Somehow, Jennifer Hunt knew this and she had been posting it on Facebook. Her posts insinuated Skylar had used the information on the thumb drive to run away. She implied Skylar was in hiding because she was afraid to come home. Or maybe Skylar was off partying with friends.
Mary and Dave couldn’t understand how Hunt would have known about the specific material on the drive, unless there was an informant. They just needed answers.
Once inside the tiny police station they were determined to learn the truth, and the confrontation rapidly escalated. In response to their questions about which police agencies were involved, Propst told Mary and Dave he had called the State Police at the outset of the investigation.
“What about Jennifer posting on Facebook the authorities think we’re hiding something?” Mary demanded, her voice getting louder.
“Yeah, why would you tell anyone that?” Dave said. “We’ve even agreed to take a lie detector test if you want us to.”
“Look, Dave, Mary, I understand why you’re upset,” Chief Propst began. But Mary cut him off.
“You don’t know anything! It’s not your daughter who’s missing!”
“No, ma’am, it isn’t. But I know how hard these cases are on the parents, and how stressful they are for everyone involved, including the police.”
Suddenly the emotional strain of the previous six weeks became too much, and the dam that contained all Mary’s emotions burst. All of her grief, frustration, and anger came flooding out. Accounts differ as to who started shouting first, but before long Mary and Propst had both raised their voices. Dave could only stand by helplessly and watch. Propst told Mary if she didn’t calm down, he would have to ask her to leave.
Mary didn’t calm down, so Chief Propst did ask her to leave. By then, with the pressure from the previous six weeks suddenly unleashed, Mary couldn’t have stopped even if she wanted to.
One important accomplishment came from the confrontation, though. The minute Mary and Dave marched out of the police station, Mary reached a decision. Her next action was fueled by anger, adrenaline, and fear for her daughter. Back at their apartment, a sobbing Mary began punching numbers on the home phone.
“West Virginia State Police,” came the dispatcher’s voice.
“Hello, I’d like to know if you’re investigating my daughter’s disappearance,” Mary said. “This is Mary Neese. Do you know anything about my daughter, Skylar?”
The dispatcher put Mary on hold, then a Sergeant Kennedy got on the line. “I can’t say for sure if Chief Propst called us,” Kennedy told Mary. He then did something that may have saved Mary’s sanity. Kennedy assured the distraught mother his troopers would immediately look into it.
On Saturday Mary and Dave told the world they had been kicked out of the police station by Chief Propst. Jennifer Hunt insisted they were lying and had not been kicked out. Hunt also posted, It seems as though [Skylar] may have left for good reasons. . . . Many are questioning Dave and Mary’s intentions at this point (for good cause). . . . For me this triggered suspicion immediately and The police are positive she is not dead and partying with friends.
The minute Hunt’s comments appeared on the TeamSkylar<3 group page, people were abuzz over the news and its meaning. Once again, Mary and Dave felt like their private life was being turned into a public spectacle.
No one seemed to know where Hunt got her information.24 In addition, the negative public comments created discord among Mary and Dave’s supporters. Intentional or not, they led to more lies, innuendo, and misinformation.
A mile away, WVSP Corporal Ronnie Gaskins and Senior Trooper Chris Berry were chatting in their office at the Morgantown Detachment. They discussed various theories about the recent bank robberies.
“You remember how Darek acted when I said that thing about burying bodies?” Gaskins said.
Berry nodded. “He got all worked up.”
“We didn’t know this at the time, but you know that girl who went missing? Star City girl. Been thinking about her.” He began shuffling through a pile of papers, searching.
“Neese, I think.” Berry had kept an eye on the case for the last month. “Skylar maybe?”
Gaskins held up a photo. “Here’s her picture,” he said, handing it to Berry. “Maybe Darek was burying a body.”
Awareness grew on Berry’s face. He remembered how scared and, well, a little crazy Darek had suddenly appeared after Gaskins teased him. “You think they had to shut her up?”
“I talked to Colebank. She’s been going at it pretty hard but she’s got nothing. Now get this—Spurlock’s working her case.”
