Pretty Little Killers

by Berry, Daleen, Fuller, Geoffrey C.

  Mary and Dave both agreed Skylar had punished herself enough, so they didn’t ground her or administer any other discipline. They believed she had learned her lesson.

  Looking at events leading up to the murder, two facts are certain: Skylar’s personality had begun changing, and she was growing angrier. Anyone who knew her well knew that. It is possible Skylar’s temper was due to her personality change. Dave bragged she once punched him in the face so hard he was surprised she didn’t knock him out. She and Shelia were always feuding, many times because Skylar was angry at Shelia when she didn’t get her way. Then there were all those angry tweets Skylar sent out for the world to see, which she tweeted steadily in the late summer and fall of 2011.

  Skylar was angry at Shelia, as evidenced by their frequent online fights. The bickering seems to have begun in late summer of 2011. In fact, June, July, and early August may have been the high point of the relationship among the three teens—both figuratively and literally.

  Skylar’s tweets from this time are positively giddy. Just after three in the morning on August 4, she tweeted to Shelia, ima pass the time by blowing up yo shitt and two minutes later, Rachel: i have a story for you tomorrow. text me when you wake up! you can help my boredom on the ride to the beach :)). And not long after: OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG.

  Clearly Skylar was pleased and excited—until the big blowout at Rachel’s home. Based on written documentation, the fight happened on August 16, just before the girls returned to school. It was loud enough to wake Rachel’s mother, who separated them.

  Rachel invited Shelia and Skylar for a sleepover. It was the first and last time they stayed with her. Sometime after Patricia fell asleep, the girls began drinking from the bottle of vodka they had somehow gotten their hands on. Before long all three girls were drunk, which is apparently when they started snapping photos of each other and kissing.

  Skylar may have taken part in the drunken kissing, but based on what is known about her public displays with the same sex, that’s probably all she did. For a while now, rumors have floated around she took pictures of—and some students say she even videoed—what happened next.

  That is, Rachel and Shelia undressed and began having oral sex, and then scissored.10 Skylar, who was in an unfamiliar home with a parent Rachel claimed could be violent, was unlikely to have felt comfortable enough to leave the bedroom. So she was trapped, forced to watch.

  Afterward all three girls slept in Rachel’s bed. Or they tried to. Shelia ordered Skylar to “move over, so I can cuddle with Rachel.”

  Shelia’s request angered Skylar, who began complaining. A loud and rowdy fight ensued between the two girls. The next thing they knew, Patricia burst through the door. “What’s going on down here?”

  “I don’t know, Skylar and Shelia—” Rachel began, then stopped. “They just started fighting.”

  Patricia told them to keep it down and took Rachel upstairs to sleep in her bedroom. But Shelia and Skylar continued fighting, so Patricia was forced to return at least once more to quiet the two girls.

  This secondhand account comes from another friend, Shania Ammons, to whom Skylar related the events.11 But Mary Neese verified the incident, when she later said Skylar wrote in her diary about Shelia and Rachel having sex.12

  “Skylar . . . didn’t seem happy about it,” Shania said.

  Shania didn’t discuss Skylar’s version of events with Shelia. “I pretend it never happened. I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “I don’t have anything against it. . . . It was just like, Shelia and Rachel. It was weird.”

  four

  Big Girls Do Cry

  According to one investigator who read Skylar’s diary, she said very little about Shelia and Rachel having sex and seemed more upset about the fight she and Shelia had afterward. Skylar claimed she was mad at Shelia because whenever another person was around, Shelia favored that person.

  As their sophomore year approached, a stronger note of the discord simmering beneath the unstable three-way relationship crept into Skylar’s furious tweets: yet ANOTHER reason to fucking hate you. youre realllly starting to push it. #idareyou to give me one more.

  The identity of the person (or people) Skylar kept subtweeting13 is uncertain, but Shelia and Rachel are the most likely candidates. By then, they were the two friends Skylar was most concerned with.

