The Mysterious Murder of Skylar Neese
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When West Virginia residents Mary and Dave Neese woke up on the morning of July 6th, they were greeted with a parent's worst nightmare. Their 16-year-old daughter, Skylar, was nowhere to be found. The night before, Skylar had come home from her evening shift at Wendy's and kissed them both goodnight before she seemingly went to bed.

The next morning, Dave knocked on Skylar's door to give her the keys to his car. When he got no response, he twisted the knob but realized it was locked. Managing to pick the lock with a coat hanger, Dave saw that her bed hadn't been slept in and her phone charger was still plugged into the wall. She had even neatly folded her work uniform in preparation for her shift later that day. When walking around the outside of the house, Dave noticed a bench on the outside of Skylar's window.

which was left open. This told him that if Skylar had snuck out, she didn't plan on being gone for long. When Dave called his wife Mary to tell her about Skylar's disappearance, she initially remained calm, assuming that she was out with friends and would be back. Despite going to parties and experimenting with alcohol and pot, Skylar kept her priorities straight, excelling in school and never missing a work shift. However,

At 4:00 PM, Wendy's called them to ask if Skylar was coming in for her shift. When they heard this, they knew something was horribly wrong. Abruptly disappearing in the night, staying out for an extended period of time, and not showing up to work or even calling in was out of character for Skylar. After receiving this information, the Nieces went straight to the police. Star City Police came to the Niece's home to search Skylar's bedroom.

During their search, they noted that it didn't appear that she planned to run away due to the items that she left behind. Not only did she not take her phone charger, but her toothbrush and contact lenses were still there too. From what they could tell, it didn't appear that she had taken any clothes with her when she left either. Even more alarming, Skylar's phone went to voicemail and there was no activity from her bank account or her Twitter feed, which was updated very regularly.

Skylar and her phone were attached at the hip. She updated her social media every day, posting about her two best friends, Sheila Eddy and Rachel Shouf. While some days the posts were photos of the three together with smiles on their faces, other times Skylar posted cryptic messages that suggested there was an issue amongst the friend group. Despite this, the trio seemed inseparable, calling themselves the Three Musketeers.

While Dave and Mary were working with police to investigate where Skylar could have gone, Sheila, who had been best friends with Skylar since they were children, called them in tears. She told them that Skylar had snuck out with her and Rachel the evening before to smoke. She claimed that Skylar had asked her to drop her off at the street corner in fear that her parents would wake up if she were dropped off directly in front of the house.

Sheila stated that it was around 11:45 p.m. when she dropped Skylar off, and it had been 18 hours since either her or Rachel had heard anything from her. Upon hearing this, the Niece family was convinced that their daughter had been kidnapped, and Sheila, who Dave says was like his second daughter, immediately wanted to be by their side to comfort them and offer any support or help if she could.

Police had obtained grainy surveillance footage from the parking lot of the building that showed Skylar sneaking out of her window and getting into a car at 12:26 AM. The quality of the video made it hard to identify a car, but Sheila denied it being hers, suggesting that Skylar may have had a secret boyfriend. All that police were able to conclude from the surveillance video was that Skylar knew the car well enough to run toward it and get inside by choice.

Because of Skylar's willingness to get into the car, Star City police refused to issue an Amber Alert, running under the assumption that she was a runaway and not truly missing. The surveillance footage would be the last time that Skylar was ever seen alive. Part one, best friends for life. Skylar met her best friend Sheila in second grade when they were only eight years old.

Skyler went to an elementary school in Cheat Lake, Virginia, while Sheila went to school 20 miles away in Blackville. The two met at a community center called Shack Neighborhood House. They quickly developed a bond, feeling a sense of relatability because they were both only children. In a way, they played the sibling role in each other's lives. They became extremely close, walking into each other's houses as if they lived there too.

