Pretty Little Killers

by Berry, Daleen, Fuller, Geoffrey C.

  The student said the girls did as instructed and, once there, they reportedly spoke to an administrator who sent them back to class. Since the girls weren’t gone long their fellow students assumed they hadn’t even been reprimanded.

  This is where accounts differ. Mr. Demchak says he never heard Shelia and Rachel casually ask that specific question or mention Skylar’s name in connection with it. He is adamant he never commented on a possible “conspiracy,” and said school policy would have required he write up a report if he had. What he did say was, as he had been instructing students about DNA, that it was “very possible” the girls could have asked such a question.

  Whatever Demchak did—or didn’t hear—that day, it was the last time either girl brought up the subject in class.

  When Mary discovered she was pregnant, she was not happy. The thought of raising a child terrified her because she believed she would be a horrible mother. Still, she wouldn’t end the pregnancy and when Skylar was born, Mary fell in love with her.

  “The first time I saw her, yes, that was the greatest moment of my life. It was instant love,” she told Andrea Canning on NBC Dateline in 2014.1

  Even with a newborn daughter, Mary wasn’t sure she wanted a husband. Dave was persistent. He kept proposing, and Mary stubbornly kept putting him off. She hesitated when he said they should move in together. After Skylar’s birth, though, Mary had a change of heart, and she and Skylar did move in with Dave.

  Mary became the glue that held the family together. Her humor and playfulness created the bond; her will and determination made it stick. As the years passed, Skylar became a miniature version of Mary. People even used the same words to describe them, right down to their unfailing senses of justice, iron stubbornness, and occasional flares of temper. Where Dave and Skylar were best buddies, Mary and Skylar were intertwined in the way only mothers and daughters can be. Their family photos bear this out: Skylar possessed the same bright blue eyes as her mother and occasionally flashed a similar cynical smile.

  The DNA discussion could have occurred at the same time students later told police Shelia and Rachel had asked their question. Classes were abruptly dismissed early on October 6, 2011, after students were told there was a gas leak. In reality, they were sent home because police had found a body in the woods behind the school.2

  When classes resumed and students learned about the dead woman, Demchak said his class discussed DNA evidence and analysis. He believes this is the most reasonable explanation for the two girls’ questions.

  Whether Mr. Demchak is correct, or they asked that question with a more devious motive in mind, other students said Skylar’s name came up in connection with the idea of disposing of a body. Rachel confirmed this when she later told police the plot to kill Skylar was hatched that day during Mr. Demchak’s sophomore biology class.

  When Skylar was a baby, Dave would lift her above his head and toss her onto the bed, never letting her go until his hands touched the linens. Skylar would squeal and laugh, and Dave would repeat the game over and over. He called it “Baby Body Slam.” The game soon became their favorite part of the day.

  During Christmas Day the year Skylar turned three, Mary and Dave videotaped their baby girl when she found her gifts. Skylar squealed as she jumped up and down, her blond curls bouncing in time to her steps. Racing around the living room and then running toward the camera, Skylar yelled, “I love you, Daddy!”

  Daddy keeping watch while Skylar (age 3) tells him stories.

  The constant, daily affirmation that came from the heart of a toddler would become Skylar’s best gift to Mary and Dave—and what her parents would miss the most after Skylar was gone.

  When the two teens didn’t stop talking, Mr. Demchak spoke up again.

  “All right, Miss Eddy, Miss Shoaf, one of you needs to move.” He gestured to a male student. “Miss Shoaf, you and Trent switch seats.”

  Shelia rolled her eyes at Rachel as she and Trent traded seats. Despite the relocation, she and Rachel continued to chat.

  Demchak would later describe having had two murderers in his class as “the most bizarre thing I ever experienced in my teaching career.” At the time, though, he thought they were two girls acting out for attention.

