16-Year-Old Girl Betrayed and Murdered by Best Friends | The Case of Skylar Neese

A 16 year old girl vanished from her home in the middle of the night. There was no trace as to what could have happened. Did she run away or did something more sinister happen. Well, this is Love and Murder after all. Let’s get into the case of Skylar Neese right now.

Born on February 10, 1996 to Mary and Dave Neese, only child Skylar Neese was known to be a happy and fun person. She had a loving home, with no problems between her and her parent. Born in Morgantown, West Virginia, Skylar and her parents moved to the small town of Star City, West Virginia where she grew up. There, she went to school, was very active in the neighborhood, and built long friendships. Skylar was described as very intelligent,

“She was reading and doing math before she was supposed to.”

She went to University High School, where she was an honor student who wanted to become a criminal defense attorney.

One of her close friends was Sheila Eddy. Sheila was born on September 28, 1995, in Blacksville, West Virginia, to parents Tara Clendenen and Greg Eddy. Sheila didn’t have the same home life, or family type, as Skylar. However, she quickly became Skylar’s best friend when they were 8, and their friendship only grew stronger when Sheila moved closer to Skylar’s home.

“She was like a part of our family. She really was.”

Now that they lived close, they were able to go to the same high school. That’s why they met the next friend in their tight trio, Rachel Shoaf. Rachel was born on June 10, 1996, in Morgantown to Patricia and Rusty Shoaf. Rachel was described as being someone who always wanted to do good and make everyone around her happy. She came from a devout Catholic family and enjoyed being in school plays and had ambitions of being a Broadway star. As strict and religious as Rachel’s background was, she loved hanging around Sheila due to her carefree personality.

On July 5, 2012, when Skylar was 16, after working her shift at Wenday’s, she went back home, greeted her parents, and went to her room. Later, at 12:30am, she snuck out of her bedroom window and gotten into a sedan.

The next day, after her family realized she was missing, they called 911. Police did an initial investigation and pulled CCTV footage from the apartment’s security and saw Skylar voluntarily getting into a sedan. This led them to believe that Skylar was a runaway, so they decided not to put out an AMBER Alert. However, Dave and Mary contested this saying that you can clearly tell that Skylar planned on coming back home because she had left her cell phone charger, and she’d left her window open. Police still disagreed and stated that they had to wait the minimum of 48 hours before putting out an alert. After the AMBER alert was issued, The Star City Police Department received a tip stating that Skylar had been seen in North Carolina; however, after investigating this lead, it was determined to be false. As the investigation progressed, authorities identified the sedan as belonging to a Sheila Eddy. When police went to speak with Sheila, she said that she did pick Skylar up, but she’d dropped her off an hour later. Officer Jessica Colebank later said, 

“Their stories were verbatim, the same. No one’s story is exactly the same unless it’s rehearsed. Everything in my gut was, ‘Shelia’s acting wrong. Rachel is scared to death.’ ”

On September 10, 2012, the FBI joined the search and both law departments interviewed Skylar’s friends from school. According to one of their classmates, Daniel Hovatter, Skylar and Shelia argued a lot and after Rachel joined the group, their friendship became even more volatile. Sheila had even started hanging out more with Rachel than Skylar.

“One time Sophomore year, me and Rachel were at practice for Pride and Prejudice and Rachel had her phone up to her ear and she was laughing. She was like, Listen to this. Rachel had been listening to a fight between Skylar and Shelia.”

Dave and Mary endured months of pleading for information about their only child. Can you imagine the anguish? They posted flyers and tried to do as much as they could do. Sheila would visit her best friend’s parents often, offering her condolences and a shoulder to cry on. She was also front and center when their community helped in the efforts to search for Skylar, but so far, she was never found.

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While all this is going on, Rachel and Sheila were still pretty active on social media. Sheila tweeted a lot of how she missed Skylar and would often post messages about how hard this was on her. Some of her tweets were actually written directly to Skylar asking her to come home. As investigators were watching all of Skylar’s friends and their activities, this behavior from Sheila was suspicious to them because, as they thought, some of their tweets were too light-hearted for the situation such as them posting pictures of themselves making funny faces. Dave, though, defended them and told the cops to leave them alone. Police, however, confiscated the girls’ phones as part of the investigation. It was then that they realized holes in the girls’ stories on the night that Skylar disappeared.

On December 28, 2018 a phone call came in from Rachel’s house. Her mother spoke to the 911 operator in a panicked voice,

“I have an issue with a sixteen-year-old daughter of mine. I can’t control her anymore. She’s hitting us, she’s screaming, she’s running through the neighborhood.”

