Pretty Little Killers

by Berry, Daleen, Fuller, Geoffrey C.

  “Tell me who you’re texting.” When Skylar wanted something, she rarely gave up. When she didn’t get her way, she would pout. Sometimes she grew more aggressive.

  “Hang on,” Shelia repeated.

  “Let me see!” Skylar grabbed at Shelia’s phone. Shelia smacked her hand away. Skylar punched Shelia in the face with her hand half closed, more of a smack than a punch.

  “You bitch!” Shelia yelled. She hit Skylar as she closed and pocketed her phone.

  “Fuck you!” Skylar smacked at Shelia’s face again. Shelia slapped Skylar’s hand away.

  An elderly woman near Shania whispered, “Can you get them to stop?”

  Shania muttered, “What do you think I can do about it?”

  By then Shelia had run out.

  “Yes! Go!” a voice behind them yelled.

  Skylar looked at Shania. “I didn’t do anything,” she said with a cool shrug.

  “Skylar, I saw you hit her!” Shania hissed.

  “Yeah, well, she was being a bitch.”

  “Let’s go. Now.” Shania turned to leave, but Skylar grabbed her.

  “I can’t. My flip-flop is missing.”

  The two girls searched the floor until they found Skylar’s flip-flop. They made their way up the darkened aisle and out the theater door, Shania in the lead and Skylar right behind her, both of them silent. Shania didn’t want to land in the middle of any fight between Shelia and Skylar, but she could tell Shelia was growing tired of Skylar acting like a bratty little sister.

  Once outside, Skylar and Shelia continued arguing in the car while Shania sat on the curb. She didn’t want to hear any of it. They screamed at each other for several long minutes and as suddenly as it had begun, the fighting stopped.

  It was only a matter of time before the two girls came to blows again.

  The great divide between Skylar and Morgan began in earnest when they became sophomores. At first the frequency with which they hung out slowed. Then it stopped altogether. Part of the problem was Shelia: Skylar always wanted Shelia to tag along, but Morgan wasn’t comfortable around her.

  “You and I can go hang out,” she would say to Skylar, “but I really don’t want to be a part of you and Shelia and Rachel.” One time, Morgan voiced her concerns a little louder: “Skylar, I just don’t think Shelia’s a good influence. You’re doing things I’ve never seen you do.” She was referring to Skylar’s new habits: smoking weed, sneaking out at night, and generally behaving badly, behavior she thought Skylar was doing to imitate Shelia.

  “Oh, it’s fine,” Skylar said, waving away Morgan’s concern. She wasn’t angry, she merely thought her friend was wrong. “It’s just high school.”

  At the same time, Morgan’s friend Alexis was equally troubled by Rachel’s behavior. She had known Rachel for a long time, and when Alexis and Morgan compared notes, they found Alexis knew things Rachel had done and Morgan knew things Skylar had done—and both girls realized Skylar and Rachel’s behavior was totally unlike them.

  Morgan and Alexis discussed it, wondering if Shelia was to blame. “Shelia seemed like she could do whatever she wanted,” Morgan later said, “and there were no repercussions.”

  Everyone who saw Shelia at UHS said she controlled Skylar and Rachel. Even Daniel Hovatter was influenced by her magnetic pull, when she convinced him to steal test answers from a teacher’s desk.

  When Morgan learned this, she wasn’t surprised at all. “She did that kind of stuff all the time,” Morgan said. “Stuff like that didn’t bother her. She just wanted an A. She just wanted to stay out late. When she wanted something, that was what was going to happen.”

  Got any weed?

  Daniel was at home when he received Skylar’s text.

  Some.

  Wanna get high?

  Daniel knew Skylar wasn’t alone. She couldn’t drive except to and from work. Shelia must have been driving and Rachel was probably with them, too.

  Sure, he texted.

  Be right there.

  I’ll walk to the church. Daniel’s driveway was long and difficult so his friends usually picked him up in the church parking lot a hundred yards down the hill. By the time he got there, they were waiting for him. He assumed they had been close, maybe picking up Rachel.

  Daniel climbed in the back with Skylar and away they went. Shelia turned off the main road and onto a smaller one that wound among a few houses. Mostly they were surrounded by trees. There was little traffic and no cops—perfect for what they had in mind.

