Skylar Reese mysteriously disappears from her home leaving no trace

Now part of the dark cast network. Welcome to indie podcasts with a dark side. A 16 year old girl vanishes 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, so m let’s get into the case of Skylar Reese right now.

Love and Murder is a weekly true crime podcast featuring relationships that turn to murder

Welcome, LaMs. Welcome to love and murder, your weekly true crime podcast telling you of relationships that turn to murder. My name is Ky, and in today’s episode, we’re talking about a case where when I first heard it, it taught me to watch my child’s friends closely. Before we begin, I want to remind you that this episode and all my episodes are sponsored by My LaMs in Patreon patreon.com loveandmurder also, at the end of the episode, if y’all hadn’t noticed, I didn’t come out with an episode on Monday and I will let y’all know what happened. If you want to hear about what’s going on in my life, you can listen at the end of the episode. I figured since I didn’t post on Monday, I’m going to do your full episode mixed with your mid week mini today. So it’s a full episode day. But enough with the chit chat. Let’s grab your butts, grab your BJs apple juice murderinlove.com bjs for $30 off your first year’s membership and let’s get into some love and murder.

Skylar Shoaf wanted to become a criminal defense attorney

Born on February 10, 1996 to Mary and Dave. Niece only child. Skylar niece was known to be a very happy and very fun person. She had a love and home. She had no problem between her and her parents and she was born in Morgantown, West Virginia. When she was small, 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 lasting friendships. Skylar was described as intelligent. She was reading and doing math before she was supposed to. She went to University High School where she was an honor student and wanted to become a criminal defense attorney. She was also described as always wanted to fight for the underdog and make sure the right thing was done. So, you know, this sounds like somebody we need in criminal defense. One of her close friends was Sheila Eddy. Sheila was born on September 28, 1995 in Blackville, West Virginia to parents Tara Clenanden and Greg Eddy. Sheila didn’t come from the same home life as Skylar did, but like Skylar, she was an only child she and Skyler quickly became best friends when they were around eight, and their friendship only grew stronger when Sheila moved closer to Skylar’s home. Quote, she was like 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 were able to meet the next friend in their tight trio. Rachel Shoaf. Rachel was born on June 10, 1996, in Morgantown to Patricia and Rusty Shoafdeenen. Rachel was described as being someone who always wanted to do good and make everyone around her happy. Not saying this is her, but it sounds like a people pleaser, which is not a good thing. I used to be a people pleaser when I was little. I grew out of that in high school because of all the things that come with it. She came from a devout catholic family, and she enjoyed being in school plays and actually had an ambition to be a Broadway star. So when she graduated high school, that’s kind of what she was looking forward to. As strict and religious as Rachel’s background was, she loved hanging