Pretty Little Killers

by Berry, Daleen, Fuller, Geoffrey C.

  The decision “is kind of binding on all of us,” he added, since it means imposing “a sentence of life without mercy upon a juvenile would be a violation of the cruel and inhuman[e] punishment provisions of the United States Constitution.”

  So while Shelia received a life sentence, she will be eligible for parole in fifteen years. Clawges stressed the law allows for no more. However, that does not mean Shelia will find herself on the road to freedom that soon. The parole board must make that decision. One major factor that entity will consider is Shelia’s remorse—or lack thereof—perhaps as evidenced by the words she didn’t say to the Neeses that day.

  Because of the nature of “this horrific and vile crime,” the prosecution said it had one other request: “We are asking you here, today, to sentence this defendant to adult prison, for her very adult crime.” Ashdown said Shelia should not return to a juvenile facility, especially since she was eighteen.

  Judge Clawges agreed. He said that as soon as a bed became available, Eddy was to be placed in an adult prison. “If that’s tomorrow, it’s tomorrow,” Clawges said. “If it’s thirty days from now, it’s thirty days from now.”

  In return for Shelia’s guilty plea, the Pennsylvania and federal court systems both agreed to dismiss any pending charges they had against her.37

  forty-five

  On Three!

  After the plea hearing, Ashdown said Rachel confessed that she and Shelia started stabbing Skylar on “a prearranged signal.” For months, people claimed that signal was a count: “One . . . two . . . three!”

  At one time, such a notion seemed to be based solely on unrelated Twitter traffic on March 31, 2013, between Shelia and her cousin, Lexy.

  In successive tweets, Shelia said,

  still waiting “@slexy_Just waitin for you to make a move @_sheliiaa”

  and

  still. make a move “@slexy_“@_sheliiaastill waiting “@slexy_Just waitin for you to make a move @_sheliiaa”” o me 2”

  and

  @slexy_ on three

  A little later, about 1:30 in the morning, Shelia tweeted, we really did go on three. Lexy, tweeted back, “@_sheliiaa @slexy_ on three” that was a good idea.

  People repeatedly cited those tweets and others like them, saying the murder began after one girl gave the other a signal of “One, two, three.” People claimed this March 31 exchange was proof Shelia’s cousin knew about the murder. Social media chatter showed how early this speculation began. Although it may have begun earlier, on May 9, nine days after both girls were arrested, @KillerGirlProbz9 tweeted, What are u guys gonna do, take to into the woods stab me on the count of 3?

  Similar speculation appeared repeatedly on Topix and Websleuths. PaulfromChas posted, Looks like the “we went on the count of three” tweet was what it was rumored to be, and Hillbilly_Chick responded, Also, to me, that tweet says . . . others knew.

  Throughout this case, people laid blame first on one and then another family member or friend, saying they knew about the murder. Sometimes people pointed at those close to Shelia and Rachel and said they helped cover up the crime. Many, many teens were wrongly accused as murderers or accessories to Skylar’s murder. But the authorities made no other arrests. Nor were they likely to—not when the real killers had confessed. Not when the evidence that Shelia and Rachel had acted alone was so strong.

  Based on the tweets themselves, it looked as if people took Shelia and Lexy’s words out of context. At one time, there was no valid reason to believe those tweets had anything to do with the murder. There was every reason to believe the cousins were discussing something the two of them did—not even remotely connected to Skylar’s death.

  However, it was also now likely Shelia was using something she knew she and Rachel had done as a way to mock her audience—whom she was trying to portray as having wrongly persecuted her. On February 4, 2013, she tweeted, the littlest things can be blown out of proportion to something that is completely untrue. don’t talk if you don’t know what really happened.

  In her press conference after the hearing, Ashdown revealed the two teens really did count to three before they began stabbing Skylar.