Berry cocked his head. “Really?”
Bank robbery is a federal crime, so naturally Spurlock was working the robberies. Berry wasn’t surprised to learn about the FBI’s interest in Skylar. He knew the FBI doesn’t officially investigate missing juveniles unless they have evidence of a sexual assault or kidnapping. He wondered if the FBI believed Skylar’s disappearance might be connected to that of Aliayah Lunsford’s a year earlier. Or maybe Spurlock was thinking the same thing as Gaskins.
“Are you thinking this girl’s in on the robberies?” Berry asked.
“No idea. Maybe Skylar helped, but she’s tied in somehow. You want to ride over and have a talk with Skylar’s parents?”
The two troopers arrived at the Neeses’ address a little before 10:00 A.M. The vinyl-sided, two-story apartment building had a small parking lot on three sides. Inside they found the Neeses weren’t home.
“Guess it’s gonna be Blacksville after all,” Berry said as they headed back toward their cruiser.
When Mary pulled into the apartment parking lot after dropping Dave off for his shift, the first thing she noticed was the patrol car. Then she saw the two troopers. Her heart clenched. All of a sudden Mary could barely breathe. She knew they were there for one of two reasons: either Skylar’s body had been found or they were finally getting off their asses. Mary thought maybe her phone call had done the trick. She parked her car and got out to meet the troopers.
“Mary Neese?” Gaskins asked.
“That’s me,” Mary said. “You’re here about Skylar.”
“Yes, ma’am. Can we talk with you inside?”
She gave them a long, even look, her eyes wary. “You’re not bringing me bad news, are you?”
“No, ma’am. Nothing like that. I’m Corporal Gaskins, and this is Trooper Berry. We just need a few minutes of your time. Could we look through her room, some of her things?”
“Come on in,” Mary said, leading the way to the apartment. “If it’s going to find my daughter, you can go through and take whatever you want.”
By the time Gaskins and Berry left the Neese home two hours later, both troopers were determined to do whatever it took to bring Skylar home. Mary had shown them Skylar’s room, and even though Star City officers had already searched it, the troopers looked around again, hoping for any clue at all.
What they found was Skylar’s diary. “Do you mind if we take this with us?” Gaskins said. “It might tell us something important.”
Mary said they could, so the two troopers left with it. Berry began reading as soon as they were inside the cruiser. He couldn’t stop. Seeing Skylar’s own words made her come alive in his mind. He could tell how much she cared about people.
But would a girl like that get mixed up with the Conaway boys? Dylan was only a couple of years older than Skylar so he could have known her. Even so, Gaskins and Berry were equally certain Skylar Neese was no armed bank robber.
The troopers eventually made their way to the Star City police station to learn more about the case. During that visit, Colebank brought them up to speed on the information she and Spurlock had gathered. Gaskins and Berry turned and gave each other a long, hard look at Colebank’s next words: Shelia Eddy had been linked romantically to Dylan Conaway.
Back at the detachment, Gaskins and Berry looked at the bare bones of the case.
“Skylar never comes
home,” Gaskins said. “She was last with Shelia and Rachel.” The teens said they picked her up at 11:00 and had dropped her off at about 11:45. The security video showed Skylar getting in a car, but the video was too blurry to identify it. The timestamp was 12:31.
One possibility was Shelia and Rachel had picked her up at 12:31, and that was Shelia’s car in the video. That would mean the teens were lying. Maybe they had taken Skylar to a party, something had happened, and they were scared to tell. Maybe Skylar actually had run away, and they were trying to cover it up.
Another possibility was they were telling the truth and the car was someone else’s. Perhaps she went with a boy—or an adult male. Possibly Dylan or Darek Conaway. Or maybe that was just the car that took her to a party.
Either way, they needed to get more information. Colebank told them she had called Sheetz about video surveillance but learned it was of Sheetz property only. But maybe a visit would prove more fruitful. It had been a long day, but Gaskins said to Berry, “Let’s just go to Sheetz and check for ourselves.”