around Sheila because Sheila was the complete opposite of what she was taught to be like. And I think she kind of wanted to be more like Sheila, carefree and just doing whatever she wanted. On July 5, 2012, when Skylar was 16, after working her shift at Wendy’s, she went back home, said hi to her parents, went up to her room. You know how teenagers do. Hi. Uh, yeah. How was school? Good. How was work? Good. Anything happened today? No. Go upstairs to their room. So she went upstairs to her room. I’m not saying literally that’s what happened, but you know how teenagers are. So she went up to her room. She’s chilling in her room, and then at around 12:30 a.m. uh, she snuck out her bedroom window and then got into a car and left. The next day, her father comes up to her room. It’s time for work. She had to work that day, and I. They noticed that she wasn’t waking up. You know you’re gonna be late. Knock, knock, knock. No answer goes in. He sees her uniform from the day before. Bed’s made. She’s not there. So they immediately called 911. Police did an initial investigation and pulled CCTV footage from the apartment security and saw Skylar voluntarily getting into a car. Well, this led them to believe that Skylar ran away from home, so they decided not to put out an Amber Alert. However, Dave and Mary contested this, saying that you could clearly tell that Skylar was planning on coming back home. She left her cell phone charger. What teenager do you know, is about to run away from home and leave their cell phone charger or anything dealing with their cell phone. Are you serious? So they were like, she left her cell phone charger, and she left her bedroom window open. So clearly she had snuck out and she was coming back. Police still disagreed and stated that they had to wait the minimum 48 hours before putting an alert. So call us back if she doesn’t come back in 48 hours. Well, 48 hours later, she still wasn’t home, and an Amber Alert was issued. After that happened, the Star City police department received a tip that Skyler was last seen in North Carolina. But when they went and investigated this lead, they saw that that was completely false. As the investigation progressed, authorities identified the sedan as belonging to Sheila Eddy. When police went to speak to Sheila, she said, yeah, we did pick Skylar up. We went on a joyride. Just chilled out, and then we dropped her off an hour later. Officer Jessica Kolbank 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 telling me Sheila’s acting wrong. Rachel is scared to death. On September 10, 2012, the FBI joined the search, and both the FBI and the PD interviewed Skyler’s friends from school. According to one of their classmates, Daniel Havatar, Skylar and Sheila argued a lot. And after Rachel joined the group, their friendship became even worse. Sheila had even started hanging out more with Rachel than with Skyler. One time, sophomore year, me and Rachel were at practice for pride and prejudice, and Rachel had her phone up to her ear and was laughing. She was like, listen to this. Rachel had been listening to a fight between Skylar and Sheila. Wow. And she was just sitting there laughing about it. If that’s my friend group, I don’t want to hear my friends fight, let alone think that’s funny. And I’m just on the phone laughing about it. That’s me.