  Whenever three people are as close as Shelia, Skylar, and Rachel were, the relationship’s dynamics can become extreme. Former FBI profiler Ken Lanning stated that alliances are always in flux, and at any given moment, two would be “in” and one would be “out.” Various friends of all three girls said this was constantly the case. A look at the trio’s Twitter traffic during freshman and sophomore years verified this.

  Lanning was so familiar with teen dynamics that he actually wrote the training manuals for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Lanning said teen social alliances could be incredibly volatile and intense, and eventually “two girls together wind up doing something that possibly no one of them would have done by themselves.”

  At some point, the theory went, the trio broke down. It turned into two against one. The shifting alliance solidified, leaving Skylar the odd girl out—permanently. People were waiting for the trial to reveal what caused that final break, what the real motive was in Skylar Neese’s murder.

  Skylar’s tweet on December 13, 2011, six months before her murder, provided a glimpse of that breakdown: #whyareyousofuckingstupid #twofacedbitches #nevergettingoverit.

  Her tweet the evening of July 4, 2012, a day and a half before she climbed out her window for the last time, also showed signs that Skylar was angry at her two best friends and frustrated over being left out: sick of being at fucking home. thanks “friends”, love hanging out with you all too.

  The permanent two-against-one status leading to Skylar’s death took shape as much as a year before her murder. Police learned this when Chris Boggs came forward after Rachel’s confession. Boggs, a UHS student, posted on Facebook, I knew those dumb bitches killed her!

  Mary, who saw Chris’ post, sent him a private message. He replied, saying he and other students had heard both her and Shelia ask during class how to get rid of a body. Chris told Mary it happened in Dan Demchak’s sophomore biology class.

  Mary alerted Gaskins, who reached out to Chris. That led police to other UHS students—who agreed with Boggs’ assessment. Students also claimed they overheard Shelia and Rachel making plans to kill Skylar. Some said they tried to warn their classmate, but when Skylar inquired about the warnings, Shelia and Rachel blew them off.

  Skylar’s outsider status only laid the basis for her murder. Investigators look for a “precipitating event” that triggers a violent crime, something that turns a simmering situation to a full boil. In Skylar’s case, three such events have come to light thus far. All three involved her and Shelia. First, the two girls argued and came to blows inside a movie theater in March 2012. Second, there was a known tiff that took place during their trip to the beach in June 2012.

  The event that triggered the trio’s problems came long before, on a hot August night in 2011, when Skylar witnessed Shelia and Rachel having sex.

  The disturbing video that captured the three girls playing a game about death six months before Skylar’s murder shows “[c]learly there is some awareness of pain and suffering and different ways of dying,” Lanning said.

  Then, when Shelia and Rachel did kill Skylar, it was in “a pretty gruesome, horrible way, with a lot of personal attack against her and what they felt that she represented.”

  The long-time criminal analyst said that to “brutalize this person, to almost torture them, and then just leave them there . . . shows a certain amount of rage targeted at her and what she represents.”

  Skylar’s death was gruesome. Investigators said her murder involved what police and prosecutors call “overkill.” The act itself was extreme, involving anywhere from thirty to fifty separate stab wounds. Skylar’s murder was personal: the victim’s killers knew Skylar well and harbored deep personal feelings toward her.

  Overkill can also indicate a murder driven by hatred, rage, fear, jealousy, loa
thing, disgust, or some combination of intense emotions—such as those that might have been fueled by a close, three-way friendship gone horribly wrong. Drugs or alcohol could have exacerbated those feelings, although no evidence of that emerged.

  That many stab wounds could also indicate the two killers freaked out. “Somebody that young, they’re going to freak out,” Trooper Berry said. “They keep doing it and doing it, not knowing the whole time that the victim is dead. That’s a typical reaction. I’ve seen it in other crimes.”

  Even if the murder was carefully planned, the intense emotion indicated the crime was not carried out simply to further an agenda (e.g., “Skylar was brilliant so she had to die”) or to gain some advantage (“With Skylar dead, I can have her iPod”).