At Sheetz, the manager took the two troopers into the back room and showed them how to access the videotape archives of the store. Gaskins and Berry cued up the video and took it back to the late evening of July 5. Gaskins progressed the video in short spurts, tapping on a key for each jump.
“I’m ‘tap-tap-tap,’” Gaskins said. “I’m slow because I don’t want to miss something. Then I see this car and the rims stick out to me. It’s like a silver car, and I’m thinking, ‘Okay, well, I know a silver car picked up Skylar.’”
The time was after midnight, and the car was headed toward town. The two men kept watching the video, and with each tap the timestamp moved toward 12:30.
“Tap-tap-tap,” Gaskins said, “and at 12:39, I see this same car go toward the interstate.”
The times lined up perfectly. They’d found more footage of the car that picked up Skylar, and it was definitely headed north, toward the interstate or Blacksville. They thanked the manager and put in a request for a copy of the footage.
“You guys are lucky,” the manager said. “After fifty-four days, they permanently delete those files. That footage would have been gone in two days.”
twenty-five
About a Boy
Skylar disappeared because of a boy. That’s what everyone said. What no one seemed to know, though, was whether it was a teen boy or a random adult pedophile.
Rumors like these are easy to believe when romance is at the heart of so many teenage upheavals and males commit most crimes. In addition, people still believe the biggest threat to children comes from a strange man lurking in a trench coat, so-called stranger danger. The truth is, most missing children who aren’t runaways are snatched by people they know—including their own family members. If Skylar’s disappearance had to do with a boy, it was likely someone she knew.
The problem was, Skylar couldn’t be linked to very many boys, and none of the anecdotal reports had romantic overtones. So while rumor had it a boy was involved, the facts showed otherwise.
The only known story about Skylar and a boy illustrated how little experience Skylar had with the opposite sex. Amorette Hughes remembered Tommy,25 the “really cute” boy in dance class all the girls fawned over.
“He was kinda, like, skaterish,” Amorette said, referring to a look modeled after skateboarder subculture. “He wore T-shirts, and liked skinny jeans. We would never talk to him. We were scared.”
When Skylar did talk to Tommy, she became so nervous she stammered. The most she could do was watch him from afar and giggle with Amorette.
Not so with one of Skylar’s friends. That girl chatted easily with Skater Boy.
“Shelia,” Amorette said. “I think they might have gone out on a couple of dates. I remember Skylar telling me about it. I know Shelia said Tommy was awkward.”
Skylar couldn’t have been happier for her friend. “She was like, ‘I’m living my life vicariously through Shelia! I’m not there, but it feels like I am!’” Amorette said.
Accounts connecting Skylar to romance with boys were nonexistent, suggesting only that she wasn’t ready for dating. In fact, Skylar’s lack of interest in boys may have been part of what drove some teenagers to speculate Skylar was a lesbian. (I heard she doesn’t like boys . . . and those other two girls she always hung around with, weren’t they seen kissing at some party?)
Gaskins and Berry had also heard Skylar’s disappearance was connected to a boy, although in those versions it wasn’t necessarily a romantic relationship. One name they kept coming across was Eric Finch, a sophomore at Clay-Battelle. Eric, who looks like he could pass for a teenage Dave Neese, lived on a farm ten miles south of Blacksville.
Because Skylar was a Daddy’s girl, and because of Eric’s dark hair and stocky looks, people might have thought he was Skylar’s type. But that wasn’t true, either. Eric and Skylar met through Shelia years earlier. They went to the same parties and also attended a Snoop Dogg concert at the WVU Coliseum with Shelia and Shania. Skylar had even been to one of Eric’s birthday parties. Since becoming teens their friendship existed primarily through text messages. In fact, they were texting right before Skylar snuck out for the final time.
Police found out Eric was the last person who received a text message from Skylar. His final text to Skylar was at 12:11 A.M.; she replied one minute later. At 12:12 Eric said Skylar simply texted, Goodnight.