Skylar and Sheila's parents embraced this, and eventually Dave and Mary considered Sheila a part of their family. Sheila's father was in an accident that left him partially paralyzed and unable to work. Subsequently, her parents divorced in 2000. Her mother would later remarry, and in 2010, Sheila's family moved to Morgantown just in time for her to start at a new high school. Skylar's family also moved that year, leaving Cheat Lake for Star City.

a tiny town enclosed by Morgantown. The pair were excited to conquer their freshman year at university high school with their childhood best friend at their side. The dynamics of this sisterhood would begin to shift when they met a redheaded girl named Rachel. The aspiring actress was an only child with divorced parents, so she could empathize with Skylar in that sense. But there was an added layer of relatability when it came to Sheila.

Unlike the other two girls, Rachel came from a very religious family. Before coming to university high school, she attended a Catholic school. This newfound rebellion was exciting to Rachel as she began partying along with Skylar and Sheila. When the three hung out, they would often sneak out after curfew to drink and smoke. They began to get into trouble. Family and friends of both Skylar and Rachel thought Sheila was a bad influence.

Skylar's other friends wouldn't hang out with her when Sheila was around because they didn't like her behavior. They thought that she was controlling and mean. Rachel's other friends shared that same sentiment and they felt like her entire personality changed when she began hanging out with Sheila. Skylar ignored these concerns, wanting to maintain the friendship that they had shared since childhood. During their freshman year, the self-proclaimed Three Musketeers seemed to get along just fine.

Their sophomore year, however, the dynamics began to shift. In a way, Sheila triangulated Rachel and Skylar as they fought for her attention. Sheila and Rachel started to become closer to each other than to Skylar, often dressing in matching outfits and excluding her. This caused a lot of tension and fighting amongst the group. Even people outside of their posse could see the obvious riff as the girls took to Twitter to vent their frustrations. In the fall of 2011,

Skylar started to post cryptic tweets. On September 6th, 2011, she tweeted, I tell the whole school all the shit I have on everyone, which is a lot. Hashtag, if I could get away with it. Earlier that August, she had witnessed Rachel and Sheila have drunken sex. Skylar confided in other friends about the uncomfortable situation she was put into and even wrote a diary entry about it.

Her friendship with Sheila worsened after this event, as did the Twitter fights. Just a month after Skylar's vague post about revealing her friend's scandalous secret, Rachel and Sheila were at school discussing the best ways to dispose of a body. This seemed normal as they were working on a forensic science unit in their biology class, and a body had been found behind the school a few weeks prior. However,

People who heard the conversation firsthand recalled them specifying on how to get rid of Skylar. This conversation was relayed back to her. However, she didn't take their banter seriously. She reassured the concerned witnesses that it was just a game that the three of them had been playing. In a chilling home video of the girls, Rachel and Sheila questioned Skylar on how she would want to die. She laughs in this video as she plays along with their game.

These things didn't sound alarms in Skylar's head because she knew they were her two best friends. She was confident that they weren't capable of such a thing and they certainly wouldn't target their own friend. Little did she know that in the spring of 2012, Rachel was heard saying that she wouldn't mind if Skylar died. Her reason? She was afraid of Skylar blackmailing her with the secrets that she had referenced on Twitter. Rachel and Sheila began to take their game more seriously.

One day during science class, one of the girls said that they should kill Skylar. And although it was meant to be a joke, they nodded in unison. Things took a turn for the worst in June when Sheila and Skylar went to Myrtle Beach together for a week-long vacation. The girls spent the entire time fighting. When they returned home, Sheila told Rachel it was time they had to kill Skylar.

A few days before Skylar's disappearance, she posted a string of tweets that suggested she was angry with her friends for excluding her from plans, leaving her at home alone. On July 4th, 2012, two days before she was murdered, Niece tweeted, "It really doesn't take much to piss me off. Sick of being at fucking home. Thanks friends. Love hanging out with you all too." The day before she was killed, Niece tweeted,

"You doing shit like this is why I can never completely trust you." The following day, they made up for it by inviting her to hang out. Skylar knew that her friendship with Sheila wasn't what it used to be, but she still wanted to try to patch it up if she could. When she crawled out of her window and ran to the car, she had no idea that her friends had sinister plans of their own, and this time they would include her. Part two, why?

