They were upset, they confessed, with Skylar, over “something on Skylar’s Twitter,” the student told police.
Could it be because one—or both—girls knew exactly what Skylar meant, when she tweeted the ominous phrase: just know I know?
Rachel had left town with her Young Life friends midmorning on June 4, and was in Rockbridge, Virginia, through June 8. Several Morgantown teens were at camp, too, but only one other girl, Devon (not her real name), remembers anything remarkable about Rachel’s time there.
Until Shelia came along, Devon said she had been quite close to Rachel, and she, too, had tried to warn her Shelia wasn’t a good influence. Rachel never listened—until she and Devon went to church camp together.
While there Rachel, possibly having realized Shelia really intended to carry out their plan to kill Skylar, told Devon she was worried.
“I have to get away from Shelia.” That was all Rachel said, and after returning home, she seemed to do just that.
“For a couple of weeks,” Devon said, “Rachel was back with our Young Life group, hanging with us and not Shelia.”
If so, it’s doubly tragic Rachel finally saw the need to escape Shelia’s sphere of influence—only to then be pulled back in. Or was it a case of hoping she could mislead her friends to make them believe she was trying to escape, so she could later convince them Shelia had killed Skylar?
Everyone agrees: Rachel Shoaf was a follower, not a leader. What was less clear was whether she let Shelia lead her into an act of murder—or whether she went willingly. Either way, less than one month later both girls’ decision irrevocably changed their lives and those of their families.
It matters not whether Rachel followed Shelia because Shelia brainwashed her or because she was equally determined to kill Skylar. The choice to do so left the tiny town of Brave “unrecognizable,” one resident said, and its people heartsick “that this kind of evil seeped into our midst.”
Instead of celebrating her sweet sixteenth birthday with cake and candles, Rachel was helping Shelia plan Skylar’s murder. So while no one knows what Shelia said in reply to Skylar’s angry Twitter outburst—if she said anything at all—it isn’t hard to figure out how Shelia felt about it. That very night, both girls viewed Skylar as a threat, and set a date to kill her.
Gaskins says that on June 10, after the two girls met in the UHS parking lot, they put their plan into action. First, they began researching the various ways to kill someone. Since neither girl had any experience shooting a firearm, they opted for knives. After all, they reasoned, they didn’t even have to buy a knife—there were plenty in their mothers’ kitchens.
They weren’t sure how to go about stabbing Skylar to death, so they researched the best way to kill a person with a knife. After reading their options, they decided stabbing or severing the jugular vein was the surest way. No doubt during their sophomore biology class they would have learned this vein was a major blood vessel—and a deep wound there could easily be fatal.
Killing her, they imagined, would be the easy part. What about hiding her afterward? They tossed a couple of ideas around as casually as if they were playing a game of basketball. Perhaps they could get their hands on some acid somewhere. That would definitely do the trick. But they thought it might make people curious if they began asking about where to buy acid, so they quickly dismissed the idea.
Shelia, a big fan of TV shows like Law & Order, probably came up with the idea to feed Skylar to pigs. This is a commonly used device in television, as pigs are known for their strong jaws. In recent years episodes of CSI and Criminal Minds both featured victims who were fed to pigs.16
In addition, Shelia’s father’s trailer, her grandfather’s house, and all the Eddy land out behind Blacksville were surrounded by coal mines and farmland. Finding a pig or two to eat Skylar after she was dead shouldn’t be difficult at all. Of course, they probably worried they might wake up some sleeping farmer if they tried to drag her body over to a hog trough. They couldn’t risk that.
In the end, it was much easier than either acid or pigs: they would take Skylar out to one of their favorite places to get high, smoke a few joints, and then bury her there behind the Eddy land. That place was so dark and deserted, no one would ever find the girl they had both come to hate.
seven
Skylar Neese Must Die
Skylar had no idea of the evil awaiting her when she climbed out of her bedroom window at 12:31 A.M. on July 6. After stashing the bench around the corner of the apartment building, she hurried to a waiting silver Toyota Camry and climbed into the back seat.