Rachel and Sheila remained active on social media after Skyler went missing

In the meantime, while police are doing their investigation, Dave and Mary are, ah, you know, doing an investigation on their own, asking anyone for information about their child. I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine the anguish they went through. I can’t just imagine. If you have children, think about your child going missing, or if you don’t have children, but you have, like, nieces and nephews. Think about your niece or nephew missing and multiply that by about a thousand, because that’s how it feels when it’s your child. So I can’t even imagine. And that’s their only child. Not to say, it’s different if you had more children and one is missing. You’re just like, oh, no, you’re still gonna feel that. I’m just saying, it’s your only child. Ah. Uh, I can’t imagine. So with their investigation, there’s not much they could do. You know, they posted flyers and just talked to people and did interviews, you know, stuff like that. There’s really not much you could do as a civilian. Sheila would visit her best friend’s parents often, you know, offering condolences, saying, I miss Skylar. Helping in the search, offering a shoulder to cry on while all this is going on. Rachel and Sheila was still pretty active on social media because, you know, uh, your friend goes missing and can’t shut down your social media. Sheila tweeted a lot about how she missed Skyler and would also post messages about how hard this was on her. Some of her tweets were actually written directly to Skyler, like, saying stuff like, Skyler, come home. Skylar, just come back. Investigators were watching all of Skyler’s friends and their activities. This behavior from Sheila was starting to become suspicious because not only was Sheila posting stuff like this, but she was posting, like, funny stuff, like, you know, still talking about, oh, you know, life is hard. School was hard. I hate math. It was just, like, too light hearted for what was going on in between that she would pepper it with, like, you know, I wish Skylar would come back. And then, you know, she would post pictures with Rachel making funny faces or, you know, whatever teenagers normally do on social media. So. So police thought that was suspicious of them. However, Dave defended them and told the cops to leave them alone again. He felt like Sheila was like one of his children because her and Skylar were so close. So stop messing with Sheila. Everybody grieves in whatever way they grieve, and this is how she’s dealing with it. Well, cops heard that, but it’s not like they left them alone, because they’re kind of, like, just trying to figure out what happened. So they did confiscate the girls phones, and that’s when they realized holes in the girls stories on the night that Skyler disappeared. So they’re kind of trying to just figure out what’s happening. And everything took a weird turn on, uh, the night of December 28, 2018, when a phone call to 911 came from Rachel’s house. Her mother spoke to the 911 operator in a panicked voice, saying, quote, I have an issue with a 16 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 six months into the investigation, there was a huge break in the case. Rachel came forward and confessed to the murder. Now, I just want to say this side note. It’s only fair to say that that sentence about Rachel going to the hospital, when I said she was brought into the hospital for treatment and observation, that actually wasn’t verified. I didn’t find any information about that. So I didn’t know what happened between the time that they called 911 December 28, and she confessed January 3. So I just filled in the blank. This is what made more sense to me, um, because I couldn’t find what happened at all. So I just wanted to point that out to you, because, like I told you, if I make something up, I always let you know. So it’s literally just between December 28 and January 3, I don’t know what happened. So I said that she went to the hospital for treatment and observation. She probably didn’t. I don’t know. Now, let’s get back to the case. So on January 3, she’s confessing, and she 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’d planned to pick up Skylar from the house, and they wanted to do it at night and then drive to a remote area. What they were going to tell her was that they were going to go out. Let’s go driving. Let’s go smoke some Mary Jenna, and just chill out. Once there, Sheila and Rachel would count to three and then stab Skylar to death. Rachel also told police that they’d been planning this murder for months. They’d also prepared a, quote, serial killer kit that had towels, bleach, a, uh, shovel, and a change of clothes in it. And they also packed knives for the attack. Dude, all this going down, and you couldn’t just be like, we don’t want to be friends anymore. Like, literally, the worst other than murder thing you could have done was just ghost her. Like, literally, why did you have to kill her? Like, that doesn’t make sense. And all this time, y’all are planning this and buying beach towels and bleach and change of clothes and getting knives. All this time, nobody in the group could say, look, we could just not talk to her anymore. We could just, if we’re too scared to have a confrontation, just don’t talk to her anymore, block her on everything, like, so many other options. Anyway, they then took Skyler. That night, they went over the pennsylvania border, and they basically pulled off their plan exactly as they’d been planning it. They stabbed skylar over 50 times. And when investigators asked why they did it, she said they, quote, ydeheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheheh. Didn’t like her anymore, and, quote, didn’t want to be friends with her anymore. So, like I said, just don’t be friends with her anymore. Like, how many people do you plan to kill if you don’t want to be friends with them anymore? Like, you just can’t say, I don’t want to be friends with you anymore. Is it going to be hard? Is she going to take it hard? Yeah. But just like anybody else, you’re going to bounce back. It’s going to turn you into a different person, because now this, this core memory was formed, and it is going to shape the way you deal with other people. But guess the frick what? She would still be alive. You wouldn’t be in jail. You would be in Juilliard or Broadway or wherever the frick you wanted to go. Options, people, options. She also told police that she would lead them to the body. And as she promised, she led them right to Skylar’s body. Unfortunately, at the time, there had been a snowstorm, so they couldn’t, like, dig up the area.

