The Shoafs did not move in the same social circle as the Neeses or the Eddys, so Rachel didn’t know either girl. Instead, by the time she began school, Rachel was friends with children from the more affluent families in town. Liz said Rachel was a nervous child when at home. Away from home, though, she often lovingly tended to other children and later, as she grew older, regularly volunteered with the Special Olympics. “Rachel was the first person to defend those kids and wouldn’t let anyone be mean to them,” Liz said.
Skylar had always seemed sensible to Dave—sometimes irritatingly so. Many years after the Neeses’ vacation to Ocean City, when Skylar was a teenager and the family lived in the Cheat Lake area, she called her father to task for his excessive behavior during televised sports events. Dave was an unabashed fan of West Virginia University football. The team has never won a national championship, but the promise has often dangled. For a rabid fan like Dave, their performance has been exhilarating and frustrating. Dave watched every game, often yelling at the screen.
One day, Dave recalls, when they still lived in Cheat Lake, Skylar came downstairs to the living room where Dave was watching the game. She stood for a few seconds, observing how wrapped up in it he was.
“Daddy, what do you care? So they lose. Why get all worked up about it?”
“Did you see what Slaton did? It’s like he just gave up and fell down!”
“How does that affect you? How is your life going to change if they lose? Or if they win, for that matter?”
Something about hearing those questions from his fifteen-year-old daughter brought Dave up short. She was right, and “Ohh—go upstairs with your mother,” was all the frustrated father could say.
Dave went back to watching the game, but Skylar had planted a tiny seed that would germinate inside him and change his outlook on WVU football. He still watched the games but was more objective. Skylar planted many seeds in her dad, changing his views on subjects important and trivial. She was that kind of kid, and he was that kind of father.
As early adolescence approached and cell phone coverage improved, Skylar and Shelia called or texted each other whenever they weren’t together. The summer before Shelia moved to Morgantown, Skylar often stayed with Shelia.
Shelia’s neighbors said they didn’t see anything out of the ordinary during those visits. Skylar seemed friendly and sociable, and the two girls would often walk to the nearby Bell’s Grocery store, or they would hang outside on the front porch with local boys who dropped by—usually when Tara was at work.
Neighbor Ted Bice said Shelia was quiet and shy, and would often walk in her bikini through the backyard, where she would sunbathe. He would spray Shelia with a water hose if she was outside when he was washing his truck.
He remembers hearing Tara and Shelia yelling at each other “several times.” That could have been around the time Tara began dating Jim Clendenen, since several people have said Shelia didn’t like her mother’s new beau.
Even though he mined coal for a living, Jim wasn’t your average coal miner: Crissy said he wore jewelry and got pedicures, so she and Shelia often teased Tara. Men in rural West Virginia rarely engaged in such pampering.7
Shelia did find one reason to like Jim: he was generous.
“Jim was so gracious with his money, so gracious,” Crissy said. “He just gave and gave and gave and gave, and if Shelia wanted the best, she got the best.”
Once, possibly during a heated argument over her mother’s boyfriend, Bice heard Shelia threaten to kill Tara. “I don’t know how many more times she flipped out on her mom,” he said. “She was, like, really getting wild.”
Other neighbors said Shelia seemed odd. An older girl across the street from Tara’s old apartment said Shelia was also mean, calling her a “whore” after the teen neighbor got pregnant.
“[Shelia’s] always been a little weird, stayed in the house a lot,” a neighbor named Lee Barker said.8 “She acted like she didn’t want to be seen in public, ’cause she’d have her dad stop down and go to the store for her and bring stuff down while her mother was at work.”
Crissy said Shelia didn’t have a good relationship with her father, but Greg clearly loved his daughter and was more than happy to run errands for her. Greg was often a regular at Dunkard Valley Golf Course, where he and his father would play golf.
“He would come in about three times a week,” Kristen Miller said, “and say he had to get his ‘little girl a sodie pop.’”
Miller, who worked at the golf course restaurant, said none of the staff even believed he had a daughter—because they never saw her. When staffers later heard the news and learned Greg’s daughter had been charged with killing Skylar, Miller said they were shocked to learn she was a teenager. “He always talked about her like she was a little girl.”
It took, of all things, a wedding to set in motion a chain of events that would bring the three girls into almost constant contact—and alter the course of their lives forever.
Tara’s decision to marry Jim ushered a number of changes into Shelia’s life: a new stepfather, a well-appointed townhouse located outside Morgantown, and city living. In addition, gaining a new husband who worked as a foreman for a union coal company meant Tara could say farewell to difficult financial times. So could Shelia.
Jim’s generous income added luxuries to the lives of mother and daughter: he sent flowers to his new wife every month and Shelia could finally wear the expensive labels she’d always coveted. She could also get her hair styled and go to the mall for manicures. Even so, Shelia didn’t have the same status as the daughters of the local business moguls or the sons of prominent lawyers.
The move did allow Shelia to attend UHS, five minutes away, and her new home was only ten minutes from the Neeses’ Star City apartment. Shelia and Skylar were excited about the prospect of being together all the time. That prospect became a reality in October 2010 when Shelia transferred to UHS as a ninth grader and immediately requested a class schedule identical to Skylar’s.
