“We were so burned out, we actually went to the sergeant’s office where he has a bigger screen, to blow up a screen shot,” Berry said. “The coffee didn’t taste good anymore.”
The three men were so specific in their search for details, they looked at the gas caps, the back glass in the cars—everything they could think of to try to find a match to the car in the video. By ten that night, the men began to argue over their theories of the type of car it was and the minor differences in vehicle models they found online.
“Let’s stop right here,” Spurlock said. “Let’s go home, take a night, sleep on it and start out fresh tomorrow.”
“Okay, sounds good to me,” Berry said. Gaskins agreed, and the three men headed home.
***
Chris and Alexis Berry had been married for four years when the officer was reassigned to the Morgantown Detachment. Alexis had given up her dream of going to medical school to become Chris’s wife, because she was crazy about him. But his work on Skylar’s case began to take a huge toll on their marriage.
Berry spent more hours at the office than he ever had before. That wouldn’t have been as hard on Alexis if Berry hadn’t also brought his work home with him. Many times, he wouldn’t get home until midnight—and yet she’d still wake up to find him texting. Again! Night after night. At first, she didn’t believe him when he told her who he was texting.
“Who are you texting at 2:00 a.m.?” Alexis asked.
“Gaskins,” Berry said.
“Sure you are.”
But then he’d show her his phone, and Alexis saw he was telling the truth. She still worried, though. He looked horrible. She knew Spurlock and Gaskins were equally run-down, because she’d become acquainted with the women in their lives, too.
That’s how Alexis knew she wasn’t the only worried wife. The men were exhausted—and it showed: They had big dark circles under their eyes. They were eating on the fly, when they bothered to eat at all, so they all lost weight.
“When we work, we work,” Berry would often tell her.
***
That night—the night they all worked so long the coffee didn’t even taste good anymore—was awful. Berry couldn’t stop thinking about the case, mulling it over in his mind as he drove home. He knew Alexis was probably not going to be in a good mood when he arrived. He was right.
“It was an awful night,” Alexis agreed.
Then inspiration hit him like an early fall frost.
“It just clicked,” Berry said. He’d been watching the video all day long, and looking at every possible make and model of car and—nothing. But the minute he sat down with his wife, it hit him: Shelia told police she picked Skylar up and later dropped her off at the end of the street, but they had never seen Shelia pick Skylar up the first time.
He didn’t waste a second. He called Gaskins and then added Spurlock so they were all on a three-way phone call.
***
Gaskins was a few miles away, pacing in his kitchen. Even from upstairs, his fiancée, Kelly, could hear Gaskins talking to himself. They usually only had a few hours each evening to spend together. At one time, that had been because of Kelly’s schedule. She was a manager for a fast-food chain, and she was going to college at night. But ever since Gaskins got this case, they’d hardly seen each other.
So their relationship suffered, too. At first, Kelly would expect Gaskins would be home for dinner a little late. Then she realized if she waited for him, dinner would be burnt to a crisp.
“Well, I’ll see you when I see you,” she finally learned to say. She ate alone many nights, watching episodes of Law & Order.
At other times Kelly tried to call Gaskins, but got no reply. “He might not answer me for a couple of hours and I’d be worried he’d be out there dead,” she said.
Like Alexis, she was frustrated by her man’s constant texting—especially when they did get to sit down to a meal together. “Get off there,” Kelly would tell Gaskins. “Dinner’s gonna get cold.”
Gaskins continued to pace, trying to figure out what details he’d missed. Kelly knew he was obsessed by the case. He believed someone out there knew something, but they were just too scared to talk. Walking the floor, ruminating on all he knew about the case was how he worked out the kinks. Which is what he was doing when Berry’s call came through.
“That’s Shelia’s car! That’s Shelia’s car!” Berry yelled.
***
The next day at work, everyone involved celebrated their first major breakthrough in the case. They did so after gathering around the video again—this time backing it up to 11:00 p.m., the time Shelia said she and Rachel picked up Skylar.