Rachel and Sheila planned out all the details of how they were going to kill Skylar. Rachel wanted to make sure they got it done before she left for two weeks to attend a Catholic church camp. On the evening of July 5th, when Skylar got off work, the girls invited Skylar to go for a cruise and smoke. They put towels, bleach, a shovel, and a change of clothes in the trunk. They also packed the knives that they would kill Skylar with, hiding them underneath their hoodies.

Once Rachel and Sheila arrived at the Nieces, Skylar used the bench underneath her window to sneak out and hang out with her friends as she had done many times before. Once in the car, Sheila started driving, but she had to reroute and go to a different location because the girls saw a police car and got nervous. They instead chose to go to a secluded area in Pennsylvania where they often hung out to smoke.

Sheila drove about a mile down the road and the girls got out and continued chatting like any other day. It wasn't until Skylar walked away to retrieve a lighter from the car that Rachel and Sheila would give each other a hand gesture that signaled it was time to carry out their plans. On the count of three, Rachel and Sheila took backstabbing to a whole new level. They lunged at Skylar and attacked her with the knives that were hidden under their hoodies.

Skylar tried to run away but was tackled by Rachel, who was much larger than her. Trapped underneath her, Skylar still fought for her life. She managed to grab a knife and cut Rachel's ankle. Rachel and Sheila continued to stab Skylar until she stopped fighting back. Her two best friends stood over her and watched her last dying moments. All Skylar could manage to say to her killers was, "Why?" unfazed by watching the life leave their friend.

Rachel and Sheila immediately began looking for a place to bury Skylar's body. The ground was too rocky for their shovel, so they abandoned their plan to bury the body and instead moved it next to a tree and covered it with branches. Rachel and Sheila washed Skylar's blood off them in a creek that flowed through the site. They disposed of the knives and the clothes that they were wearing. After turning off Skylar's cell phone, they left it with her body. They had only been gone for a few hours before they returned home in time for the morning.

Immediately, Sheila began sharing cryptic tweets of her own. At 9:09 AM that morning, she retweeted, "Always keep your cool." Later that morning, when Sheila spoke to Dave and Mary and they told her that Skylar was missing, Sheila and her mother rushed over to the niece's home to help. Sheila, her mother, and Mary went door to door, canvassing one side of town while Dave and Star City Police searched the other side. Mary remembered that their building had security cameras.

In the grainy tape, they could see Skyler sneaking out at 12:31 a.m. and getting into a car parked on the road next to the apartment building. After the car drove away, it never returned. Due to the low quality of the video captured by the security camera, Sheila's Toyota Camry was mistaken for an SUV. For now, nobody suspected her. Once Star City police saw the video of Skyler willingly getting into the vehicle, they told Denise's family to wait a few days to see if she comes home.

From what they could tell by looking at the security footage, Skylar was a runaway. Dave and Mary hoped that Skylar would come home, but they feared much worse. Deep down, they knew that this was entirely out of character for their daughter. Despite this gut-wrenching feeling, they continued to search the town and distributed missing persons flyers.

The flyer stated that they believed she was still in the area and offered a reward of $3,100 for anyone who had information about her whereabouts. While the search for Skylar continued, Sheila stayed close to the niece family, offering them emotional support and reassurance that Skylar would come home. She even garnered sympathy, staying in Skylar's room and sobbing loudly in her bed so that her parents could hear her pain from the other room.

Rachel was conveniently away at church camp when the news broke of her friend's disappearance. Officer Jessica Colbank was assigned to the investigation and she began working with FBI agent Morgan Spurlock. The FBI was involved immediately because they briefly believed that Skylar's disappearance was related to another woman going missing. They interviewed Sheila just four days after the murder and she flatly repeated the same story that she had told Skylar's parents.