  Extreme violence, according to Lanning, could also indicate the killers didn’t just want to do away with the victim—they wanted to obliterate Skylar. Possibly, Skylar reminded both killers of something about themselves they didn’t like. It is entirely likely this was the case with both girls, albeit in different ways. For instance, it is no secret that Rachel felt intense anger toward her mother. Skylar, in many ways the responsible overachiever who called her friends on the carpet when they misbehaved, could have reminded Rachel of a mother figure.

  Shelia, however, is another matter. Skylar could have reminded Shelia of what she lost, or willingly gave up, when she entered her boy-crazy stage. No doubt Shelia, whom Skylar believed had lost all self-respect, knew Skylar no longer respected or looked up to her, like she once did. Skylar’s own words seem to confirm this, when she wrote about Shelia in her February 2, 2012, English journal: “She transformed from an independent, free spirit into a needy doormat . . .”

  It wasn’t “so much that they hated Skylar but that they hated what she represented,” Lanning said. If Skylar served as a constant reminder of a past they wanted to forget—or a future they couldn’t contemplate—then Shelia and Rachel might have believed killing Skylar would alleviate those negative feelings.

  Lanning believes another factor to incite Shelia and Rachel’s anger would have been the relationship Skylar had with her parents. She wasn’t rich or spoiled, but “clearly her mother and father were two individuals who loved her and were devoted to her. Maybe that’s what they resented about her. She was really this good person who reminded them of what they were not, and that’s what made them angry.”

  So when Shania gave Shelia the photo collage as a Christmas gift and later discovered Shelia had removed all images of Skylar, it’s possible Shania witnessed Shelia’s attempt to block out any memory of Skylar, so she wouldn’t have negative feelings whenever she saw Skylar’s face staring back at her.

  forty-six

  The Affair

  It was a lesbian love affair.

  That’s what people have been saying for more than a year now. As more and more months have passed, a growing list of evidence indicates they could be right.

  At UHS, other teens called the trio lesbians long before Skylar’s murder. The teens themselves joked about it through much of their freshman and sophomore years. Close friendships between teenage girls often inspire such rumors. Most of the time, that’s all they are.

  These days, girls stripping and kissing each other is quite common, especially at parties where alcohol and drugs are plentiful. When such behavior takes place in a semipublic context, it’s often more about showing off than an authentic expression of sexuality. Any number of other factors could be at play, from a desire to be thought of as cool to exhibitionism. One teen called this kind of behavior “drunk girl games.”

  Over the months, many people spoke of pictures or a video the entire school is said to have known about. There was no indication from interviews, online research, or photographs that Skylar had ever been sexual with boys or girls. However, that isn’t to say she didn’t wonder about her sexuality—or whether she might be a lesbian—especially since there is no evidence that Skylar was interested in the opposite sex.

  Skylar’s own words seem to say she questioned her sexual orientation, which would be completely normal in today’s world, or she thought she was a lesbian. In an essay titled “A Barren Heart,” Skylar penned this poignant, undated piece sometime late in her sophomore year:

  The sun was scorching as I dragged continuously on. Sweat dripped down my face with each step I took toward what seemed a universe away. My muscles screamed with agony in response to even the smallest of movements and I begin to wonder if it’s actually worth all I’m putting myself through. I’m stuck, forever trapped in endless nothingness. I’ve grown tired of nothing; nothing is all I’ve felt for months.

  My mind is my largest enemy. I detest my surroundings and refuse to face the fact that this desert is more desired than I am. “I want to see the world!” she would say. I was never invited, not that I had any desire to accompany her. I was content with my average life in an average city. Never had I yearned to explore the world or what it had to offer. She promised she’d return soon enough, a changed and happy woman. Soon enough has turned into never.

  Months passed and letters or photos went from rare to nonexistent. I kept telling myself to wait it out, for she’s busy enjoying life and all will be normal soon. After four months with no communication I couldn’t dull the pain with my own lies any longer. I knew she was gone. The desert had won, but I refused to be forgotten so quickly.