Aside from her family, Skylar’s life had three constants: Morgan, Daniel, and Shelia. Rachel didn’t enter her life until both girls were fourteen and freshmen at UHS.
By then Skylar’s friendship with Shelia seemed to grate on the nerves of all her other friends. Those girls said Shelia was “mean” and “controlling.” Sadly, they saw the same thing as Mary and Dave—a change in Skylar’s behavior—which they attributed to her close association with Shelia. It impacted her other friendships so much that by the end of middle school, even Morgan and Skylar weren’t hanging together very often.
“Hey, just tell Skylar we’re not going to go,” Morgan’s friend said.
Earlier that day in the cafeteria, several UHS freshmen had made plans to see a movie. Skylar was there at the time so Morgan assumed she was included. Most of the teens were good friends with Morgan but none of them were close to Skylar.
It happens in high schools and everywhere else in society: people associate with other people who are like them. Often that means economic and cultural similarities. Morgan’s father was a doctor and many of her friends’ parents were white-collar professionals as well—lawyers, consultants, accountants, and professors.
“No, no,” Morgan said. “That’s not how that works. Either we’re both going, or I’m not going at all. Skylar and I’ll do something, ’cause I’m not doing that. That’s stupid.”
“I think it would be awkward if she went,” her friend replied. “This could be weird. We’re not that good of friends with her.”
“Well, I am. I’m friends with all of you.”
Morgan didn’t think it was a conscious choice on her friends’ part. They weren’t trying to exclude Skylar because her family didn’t have money; they just weren’t on the same wavelength.
Class differences weren’t always fueled by snobbery, but the effects could be equally divisive. Especially when it appeared snobbery was alive and well at UHS. Whether or not this attitude of entitlement affe
cted Morgan’s friends, Skylar must have been aware of it. How could she not be? It was all around her. Students say some of the wealthier teens, the more mean-spirited ones, actually referred to the rural kids or those from working-class backgrounds as “the dirty kids” or simply, “the dirties.”
three
The Lesbian Connection
Skylar and Shelia met Rachel when the three had a class together and the next thing Skylar knew, wherever she and Shelia were, so was Rachel. This was fine by Skylar, who made friends with everyone. While they were freshmen, Shelia, Rachel, and Skylar became a well-known trio who turned the heads of other students they passed in the UHS hallways.
Skylar was ecstatic when Shelia Eddy—her Shelia—transferred there from an outlying rural area. Skylar and the tiny brunette had been friends since second grade, and she could imagine how fantastic it was going to be. Although Shelia was boy crazy and always on her cell phone, she had connections and could get weed.
Slender and sharp-tongued, Shelia had been popular at her old school, Clay-Battelle. But at UHS, she was an unknown. Except for Skylar, all her childhood friends lived in Blacksville. When Shelia didn’t become popular at UHS, she used her budding sexuality to make friends and influence people. UHS teens say Shelia was the least liked of the three.
Unlike Shelia, Rachel was surrounded by her childhood friends, many of whom also came from Saint Francis, a parochial school. Unlike Skylar, Rachel had money, and her parents were considered more white-collar workers than blue-collar. A popular redhead, Rachel was known for her staunch Catholic faith and her volunteer work during Special Olympics. A songbird and aspiring actress, Rachel was the most talented of the three.
Finally, there was the five-foot-two blossoming environmentalist and champion of the underdog. The girl whose every step became a bounce, who smiled all the time, aced every exam, did her friends’ homework, and insisted she was going to law school. That, of course, was Skylar. A likable honors student, she was the smartest of the three.
By the time they became fast friends, they were inseparable: the brunette, the redhead, and Skylar, the beautiful girl with Bette Davis eyes.
Despite the three girls’ desire for excitement—or perhaps because of it—their relationship would soon be marked by tension, distrust, and one fight after another.
During those two years, Skylar must have assumed the social payoff was worth the occasional drama. She either wasn’t bothered by the shifting alliances and two-on-one disputes that can occur between three close friends, or she tolerated the problems for the sake of having fun and partying. It was the worst mistake she ever made.
Fellow students wouldn’t forget Skylar after they saw a firsthand glimpse of her stubborn streak during band practice early in the fall semester 2010.
Skylar and the rest of the UHS marching band had gathered in a parking lot downtown, preparing for a parade. It was the beginning of the school year and quite hot outside when the band got into position. Ariah Wyatt, Hayden McClead, and Skylar were all in the flute section.
As Ariah later described it: “We’d always practiced like that, every single time, the same order.” As performance time neared, however, the upperclassmen decided to switch up the order. The freshmen didn’t like it.
“We’d already told our parents,” Ariah recalled, “so they’re . . . ready to watch us march by. We were all not wanting to move.”
The upperclassmen insisted on the order change but Skylar would have none of it. As the older students physically moved people, Skylar got angry. “No, this is where I told my family I was gonna be, this is where I’m gonna to be,” Ariah remembers Skylar saying.