  However, she wasn’t ready to let go of the relationship and seemed torn by her feelings for both girls. This was apparent by the end of August, when Skylar was waxing nostalgic, writing about the good times they had together sneaking out: missinn the old daysss with @_sheliiaa @rachel_shoaf96 #fuckgettingcaught :(((.

  Even so, Skylar was becoming angrier and her outbursts more vocal. She seemed to blame the girls for problems that might have impacted her: people who start shit for no reason at all #pathetic and hmmm even bigger whore than i thought? #notsurprising.

  Of course by then Skylar knew Shelia’s affection for Rachel was more than platonic. She must have sensed she was being replaced by this newcomer, this upstart, this intruder in a relationship going back to the second grade.

  She took to Twitter on August 21, lamenting, its almost ridiculous how i somehow find out everything.

  By September Skylar tweeted what sounded like it could have been a threat, but was probably more her blowing off steam—however, it is possible the other two girls began to worry she did intend to expose their relationship.

  Whatever was going on behind the scenes, Skylar was extremely upset, as shown by this August 23 tweet: i forreal need to quit wishing death on people. #thatsterrible #karmasabitch.

  Either Shelia or Rachel—or both—were wearing on Skylar’s nerves when she tweeted on September 5: she found out shes got no soul but it reallly doesnt bother her <3.

  Then came the tweet many people say indicated Skylar was threating to “out” her two friends. On September 6 she wrote: id tell the whole school all the shit i have on everyone, which is a lottttt #IfICouldGetAwayWithIt.

  It hardly seems a coincidence that one month later, Rachel and Shelia began to joke about killing Skylar.

  People on the outside looking in might wonder why the three girls didn’t just go their separate ways. It’s not an easy question to answer, but part of the explanation could be the fact that Shelia Eddy had something Rachel and Skylar did not: a car.

  Shelia’s car played a crucial role in the dynamics of the girls’ relationship the entire time they were a trio. Shortly after they became sophomores, Shelia turned sixteen and received the gift from her mother and stepfather. Some teens have speculated she used the vehicle to control Rachel and Skylar.

  Having transportation meant freedom from parental oversight. Rachel didn’t have a car because she didn’t get her learner’s permit until late, and Patricia’s friend Liz said Rachel’s dad eventually planned to buy her a used car. However, once Rachel began acting out, her parents refused to let her have a vehicle.

  Skylar knew her family’s financial situation meant she wouldn’t have a car until she earned enough money to buy one. Mary and Dave might have wanted to provide their only daughter a vehicle, but it was beyond their means.

  Possibly because of that desire for independence, and knowing Shelia had the transportation to provide it—or out of an impulse to heal a broken relationship, or maybe based on a need for emotional support—Skylar began reaching out to Rachel.

  It’s possible Skylar knew Rachel would get her to Shelia, and Shelia’s wheels. Or it could show that Shelia was the intended target of all those angry tweets, whereas Skylar wasn’t giving up her friendship with Rachel. Skylar did this in friendly tweets the end of August, when she tweeted to Rachel and another unnamed person on August 28, @rachel_shoaf96 i heard ! im very excited for you both lmao :).

  The same day Rachel tweeted to Skylar about a gift Skylar bought her; Skylar retweeted it, @rachel_shoaf96 my gaga shirt that my wonderful friend skylar got me. Skylar also tweeted to Rachel about how much she liked her
, @rachel_shoaf96 hehe number 1 fan. no doubt. While Skylar was playfully interacting with Rachel that day, her tweets show she clearly blamed Shelia for the serious rift that had developed: LAST TIME. @_sheliiaa hate you.

  This back-and-forth, love-hate relationship—apparently toward both girls—continued throughout that fall, as Skylar’s tweets grew increasingly negative. More and more, the subtext of her tweets spoke of jealousy, a failing relationship, and the nostalgic sadness of being left out:

  life would be so much easier if jealously didnt exist. #getsthebestofme summers spent in blacksville with @_sheliiaa. #momentsillnever forget.

  Even though she seemed angry and hurt, Skylar missed the friendship—and kept hoping the situation would improve:

  those songs that remind you of how it used to be.. #happensforareason. everytime i see people talking about how sad it is to have your best friend slip away i get more greatful i never have to worry about it . . . #iloveyou because i couldnt imagine life without you.

