“Shelia and I, we stabbed Skylar,” Rachel said, her voice soft.
The pencil fell from Gaskins’s hand and both men almost fell off their chairs.
“Are you saying you killed Skylar Neese?” Gaskins asked in disbelief.
Rachel nodded.
***
Gaskins ripped up the paperwork granting Rachel Shoaf full immunity. The minute he knew they were looking at murder, instead of any lesser charges, like obstruction of justice or making false statements, that deal was off the table. Gaskins called Prosecutor Ashdown, who listened silently to the story Gaskins told.
“Second-degree murder,” Ashdown said. “In return for taking you to Skylar. It’s about time Dave and Mary get their daughter back.”
Gaskins and Ashdown both knew that after six months outdoors, exposed to the harsh elements, the crime scene and Skylar’s remains weren’t likely to yield much evidence usable in court. The best the police could hope for was that enough of her was left to identify.
***
“Going to be a lot of snow in the woods,” Ambrosini said as he and Gaskins were getting ready to go. His backup had arrived and was waiting in the parking lot outside the law offices. “Might not even be able to search.”
Angotti had Rachel in his office, waiting for the signal from Gaskins. It was time for Rachel to give them more than words—leading police to the body was the only way to prove that she was telling the truth.
“We’ll go take a look anyway,” Gaskins said, his lips drawn tight. The thought of Skylar’s remains sitting outside and unprotected was torture to Gaskins. To him, that simply wasn’t an option.
Driving the first of two cars, Gaskins thought Ambrosini might be right. Conditions didn’t look promising. The farther out of town they drove, headed north, the more snow piled up on the sides of the road. Rachel rode in the backseat of the lead car so she could tell Gaskins where to turn when it came time. Angotti sat up front, beside him. The second car, with the two FBI agents, trailed close behind the state police cruiser.
During her confession, Rachel had claimed that Shelia had disposed of the knives, their bloody clothes, Skylar’s purse and iPod, the shovel, and the other tools the two girls had used to try to hide their crime. When Rachel said she had no idea where any of those items could be, she seemed sincere. But she had agreed to lead police to Skylar’s body in exchange for a plea deal.
As it turned out, there was one small problem. On the way there, after passing through Blacksville and turning off onto a narrow, graveled road, Gaskins knew they were about to cross into Pennsylvania. No one else was too surprised, either. Most of the twisting back roads in that part of the county wound back and forth between West Virginia and Greene County, Pennsylvania.
Angotti learned this when his GPS registered that fact. He immediately knew Rachel was in trouble—if the body was in Pennsylvania, the whole deal could be off.
The cars pulled off the road so the authorities could determine what to do next. At the side of the road, Gaskins, the FBI, and Angotti discussed the situation, agreeing that the first priority was to find Skylar. Rachel had spilled the beans, and the State of West Virginia was offering her a deal. Everyone agreed the teenager had to follow through on her promise, before they took her home.
Both cars began moving again. They turned onto Morris Run Road, a narrow country lane composed of asphalt and gravel. On that cold January day, though, the terrain was bathed in white. The crunch of the gravel was muted under the vehicle tires. Less than two miles away, along an isolated stretch, Rachel told them to stop. The officers, the lawyer, and the suspect got out. All eyes were on Rachel, as she surveyed the white forest, first turning this way, then that. Finally, she admitted she couldn’t tell where she and Shelia had left Skylar. It was two seasons later, in the dead of winter, and everything looked much different than it had in July.
Gaskins and Ambrosini discussed the best way to proceed. In those kinds of conditions, who knew how long it would take to find Skylar. If they found her. They hated to admit it, but they had no choice: they would have to wait until the snow was gone.
***
Shelia stared out the passenger window as her mom drove toward the Shoafs’ neighborhood. Rachel’s hospitalization had unnerved her. So Sheila was anxious to see her very best friend—but she was also worried Patricia wouldn’t let Rachel hang out with her. Not now.
Still, it was worth a try. Tara would drop Shelia off and wait for her, killing time by circling the block until Shelia came out again. The cul-de-sac was tiny, and Tara didn’t want to attract any attention by parking too close to the Shoafs’. She knew the neighborhood was full of gossips, so word would easily reach Patricia’s ears.
Rachel had been in the hospital for less than a week, and God knew what they’d done to her in there. But she was out now, and Shelia had a ton of questions. Except she didn’t know how much time they’d have. It was about 5:45, and if Patricia wasn’t already there, she’d probably be home any minute. When they first drove up, Shelia breathed a sigh of relief that Patricia’s car was nowhere in sight.
Shelia had tried at least twice to see Rachel inside Chestnut Ridge. Security had turned her away. The first time was on a day set aside specifically for family visitation. Usually, friends can visit, too, but only with permission from the patient or—in the case of minors—the parents. Patricia had left strict orders: “Family ONLY.”