Rachel pleaded guilty to second degree murder in connection with Skyler’s death

It was just hard ice. They couldn’t do anything. So they did have to wait. Then on January 16, once the snow melted, police found Skylar’s remains not buried, but covered in leaves and branches. The freaking laziness. When they asked her, why didn’t she at least bury the girl? Skylar said, well, the ground was too hard, and, you know, it was too hard to try and dig it. So we just covered her in some branches and leaves. A, uh, y’all didn’t see that, but I rolled my eyes anyways. So, with this discovery, this confirmed everything that Rachel had told police, and she was arrested. And now that they had concrete evidence, so was Sheila. Another piece of the puzzle was the girl’s Twitter, namely Sheila’s Twitter. Investigators were able to gather evidence based on how she sent out her tweets. For instance, in one tweet, she wrote, quote, we really did go on three. Oh, my God. Wow. This was in reference to them counting to three before attacking Skyler. If you, if you didn’t get that 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 Skyler neese by stabbing her and causing fatal injuries, end quote. Rachel had written out an apology letter and read it in court. In it, she said she was sorry for her actions and regretted everything that had happened. So this kind of goes back into what somebody else said, you know, if people confess their crime in one of our LaMs said that, you know, you should get a lenient punishment. I mean, it did appear that clearly Rachel was sorry for what she did. She had a, um, mental breakdown in frickin dealing with what she did, and, um, she did confess. She did lead them to the body and everything like that. So she. I think maybe she should have a slightly, uh, lenient punishment. And I guess they agreed, because due to her confession and her cooperation, she was offered a plea deal and was only sentenced to 30 years in prison with the eligibility of parole after ten years. So literally 30 years in prison, she would be possibly able to get out in 2023. Sheila, on the other hand, pled not guilty to all her charges. She said, I induce it was all Rachel. I wasn’t even there. I don’t even know, uh, what they’re talking about. Wasn’t it your car? It was my car, but Rachel stole it. She didn’t say all that, but she did plead not guilty to all her charges. During her arraignment, she decided not to speak at all. But others did come forward to speak. 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 because, like, who walks around plotting a murder? So, you know, especially against their best friend? So they thought it was a joke. They thought it was just a sick joke, so they didn’t tell anybody. Now, since she’d pled not guilty, they were like, frick it, we’re going to trial then. And a trial date was set for January 28, 2014. However, because it was going to trial, and they were going to bring forth additional charges against her and from the Pennsylvania authorities because you crossed over state lines. So she had more charges, and now she was facing life in prison. Sheila said, you know what? Uh. You know what? So slow down. Just wait a second. Wait a second. Okay. I am going to plead guilty, but, uh, only to first degree murder. So we don’t have to go to trial. You don’t have to bring up all these charges. Life is not going to be on the table, you know, stuff like that. She actually didn’t express remorse. It wasn’t at all about, I’m so sorry for what I did. It was, oh, I’m facing life in prison. So she just pled guilty to first degree murder. She took a plea deal, and the plea deal was that Pennsylvania couldn’t file extra charges on her. So with all of that, she still got life in prison, but with, quote, mercy. And she, uh, did end up being sentenced as an adult. Now, the with mercy part is, in West Virginia law, if a, uh, juvenile is sentenced as an adult, they are offered a possibility of parole if they’re given a life sentence. So that’s the with mercy part. So she was given life with the possibility of parole after 15 years. Then on May 9, 2023, guess whose parole is up. It is time for Rachel’s parole. She again expressed remorse of her actions and what she did, which we do know. She’s remorseful. I believe she’s remorseful. Her mental health told us that she’s remorseful. So this is her parole hearing. She’s expressing remorse again, and she gave a motive for the crime. She said that secretly, her and Sheila had actually been together. They were in a romantic relationship, and this caused tension between the trio, namely between Skylar and Sheila. And that’s what all happened. So, again, it still goes back to, just don’t talk no more. Just say, we’re not friends anymore. The friend group is over. Like, if you, if you were with Sheila and Rachel, then just let it be Sheila and Rachel again. Skyler would have gotten over it, or this would have just been a bump in your friendship, and y’all would have been friends again. Or either way, Skyler’s still alive. You’re not in prison. You didn’t do anything stupid. You did something that a lot of people do, which is, you know, you lose friends. Not every friendship is meant to last, but murder. Like, are you freaking stupid? Like, oh, uh, God. Anyways, and I’m not talking to Rachel here when I say this. I’m mainly talking to Sheila, because if you remember, Rachel’s personality is a people pleaser, which, again, foreshadowing from the beginning, I said, is not a good thing. If you are a people pleaser, the only person you need to learn to please is yourself. I don’t mean, I don’t mean be a narcissist, but don’t let people walk all over you. Say no. Learn to say, it’s gonna be hard.