  At a pull-off they’d used before, Shelia parked the car. Daniel packed his small bowl with some weed, as Skylar did. Shelia and Rachel turned to sit cross-legged on the front seats, facing the back.

  The four took a few minutes to get high, and then drove around.

  “I still got homework,” Daniel said after a bit, more bored than anything. He liked seeing Skylar, but Shelia and Rachel seemed even more into each other than usual. He was surprised because Skylar was there.

  “Just going to get us high and get rid of us, huh?” Shelia teased. Daniel knew it was the other way around—they wanted to get high and get rid of him—or at least Shelia did, because she was always doing shit like that.

  “That’s pretty much—” He was interrupted by a booming sound as the car gave a terrible lurch. “I saw that!”

  “Twenty points!” Shelia was laughing. Daniel didn’t want to look back, but he couldn’t stop himself. He felt sick to his stomach. It was a bunny.

  “Shelia!” Rachel yelled, too loudly for the small car. “Don’t hit the fucking animals!”

  Skylar and Daniel looked at each other; they both hated it when Shelia did that.

  “Oh. My. God,” said Daniel, burying his face in his hands.

  Skylar patted his shoulder. “There, there, bud.”

  “I swear she did it on purpose,” he whispered to Skylar.

  Daniel saw fissures beginning to form in the trio’s friendship long before Skylar was murdered, but he didn’t fully understand what he witnessed. He wasn’t the only one; Amorette Hughes, who knew Skylar from dance class, saw the same thing.

  By the time she met Amorette, Skylar’s baby curls were long gone and she was “obsessed with Shelia,” as Mary would say after reading her daughter’s diary. Skylar was coloring and straightening her fair hair so she would be a brunette like Shelia, and Mary said Skylar had written extensively about Shelia throughout her diary. In fact, people who have read it, including police officers who worked the case, say Skylar seemed to be living vicariously through Shelia, writing all about Shelia’s life—but saying nothing about her own.14

  Amorette was a senior and Skylar a sophomore in the spring of 2012 when her relationship with Shelia became more contentious and the trio was in tumult. Amorette and Skylar soon found they shared the same perplexing problem.

  “I had two best friends,” Amorette recalled, “and she had the two best friends. We were going through the same thing at the same time.”

  Having two best friends instead of one may not seem like a problem, and maybe it isn’t for teenage boys, but more than one girl spoke of having a similar experience.

  “Sometimes I would see that Rachel and Shelia would match,” Amorette said, “and Skylar wouldn’t. They’d both wear jeans and a pink shirt and Skylar would be in yoga pants. My friends would do that to me.”

  Amorette and Skylar grew close throughout the 2011–2012 school year and frequently confided in each other. They bonded over their struggle with their two best friends.

  They’re doing it again, Skylar texted Amorette one day after Shelia and Rachel made plans without her. Amorette encouraged Skylar to hang in there. Skylar did the same for Amorette whenever she felt sad and slighted.

  I know, let’s get together after school lets out, Amorette texted Skylar one day. We can be BFFs. Skylar thought it was a great idea but both girls were too busy to connect that first month of summer vacation.

  Amorette wished they had taken the time
to get together. She believed Skylar might still be alive if they had.

  six

  She’ll Tell Our Secrets

  A month before classes dismissed for summer break, Wendy Evans15 was studying during lunch in one of the rooms off the library when Rachel came in. Wendy was one of the friends she had ditched for Shelia. It didn’t take Wendy long to realize Rachel wanted to vent. Rachel closed the door so they were alone. She seemed exasperated—or angry.

  “I can’t stand Skylar,” Rachel said suddenly.

  Wendy shrugged. “Why not? I thought you all were best friends.” She remembered how little she had seen or heard from Rachel since she, Shelia, and Skylar had become fast friends. Even so, Wendy knew Rachel and Shelia talked badly about Skylar behind her back. They bad-mouthed everyone, including Skylar.

  “I can’t stand her,” Rachel repeated, her eyes hard, “but I can’t not be her friend.”

  “Why?” Wendy asked. “Just don’t be friends with her.”