Sure enough, no one saw anything like that on the video—because no car showed up to get Skylar then. The vehicle they had been searching for, so long and hard, had been under their noses the entire time. It was a silver Toyota Corolla—and it didn’t pick up Skylar until 12:31 a.m.
***
Monongalia County’s geography began to play a central role the day Colebank and Spurlock became convinced they weren’t working on a rescue anymore. The vital center of Monongalia County, Morgantown is urban but much of the rest of the county is rural, mountainous, and covered with trees. The county is V-shaped, with a panhandle jutting horizontally from the top, where Blacksville is located. It was this western area, which comprises one-third of the county’s land, that Colebank and the other officers decided to search extensively.
After Skylar’s murder, Sheriff Kenneth “Al” Kisner assigned Deputy Timothy Hunn to the western end of the county. It was a logical move, because Hunn had grown up out there and was familiar with the area. Prior to that, the area didn’t have a full-time officer available, and deputies would rotate driving in that direction to keep an eye on the panhandle.
Because Colebank’s fiancé was a sergeant with the Sheriff’s Department, she knew most everyone who worked there. She and Deputy Hunn were good friends, so she knew about his Blacksville connections.
One Saturday in September Colebank stopped by the Sheriff’s Department to say hello to her fiancé. Hunn was there, having just gotten off work himself.
“What’re you up to, Tim?” Colebank said.
Hunn, known for his solid, stocky physique, had just finished his workout in the department’s gym and said he was heading home. “How about you, Jess?”
“Still trying to find Skylar. Only problem is, she hasn’t come back on the radar,” Colebank said. “I keep hoping someone will see her, but so far, we’ve got squat.”
Hunn suggested she focus more on his end of the county. That was all the encouragement Colebank needed.
“You’re right,” she said. “Screw it. Let’s get some four-wheelers.”
On their next day off, Hunn and Colebank teamed up with Trooper Berry. Having grown up in the Blacksville area, he had gone to school with Hunn. The trio turned onto Route 7 and headed west. When they got to Blacksville, the three off-duty officers got on their four-wheelers and took off. Together, they covered every path and every trail they could find. They rode all over the one-lane back roads and even on the golf course behind Clay-Battelle High School, until it was too dark to see. They continued searching throughout the month of September, riding for hours on end. Still they had no luck. They knew it was hopeless.
Skylar was the type of friend who kept in touch with the people she loved, people like Daniel, Shelia, and Rachel. Even if she’d run away because she was angry at her parents—and there was no evidence to support that idea—Colebank knew that Skylar would have reached out to someone.
Except she hadn’t. No one had heard one word from the missing girl.
“Skylar would’ve called someone,” Colebank said later. “She wouldn’t let all these people who love her worry about her. That’s who she was.” Although none of the law enforcement officers had ever met her, the appealing teen had made an impact. She had done that by reaching out to them, through the pages of her diary. Across all department
s—from the young FBI agent to the troopers to the detectives and veteran cops—every officer working the case felt that Skylar had touched his, or her, heart.
Even though they no longer believed Skylar was alive, they weren’t going to give up. They would keep searching until they found her, even if it was only her remains. They promised Mary and Dave—and each other—they wouldn’t stop looking until they brought her home.
Chapter 22
Facebook Follies
As October approached and the leaves began turning vibrant autumn colors, everyone following Skylar’s story on Facebook wanted to weigh in on the role Mary and Dave had played in their daughter’s disappearance. While the real-world drama was moving from a slow simmer to a fast burn at UHS, the virtual world was being whipped into a firestorm. Tension, innuendo, and outright accusations only increased on Facebook and Twitter. As if Skylar’s parents hadn’t already endured enough, Mary and Dave felt like some people were determined to see them suffer even more.