  Deep in the desert she resides with the area’s natives. The thought of those people or the desert itself forces so much hatred through my body it hurts. This desert is nothing, has nothing, and offers nothing; a useless place. I’m getting closer and growing more and more excited to escape this wasteland with the woman I love. I arrive, ecstatic to see the beautiful face I’ve missed so much. Our eyes meet, and I suddenly realize why she’s still here. Her eyes went hallow [sic], her face black. I am her desert.

  Another undated poem from her sophomore Honors portfolio speaks of Skylar loving someone. Given its tone and when compared with Skylar’s other writings, the poem seems to be give voice to her feelings for Shelia:

  Like an empty meadow / Filled with nothing but dry grass / It smells of autumn air / I’m surrounded by beauty / I take it all in at last / Here I am waiting / Too stubborn to understand / Time passes slowly / Acceptance begins to come / That you will never return / Loyal to you always / The love has me to [sic] captured / In your eyes I look / To you love, my heart belongs / Our love cannot be broken

  Lanning said the problems seen in Skylar’s friendship with Shelia could be from a change in the girls’ attitude, or because “one of them developed a little later than the other.”

  However, the relationship could also evolve, he said, “if one of them found herself attracted to boys and the other found herself attracted to girls.”

  No one believes Rachel Shoaf. Her now-famous statement, “We didn’t want to be friends with Skylar anymore,” has never seemed accurate or adequate as a motive for murder. Everyone wants to know how, and why, two bright and pretty teenagers were able to perpetrate such a heinous crime against their professed best friend.

  On February 26, 2014, everyone present in the Monongalia County Courthouse waited to see if the redheaded teen, considered by many to be the proverbial “lesser of two evils,” would supply new information, a substantial clue as to their reason to conspire, kidnap, and kill their fellow UHS student. Was it a thrill kill? Were they lesbian lovers terrified of being discovered? Was a boy involved, drugs maybe?

  The courtroom atmosphere for Rachel’s hearing was markedly different from Shelia’s. A month earlier, the nine bailiffs had been edgy, no doubt because of repeated rumors of threats made on Shelia’s life. That day, the bailiffs had scanned the crowd searching for would-be attackers. At Rachel’s hearing, however, they were more relaxed. There was banter among them, even smiles.

  The center section of the courtroom was filled with supporters of Skylar and her family. The left side, Rachel’s side, was not nearly as full.
There were few young people as nearly all of Rachel’s high school friends felt angry toward her, betrayed.

  During the proceedings Judge Russell Clawges kept his tone conversational but authoritative. Eventually he gave Rachel the opportunity to speak. Unlike her accomplice, Shelia Eddy, Rachel did not stay silent.

  After scanning the crowd, her eyes came to rest upon the Neeses. “I am so sorry,” Rachel began, her words soft, her voice quavering. “I don’t know if there’s a proper way to make this apology, because there are not even words to describe the guilt and remorse that I feel for what I’ve done.”

  “The person that did that was not the real me,” she said, her delivery steady as she turned to Clawges, “not the person I am, not what I’m made of and not what I believe in.”

  As she spoke, Dave and Mary studied Rachel. Dave’s face was etched with a deep scowl and his neck was flushed. Mary’s eyebrows rose in surprise, or skepticism.

  “I don’t think I ever thought that this would actually happen. I became scared and caught up in something I did not want to do. I didn’t realize the gravity of my actions and how many people I’ve hurt.”

  Mary Neese’s expression, as she glanced at her husband, seemed to say, “Did you hear that?”

  Rachel went on to admit that she “hurt the Neese family and those who love Skylar. I hurt my parents and shamed my family.” Rachel listed those she’d hurt—from her family and community to her “Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.” Face in her hands, Rachel sank back into her chair. Her shoulders shuddered, as if she were crying.38 One of Rachel’s attorneys, John Angotti, spoke up. “There’s nothing I can say here today to take away the pain and heartache that the Neese family has and will endure.” He also said he believed the “case would not have been resolved without [Rachel’s] confession and cooperation.”