  Regardless of when the two girls asked their bizarre question, none of the people who may have heard it—Mr. Demchak, Nick, and the three other students within hearing—had any way of knowing what they actually witnessed that day in the fall of 2011 was the birth of a murder plot. They had no idea Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf, fifteen-year-old University High School sophomores, were planning to kill Skylar Neese.

  Love was always a constant in the Neese household, but money wasn’t. Skylar’s parents lived paycheck to paycheck all her life, which explains why they didn’t take their first family vacation until the summer of 2000 when Skylar was four years old. They chose Ocean City, Maryland, six hours away, so Skylar could experience the beach for the first time.

  The family could afford the vacation only because Mary had nearly been killed the previous year. A few days before Thanksgiving 1999, Mary dropped Skylar off at Pleasant Day Daycare. On her way home, Mary found herself behind an O. C. Cluss lumber truck. The truck missed its turnoff, stopped abruptly, and began to back up.

  Mary blared the horn and tried to put her green Mercury in reverse, but she wasn’t quick enough. When the truck began to climb her hood, she threw her left arm up in reflex and the airbags engaged, cleanly snapping her forearm. Seconds later when she came to, her left arm was hanging awkwardly over the steering wheel and dripping blood. She had to lift it off the steering wheel with her right hand. When she noticed the impact had knocked the car’s ashtray into the back seat, she was instantly relieved Skylar hadn’t been in the car.

  One metal plate, two operations, and several months later, Mary’s arm was functioning at nearly 100 percent. In addition, the insurance company agreed to a settlement to cover the medical expenses and pay restitution. It was not an extraordinary amount, but would be enough for a frugal trip to the beach.

  While Skylar later became a big fan of the ocean, she didn’t like it during her first visit; she was small and the waves kept knocking her over. However, she loved the hotel’s swimming pool. One afternoon as Mary laid her towel on a chaise lounge and Dave stripped off his shirt, Skylar stared at the pool, an inflatable seahorse around her waist and floaters on each arm. She waddled toward the pool’s edge, peering intently at the sparkling water.

  “Daddy’s not ready for you yet, honey,” Dave said. “Daddy’ll help you. You don’t know how to swim.”

  “I can so swim!” Skylar shouted. To prove it, she jumped in the water. Dave panicked and leaped in after her. Mary laughed at them.

  “It’s okay, Daddy!” Skylar sputtered, slapping the water with her floaters while kicking her legs. “I can swim!”

  “You can’t swim, honey!” Dave grabbed at her, but the small child kept squirming.

  “I can so!”

  Dave had to admit the floaters gave Skylar the confidence to swim just fine. That was the moment when he began to think of his daughter as fearless. In new situations, she was watchful and held back—until she plunged right in.

  Skylar was also willful: she would decide what she would or wouldn’t do, no matter what her parents or anyone else said.

  Skylar didn’t believe it for a second. Shelia and Rachel would never do that.

  “I’m just telling you,” Nick said the next time he saw Skylar, “I heard them ask how to dispose of a body. Then they said how much you get on their nerves, and they didn’t like you.”

  Unconvinced, Skylar flashed Nick a sweet smile. “They were probably just playing a game. We always play that game, you know, ‘Would You Rather.’ We play with weird stuff, like, which way would you rather die.”

  Nick shrugged. “Whatever. Might wanna ask them about it anyway.”

  She, Shelia, and Rachel had every class together but biology, where students later told
police they heard the exchange. According to students who heard it, Skylar did question Shelia and Rachel.

  “Hey, Nick said you two were making jokes in biology class about wanting to kill me. What’s up with that?” Her voice was even, but her eyes were steely.

  Shelia gave Skylar a blank stare as Rachel’s eyes darted around.

  “Why would we do that?” Rachel asked, laughing.

  “That kid has been smoking too much weed,” Shelia said. “See? Now there’s a lesson for all of us. Don’t smoke so much weed you think people are out to kill you.”

  “Yeah, you know you can’t trust a stoner anyway,” Rachel said, laughing.

  two

  Early Years

  As a result of the unconditional love she received, Skylar had a deep and unbreakable bond with her doting parents. Although it seems she was a “daddy’s girl,” Skylar’s world revolved around her mother.