What began as a small schism in a public Facebook group grew into a big and very ugly family battle. In numerous private emails and public postings during August and September, Jennifer Hunt insinuated her cousin Dave and his wife were hiding something. She said their story had changed several times and implied that as a result, the police were no longer sharing any information with the Neeses. In fact, Jennifer said, police had begun investigating Mary and Dave. On August 30 she wrote, When her parents became suspicious early on, info wasn’t being shared with them anymore. They are part of the investigation now.
Even though Dave tried to keep from looking in on TeamSkylar<3, sometimes he just couldn’t help himself. Other times, he didn’t need to, since many members were very loyal to the Neeses and would alert them to such nonsense. So Dave could do nothing but watch as some of the 3,000 people from TeamSkylar<3 took the rumors at face value and ran with them.
Other people weren’t as rash; they just accused Mary and Dave of being evasive. They claimed the couple was withholding information from TeamSkylar<3 members in preference to their own, closed group, TeamSkylar 2012. Some said Mary and Dave weren’t open with law enforcement. While their countless questions went mostly unanswered, the group seemed to believe it had a right to know anything and everything. After all, hadn’t members been posting, sharing, and praying for this missing girl for months? Hadn’t Skylar become their child, too? Didn’t that mean they owned a stake in the story, and that her parents owed them an explanation?
Mary and Dave somehow found the strength to respond to as many Facebook messages as they could, trying to control the damage. But inside the privacy of their own home, they both teetered near the edge of collapse. The Facebook drama piled on the trauma of Skylar’s disappearance was almost more than they could bear.
One night, Dave grew so angry when he saw another post from Hunt that he wanted to hurl the computer through the living-room window. Mary urged him to calm down, have a smoke, or take Lilu for a walk. She told him to do anything to get his mind off the cousin he’d never even met, as well as all the people on Facebook they’d once considered their friends.
In truth, Mary realized she didn’t even know most of the TeamSkylar<3 members. They were just as much strangers as Hunt and her son. Mary knew only one thing: those “friends” were making it harder and harder for her to get through another day at work.
***
Joanne Nagy knew what Dave and Mary were facing and felt compelled to intervene. On September 23, Dave’s Aunt Joanne told TeamSkylar<3 members she wanted to clear up a few things. She wrote:
Just because Dave and Mary do not report their every move on FB doesn’t mean they are not doing anything. People really need to accept this fact. Dave and Mary are not holding up good at all right now. But they get up every morning and somehow keep going. God knows how…. They cry every day. Their health is suffering…. They barely have the strength in them to eat.
She reminded the Facebook group that the Neeses’ lives had become a public spectacle. Neither Mary nor Dave had the energy to answer the hundreds of questions posed to them, especially the really far-fetched ones.
Anyone reading her poignant note had to sense the pain Nagy felt for her family. When she begged every one of the 3,000 TeamSkylar<3 members to please stop the bickering and fussing [and] to refocus [on] the reason we are here, you could see Joanne, a very religious woman, down on both knees praying that her words would help convince people to back off.
Aunt Joanne’s words did seem to provide a respite of sorts. For a while, at least, the level of drama in the Facebook sphere dissipated. Until Hunt’s story changed: in the blink of an eye, she claimed in a private email that Skylar was safe and sound. Hunt promised to share the truth with the public very soon. But Hunt’s promise was no different from Rachel telling Colebank she would stop by the police station after camp: empty.
Mary and Dave were furious: Who was this woman? What right did she think she had?
***
About the same time the adults on Facebook began backing off, Twitter, a more popular venue for teens, exploded. Tweets from real people and from those who were hiding their identities tumbled headfirst into the drama.
The online tweets contributed to the tightening vise of public pressure, as Rachel and Shelia tried to get through a regular school day. They felt the tension increase in early October, in the form of rumors, innuendo, jokes, and tweets.
