Pretty Little Killers

by Berry, Daleen, Fuller, Geoffrey C.

  Without waiting for an answer, she turned to the security guard and warned him not to let Shelia in.

  “She’s not getting past us, ma’am,” he assured Patricia.

  Shelia tried again two days later. Again she was turned away.

  Mother and daughter were together on January 3, when Tara dropped Shelia off at the curb in front of the Shoafs’ house, then began to drive slowly around the development. Rachel answered the door and Shelia slipped inside. Some people think Shelia had no clue what a busy girl Rachel had been earlier that day, that she didn’t have any inkling Rachel had told authorities she and Shelia had savagely stabbed Skylar to death. They assumed Shelia didn’t know Rachel had spent hours confessing to her lawyer, the State Police, and the FBI, and that nothing seemed amiss because Rachel wasn’t in custody.

  People speculate Shelia didn’t know Rachel had agreed to gather evidence against her best friend, or that everything they said and did was being recorded on audio- and videotape.

  They might be wrong, though. Shelia may have suspected all of that when she noticed Rachel’s new accessory: she was wearing a really fancy watch.

  “Nice watch, Rach,” Shelia said. “I’ve never seen you wear a watch before.”

  Those people also believe Shelia, apparently like some of the neighbors, didn’t notice the extra cars, either, or the officers inside those vehicles who were listening and watching the two girls’ exchange.

  Outside was another matter. From their respective positions in the unmarked cars, Gaskins and his entourage were listening and watching what was going on inside the Shoaf home. Every few minutes, Tara would drive by, and the officers would have to stop writing and duck down, hoping Tara couldn’t see them.

  “Man, I hope she can’t tell the windows are fogged up, and figure out what we’re doing,” Gaskins said.

  “That would be bad,” Ambrosini replied, laughing.

  For the entire time Shelia was inside with Rachel, the game continued: the officers would listen and watch and try to take notes—and then Tara would drive by again. By then it was so dark they knew she couldn’t see them, but they knew she might be able to see some of the LED lights from their equipment inside the vehicles. Of course, writing soon became difficult in the dark, but they didn’t have much longer to wait, because Shelia came out a few minutes later.

  Despite all their efforts to catch Shelia in her lie, she didn’t say anything that would directly incriminate her. It was clear to the state troopers and FBI agents listening outside that the teens were involved in a conspiracy—just as Rachel had said—but bugging Rachel and Shelia’s “reunion” only produced one useful piece of information: the two girls spoke of “sticking together” in the coming days and weeks. Otherwise, the police got nothing else that helped their case.

  However, this incident may have had an unintended consequence. Rumors that Rachel wore a wire started circulating in May, soon after the arrests. They persisted even after both Rachel and Shelia were found guilty of Skylar’s murder. Every member of law enforcement directly involved in the case denied the rumor at the time. The FBI audiovisual surveillance was probably its source.

  At the moment of their reunion, Shelia was oblivious to all of that; her only care was telling the world how happy she was to see Rachel—her Rachel—again. When Shelia left, she happily tweeted, FINALLLLY GOT TO SEEE @_racchh <3. She attached a selfie of the pair.

  In that revealing photo, the pair of matching smiles seems forced and one can see the stress Rachel was under, her eyes rimmed with dark circles and a look of exhaustion in her expression. Shelia said as much with her very next tweet: and i don’t even care how bad we look. Shelia never expected that tweet to be the last one she ever sent directly to Rachel.

  Soon after leaving Rachel, Shelia was no longer happy. Police believe that’s because Rachel’s parents told Tara their daughter needed to stay away from Rachel—Shelia wasn’t allowed to try to call, text, or chat online with Rachel. That if Shelia tried, it would be of no use anyway, since they were taking Rachel’s cell phone and other electronic devices.

  People who have tracked the girls’ tweets believed it could have been something else entirely; that somehow that night, Rachel told Shelia that the police were onto them, so she needed to be careful. They speculated Rachel could have handed Shelia a small piece of paper as she told her goodbye at her front door, or she could have called her on the phone right after that and given her a heads-up.