  “She’s like, so mean,” Rachel said. “She’ll blackmail us and tell all our secrets if we stop being friends with her.”

  Wendy smiled, thinking Rachel was being overdramatic. No wonder she was in theater. “What secrets?”

  Rachel didn’t answer. Instead, her eyes narrowed and a scowl formed on her face.

  “At this point,” Rachel said, “I wouldn’t mind if she died.”

  Shelia and Rachel laughed as Daniel and Skylar got into the car. They had changed out of their uniforms in the bathrooms at work, so they were ready to go. It was a summer Saturday afternoon, with Rachel in the front passenger seat, Skylar and Daniel in the back seat. Shelia wanted to treat herself—and Skylar and Daniel had gotten their paychecks.

  “Hang on,” Shelia said as she finished a text. “Cool Ridge?”

  “I haven’t been there in, like, forever,” Rachel said.

  Cool Ridge was the head shop on High Street in downtown Morgantown.

  “Wait, wait!” Skylar said as Shelia pulled out of Wendy’s parking lot. “I need an ATM.”

  Since they were new employees, Wendy’s paid Daniel and Skylar with a type of debit card. The two teens could get cash with their cards and purchase whatever they wanted. Of course they needed cash for weed. They could get a cut for $60.

  A quick stop at the gas station across Cheat Road and they were off to Sabraton, the next exit off I-68. Daniel knew a place. Shelia, Rachel, and Skylar waited in the car. Daniel was in and out in less than five minutes.

  “Next stop—Cool Ridge!” Shelia said as she pulled back on the Interstate.

  Daniel was packing a pipe and Skylar had her lighter in her hand. Rachel peeked over the passenger seat.

  “Time for dementia hits,” she said quietly in a high-pitched, mock-singing voice. She and Shelia said that a lot, laughing afterward.

  Cool Ridge is like any other head shop around for the last forty years. They sell incense in assorted shapes and scents, bongs, colorful bracelets, and beads galore. Celebrity, movie, and video posters. Odd musical instruments, like didgeridoos. They also sell lots of T-shirts. It was the trio’s favorite store, as it was Daniel’s.

  The four teens browsed for a while. Stoned, they weren’t in any hurry. Skylar spent quite some time trying on bracelets. Daniel liked the T-shirts. Shelia and Rachel lingered near the incense, sniffing the ones that smelled especially good—or really bad.

  By the time they were ready to go, Daniel had paid for a black T-shirt with an image of a marijuana leaf. Skylar had picked out a cool bracelet and some incense. Rachel didn’t buy anything, but as the clerk rang up Skylar’s purchases, Shelia handed Skylar the incense she had chosen.

  “Mom wants me to bring home some milk and stuff,” she said to Skylar.

  “Sure,” Skylar said, signaling the clerk to ring up Shelia’s incense. Skylar and Daniel exchanged glances. They had talked about this many times in the last few months, how whenever they went shopping, saw a movie, or bought weed, Shelia never paid. Not since they had started working at Wendy’s. They always just went along with it, but it was starting to bug them. The majority of the time, Skylar and Daniel blew their entire paychecks in one short weekend, paying for all four teens’ purchases.

  It was one of the last times the trio and Daniel partied together. The girls’ relationship was deteriorating so fast it happened before they knew it. During the last few months Skylar was alive, her negative tweets toward Shelia and Rachel slowed considerably. They didn’t stop, as evidenced by a February 2012 subtweet, omg the number of times you do shit to piss me off throughout the day keeps going up and up. im not oblivious fyi. But Skylar’s Twitter traffic was not dominated by the dynamics of her relationship with Shelia—and Rachel—like it had been the previous autumn.

  This matches Mary’s belief that Skylar was pulling away from Shelia, disengaging. She was reviving old friendships—with Hayden McClead, for instance—and trying to start new ones, like the one with Amorette. Skylar was building a new life, one that invited old friends back into her world.

  Some of Skylar’s tweets showed her disdain for Shelia and Rachel; others showed they weren’t on her mind at all. By May 10 she was tweeting, obsessive girlfriends and ex girlfriends are my favorite. congrats on looking fucking pathetic.