The pressure was two parts Twitter, one part Daniel. He kept haranguing Rachel, demanding information from her. He wasn’t alone. Students throughout UHS wanted Shelia and Rachel to come clean, too. Very quickly, a focused Twitter campaign began from two new anonymous Twitter accounts: @Snyder28Josie and @MiaBarr8. The newcomers seemed to have one goal—to harass Shelia and Rachel until they buckled under the pressure.
To onlookers, it seemed like a game, the only players being @Snyder28Josie and @MiaBarr8. For example, @Snyder28Josie tweeted besties dont like having to answer questions of their guilt!! to @MiaBarr8. But it was also a subtweet, addressed to one person but meant for someone else entirely. In this case, the subtweet was directed at Shelia and Rachel. The anonymous people behind the accounts had to realize that their tweets resounded in a very public way.
***
Then the jokes and accusations against Shelia and Rachel morphed into something uglier. Some could be classified as threats. Two factors seemed to trigger the shotgun spray of negative tweets: investigators concluded that Skylar was dead, and Mary and Dave began to hear bits of gossip that indicated Rachel and Shelia might be behind the tragedy. While the general public wasn’t supposed to know details about the case, people still found out. The result was tweet after harsh tweet, aimed directly at both girls.
Shania Ammons, Shelia’s close friend, was fed up with the accusations. Ammons was also disgusted that people she didn’t know were directing their rage at her just because she was Shelia’s friend. So on September 30, Ammons came to Shelia’s defense, tweeting, no matter what I will always have @_sheliiaa back. that girl is my bestfriend #loveyou #staystrong.
Indeed, Shania’s battle cry did fortify her friend: two days later, Shelia lashed out in typical fashion by tweeting @MiaBarr8: and a fake twitter account…you don’t know shit so do us a favor and shut your fuckin mouth.
Shelia’s cousin Crissy had also seen enough. Not only was she being harassed at work, but everyone seemed to believe she had something to do with Skylar’s disappearance. That could be due to her family connection; Crissy had once been distantly related to Shelia through marriage. Crissy believed people’s accusations were ridiculous and amounted to nothing more than guilt by association. She was angry.
The petite blonde took to Facebook rather than Twitter. There, on the TeamSkylar<3 page, Crissy posted her heartfelt defense: Pardon me for being so blunt & know that I feel SO much for Mary&Dave & their situation, she typed. I can’t imagine the things they’re going through at the moment.
Then Crissy got to
the point, with as much tact as Joanne Nagy had employed two weeks earlier. Crissy spoke eloquently, encouraging people to think before they typed words that could ruin more lives—namely Shelia’s and Rachel’s:
BUT for those of you trying to place blame on any of Skylar’s friends … all you are doing is taking away the innocence and life of another’s child. Placing blame on someone DOES NOT automatically bring Skylar home…. We are all here to help Mary&Dave through their struggle & bring back their beautiful little girl NOT ruin someone else’s life….
***
Gradually, battle lines were being drawn. Three alliances had formed, but everyone really only wanted to know one detail. At the heart of the skirmish was one big question: What were Rachel and Shelia hiding?
Beyond that, they also kept trying to figure out whose car the surveillance tape showed Skylar getting into. It was a question for which there seemed no answer.
The first group, which included the girls’ UHS classmates, believed that Shelia and Rachel were, at best, not sharing information they had known from the beginning. Some people, including law enforcement, felt certain that the car on the video was Shelia’s. Few of these people still believed Shelia and Rachel’s story about dropping Skylar off at the end of her street.
Another faction, filled with the friends of both girls, took their friends’ word as gospel. They stood up for, and often directly asked—or even told—anyone who disagreed to back off.
A third camp, represented by Hunt and her TeamSkylar<3 followers, believed that Shelia and Rachel had been telling the truth since the day Skylar disappeared. They believed Skylar had been dropped off before midnight, just like the two girls said. They thought the surveillance video showed Skylar getting into a different car.
But the importance of that belief to the search for Skylar was just like Hunt herself had become: irrelevant.
The Savage Murder of Skylar Neese: The Truth Behind the Headlines Page 11