  “My mom, of course is the most important person in my life,” Skylar wrote in her English journal.3 “She not only cares for me, but she also listens to me and I know I can talk to her. I think it’s important for parents to not only take care of their children, but to also make sure their kids can talk to them.”

  It mattered little to Skylar that she didn’t have as many toys and clothes as other kids, or take as many trips as other children did with their families. In fact, having fewer possessions seemed to ground Skylar, making her care more than many of her peers about social problems like bigotry, global warming, and racial discrimination.

  Skylar also hated injustice and was blessed with an abundance of empathy. At an early age she became a champion of the underdogs she met in her short life. When Dave used to make fun of gays, Skylar would reprimand him and tell him to knock it off. Sometimes she would even punch him in the shoulder and say, “Stop it, Dad. They’re people too, you know.”

  Her capacity for empathy and compassion could also be seen in her schoolwork. In her Honors English class, the big-hearted teen wrote a poem for Ryan Diviney, the former West Virginia University student who was beaten so badly in November 2009 he remains in a vegetative state today.

  Skylar at age 11.

  Skylar’s earliest friend, Morgan Lawrence, also knew about unconditional love, a feature in her home from the day she was born. Long before Skylar met Shelia or Rachel, she and Morgan, also an only child, were best friends. The two blonde toddlers first met 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, Morgan’s father was a white-collar professional: a physician, the chief of the Monongalia General Hospital Emergency Department. Having money meant that, unlike Skylar’s parents, Morgan’s mother was usually available to pick up the kids after school.

  Cheryl Lawrence became like Skylar’s second mother. All through kindergarten, she brought Skylar home with Morgan and kept her until Mary picked her up. Inside the Lawrence home, the two little girls played together—until one of them wanted a toy the other child had. Then a fight ensued. Cheryl would separate them, sending Morgan to her room. Skylar was left behind with all the toys and the TV, and Morgan soon learned Skylar really enjoyed having everything to herself. Such is a trait of many only children, Morgan later said, “including me.”

  For all their advantages, David and Cheryl Lawrence were about as grounded as it gets. That’s one reason they felt so comfortable with Skylar and her parents. They recognized the Neeses shared the same family values. They also viewed Skylar as a good influence for their daughter.

  In fifth grade Morgan believed she and Skylar would be best friends forever. A poll they later read in Honors Science class said by age eighteen, only 5 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.’”

  What Morgan was most looking forward to with Skylar, and Skylar with her, was when they would be bridesmaids at each other’s weddings. It was a promise they made to each other as little girls—and they intended to see it through.

  The year after kindergarten, Skylar and Daniel Hovatter were in first grade together at Cheat Lake Elementary School. Daniel later became Skylar’s closest friend and confidant—when she confided in anyone at all. Even as a child, Skylar showed signs of being a private person. She didn’t share much with anyone, not even her parents.

  Skylar and Daniel’s friendship grew stronger because Dave did handyman work for Daniel’s mom while his dad worked overseas as a military contractor. When Dave came by he’d bring Skylar along, and the two children would entertain themselves playing Life or Battleship for hours on end. When they suspected Dave was about finished, they’d take their game inside a closet, furtively hiding so they could keep playing.

  Shelia Eddy entered Skylar’s life when they were second graders. During summer, the two girls spent weekdays at the pool together at The Shack Neighborhood House, a community center outside Morgantown. Their play dates continued almost every weekend during the colder seasons. Usually Shelia’s mother, Tara, would take Skylar home with her after work on Friday, to save Mary and Dave from making the twenty-mile trip to Blacksville. During the school year, Skylar spent her afterschool hours at Morgan’s home, but during summertime she was often a visitor in Shelia’s home.

  It wasn’t a surprise the two little girls ended up becoming fast friends at such an early age, because their mothers, Mary Neese and Tara Eddy-Clendenen, were close to the same age and had known each other when they were teens.