West Virginia changed its Amber Alert laws after Rachel Neese case

This is coming from a former people pleaser. It’s gonna be hard, but people are gonna walk all over you, wipe their muddy boots on your face. People pleasing is not a good thing, as you can clearly see here. Rachel wanted to please sheila, and she chose sheila over Skyler because sheila is the one that she was with. This is people pleasing. This is an extreme form of people pleasing because I know there’s people pleasers out there. Somebody say, hey, you want to come murder somebody with me? That’s gonna be the first time in their life they’re gonna say, no, no. Oh, that was easy. No, no. But anyways, this is, like, you know, this is an extreme form of people pleasing. She should have stood up for herself and said, I’m not doing this. Because, as you can clearly see, she wasn’t okay with this. Anyways, she was denied parole and still is in prison. Rachel’s family also came forward and issued a public apology through their lawyers towards Skyler’s family, uh, as to what their daughter did. Um, which, again, they didn’t have to do this because they didn’t have anything to do with it. But that just shows, like, what kind of family they are, which then goes back into showing what kind of person Rachel is. Rachel really was, like, just strung along in this, and you can tell because her mind broke, she was not the person to do this. Her mind completely broke. And throughout all these years, she’s been expressing remorse for what she did. And you can just see that comes from her family as well. On, uh, the other hand, Sheila’s still, like, I just pled guilty because, you know, I am one more time on top of life. Like, I ain’t do nothing. So Sheila’s still in that mindset. Both of the girls still remain in custody at Lakin Correctional center. Well, now, women, because they’re about, what, 28, 29 now? And it’s interesting to note that because of this case, West Virginia changed its Amber Alert laws. Now, if you remember, an Amber alert was not issued to Skylar neese because it didn’t meet the four criteria that they had in place in West Virginia, which was, number one, a child is believed to be abducted. So if they thought that she was kidnapped, they would immediately sent out an Amber Alert. But they thought she ran away. Remember, number two, the child is under 18. Skylar was under 18. Number three, the child may be in danger of death or serious injury. Well, they just thought that she ran away because she voluntarily got into that car. So it’s not under that. Number four, there is sufficient information to indicate the Amber alert would be helpful, which to me there was, but to them, she just jumped in a car and went away. So that made it, if none of these criterias were met, you had to wait the 48 hours. Well, after this whole incident went through, a, uh, West Virginia state legislator from the district where the Neese family was, they introduced a bill called the Schuyler’s law to modify the Amber Alert plan in West Virginia. The modification is to issue immediate public announcements when any child is reported missing and in danger, regardless of if the child is believed to have been kidnapped or not. And on March 27, 2013. Wow, they did that fast. And on March 27, 2013, the West Virginia House of Delegates approved Skyler’s law with a 98 to zero vote. So basically it was unanimous. And that is the case of Skylar Neese. What did you think about that case? This thing makes you look at your friend, at your children’s friends sideways, like, mom, can I go to a sleepover? Absolutely not. They can come here. Hello. That’s insane.

Do you think Rachel was really remorseful? Yes or no

So the question that I have with y’all, did y’all see the same thing that I saw, that Rachel was really remorseful? That’s the question. That’s the poll question I’m gonna put out. Do you think. Do you think Rachel was really remorseful? Yes or no? Um, I kind of want to ask a second question. Yeah, I’m going to ask a second question. Do you think she should have been let out on parole in 2023, being that she was really remorseful? She helped them. Da da da. Uh. Do you think she should have. Her parole should have been denied. So that answer to the second question, leave in the comments for me. Do you think. So the poll is, do you think she was really remorseful? Yes or no? Second question. Do you think she should have been released on her parole in 2023? Let me know that answer in the comments below. And that is all I have for you today.