According to Sheila, she picked Skylar up at 11:00 PM and dropped her off on Crawford Avenue before midnight. Although Officer Colbank didn't have evidence that Sheila had something to do with Skylar's disappearance, Sheila had waved several red flags during their interview. Colbank found it odd that she seemed much less concerned about her friend's disappearance than she was with the investigation. She felt that Sheila was displaying narcissistic behaviors

It didn't make sense to Colbank that Sheila would drop her off where she said she did because it was far away from where Skylar's apartment building was. Sheila stuck to her previous story and said that Skylar insisted they drop her off there to avoid waking up her parents. When Colbank noticed her silver car, she thought that it could be possible that Sheila's car was the one seen in the tape. On July 10th, Officer Colbank called Rachel

Choosing to ignore the reality of the situation, she pretended that she had not yet heard about Skylar being missing. According to Rachel, on July 6th, she was boating on Cheat Lake with her mother and her mother's friend. The following day, on July 7th, she left for church camp. Colbank scheduled an in-person interview with Rachel, but she didn't show up. Later, Rachel came in for her interview, channeling her acting capabilities that she had once used for lighthearted musicals.

She regurgitated the same exact story as Sheila, to the point that it was yet another red flag. Colbank said that it seemed as if Rachel and Sheila had rehearsed their story together. Although Officer Colbank didn't feel right about Sheila and Rachel, she merely had to note those things, as there was no solid proof to go from. Because it didn't appear that Skylar had been kidnapped, the state refused to issue an Amber Alert.

August rolled around and the girls' junior year began without Skylar. Part three, always keep your cool. Mary and Dave were understandably angry about how stagnant developments in Skylar's case had become. On August 24th, they became fed up with Star City's lack of initiative and contacted the state police. One week and three days later, senior trooper Chris Barry and corporal Ronnie Gaskins seized Sheila and Rachel's electronic communications.

Upon reviewing the surveillance footage from the Nieces' apartment building, one of the officers noted that Sheila's car is never seen picking Skylar up at 11:00 PM, like she claimed. They began collecting security footage from businesses surrounding the route that Rachel and Sheila said that they took as the police prepared to make their case. The longer the time went on and there was no sign of Skylar, the students at University High began to talk amongst themselves about what they believed had happened to her.

Some believed that Skylar had overdosed on heroin, left behind by Sheila and Rachel. The police grew suspicious of Sheila and told Mary and Dave that they shouldn't share any more information about the case with her. They believed that she knew more than what she was saying. Despite everyone's suspicious eyes being fixated on Rachel and Sheila, they seemed carefree. They grew closer and pushed others away, bonding over the heinous crime they had committed.

Although the girls were chronically online and seemed to tweet their every thought, mentions of Skylar were few and far between. Sheila might share a photo of her and Skylar, pretending to be saddened by the fact that she hasn't returned. But it seemed that the photos always served another purpose. Their public displays of indifference in the wake of their best friend being missing for several months was telling to the other students. Friends began to turn on Sheila and Rachel, demanding answers for Skylar's disappearance.

people at school were harassing them, going as far to make anonymous accounts to try to pry something out of the girls. It seemed that the person behind the accounts had a lot of information about the investigation and about the girls. Still, Sheila kept her cool. At this point, she felt untouchable. She referred to FBI agents as her buds, as if they weren't investigating her in the disappearance of her supposed best friend.

She tweeted her inner dialogue throughout the unfolding of the investigation. Things like, "No one can handle me and Rachel, and if you think you can, you're wrong." The most shocking of all the tweets posted by Sheila said, "We really did go on three." Although Sheila seemed cool as a cucumber, despite having investigators hot on her tail, Rachel was beginning to break. With people from all sides pushing her to come forward with the information that she had about Skylar, her mental health began to decline.

She would sob in front of Sheila, who felt that Rachel was weak for letting the harassment affect her. Police were backing her into a corner with records that proved the girls were texting Skylar during the time that they claimed to be with her. They also had evidence that they weren't where they said that they were on the night of Skylar's disappearance. With this new information, Rachel changed her story. She claimed that Skylar ran into the woods alone in Pennsylvania.