Shelia learned this when she tried to visit Rachel, and was told her name wasn’t on the list of approved visitors. It didn’t make any sense. Before, she would have been family. Shelia wasn’t sure what was going on. Still, she tried and tried—but failed to get past security.
Shelia had been waiting at the hospital for hours when Patricia arrived. Rachel’s mother warned security not to let Shelia in.
“She’s not getting past us, ma’am,” the guard assured Patricia.
Shelia tried again two days later. Again, she was turned away.
When Tara dropped Shelia off at the curb in front of the Shoafs’ house, Rachel answered the door. Shelia slipped inside. She had no clue what a busy girl Rachel had been earlier that day. Shelia didn’t have any inkling Rachel had told authorities she and Shelia had savagely stabbed Skylar to death. Shelia didn’t know that Rachel had spent hours confessing to her lawyer, the state police, and the FBI. Nothing seemed amiss because Rachel wasn’t in custody.
Shelia also didn’t know that Rachel had agreed to gather evidence against her best friend, or that everything they said and did was being recorded on audio- and videotape. Apparently, she didn’t notice the extra cars parked in the neighbors’ driveways, either, or the officers inside those vehicles who were listening and watching the two girls’ exchange.
Despite the hopes of law enforcement, Shelia said nothing directly incriminating. 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” produced nothing that could be used to develop a case against Shelia.
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 Rachel looks exhausted, her eyes rimmed with dark circles. 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.
Less than a half hour after leaving Rachel, Shelia was no longer happy. Her next tweet, -_______-, shows this clearly. The tweet is teenspeak for any feeling from dislike to hostility. The emoticon depicts a mouth and two squinty eyes. The longer the line—the greater the displeasure.
She also tweeted, i dont have time to be wasting my time.
Shelia’s tweets the next morning sugge
st something about the exchange with Rachel the night before had left a very bitter taste in her mouth. Because either Shelia was up early or—more likely—she was still awake after a long and sleepless night.
This is evident by her 8:30 a.m. tweet: first time ive ever been completely speechless. Then Shelia tweeted, simply, holy fuck.
Chapter 28
All That Remains
By January 16, Gaskins couldn’t wait any longer. Snow had smothered the area for two weeks, slowly melting off. To the veteran trooper, the two very long weeks had seemed to drag on and on. He waited as long as he could, finally deciding to try again.
The team traveled as before: Gaskins and Angotti in the front of the lead car with Rachel in the backseat and Spurlock and Ambrosini in the following car. A cadaver dog unit supplied by the state police would meet them there. 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. All told, the two troopers scoured the wooded mountains and searched six mine shafts. One time in particular, they had hiked up the hillside and looked in a mine shaft. There they found a size medium, green 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. When it was tested for Skylar’s DNA, the test came back negative.
When the cadaver dog unit arrived and the handler was ready to go, the dog was turned loose and the search began. Not long after, the FBI agent noticed that the small GPS unit on the canine’s collar had fallen off.
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 wood. He bent over. The agent 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.
Already ravaged by weather and time, the remains were unrecognizable except for one feature: they were clearly those of a small human being. Worst of all, the head was missing.
Only Gaskins, a member of an elite state crime scene unit, a veteran trooper who had worked more than thirty crime scenes across the state and had personal knowledge of the case, recognized the tattered fragments of clothing Skylar had worn her last day on earth: a green print shirt and stained yellow shorts.
Feelings of relief that their search had come to an end mingled with feelings of happiness for Mary and Dave. Overwhelmed by emotion, Gaskins couldn’t keep from crying.
***
At 11:53 that same morning, Josie Snyder took to her keyboard to send out a poignant tweet. She wanted the world to know what she knew, but at the same time, Josie wanted the message to be somber and subtle: SKY is so gloomy today :( .
Whoever they were, Josie Snyder’s sources were solid. Her tweet about Skylar being found came on the morning of the same day she was found.
***
For the next forty-eight hours, the crime scene was sealed off. But the presence of so many FBI agents and State Police troopers wandering around was bound to have caused a stir among the neighbors. All Gaskins and Spurlock hoped was that they could get the goods on Shelia before she got word that Skylar’s remains had been found.
Gaskins alerted Greene County authorities they would be bringing the human remains to the coroner. When they reached the office, Coroner Gregory Rohanna was given strict orders not to release any information about the body. Not to the media or anyone else. The police still had one suspect loose, and they didn’t want her knowing the authorities were onto her.
***
The coming negotiations were likely to be complex. The immunity problem was unresolved and whoever tried the case would need Rachel’s testimony in court. All of the agencies—the Monongalia County prosecutor, the Greene County district attorney, the U.S. Attorney General’s offices in West Virginia, and the FBI, which answered to its Washington, DC, headquarters—had to agree to the deal. Even under the best of circumstances, this kind of three-way legal haggling took time. It would mean acting as if the remains Rachel had spoken of were, in fact, Skylar’s. Once the deal was crafted, those remains would have to be identified and examined to determine her death was caused by foul play. Only then could the case move forward.