I did say that I was going to tell you what was going on with me

I did say that I was going to tell you what was going on with me. So I know I told y’all before that I found out something about myself. And, you know, although it’s a sigh of release for me, because knowing that, you know, I’m not crazy and the way that I am is. I’ve been, like, trying to figure out why I am the way I am for my whole life and watching everybody do things that I can’t do seamlessly, and just trying to, you know, beating myself up, trying to figure out why I can’t do certain things, why I’m not a certain way. This and this and this thinking I’m crazy. Um, and, you know, found out that, oh, it’s just how my mind works. Well, in addition to that, I do suffer from depression. So this weekend, I think starting Thursday, I couldn’t focus. I could not focus to do any work whatsoever. I sat. I would sit in front of my computer and just be off in la la land somewhere. Like, the computer would sit here and I would sit here all day, just. I, uh, just couldn’t focus to get any cases done. And I was really trying because literally, this is my job, but I just couldn’t. And then I realized I was going through a depressive episode mixed in with the other stuff that’s going on with me that literally called, caused, like, a system failure, cascade crash in my brain. And I just couldn’t do anything. Um, I guess everything rebooted on, like, Monday night. And I stayed up, literally all night, up until Tuesday morning at like, 08:00 a.m. just riding away, getting stuff done that I hadn’t done between Thursday and Monday. Um, and so Tuesday came and I was too tired, of course, because I stayed up all night working. And so here we are, Wednesday back, back on my track. But literally, that’s what happened. And I felt really guilty that I didn’t get your episode out on Monday because I know y’all watch your episode. I just. I just couldn’t do anything. I just couldn’t. I tried. I couldn’t. And, I mean, I don’t know, I guess if you’re not really experienced in it, you don’t really understand. Some people are like, oh, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Well, if my brain isn’t working, I really can’t do that. The first thing you have to have in order to pull yourself up by your bootstraps is your brain telling you, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. So if the first thing isn’t working, you kind again, like I said, cascade failure. So that’s what was going on with me. Apparently I needed a mental health break, and I wasn’t listening to myself, and I was. I kept going. So, I don’t know, at some point in time, I am going to have, like, a week off, maybe. But I will have, um, um, the new and improved AI Gein. When I’m telling you, the new, improved, she sounds amazing. I’ll have AI Gein do a week, and I’m just gonna take a little break. Uh, that’ll be my week off. I don’t know when. It might be soon. It might be in the. In the near future, when I say soon, it might be, like, next week or it might be in a couple months. I don’t know when. Um, but that’s what’s gonna happen. So if you hear AI Gein doing a week, just please give me grace, because that’s why.

One lamb corrected me on an episode about Randy Gaye

Also, while I was on my hiatus, I did get a message from one of our LaMs. Looks like it’s a new lamb. So welcome, new LaM. I’ll just call you Andy, because I don’t know if you want me to tell your name, but welcome. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your correction. Thank you for your respectful correction. So, uh, being that this is the way you did correct me in an episode, I did want to read that on air, because, like I said, I get my stories from other sources, like the news, and they’re not always right. So if people who know what’s going on, what did happen, reach out to me, respectfully, um, I would love to offer corrections. So, this LaM said, quote, just heard your Randy gay episode from 2021. Again, they put in, uh, their relation to everybody here, but I don’t know if they want to remain anonymous, so I’m not gonna put the relation in there. Um, but they went on to say it was mostly good, but a lot of the later in life facts were wrong. Connie Snow was not a random woman. He was living with her in the forest on the mountain. She was his girlfriend. She was the main one Randy was cheating on Debra with. He absolutely always had alcohol on him. To make it worse, Debra was as violent and awful as he was. So that’s what Andy wanted to correct. Um, if you haven’t heard that episode of Randy Gaye, I will put the link to that episode in the show notes below so you could listen to that one. I don’t remember it, so I do have to relisten to it myself. But thank you for that correction. Um, and as you see, I put the correction out. So that is all I have for you for this episode. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for being LaMs new and old. And I will see you.

Don’t forget to share this episode with everyone you know

Oh, this is the full episode. Sorry. I have to end the way of the full episode. And I know you can hear my cat meowing. This is in the morning. I’m recording this, and she’s totally trying to wake my daughter up, as she does every morning. I don’t know how people think cats are not like dogs, but this cat is always by my daughter’s side. And when my daughter’s not around, she’s freaking out. So she wants my daughter awake because I’m awake so she knows it’s awake time. So this is what she does every morning. Scratches on my daughter’s door, meows howls outside her room door, pulling on her room door like uh, this cat loves my daughters to pieces. Anyways, being that this is the full episode, join me as we end each full episode by reminding you that it’s say it with me now. All love and no murder y’all. Don’t forget to share this episode with everyone you know and everyone you don’t. So we’re gonna go ahead and share this episode as it’s talking about best friends. Share this episode with your best friend and let them know that you would never murder them. You would not do that. And also share this episode on a ah, Reddit true crime thread that you’re part of everyone you know and everyone you don’t. See you later. Bye.