Skylar was probably apprehensive about joyriding with Shelia and Rachel.17 Her two best friends had ditched her more than once the previous week, and the girls’ tweets told the tale. They were insistent, and said since a bad derecho in late June had caused Rachel’s church camp plans to be rescheduled, it was a good night to sneak out and smoke weed before Rachel left.
For hours that evening, while at work, on her way home, even after she arrived home, Skylar and Eric Finch, a close friend Skylar met years earlier through Shelia, had been texting each other. In between Skylar learned something either Shelia or Rachel—or both girls—had done. It upset her and at 10:48 P.M. Skylar voiced her public displeasure when she tweeted, you doing shit like that is why I will NEVER completely trust you.
She continued receiving text messages from both girls, trying to get back in her good graces, and telling her they really wanted her to join them. They promised not to fight. Skylar still wasn’t sure how well the night would go. Lately her friendship with Shelia and Rachel had been falling apart, and she wasn’t sure how much longer it would last.
Skylar’s childhood friendship with Shelia was as precious as her cell phone—it was her lifeline—and she couldn’t stand the thought of losing it. She blamed the rift on Rachel and Shelia having sex together, because since then they had become inseparable. Skylar didn’t like it, but she couldn’t seem to do anything about it.
They must have convinced her, though, because a few minutes after 11 P.M. Skylar let her guard down. She was going to try not to be angry with them, and thought maybe—just maybe—she and Shelia could get back to the way they were, before Rachel came along and ruined everything.
She said as much at 11:15 P.M., when she retweeted her friend Jillian Molnar’s tweet, All I do is hope.
Sitting in the back seat, watching Rachel and Shelia laughing up front, Skylar may have thought about how things used to be. She may have remembered her Honors English journal entry from September 20, nearly a year ago, when she wrote she was closer to Shelia than anyone she had met, and she couldn’t “imagine life without her.” Perhaps she thought about how she and Rachel had “formed a bond that will last a lifetime,” and how dull her life would be without Rachel in it.
She may have wondered about the beach trip she and Shelia had taken and how badly it ended. That argument between her and Shelia—the most recent argument, the one that ruined their six-day vacation at Myrtle Beach in June—still wasn’t resolved. Skylar no doubt wondered what it would take to return to the days of their earlier friendship. Or if, by now, it was possible.
Rachel had been acting a little odd the last few days. She had grown distant and reserved. Skylar would have wanted to resolve whatever was happening among the three of them. The problem was, how? Bad feelings were poison to her, as she wrote in her English class and her diary.
As Shelia, Rachel, and Skylar headed away from Star City, past the Sheetz convenience store and across the four-lane bridge over the Monongahela River, Skylar probably looked out the side window, her earbuds in and her music loud, and pondered their friendship problems.
Maybe Skylar saw it first. Maybe Shelia, who was driving, or Rachel, sitting beside her, did. But as they headed north on Route 19, planning to turn left onto Route 7 and head west toward Blacksville, they suddenly came up short.
“Oh shit, Shelia, there’s the po-po!” Rachel might have said.
“Fuck!” Shelia probably replied.
Parked near the intersection of Routes 19 and 7, in front of a Hot Spot gambling lounge, was a State Police car. It matters little who saw the car first, because all three girls immediately grew skittish: they were underage, breaking curfew—and they all knew they had weed in the car. What was important is that the trooper sitting inside his patrol vehicle didn’t see the little car at all.
“Quick, turn around!” Rachel suggested.
Sure enough, Shelia saw the same circular entrance to Tirelady’s Rainbow Tire that Rachel did, which allowed her to easily pull off the road and on again, quickly heading back toward Star City.
“That was close,” Skylar, who would have removed one earbud as soon as she realized something was wrong, said from the back seat.