After these problems were resolved, another, bigger issue arose. Police and prosecutors had to determine if Skylar had been killed in Pennsylvania or murdered in West Virginia first, and then taken over the state line.
West Virginia authorities had been involved from the outset, and both the victim and her alleged killers were West Virginia residents. On the other hand, the remains had been found in Pennsylvania, so if Pennsylvania authorities wanted to pursue the case, they had a right to do so. To further complicate matters, federal authorities also had a claim: whenever criminals cross state lines while carrying out a crime, such as kidnapping, the crime turns into a federal offense.
Ultimately, Monongalia County prosecuting attorney Marsha Ashdown took the case, meaning West Virginia claimed jurisdiction because the “originating crime” occurred in Monongalia County. That is, Skylar Neese really was kidnapped. She had been lured into a vehicle under false pretenses. That action set off the chain of events leading to her death. However, the Greene County district attorney and the U.S. district attorney would still need to agree to whatever deal Ashdown’s office crafted.
Chapter 29
Skylar’s Law
Mary and Dave had both missed so much work since Skylar disappeared they didn’t even have enough money to fill their gas tank. Yet they had been invited to address the House Legislative Committee in the middle of February 2013, a month after Skylar’s as-yet-unidentified remains were found. Gas or no gas, they were going to Charleston to help make Skylar’s Law real.
Skylar’s Law had been introduced with Delegate Charlene Marshall as the lead sponsor. The clock was ticking, the time fast approaching for the Legislative Committee to discuss the bill, and Charlene wanted the committee to hear the story of Skylar’s disappearance. She wanted them to know how badly Skylar’s Law was needed.
Dave hoped Mary would join him, but she refused. And Dave—who realized his wife was a more mature copy of Skylar in temperament—understood he shouldn’t push her. Mary felt like she couldn’t hold up through the ordeal. Her emotions were a rubber band stretched to its breaking point. She couldn’t go down there and listen to Dave talk about Skylar in front of all those people.
But one of them had to make the three-hour trip to Charleston. Thanks to Tom Bloom, county commissioner and Dave’s former high school guidance counselor, Dave didn’t have to worry about fuel for their old car. Bloom insisted Dave take the money he and his wife had put aside to help the Neeses make the trip.
When Dave arrived at the state capitol, he went straight to Marshall’s office. Bloom was already there.
“Dave Neese, I’d like you to meet Delegate Charlene Marshall,” Bloom said, introducing Dave to the tireless eighty-year-old representative from Monongalia County.
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Dave said, shaking Marshall’s hand.
“It’s very nice to meet you, too, Mr. Neese.”
“I want you to know, Delegate Marshall, that I’ll always cherish the photo of you and Skylar,” Dave told her.
The senior statesman thought the grieving father was probably just confused, because she didn’t think she had ever met Skylar.
“You probably don’t remember. Skylar was your special page when she was ten.”
Marshall felt
the hair on her arms and the back of her neck stand up.
“Mary and I, we were sitting up in the balcony that day,” Dave said. “Skylar gave you your lunch. She was so pleased…. You were like a hero to her.”
Marshall could feel tears welling up and she tried to remember the child page. “Well, she did something for me then, and now I’m trying to do something for her,” she said at last.
When Bloom and Marshall offered to pay for Dave’s lunch, he politely declined, but Marshall insisted. She knew he had a long day ahead of him and what he was up against. He was going to need enough energy to get through it.
Dave had to tell the committee about his missing daughter, and it was going to be the hardest performance of his life. He had to address the legislators as though Skylar was still alive even though he was grappling with the reality that she almost certainly wasn’t.
Corporal Ronnie Gaskins and Trooper Chris Berry had paid a personal visit to the Neese home the week before, to break the news in person: they believed the body that had been found in Pennsylvania was Skylar. They’d kept Rachel’s confession under wraps—because Shelia needed to believe their presence had gone undetected. As difficult as it was to keep Rachel’s confession from the Neeses, the troopers hoped it would help Rachel gather evidence against Shelia. Right before they left, the two troopers warned Mary and Dave not to breathe a word about their news to anyone.
So Dave told Mary he would just pretend that Skylar was still alive. After all, in his mind, she still was. Besides, it was their only hope of passing Skylar’s Law.
***
Dave addressed the committee, and though his voice caught with emotion several times, his words were convincing and moving. Skylar’s Law, he said, needed to be passed for other potentially endangered children. Skylar’s Law, he explained, was really a small but crucial amendment to existing AMBER legislation. It would mandate that police contact the AMBER Alert system and that the AMBER system treat all missing children and teenagers—regardless of how they came to be missing—as actual kidnapping cases unless an investigation proved otherwise.
The Savage Murder of Skylar Neese: The Truth Behind the Headlines Page 14