  Whatever happened, Rachel’s parents did confiscate her cell phone. Then they left town. While Rachel was in Chestnut Ridge, Rusty and Patricia began reflecting on her behavior during the last six months, and how she had gone from being respectful to hateful and argumentative. They remembered how she seemed to be keeping secrets and looking to Shelia and Tara for approval. They wanted to get Rachel away from Shelia—and her mother. Rachel had grown far too close to Tara since Skylar’s disappearance, and Tara seemed to be trying to control Rachel as much as Shelia had been. United in their approach to parenting in a way they never had been before, Rusty and Patricia were determined to do whatever they could to make that happen. Under no circumstances were they going to allow Rachel to have any communication with Shelia. Or Tara.

  Back home in the warmth and security of her mom and stepdad’s townhouse, Shelia’s next tweet, -_______-, shows clearly her world wouldn’t stay warm and cozy for long. The emoticon depicts a mouth and two squinty eyes, and is teenspeak for any feeling from dislike to hostility. The longer the line, the greater the displeasure. The line Shelia tweeted was quite long, indicating she was very, very upset.

  She also tweeted, i dont have time to be wasting my time.

  thirty-six

  All That Remains

  It had been another bad day for Shelia. At 8:30 that morning, she had tweeted, first time ive ever been completely speechless. That was followed almost immediately with, holy fuck. Shelia wasn’t easily rattled, but something had stunned her.

  Just after noon she had tweeted, someone please explain to me why i get myself into situations i can’t get out of? And fifteen minutes later she retweeted something that she also felt: I am so sick of everything like I don’t even know how to deal with reality anymore. She was feeling sorry for herself, but not as sorry as she would feel when the day ended.

  Shelia’s eyes were wide when she opened the front door and found Gaskins and three other state troopers on the stoop. “Can I help you?”

  It was Friday, January 4, the day after the FBI had bugged Rachel’s house in anticipation of the teens’ reunion.

  Gaskins held up a sheaf of papers. “We have a couple of warrants.”

  Shelia punched a number into her cell phone. “They’re here, Mom, the State Police. They say they have warrants.” She sounded confused as she handed the phone to Gaskins.

  “It’s for electronics and knives,” he said in answer to her question.

  He listened as Tara asked them to wait for her to get home from work.

  “We can do that,” Gaskins said, turning his back to Shelia, voice lowered. “But we need to wait inside. To make sure Shelia doesn’t hurt herself, or anything.”

  It was standard protocol for searches, to ensure none of the evidence, or the person being served, was harmed. Gaskins knew he had several good reasons to keep a close eye on Shelia.

  Just then, two vehicles pulled up to the Clendenen house—a car with four FBI agents and a truck to carry the confiscated material.

  “What’s all this?” Shelia asked as the truck backed toward them.

  Gaskins handed Shelia the phone.

  “Mom? What’s going on?” Shelia said. Her voice was shaky.

  As Gaskins eased past Shelia, he heard her say, “But what do they want?”

  Shelia sometimes had an oddly childlike quality about her, especially around her mother. Gaskins had seen it more than once during interviews, usually right before she started crying. More often than not Tara would shut down the interrogation a
t that point.

  He called down to the lead agent in the driveway. “The mother will be here soon. She’s on her way home from work.” He then went inside to wait with Shelia for Tara. The troopers stood while Shelia sat on the sofa.

  When Tara arrived fifteen minutes later, Gaskins sent a couple of his men outside to help her in. It was icy and he didn’t want her to fall. When Tara got inside and saw the word “murder” on the warrants, she turned and gave Shelia a long, hard look. Gaskins thought her expression said it all: “Is this true?”

  Shelia got up, took the papers from her mother, and her eyes grew big as she read the words. She didn’t say a word. Neither did Tara.

  Gaskins asked them both to wait in the dining room during the search. He stepped onto the porch and signaled the agents outside to get started.