  Like Skylar, Shelia was an only child. Also like Skylar, her parents came from small West Virginia towns and didn’t have much money. When Shelia was about two years old, her father was in a severe car accident. Greg Eddy sustained brain damage and was left partially crippled. A family friend said Greg “has made mistakes as we all have but he has a good heart.” As a single parent, Shelia’s mom struggled. She worked in Morgantown, but wanted a better life for her daughter, so she took college classes to become an accountant.

  When Shelia rode in her parents’ car as a little girl, she often passed Kent’s Chapel, a church across the state line in Brave, Pennsylvania. A few miles north of Blacksville, West Virginia, where the Eddys lived, Brave is tiny—with its 201 residents—and is part of Wayne Township in Greene County. Before Skylar’s murder, it was an idyllic town where people left their doors unlocked and lived without fear of what would become of their children. One resident said, “The community of Brave was a picture-perfect place.”

  Kent’s Chapel is a little white church on the same road where Skylar was murdered. Although the Eddys didn’t often attend, Greg sometimes helped out with the youth in the church; congregants recall many mornings when he fixed breakfast for the young people there. His Sunday breakfasts became a thing of the past after Skylar’s body was discovered.

  Back in 2002, Shelia and Tara took part in a religious service at Kent’s Chapel. Tara read from Scripture while Shelia held up a chrismon4 before the eyes of everyone gathered in the small chapel. As Shelia hung her chrismon on the church’s Christmas tree, Tara explained it meant “new birth.” Shelia was just seven and her chrismon was a butterfly.5

  That’s about the time Shelia showed signs of having a personality trait the public would later witness during her court appearances: she craved attention. Crissy’s mother babysat Shelia when she was an infant. Tara and Greg were separated and Tara didn’t have much money, so Crissy’s mother “bought her diapers . . . formula . . . everything,” Crissy said.

  When Shelia was seven or eight they began to notice her eccentric behavior. As Crissy described, “One time we were out [at a restaura
nt] eating . . . and everything was fine and Shelia just stood up and she was eating, and my mom’s like ‘Shelia, what are you doing? Sit down.’

  “‘I like to stand up when I eat,’” Crissy said Shelia replied.

  No matter how many times her mother asked Shelia to sit down, she refused. Crissy believes Shelia’s actions were designed to get attention from everyone around her. Those odd mannerisms continued to define Shelia as she grew older, but her loved ones explained them away, saying she was an only child and the center of her mother’s life.

  Unlike Skylar’s parents, Shelia’s parents divorced before she ever entered school. By the time Skylar was murdered in 2012, it appears the double tragedy—losing her father twice—might have taken its toll on Shelia. By then, she and Skylar had been friends more than half their lives.

  Not too far from the Neeses’ home in a nearby section of Morgantown known as Evansdale, another little girl was growing up. Rachel Shoaf was the only daughter of a merchant father—Rusty Shoaf owned and operated Reiner and Core, an exclusive clothing boutique in town—and a stay-at-home mother, Patricia. Rusty’s first wife had succumbed to cancer, leaving him a widower with a young son and the proceeds from her life insurance policy. When he met and married Patricia, an outsider from Hampton, Virginia, his family thought he was rushing into a new relationship too soon.

  The Shoafs soon had a baby girl. One family friend said she became “the sun, the moon, the stars” to her parents. Before long, Rusty’s store went out of business, he and his son, Kevin, moved out, and the marriage ended in divorce. Rachel, whose favorite pastime then was playing Blue’s Clues on the family computer, was four years old.

  People who have known the Shoafs for many years said they have big hearts—sometimes too big, allowing people into their lives who later take advantage of them. Patricia Shoaf’s closest friend, Liz,6 recalled how she struggled as a single mother and how Patricia came to her aid. Liz’s daughter Karen was two years younger than Rachel, but because Patricia gave her all the outfits Rachel outgrew, Karen was the best-dressed child in school.