Shelia and Rachel stared straight ahead, each refusing to give in to the desire they had to turn to the other, eyes opened wide. But as Skylar stuck the little white bud back in her ear and turned to stare out the window again, not giving the police car another second of worry, their minds were on what was hidden in the trunk, and their thoughts were likely identical:
You have no idea, Skylar, no idea at all!
Once back at the intersection where Sheetz was, Shelia would have made an easy right turn while gliding through the traffic light. That late at night her little car was one of a few still on the road, and from there, it was barely half a mile to the I-79 on-ramp that would lead them north, and on an alternate route to Blacksville.
Shelia left the interstate six miles later at the Mount Morris exit, and drove through the tiny town until she came to Buckeye Road. She steered her car through the curves in the commonly traveled shortcut, which wound its way for a few miles along the narrow, twisty roadway. The night had cooled down to the midseventies, and the high, clear sky full of stars belied the violence of the storm less than a week earlier.
The road widened as they crossed the Mason-Dixon Line and then a big iron bridge that signaled the road’s end. Shelia turned right at the intersection and followed Route 7 west to Blacksville past her old alma mater, Clay-Battelle High School, and finally, to the right turn that would take her and Rachel to their secret destination on Morris Run Road back in Pennsylvania.
The deeper they drove into this rural area, the more apparent the devastation from the recent derecho became. Both sides of the road were heavily forested and hadn’t been completely cleared of toppled trees, broken branches, and general debris left behind by the eighty-mile-an-hour winds.
Skylar had only agreed to join them because she believed they were going to ride around for a while, chat, and get high. But a mile south of Shelia’s father’s house, on a dark stretch of road, Shelia pulled the little Toyota off at a place they all knew well. They’d smoked many joints there on the way to or from Shelia’s dad’s house. To Skylar, this was one more smoke break. She had no reason to suspect her two best friends had something much darker in mind.
Neither Shelia nor Rachel mentioned the real reason they invited her to join them on that midnight drive. Nor did they say a word about the paper towels, bleach, Handi Wipes, or clean clothes stashed in the trunk of the car. They didn’t discuss the shovel Rachel had stolen from her father’s house and hidden in the trunk. Concealed under their arms and beneath the folds of their hoodies, Shelia and Rachel each carried one of the knives Shelia had brought. The weapons had been in place since they picked up the girl they planned to kill.
Skylar never knew about any of that, so she never got the chance to restore harmony among them. The three got out of the car and walked a little ways down the road. Shelia produced the joint, but the lighter she brought didn’t work. Skylar remembered she’d left her lighter in the car and turned in the road to get it.
The minute Skylar’s back was turned, Rachel began counting. At the count of three, she and Shelia began stabbing. With each stab wound, they released their pent-up rage and anger—at the people who had wronged them, at the parents who had disappointed them, and at the girl who loved them both, but whose jealous temper tantrums had made them despise her.
Stunned and in pain, Skylar tried at first to run. But she didn’t get very far, because Rachel chased and tackled her in the middle of the road. Both girls landed on the ground as Rachel and Shelia kept stabbing. Skylar was physically stronger and a natural scrapper, though, and because she knew she was fighting for her life, she managed to grab Rachel’s knife. It was Rachel’s turn to shriek when Skylar left a three-inch gash just above her right ankle.
Rachel recovered her knife, however, and as they continued stabbing, only one word fell from Skylar’s lips, but she cried it out over and over: “Why?”
In the end, Skylar never had a chance. She was stronger and tougher than either girl, but the fight was two against one. Skylar was weakening from wound upon wound, while Shelia and Rachel became more frenzied, their attacks increasingly savage.
After they finally stopped, Skylar’s “best friends” stood above her, victorious with their win, until she stopped breathing. They watched her die. The fight had been so vigorous, both Shelia and Rachel had accidentally pocket-dialed someone: Shelia, her own voicemail; Rachel, an old boyfriend who never got the call.
Together they dragged Skylar to the side of the road and tried to bury her near a creek, but the soil was too rocky. They covered her body with debris instead.