  In the kitchen, two agents opened all the drawers and after taking photos, bagged and tagged every knife they found. Meanwhile, Gaskins headed upstairs to Shelia’s bedroom.

  Outside, the driver of the truck checked his paperwork against the car in the driveway: a 2006 silver Toyota Camry, registered to James and Tara Clendenen. It was a match. He unhooked chains and began the process of impounding Shelia’s car. Pulling a lever on the rollback truck’s bed, it slid backward on a hydraulic jack, causing it to tilt down on the ground and effectively make a ramp. He hooked a winch to the front end of the vehicle and pulled it up onto the bed.

  “This is it,” he said to no one in particular. He began to unhook chains from his truck and drag them back toward the car. The FBI agents didn’t even bother going inside. They were there for the car and only the car. The FBI had tests to run to see if they could corroborate any part of Rachel’s confession. In fifteen minutes, the agents and the truck were gone—with Shelia’s car.

  To Gaskins, Shelia’s bedroom seemed like any other teenage girl’s: colorful and messy. Bob Marley posters hung on the walls. Closet and dresser drawers sat partially open and the bed wasn’t made.

  After he peered under her bed and lifted the mattress, Gaskins searched the desk and closet. He then checked the hallway bathroom. Finding nothing, he went back downstairs. Shelia and Tara sat on the couch in the living room, watching.

  The search lasted two hours. Any electronic devices they had missed with the last warrant, as well as every knife in the house, were labeled and boxed up for transport. Gaskins noted that whatever Shelia might be feeling, she sure wasn’t showing it.

  “Can you leave me one knife?” Tara asked, “so I can make dinner?”

  Gaskins shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am. We can’t.”

  By midnight Shelia had somehow gotten access to another electronic gadget, expressing her feelings online by tweeting, life fucked me yet again.

  Shelia wasn’t thinking about what she had done to cause it. She wasn’t thinking of the painful death of her “best friend.” Shelia was thinking about Shelia. The interviews, the searches, the accusations were all just another conspiracy by the universe to inconvenience her. She was sure of it.

  If Shelia thought her life sucked after the FBI took her wheels, she probably wanted to die when the authorities pulled the social rug out from under her and Rachel in early January. That’s when they both left UHS and were home schooled. Liz says the U.S. Attorney’s office took the action to protect other students from the two teen killers. Other people speculate that the girls received so many threats from fellow students they were removed for their own protection.

  Whatever the reason, the fact remains that in early January Rachel and Shelia found themselves attending a virtual school inside their own homes. Separated from most social interaction and estranged from each other, their tweets indicate they put on a good front for the outside world.

  Still, when either girl showed up to take a test at school, people talked. They were incensed after someone posted a photo showing Shelia attending the prom with her cousin, Lexy Eddy, at North Marion High. Although she couldn’t have known it then, Lexy’s decision to invite Shelia to the prom would jeopardize her own standing in the community.

  Once Shelia and Rachel were arrested, Lexy found herself being harassed on social media and by her fellow students—who said she must have known about the murder, too, if she kept close ties to her cousin. Before long, Lexy closed all her social media accounts, withdrew from school, and began instruction at her Mannington home. The beautiful brunette was basically forced underground, where she refused to talk to anyone outside of her immediate family and a few trusted friends.

  The public took to social media to voice its disbelief and outrage. They wondered why the authorities would remove the two teens, only to let them intermittently return to school—and possibly endanger other students.

  What the public didn’t know is that the police were as frustrated as anyone else that two probable killers were roaming free, being allowed to travel out of state, or occasionally drop back in on UHS classes. But without any evidence, they couldn’t arrest Rachel or Shelia. Many, many people confess to crimes they don’t commit, and the police wanted to make sure Rachel’s confession was rock solid before they made their move.

  So the hands of the police and the prosecutor were tied, because while they had Rachel’s confession, they did not have Skylar, so they couldn’t confirm Rachel’s story about the murder. Skylar’s remains were still somewhere out in Brave. The police didn’t have enough to convict Shelia, either. Not yet.