  Interestingly, from November 29 to December 9, Skylar had no tweets to, from, or about either Shelia or Rachel. Either she deleted her tweets during that eleven-day period, or a deep freeze had set in between all three girls.

  Moodiness may be a normal part of adolescent development, but there was much more going on beneath the surface for Skylar. After Shelia moved to Morgantown, Skylar wasn’t as bubbly and carefree as she once was. It’s difficult to say how much of that change could be attributed to Shelia’s negative influence, factors from within Skylar’s own family, or the addition of Rachel to their little clique.

  Daniel recognized there were issues between Skylar and Shelia, even though Skylar didn’t talk about them. She didn’t complain about Rachel, either, for that matter. Still, he sensed the friction lurking beneath all the laughter. It would bubble to the surface regularly in the form of heated arguments, which seemed to pass as quickly as they came.

  Daniel saw the contention one day when another tiff occurred after Skylar reprimanded Shelia. He was with the three girls when Skylar told Shelia she shouldn’t have inappropriately touched a male student in history class. It wasn’t a huge blowup, but Daniel said Shelia seemed annoyed that Skylar chastised her.

  Then there were the “really nasty fights” Daniel witnessed between Shelia and Skylar. It didn’t seem like Rachel was directly involved, though.

  One day when he and Rachel were waiting to go onstage to practice their roles in the school play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, they were hanging out in the school cafeteria. Except for them, the large room was deserted. Daniel said Shelia called Rachel and then added Skylar in a three-way call. Shelia deliberately didn’t tell Skylar that Rachel was listening. Rachel muted her phone so Skylar wouldn’t know she had an audience. Evidently, Shelia’s plan was to provoke Skylar, so she and Rachel would be treated to some of Skylar’s fireworks.

  Rachel pushed the speaker button and encouraged Daniel to listen when Shelia and Skylar began screaming. “At first [Rachel] was crying [and saying], ‘I can’t believe they’re fighting like this,’” Daniel said.

  Then Rachel’s tears quickly turned to laughter as she listened to her two best friends go at it. “Ha, did you hear what she just said?”

  “I couldn’t believe it,” an incredulous Daniel said. “I thought, whoa, girls get nasty.”

  Daniel wasn’t the only person who knew about Shelia and Skylar’s fights. Crissy did, too. She said she heard that the two girls repeatedly got into fistfights after Rachel joined their group. Crissy said she and her mom believed that Shelia and Skylar were fighting over Rachel.

  While there is no evidence Rachel physically fought with Skylar or Shelia, her indirect actions may have helped to accelerate the slow burn between the other two.

  It was about this time when Daniel recognized Shelia and Rachel were sending mixed messages. He saw this firsthand and wondered about it, and realized Shelia and Rachel always had to be next to each other when Skylar wasn’t around.

  “They were awkwardly too close to each other,” Daniel remembered, saying Shelia and Rachel seemed more emotionally intimate than when Skylar was present. They made references their friends didn’t understand, peppering their conversation with inside jokes. They were also physically closer, with lots of hugging and playful pushing.

  “They were always touchy-feely,” he added. “If we were smoking or something, Rachel would get all up on Shelia.”

  Daniel sometimes wondered if they were a couple. He began to notice they seemed more drawn to each other when Skylar was absent, than when all three of them were together.

  Although Skylar never witnessed any of this—and she and Daniel never talked about it—she was aware of the dynamic. Skylar told people she was disappointed Shelia and Rachel had grown closer than she and Shelia originally were. More and more, she said, she felt like a third wheel.

  five

  The Game of Death

  By the time the trio had been together a little more than a year, their roles were clearly defined. Shelia was the leader, even though she sometimes deferred to Rachel, whose popularity with the artsy and apparently more wealthy students opened doors for them both. This didn’t appeal to Skylar; she didn’t seek wealth or status and only wanted to have fun with her friends. This carefree attitude weakened her link within the trio.