While Eric denied having had a crush on Skylar, other people say he did. His tweets on March 13, 2013, when Skylar’s remains were conclusively identified, seem to suggest sincere feelings: Easy, the hardest day of my life. Its something that only few understand. Pure brightness turned into darkness. Rest in peace, love you babe and Lord, I ask for strength! You, above all, know I need it. Of course, it’s also possible Eric was another in a long line of teens who saw in Skylar the perfect confidante—and nothing more. In any event, the police never considered him a likely suspect.
Shelia was Eric’s first girlfriend, something he said came about largely because their last names, Eddy and Finch, meant they stood next to each other in the hot-lunch line in middle school. Eric was also a friend of—or at least acquainted with—Dylan Conaway.
The parties at the Conaway house were rumored to get a little wild; some people claim alcohol and drugs flowed freely. Gaskins and Berry learned Shelia had taken Rachel to parties there. In addition, it was common knowledge around Blacksville that Dylan Conaway once had a sexual relationship with Shelia—and she and Skylar went to Blacksville a lot.
The more closely Skylar was connected to the Conaway brothers, State Police thought, the more likely her disappearance was linked to the bank robberies. They were equally convinced Darek Conaway was somehow connected to those felonies.
Before they made any more moves on Darek, the two troopers decided to ride out to the western end of the county. They wanted to have a little chat with Eric Finch before they paid another visit to the Conaway house.
Just talk. It’s easy.
After typing the text into his phone, Daniel hit send. Then he leaned back in his chair and tried to listen to Mr. Snyder. It wasn’t easy. This year Daniel had two math classes—precalculus and trigonometry. Usually math came easily to Daniel, but the way Mr. Snyder went over and over points in trig class made it almost impossible for Daniel to tune in. The fact Daniel thought the teacher was cocky didn’t help. Daniel believed the only way he could handle his boredom was to go to class stoned.
Daniel imagined Rachel receiving his last text. He’d sent her texts regularly in the two weeks they’d been back to school and he knew he was annoying her. Personally, he thought Rachel was beautiful, had an incredible voice, and was a great person—even if she was a little over the top. After all, Daniel knew he was, too. Plus, they’d spent hours and hours together, in and out of class, working under Mr. Kyer’s direction or driving around town getting high with Skylar and Shelia.
This school year wasn’t turning ou
t to be as much fun as Daniel thought it would be. Of course after Skylar disappeared, everything had changed. Lately Daniel was having trouble remembering the things he liked about Rachel. He kept thinking it wasn’t fair, the way Rachel and Shelia were being all quiet and sneaky. They seemed to be keeping to themselves a lot more than they used to.
As if that wasn’t enough, Rachel’s attitude was really beginning to annoy him. Daniel had seen the pair several times—in the cafeteria, at Shelia’s locker, even just walking down the hallway. Their heads were always close, they were always whispering. There was something so secretive about them now.
If he could get Rachel to talk about it—whatever it was—she could tell him and it wouldn’t go any further. He was going to keep pressuring her until she did. He didn’t even try bugging Shelia; once that girl had her mind made up, she didn’t change it. Instead, Daniel completely ignored her.
He keyed his phone again:
Hey Rachel. We really need to talk in 4th period. You know what about too.
Daniel hit send.
Dave’s aunt, Joanne Nagy, and her daughter Rikki talked every day. They were very close, so it was only natural much of their conversation centered on Joanne’s missing niece and Rikki’s missing cousin, Skylar. Where she could be, why she had left, what they could do to help find her.
Joanne had never met the brunette teen, since she and Dave’s uncle had parted ways years earlier. It was a contentious divorce, and Joanne cut herself off from her ex-husband’s family. She only saw Dave for the first time in more than twenty years when his mom died, and they reconnected at the funeral home. Joanne was so happy to see Dave and his brother, Mike, again, and looked forward to catching up on their lost years.
One year later Joanne was devastated when she learned Dave’s daughter was missing. So Joanne did what she does best: she went into action, taking charge like an efficient military commander. She had MISSING Skylar posters made, organized search teams, and then sent those teams of complete strangers out to various areas of the region. She also scheduled people to take food to Dave and Mary, and she even scoped out various locations around the region where Skylar had supposedly been sighted.
Pretty Little Killers Page 15