Medical units were dispatched to the house and Rachel was brought to the hospital for treatment and observation. But, on January 3, 2013, about a week after Rachel had her mental breakdown and 6 months into the investigation, there was a huge break in the case …. Rachel came forward and confessed to the murder. Now, it’s only fair to say that the sentence about Rachel going to the hospital wasn’t verified as I couldn’t find information between the time her mother called 911 and the time she confessed, so this was the only thing that made sense to me. I just wanted to point that out. Now back to the case.

Rachel told investigators that during science class, her and Sheila plotted to stab Skylar and bury her 30 miles (or 48 km) away in the Pennsylvania woods. They planned to pick Skylar up from her house under the cover of night and drive to a remote area, telling her that they were going to smoke marijuana. Once there, Sheila and Rachel would count to 3 and then stab Skylar to death. Rachel told police that they’d been planning this murder for months, prepared a, “serial killer kit” that had towels, bleach, a shovel, and a change of clothes and had also packed knives for the attack. They took Skylar over the Pennsylvania border and pulled it off exactly as they’d planned it. They stabbed Skylar over 50 times on that night. When investigators asked her why they did it, she said they “didn’t like her anymore” and “didn’t want to be friends with her anymore.” She also told police that she would lead them to the body.

As Rachel stated, she led police right to Skylar’s body. Unfortunately, at the same time, there was a snowstorm which delayed their search. On January 16, 2023, once the snow melted, police found Skylar’s remains, not buried, but covered in leaves and branches. Rachel said the ground was too hard so they couldn’t bury her. This confirmed everything that Rachel had told police. Rachel was arrested and, now, with concrete evidence, Sheila was arrested as well.

Another piece of the puzzle, was the girls’ Twitter; namely Sheila’s. Investigators were able to gather evidence based on how she sent out tweets. For instance, in one tweet she wrote, “We really did go on three.” This was in reference to them counting to three before attacking Skyler.

On May 1, 2013, during her arraignment, Rachel pled guilty to second-degree murder by,

“unlawfully, feloniously, willfully, maliciously and intentionally causing the death of Skylar Neese by stabbing her and causing fatal injuries”.

Rachel had written out an apology letter and read it to the court. In it, she said that she was sorry for her actions and regretted everything that had happened. Due to her confession and cooperation, Rachel had been offered a plea deal and was only sentenced to 30 years in prison, with the eligibility for parole after 10 years.

Sheila, on the other hand, pled not guilty to all of her charges. During her arraignment she decided not to speak, but others did come forward to testify. Some students from their school testified that they’d overheard conversations between Rachel and Sheila about their murder plot, but they thought it was a joke, so they didn’t tell anyone. Since she’d pled not guilty, a trial date was set for January 28, 2014. However, she changed her mind after finding out that if this case went to trial, she would also be facing additional charges from the Pennsylvania authorities. Sheila pled guilty to first-degree murder. Also, even though she’d now pled guilty, she still showed no remorse and was sentenced to life in prison “with mercy.” “With mercy” means that, while sentenced as an adult, the West Virginia law requires that a juvenile offender be given a possibility of parole on a life sentence. So with that, she was given life with a possibility of parole after 15 years and as promised, the Pennsylvania authorities did not file charges against Sheila.

On May 9, 2023, Rachel was up for parole. At her parole hearing, she again expressed remorse and gave the actual motive for the murder. She said that f further expressed remorse in her May 9, 2023 parole hearing and finally gave a motive for the crime, which was that she and Sheila were in a romantic relationship. This relationship caused tension within the friend group.

Through their lawyers, Rachel’s family also issued a public apology to Skylar’s family for the actions of their daughter.

Ultimately, Rachel was denied parole.

Both women, who are now 28/29 as of this publication, remain in custody at the Lakin Correctional Center.

Because of this case, West Virginia changed it’s Amber Alert Laws. An Amber Alert was not issued in Skylar’s disappearance because the situation didn’t meet all four criteria: (1) a child is believed to be abducted; (2) the child is under 18; (3) the child may be in danger of death or serious injury; (4) there is sufficient information to indicate the Amber Alert would be helpful. This is why police followed the 48 hour waiting period. A West Virginia state legislator from the Neese family home district introduced a bill and called Skylar’s Law. The purpose was to edit West Virginia’s Amber Alert to issue immediate public announcements when any child is reported missing and/or in danger, no matter if the child is believed to have been kidnapped or not. On March 27, 2013, the West Virginia House of Delegates approved Skylar’s Law with a 98–0 vote.

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Question: Do you think Rachel was truly remorseful? Should she have been released on parole in 2023?

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