  Her Honors English portfolio paints a picture of a girl who was maturing and coming to acceptance during her last few months of life. In a poem she titled, “Different,” Skylar wrote about the loss of her childhood friend.

  You were once friendly, funny, and flamboyant

  But now you’re hopelessly needy, negative, and naïve

  A new boyfriend changed you for the worst

  But even claiming he was the apple of your eye didn’t keep him around

  From happy as a clam to sad as a skeleton

  You lost your friends and your spirit

  So now the only thing I have to say to you is

  I told you so.

  Skylar’s words indicate she was trying to let go of Shelia—whom she blamed for giving up their friendship—but finding it hard to let her resentment fade away.

  Tension and stress within the trio escalated again when their ongoing argument ruined Shelia and Skylar’s trip to the beach the first week of June 2012.

  By the time Skylar joined Shelia’s family for their June beach vacation, as she had for the last several years, the tension between the two girls had turned their relationship quite volatile. No one knows what the fight was about, but people have speculated Shelia may have tried to put the moves on Skylar.

  Perhaps this was an effort to test her control over Skylar, or merely an attempt to involve Skylar in the lesbian relationship she and Rachel may have had. It would have been a useful tool to Shelia: if Skylar played the same game, so to speak, she wouldn’t dare reveal Shelia and Rachel’s secret.

  Regardless, something went very wrong during the trip. Shelia and Skylar argued the entire week. The fighting grew so intense, Shelia returned home and told Rachel they had to put their plan into action.

  According to WVSP Corporal Ronnie Gaskins, the lead investigator, Shelia said, “Skylar has to die. Now.”

  Skylar’s father believes if Shelia did make a sexual advance toward his daughter, Skylar would have rebuffed Shelia. Skylar was friends with everyone and especially disliked it when other people made fun of gays, but she wouldn’t have been interested in Shelia sexually, Dave says.

  It is very likely that’s what Skylar’s Twitter fight during the early hours of June 9 was about. But it might not have been. It’s hard to say since the person with whom Skylar argued from 5:50 A.M. to 6:27 A.M. through subtweets has remained unnamed. Based on police reports that she and Shelia regularly argued online, however, it was believed Skylar was angry with her.

  5:50 A.M.: youre just as bad as the bitches you complain about.

  5:50: and a liar.

  5:51: “love”

  5:52: well now im too fucking annoyed to sleep

  6:13: yeeaah
h..

  6:14: fuucckk yoouu..

  6:15: and no I do not type like that.

  6:27: just know I know

  Star City police officer Jessica Colebank believes Skylar was arguing with Shelia and Rachel, but it is difficult to know what either girl said in return, since all of Shelia’s tweets during the time the fight was taking place have disappeared from her Twitter feed, and Rachel’s account has been deleted.

  The single subtweet that stands out in Skylar’s rant is the last one: just know I know.

  It sounds like Skylar was warning someone, saying she knew something was going on behind the scenes, some secret Shelia (or she and Rachel) was trying to keep from her. Maybe Skylar realized that not only had Shelia and Rachel been sexual that time in Rachel’s bedroom—but that they really were a couple.

  Equally possible is this: Rachel was being very friendly with another girl while at Young Life church camp during this time, a fellow camper said. If Skylar heard that rumor and believed Rachel was cheating on Shelia with someone else, she could have been lashing out at Rachel—and threatening to tell Shelia. Given Skylar’s fierce loyalty to her friends, this also seems plausible.

  Or, is it possible that because of the trio’s growing schism—as evidenced by oft-repeated and ever-increasing volatile arguments—Skylar had finally begun to believe the school rumor that Shelia might want to harm her? Or that both girls did?

  Gaskins said it was possible Shelia did make a pass at Skylar, but admitted the prosecution still had no way of knowing—because Shelia refused to say what the beach fight was about. The only information that police have comes from a witness, another student, who reported seeing Shelia and Rachel argue just after Shelia and Skylar returned from the beach.

  The Twitter fight happened June 9 at the same time Rachel was returning from Young Life. That evening she and Shelia met in the UHS parking lot, where a male student later told police he overheard them arguing. He thought they were fighting over him and asked the girls about it. Shelia and Rachel were quick to dismiss his concern, saying their anger wasn’t about each other or him.