He helped revise Skylar’s Law and drew the attention of state legislators to the bill.

  Chuck Yocum | One of Tom Bloom’s former students, Chuck became interested in Skylar’s disappearance and helped Bailey write Skylar’s Law. He works in the Maryland public school system.

  Charlene Marshall | An eighty-year-old state legislator, Marshall was largely responsible for getting unanimous support for Skylar’s Law during the 2013 session of the legislature. The bill became the top priority for politicians and sailed through with bipartisan support in just one session.

  Preface

  The death of a child is every parent’s worst nightmare, but a child’s disappearance can be even worse. Not knowing what happened—did she run away or was she kidnapped?—can stretch into hours or days or months. Every minute until her return, the parents experience a helter-skelter of emotions that swerve from worry to fear to anger.

  Like many people in Morgantown, West Virginia, we began following Skylar Neese’s story because we are parents. Geoff’s stepdaughter Celeste was the same age Skylar was when she went missing, and Skylar’s photo on the MISSING posters reminded him of Celeste. My experience is more emotional: I have four adult children—two of whom were once runaways.

  We can appreciate how difficult it is to rear children today. Challenges exist when they are babies and toddlers, but parenting teens is entirely different. It’s like learning Spanish for your vacation to Cancun—only to discover everyone there speaks Russian. Rearing teenagers in today’s fast-paced, plugged-in world is so challenging that parents need all the help they can get.

  Add crimes against children to the mix and it is easy to see why some couples decide never to have children. Yet, gone are the days when we imagined a stranger in a trench coat lying in wait to snatch an unsuspecting youngster. In today’s society, law enforcement has found that most children go missing because a family member has taken them and a custody dispute is at the root. In these cases, the child’s whereabouts usually become clear quite quickly.

  When it comes to stranger danger in the twenty-first century, we picture someone far sinister: the internet predator. Today we are much more concerned, and rightly so, about who our children befriend while surfing online. However, Skylar’s murder reminds us the biggest danger to our children comes from people they know—and often know intimately.

  In the last ten years, ninety-six West Virginia teenagers have gone to prison for murder or manslaughter. Most of these cases involve teens whose young lives have been impacted by violence, neglect, drug use, or early exposure to pornography. In that respect, these two killers are no different: their families have a history of drug or alcohol addiction.

  However, when Shelia and Rachel planned and then carried out Skylar’s brutal murder, we knew this type of crime was a first for our tranquil state. Mountain State teens are not hardened killers. Girls, especially, do not kill in cold blood. According to the West Virginia Division of Juvenile Services, when it comes to murder the majority of incarcerated teens are there because of gang-related offenses—or else they killed a family member who abused them.

  Murders committed by West Virginia teens are “not generally as premeditated and calculated as this one,” Acting Interim Director Stephanie Bond said, “not where they took someone away and (then) helped search.”

  Due to these unusual factors, Rachel and Shelia were transferred to adult status. That is a rarity as well, and speaks of a heinous criminal act that carries the capacity to shock us.

  Geoff and I were children when Charles Manson and his followers murdered seven people. As adolescents, we both read Helter Skelter, the story about the Tate-LaBianca murders and Manson’s subsequent trial. That book provided insight into the controlling behaviors that led up to Skylar’s July 6, 2012, disappearance.

  We believe the criminal case involving the Manson family also hinted at the motive behind Skylar’s murder, so her story captivated us from the outset. Later, Rachel Shoaf’s confession and Shelia Eddy’s chilling courtroom behavior echoed themes seen in the Manson case.

  We realize how difficult it is for teens to understand that parents really do know best, when we warn them an acquaintance is bad news or require them to follow rules. We’re not being mean when we insist on consequences for wrong conduct. Most rules have reasons behind them. The problem is, teens don’t like to listen to their parents, whom they often consider hopelessly uncool.

  This problem is compounded by something that only happens to adolescent girls. In Reviving Ophelia, author Mary Pipher, Ph.D. said our culture sexualizes young girls and overemphasizes their looks, while pressuring teenage girls to assume a false persona to please their parents. Then, when they are in much need of parental support, these adolescents become secretive and turn to their peers. “They are self-absorbed and preoccupied with peer approval,” Pipher said.

  That’s what happened to my daughters. Mileah was 14 when she began hanging with the wrong crowd. In fact, Shelia Eddy reminds me of Mileah’s friend Debbie. She came from a troubled background, so I tried to keep Mileah away from her. But Mileah was like Skylar, fearless and willful, and determined to be with the friend she admired.

  As a news reporter, I worked with local law enforcement, so the Preston County Sheriff’s Department quickly dispatched an officer to search for my daughter when she ran away one night. He found her at Debbie’s house within hours. After he cautioned Mileah about the dangers of running away, I took her home.

  When my second daughter, Trista, ran away four years later, we were living near Oakland, California. As soon as I realized she was gone I called the police, but California’s AMBER alert program was being tested on a regional basis in 1999 and didn’t go statewide until 2000. Even if it had been in place, the system wouldn’t have been activated in Trista’s behalf. She simply didn’t meet the criteria.