“Skylar stood there with her flute in her hands,” Ariah said, “clutching it to her chest, going, ‘I swear, if one of them touches me, I am going to flip out!’ She was so mad, all the upperclassmen backed off as soon as she said that.”
At that instant they knew: Nobody messed with Skylar Neese when she was angry.
Rachel’s voice defined her freshman year at UHS. The first time students heard Rachel sing, their jaws dropped. “Oh, my gosh,” one student said. “She’s a freshman. She’s gonna be so good!”
Richard Kyer, the UHS drama teacher, wanted to gauge the incoming freshmen so he held an informal audition in drama class at the beginning of each school year. The event told him who could sing—and who couldn’t.
“Who wants to come up and sing?” Mr. Kyer asked.
Rachel volunteered and practically ran up on the stage. Students knew instantly they were watching someone who likely would land lead roles.
Other than her childhood friends, the only students who spoke well of Shelia were a few boys who considered themselves modern-day hippies.
One of them was a UHS student named Frankie.9 He had known Shelia since third grade. “She was just like the sweetest girl,” he said.
Frankie said he and Shelia smoked weed, did coke, and took Roxicet—a form of oxycodone—many times. They also slept together. Frankie believed Shelia’s unpopular status had more to do with her arrest than people were willing to say. “She was cool,” he said. “She was funny, and nice. 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.
As did Shelia, Daniel remained fast friends with Skylar throughout elementary, middle, and high school. Although Daniel often found Shelia annoying, her presence never seemed to interfere with Skylar and Daniel’s friendship. Because he was a boy, it was possible Shelia didn’t see Daniel as competition, which she might have with Skylar’s female friends—many of whom said Shelia tried to push them away.
Later on, Daniel often joined Skylar, Shelia, and Rachel on their weekend joyrides. He also hung out with the trio on a regular basis before classes or during lunchtime, and he and Rachel performed in high school plays together.
“We never argued,” Daniel said about his calm and steady bond with Skylar. “I cannot think of one argument we were in. We would get irritated with each other, but we never had an actual argument where we didn’t talk to each other.”
By the time they turned into teenagers and entered high school, Skylar’s relationship with Shelia—and later Rachel, once she joined the Skylar and Shelia club—came to dominate her world. Rachel’s friends said it seemed Shelia was trying to control Rachel, and said they could see the bad effect Shelia was having on her.
Skylar’s friends echoed those sentiments and were equally troubled about Skylar, but both girls brushed off their friends’ concerns. In the process, Rachel and Skylar drew even closer to Shelia—until the three-way friendship turned tumultuous, leaving Skylar the odd girl out.
Skylar had snuck out when the Neeses still lived in the Cheat Lake area. Mary worked at Ruby Memorial Hospital then, but Dave only worked part time, making advertising signs for company cars. Times were lean for the Neeses.
On a warm spring night Skylar engineered a plan to go joyriding with Shelia. Joyriding is what today’s teens call riding around aimlessly in a car, talking and texting and tweeting and sometimes getting high. Skylar and Shelia had gone joyriding many times, but Mary and Dave didn’t know that.
Because neither girl had a license, Skylar had talked Floyd Pancoast, a friend of hers, into taking them. Pancoast, age nineteen, was a brooding young man, but Skylar liked him anyway. Skylar was his sounding board, as she was for so many teens at University High School.
Floyd’s eighteen-year-old friend Brian Moats ended up driving. They also picked up Rachel and Shelia, who lived just a few minutes away from Skylar. The car with its five teenage occupants was cruising a little too fast down a long hill in Star City when Officer Mike Teets noticed their speed and took off in pursuit. Star City had a strict 10:00 P.M. curfew for anyone under eighteen, and the officer thought some of the car’s occupants appeared quite young. When he strolled up to the drive
r’s window after pulling them over, his suspicions were confirmed: the girls were underage. Officer Teets released Pancoast and Moats. He drove the three girls to the Star City police station, then called Rachel’s and Shelia’s fathers to come get them. The two teens had intentionally not given him their mothers’ cell phone numbers. Rachel said her mom would get violent; Shelia knew her dad would go easier on her.
Neither mother immediately knew what happened because both dads snuck their daughters back into their respective homes. But Skylar didn’t realize that. The Neeses didn’t have a home phone then, nor did either of them have a cell—although they made sure Skylar did in case of an emergency. Since Officer Teets had no way to reach her parents, he loaded Skylar into the back of his patrol car and drove her home himself.
According to Mary, Skylar was nearly hysterical. She was inconsolable, saying Rachel’s mom would beat her daughter up because she snuck out. Rachel had repeatedly told Skylar and Shelia about beatings she said she received from her mother.
“It’s all my fault!” Skylar gulped through her tears. She had been the instigator of the plan, and Mary thought the chastised teen’s guilt was appropriate.
“Yes, it is. You can’t be doing that, Skylar!” Mary said. “Do you even know these boys that well? What if they hurt you? What if they raped you, killed you?”
“Rachel’s going to be in such trouble!”
“As she should be. Now off to bed.”
Pretty Little Killers Page 4