  Their only option was to bide their time, allowing the public to believe they were idiots, and wait until they had enough evidence to convict Shelia, to back up Rachel’s confession. In the meantime, they would wait for the DNA testing results from Shelia’s car. Little did they know the long and winding trail that testing would take, or that it would be several months before the DNA would help police to prove conclusively that the girls had been involved in Skylar’s murder.

  Ashdown did make one deal with Rachel. They needed evidence to back up her confession. People give false confessions quite frequently, sometimes intentionally, other times by accident. So police must gather evidence that corroborates a confession. This was crucial in Rachel’s case because she had lied to the police for months.

  Rachel had confessed—now they just needed her cooperation. To convince her to do that, Ashdown offered Rachel a plea of second-degree murder. In return, she had to lead them to Skylar’s remains as soon as the weather was good—and she had to agree to testify against Shelia.

  By January 16, Gaskins couldn’t wait any longer. Snow had smothered the area for two weeks, melting off slowly. To the veteran trooper, the two-week wait was agonizing and had seemed to drag on and on. He waited as long as he could and finally decided to try again.

  They would need two teams, but the second team wasn’t free until later that morning. Gaskins wanted to get started early so they would have a full day if they needed it. Spurlock rode with him. A cadaver dog unit supplied by the FBI followed the two of them out Route 7 toward Blacksville. Gaskins took the same route as they had two weeks earlier.

  Gaskins pulled his cruiser over at the same GPS coordinates Rachel had led them to before. It looked very different with the snow mostly gone. This time, the place was familiar. As they waited for the dogs to arrive, Gaskins remembered all the times he and Trooper Berry had searched the area. The two troopers had scoured the wooded mountains and had searched six mine shafts. One time in particular, they had hiked up the hillside and looked down a mine shaft. There they found a yellow size-medium T-shirt similar to the one Skylar had been wearing. They also found bones.

  Worried about the find, they were relieved when they learned the bones were those of an animal. But the T-shirt was another matter. That took some time. But in the end, all tests came back negative.

  When the cadaver dog and his handler were ready to go, the dog was turned loose and the search began. No sooner had they been deployed than Gaskins got a call over the radio. The second team was there and ready to go, but Gaskins needed to dri
ve back to the detachment and lead the way. Otherwise, they might get lost.

  Within minutes of Gaskins’ departure, the dog’s handler noticed the canine’s collar had fallen off, along with the small GPS unit attached to it.

  The agent called out, saying he needed to find the $300 piece of equipment. He retraced the animal’s steps and discovered the unit stuck between some rotting pieces of wood. The agent bent over and started to pick up the unit, then suddenly stopped when he saw something that looked like it had been dead for quite a while.

  There, buried under rocks, branches, and other debris, about fifteen feet from the gravel road, the team discovered human remains. Skylar had been buried just twenty miles from her home—and only a few hundred feet from the spot where a handful of devoted officers had searched, repeatedly, during the last several months.

  On their way back to the search, once again on Route 7, Gaskins and Spurlock talked as they drove.

  “This might be a long day,” Spurlock said.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice if we got a phone call right now,” Gaskins said. “Someone would say, ‘Hey, we found Skylar.’”

  “Yeah, it would be nice.”

  About two minutes later, Spurlock’s phone rang. Gaskins could clearly hear what the caller said: “Morgan, we found her.”

  Gaskins and Spurlock could hardly contain their excitement.

  “Rachel came through,” Gaskins said. “She told us where we’d find the body, and we did.”

  “Now we can begin corroborating Rachel’s confession.”

  Sad as it was for both men—not to mention Dave and Mary—the remains needed to be confirmed as Skylar’s. The labs must find evidence that she had, indeed, died from knife wounds, and with any luck they might find evidence pointing to the killers—even though Gaskins already knew who the killers were. Rachel had told them, and had passed an extensive polygraph afterward. Gaskins now knew she had told them the truth.