When they were certain no one would ever find her, they got the paper towels and Handi Wipes out of the trunk, stripped naked, and put their bloody clothes in a trash bag. The murder, cleanup, and burial under rocks, dirt, and fallen branches took just over three hours.
Then Shelia and Rachel, filled with a sense of mutual accomplishment and excitement from the kill, wiped themselves off and had sex to celebrate.18 Afterward they carefully bagged all the bloody items and dressed in the clean clothes they had brought along.
In a town where people take great pride in having harmonious family lives, and where horrific crimes like this simply don’t happen, one of the most harrowing parts of this story is comprehending the fear Skylar must have felt when her two best friends attacked her.
“Skylar must have been terrified,” one mother said. “Can you imagine the pain she felt at knowing her two friends were trying to murder her? That poor little girl.”
Skylar’s story can bring the strongest person to tears, and many people have followed it and the associated rumors from the time they first heard her name.
Everyone now knows Rachel Shoaf eventually confessed, turned State’s evidence, and pled guilty to second-degree murder in Skylar’s death. For almost nine months after that, Shelia Eddy insisted she was innocent. In a stunning reversal, though, Shelia also pled guilty—to first-degree murder—on January 24, 2014. She was sentenced to life in prison and given mercy, making her eligible for parole in fifteen years.
People who followed the tragic story know Shelia’s last-minute plea came about because Rachel confessed. Most of them don’t know that before her confession, Rachel had a nervous breakdown and was committed to a psychiatric hospital. Some people also know bits and pieces of the puzzle: rumors of the affair between Shelia and Rachel, the growing discord between Skylar and her two friends, and the fact that Shelia and Rachel planned the murder as much as a year in advance.
Rachel’s descent into despair began within hours of stabbing Skylar to death when she went home and talked to God in the pages of her diary. Rachel wrote that only He knew what had happened the night of July 6—and it was going to stay that way.
Rachel also wrote, in page upon page, how sorry she was about what had happened. In the days to come, Rachel kept writing about “all the lies and lies, the terrible lies,” as she begged God to forgive her.19
However, because appearances were of the utmost importance to Rachel—and because she knew how horribly she had disgraced her family—she treated the entire UHS student body and the community of Morgantown, West Virginia, to the performance of
her lifetime. She did so to keep people from learning what she had done.
For six tumultuous months, no one suspected the ugly truth. A budding actress and singer with no small amount of talent, Rachel convinced all her friends she was innocent and had nothing to do with Skylar’s disappearance. Rachel performed the role of “typical teenager,” living a life of pretense and lies that was emotionally exhausting. Unfortunately for Rachel, the one person she couldn’t convince was herself.
Skylar’s disappearance tore through Mary and Dave Neese. It sapped their strength and left them drained. They lived a number of private and public hells after losing their only child. The police investigation seemed to yield little fruit. Every day Mary and Dave volleyed between hope and despair. Family and close friends rallied around at first, but that support eventually soured, dissolving into a whirlpool of accusations and innuendo. Skylar’s absence quickly sparked fires at UHS, too, since the pretty teen trio had been a fixture there. Some teenagers believed Skylar had run away. Others speculated she had overdosed and her body had been dumped down a mine shaft. Rumors roared like forest fires as students claimed Rachel and Shelia were hiding something, while others defended them, insisting that neither girl had anything to hide.
In spite of Rachel’s amazing performance, by the time she broke down and was transported to Chestnut Ridge, the local psychiatric hospital, many teenagers knew the truth: Skylar Neese, they said, had been killed the same night she disappeared.
eight
Vanished
When Skylar clocked out of Wendy’s at the Glenmark Centre on July 5, 2012, she had every intention of returning to work the next day. Her shift ended at 10:00 P.M. and the drive across Morgantown to Star City took only ten minutes. When Skylar walked through the front door of her home, she found Mary and Dave sitting in front of the television, watching CSI.
Pretty Little Killers Page 7