  So I did the same thing the Neeses did: I designed a MISSING poster, planning to make hundreds of copies and personally recruit every friend I could find to help me cover an area that held almost half a million people. Fortunately, a beat officer recognized Trista and brought her home late that same night.

  For a few hours, I understood what it felt like to be Mary and Dave Neese, to not know where your daughter is or if you will ever see her again. In the case of Mileah and Trista, my worry and fear lasted less than one day. I lived through two brief episodes—nothing nearly as extreme as the Neese’s prolonged anguish—and my heart aches for any other parent who feels that kind of terror.

  Not long after Skylar disappeared, Trista, then thirty-one, and I were walking on the rail-trail that circles Morgantown. We were in Sabraton when I wondered aloud if we would see Skylar. Rumors ran amok, saying the 16-year-old had been seen there. Was she really another runaway, hiding out with her boyfriend? Thinking of the gruesome cases I’ve covered, I hoped that was all that had happened, and prayed Skylar wasn’t somewhere being tormented by a psycho. When Geoff and I learned Skylar’s close friends had planned and then brutally murdered her, we were as stunned as everyone else. As we began investigating, we concluded that the three-way relationship between Skylar, Shelia, and Rachel was toxic. It wasn’t unlike many romantic relationships or marriages where everyone else sees the red flags except the victim; neither Skylar nor Rachel recognized the danger that came from being close friends with Shelia.

  During interviews, many teens said either they didn’t have a good feeling about Shelia, or their parents didn’t want them involved with her. Those same teens tried to convince Skylar and Rachel that Shelia wasn’t a good person. After noticing changes in their daughter’s behavior, even Mary and Dave repeatedly tried to pry Skylar away from Shelia. Skylar wouldn’t listen.

  At the same time, Shelia, Rachel, and Skylar’s relationship was already deteriorating. The trio turned mean, and their online fights l
ater became fodder for the public who would follow the unraveling story. Their behavior might not have seemed serious, but it was. “The way girls handle the problems of adolescence can have implications for their adult lives,” Pipher said.

  These malignant relationships all look alike. It is only after victims escape that they often say in retrospect: “Everyone else was right. Why didn’t I see it?” There is some evidence indicating Skylar was starting to see the inherent dangers in that friendship—but she didn’t escape in time.

  Talk about dire implications: three years after the trio began fragmenting, Skylar is dead, and Shelia and Rachel are in prison.

  To see how damaged Shelia Eddy is, simply look at her behavior following Skylar’s murder. She inserted herself into the investigation, helped Mary and Dave search for Skylar, and even distributed the MISSING posters around town. People were appalled and wondered how Shelia could do something so brazen, but this activity seems to be a hallmark of a certain type of criminal.

  Over the last several years, many other high-profile cases involved killers or kidnappers who helped families hunt for their loved ones. It isn’t at all unusual, especially when the case features a missing wife or ex-wife, such as occurred with two women named Peterson. (Lacie in Modesto, California, in 2002, and Stacy in Bolingbrook, Illinois, in 2007.) Scott Peterson and Drew Peterson (not related) both helped pass out flyers and canvass neighborhoods looking for their missing wives.

  So did Ariel Castro, the notorious kidnapper and rapist who held three Cleveland girls captive in his home for ten years. Some criminals simply cannot stay away from the spotlight that shines on their victims—which makes them especially dangerous.

  While working on this book for the last year, it’s become apparent that many area teens were traumatized upon learning their fellow classmates had murdered a childhood friend. Other teens experienced emotional distress such as panic attacks, nightmares, and depression, because they defended the two teenage killers. Some of these youths still cannot talk about the murder. If nothing else, we hope their parents will recognize such signs and seek therapy for their teens.

  After we learned about Skylar’s disappearance and later, her murder, our hearts went out to the Neeses. As we learned more details of what happened, we became fascinated by the case.

  It was Mary Neese’s love for her daughter, though, that made us determined to tell Skylar’s story as candidly as we could. Mary said she was content knowing she “created something that good. [Skylar] was just awesome.”

  We hope this book honors her memory while highlighting the serious dangers facing today’s teenagers—and their parents.

  Daleen Berry

  Geoffrey C. Fuller

  one

  Where the Children Play

  The murder plot started out as a sick joke.

  They never intended to carry it out, never dreamed they would actually go through with it. But they did, after something went terribly wrong. It took investigators more than a year to figure out what that “something” was.

  Even then, they didn’t have the answer—the answer to the question everyone has clamored for since May 1, 2013—when Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy, two beautiful teenage West Virginia honor students, were arrested for their part in Skylar Neese’s murder.

  It was the same question that fell from Skylar’s lips as she was being savagely stabbed to death:

  “Why? Why? Why?”

  Why did two teenage girls brutally kill their best friend?