  Shelia loved being the leader of the pack. She excelled at it. As Shelia’s goals and dreams became more entwined with Rachel’s, she became mouthy with Skylar, who chafed at Shelia’s attitude. Skylar couldn’t stand being ignored or mistreated. She was used to speaking her mind and getting her way, and when she didn’t, she could throw a tantrum. At times, though, when Skylar let her guard down, when she yearned to be accepted and included, she was perfectly content to be a follower. It was as if Shelia, the one who could see, was leading Rachel and Skylar, who were blind.

  The trio’s dynamics are easily seen on the video Skylar shot and uploaded to the internet just six months before she was killed. In the video, Shelia is leading—and Rachel and Skylar are clearly her followers.

  The disturbing video begins in the middle of a conversation after Rachel or Skylar teased Shelia about peeing on the couch. Shelia denied it, her tone playful and joking.

  “That’s not my pee,” Shelia said. “I had a grape popsicle, and that’s not my pee.” She gestured as she spoke, arms wide, one hand holding what looked like a mixing spoon. Her gestures and head tilts were self-conscious—a teenager aware she was being videoed.

  Shelia is clearly the star, performing for a mostly offscreen Rachel and Skylar in the basement of Tara and Jim’s townhouse.

  “It’s a grape popsicle, dude,” Shelia continued. She pointed the spoon at Rachel. “You remember when you said ‘grape stain on the couch’?”

  “Yeah,” Rachel said, “but that was way over here because my butt got wet.”

  “You said it two times.” Shelia spoke as an authority, as if she was right and everyone knew it.

  “’Cause my butt was freezing,” Rachel whined.

  Shelia abruptly changed the subject: “Would you guys rather suffocate or get shot?”

  It appears they had played the game so often Shelia didn’t have to explain the rules.

  “Shot,” Rachel said immediately, with Skylar’s “Shot” following closely.

  “Wait,” Rachel said. “Depends on where.”

  “In the head,” Shelia said, crossing her arms.

  “Shot,” Rachel and Skylar said in unison.

  “There would be no suffering at all,” Rachel added.

  “Eaten by ants or suffocated?” Shelia asked, arms still folded across her chest.

  “Suffocated,” Rachel and Skylar’s voices chimed.

  “Drowning or suffocating?”

  “Suffocate,” the two friends said, again in unison.

  Skylar added another thought: “It’s almost the same thing.”

  “I know, but it’s not,” Shelia said.

  Shelia wo
uld know—because she was in charge—and it had been her idea to play “Which Way Would You Rather Die?”

  All the kids were flocking to see the newly released movie The Hunger Games. So were Skylar, Shelia, and Shania one Saturday night in March 2012. On the way, Shelia was on her phone constantly—talking, texting, using social media—even though she was driving. For Shelia, using her phone was like breathing. Unceasing cell phone use is common among teenagers these days, but many UHS students spoke of Shelia’s nonstop attachment to her cell.

  They were on their way to the theater when they passed a farm, and the foul scent of dung wafted into the car. Shelia held her nose with one hand and steered the car with the other. Riding with Shelia was always an adventure as she juggled the phone, steering wheel, radio, and whatever else attracted her attention. Riding with Shelia was fun because it was dangerous.

  Along the way Skylar asked Shelia who she was texting. Shelia wouldn’t say. She almost never did, even though Skylar constantly nagged at Shelia to learn what she was doing or who she was talking to.

  The girls made it up the winding University Town Centre Drive and around to the Hollywood Stadium 12 theater. They went inside and found seats; Shelia sat in the middle, as usual, and held her phone up, the light from the screen shining on her face.

  “I heard this was a good movie,” Shania said.

  “Yeah,” Shelia said, still texting.

  “You need to put that away before the movie starts,” Skylar said.

  “Yeah,” Shelia said, but made no move to do so.

  “You talking to Rachel?” Skylar asked. If she was jealous it was all for nothing—Shelia was texting a boy she liked.

  “Nope.”

  “Who are you texting?” Skylar asked, more insistent.

  “Hang on,” Shelia said, continuing to text even as the theater’s lights dimmed.