  People who know the Shoaf and Eddy families say they are all good people. In the case of the Shoaf, Eddy, and Neese families, several dynamics were at play: each family had borne at least one tragedy, each had some history of drug or alcohol use, and all three families had only one child—a little girl who, for various reasons, was accustomed to getting her way.

  Many families experience similar problems but they don’t end in murder. What made this situation end differently?

  The answer is complicated, and the investigators who took on the missing teen’s case in July 2012 had no idea that it would turn into one of the most complicated murder investigations they had ever undertaken, or that it would span two states and miles and miles of rural Appalachian backwoods. Nor did they have any idea how two popular and pretty sixteen-year-old girls could go from cracking jokes in biology class to plotting how to dispose of another student, someone who believed she was their best friend. Police found two options the girls entertained particularly chilling: “dunking her in a barrel of acid” and “feeding her to the pigs.”

  The story of Skylar’s disappearance and murder looks at the huge role social media played in helping to expose her killers, and how broad inferences can be amplified fiftyfold by Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites such as Instagram. It’s a story of how an online group convened to search for Skylar and comfort her parents instead deepened their grief. This account explains why the FBI was on the case like lightning, a scant two days after Skylar was reported missing, and the rumored connection between Skylar’s murder and a rash of bank robberies in the region. It also tells how law enforcement managed to log thousands of hours on the case—until they put the killers behind bars.

  Finally, this story is about whether killer Rachel Shoaf’s stated motive for murder, “We didn’t want to be friends with her anymore,” carries any validity at all, or if the real reason can be found in the rumors of a lesbian love triangle—or something entirely evil.

  Skylar Annette Neese was the only daughter of Mary and Dave Neese, parents who struggled to provide her with the bare necessities. Extras weren’t always possible but when they were, Mary and Dave made sure Skylar had them. Even though life’s luxuries were often out of their reach, the Neeses provided Skylar with something many children never receive: unconditional love.

  Mary, Dave, and Skylar, age 6.

  Years before Skylar was born, Mary had a long-time crush on “DJ Dave,” a local disc jockey who played on the Morgantown bar circuit. She didn’t know if he knew her, but she always tried to dress up in case he glanced her way. With his longish brown hair and leather jacket, Mary thought he was cute, but it was his wide smile that made Mary really want to get to know him. With a mischievous sparkle in his eye, Dave looked like he would be a lot of fun.

  One night after the music ended, Mary and her girlfriends were leaving a local bar where they had gone to celebrate someone’s birthday. They noticed a large crowd gathering outside and saw Dave on the ground, blood pouring from his mouth.

  Mary pushed through the crowd, demanding to know what had happened and who was responsible. Someone said three rough-looking men had jumped Dave as he was walking to his car.

  From what Mary could tell, they had done their best to mess up his face. She leaned over and told Dave she was taking him to the hospital. He didn’t argue.

  Once there, sitting inside a little exam room, a doctor said Dave’s injuries weren’t serious. He wouldn’t be talking for a while, though, because his jaw was broken and they had to wire it shut while it healed. Perhaps because he didn’t have to worry about spinning tunes for an audience, Dave could focus on Mary. He felt like he was seeing her for the first time. With her thick black hair and big blue eyes, he thought she was the prettiest woman he had ever seen.

  “Well, since I won’t be talking for a while, I should go ahead and ask you now. Would you like to go see a movie?”

  Mary blushed, realizing her dream of dating the cute DJ was coming true. Dave didn’t waste any time, either. As soon as he was released he took Mary to that movie. Even though he couldn’t talk for the next three months, Mary knew he was the man for her.

  “Ladies, if you don’t stop talking, I’m going to separate you.”

  It was easily the rowdiest class he’d ever had, probably because the boys outnumbered the girls three to one. Every day another student was tardy. Most days, many students came to class late. Usually it was the two girls he was trying to silence that day in
the autumn of 2011.

  Ignoring the bearded man at the front of the class, the two pretty teenagers—one a brunette, the other a redhead—did not stop talking. They prattled on as if they were deaf. Mr. Demchak’s sophomore biology class wasn’t anything special, but students liked him because he was known as an easy teacher with lax discipline. They described him as one part Santa Claus, because of his legendary long white beard, and one part absent-minded professor.

  “Hey, do you know how to dispose of a body?” Shelia Eddy asked the student behind her.

  Nick Tomaski shrugged. “I dunno. That show Breaking Bad has stuff like that on there.” He was more interested in drawing in his notebook than in anything Shelia said. Besides, he knew she was a flirt.

  “We want to figure out what to do with Skylar,” Shelia said. Nick just looked at her like she was stupid.

  “Shhh!” Rachel Shoaf, the redhead, whispered. “No names.”

  According to students in class that day, Shelia’s question came on the heels of several negative comments she and Rachel made other days in the same class, about how much they hated Skylar.

  “What kind of acid would you dispose of a body in?” Shelia asked the biology teacher. One student in particular insists Demchak heard this question that day and that he said it could amount to something like conspiracy.

  Demchak barked his reply at both girls, according to that student: “How dare you ask that? Get out of my class. Go to the office right now.”