According to Rachel, the girls looked for Skylar but were unable to find her. Sheila immediately changed her story to match Rachel's perfectly, likely thinking that they had fooled detectives again. This, however, was a turning point in the investigation. Rachel and Sheila were scheduled to take polygraph tests in December. Sheila failed hers, while Rachel opted to jump out of her father's car on the way there and run away.

The pressure was building up and reaching new levels when Mary posted a lengthy Facebook post on December 13th. In this post, she outlined the community's efforts to find Skylar and directly called Sheila and Rachel out for lying. She even mentioned the possibility that Skylar had been murdered. Things escalated when Rachel's parents tried to restrict her access to Sheila.

Rachel did not react well to this at all, running around the neighborhood screaming, "You're ruining my life!" Rachel moved her rage episode into the house and started a physical altercation with her mother. Rachel barricaded herself in her bedroom, screaming and threatening to end her own life with no other options. Her mother called the police. Once they arrived, she was taken to Chestnut Ridge, a psychiatric hospital.

Sheila had been on FaceTime with Rachel throughout the entire mental breakdown, growing more nervous about what this meant for herself. Twice, Sheila attempted to visit Rachel at the hospital, but she was told that only family members were allowed to visit. Only five days after Rachel's nervous breakdown, she was released and immediately taken to her attorney's office. They wanted her to take the polygraph that had been scheduled prior and before Sheila had the opportunity to get in contact with her.

The police interviewed Rachel, hoping that her stay at a psychiatric hospital would end with a confession. It did. Just three questions into Rachel's interview with police, she uttered, we stabbed her. The room was in shock. The confession they expected from Rachel was one of a panicked friend that left Skylar behind during an overdose. They hadn't suspected something so brutal from a high school girl. Rachel then told the police every single detail, leaving them dumbfounded.

The police asked Rachel the same question that Skylar asked as she breathed her last breaths. Why? Her response was so simple and so haunting. "We just didn't like her anymore." Rachel agreed to show the police where the body was at, but because of the snow, she was unable to find the exact spot that they buried her. They had to come back to find the body when the snow melted. After going to look for where Skylar's body had been left, Sheila's room was put under surveillance.

On January 16, the police brought a canine unit to the scene. When a GPS tracker fell off one of the dogs, an officer bent down to pick it up, only to find skeletal remains hiding underneath branches. News broke about human remains being found, which were not yet identified. One of the online accounts used to harass Rachel and Sheila tweeted, "'The sky is so gloomy today.'"

Despite the investigation speeding to an end, Sheila continued to tweet as usual, often about law and order, special victims unit, as she was homeschooled for the rest of the year and spent much of her time watching it. She also frequently posted about leaving the past behind and beginning a new path. In February, she tweeted and wished Skylar a happy birthday. 10 hours later, she tweeted, "'I hate the shit I think about at night.'"

She would again tweet about Skylar on March 13th, the day that it was announced that the remains that were found belonged to her. Rachel and Sheila both took to Twitter this time. Sheila posted photos of her and Skylar with a caption that said, "Rest easy Skylar, you'll always be my best friend." Rachel posted multiple times. One tweet said, "Rest in peace baby. I love and miss you more than anything. May you finally have justice."

On May 1st, Rachel surrendered herself to the police. On her first day in court, she pled guilty to the murder of Skylar Neese and agreed to testify against Sheila. The prosecution recommended 20 years for second degree murder. After her hearing, she was immediately taken to a juvenile detention center. At the same time, police called Sheila's mom and told her that she needed to come in for questioning. She mentioned that they were having dinner at Cracker Barrel and that they would come in later that evening.

The police instead came to the restaurant, intercepting them as they were leaving. Sheila was arrested in the Cracker Barrel parking lot. Her arraignment was held on September 17. Sheila pled not guilty to charges of murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy. In a pre-trial meeting on January 24, Sheila came in sobbing, ready to plead guilty. This was likely because she knew Rachel would testify against her if she tried to plead not guilty.

Sheila didn't express any remorse, but said that she recognizes the Nieces' sorrow. The prosecutor gave her 15 years to life, with Dave Niece swearing to attend each parole hearing. Rachel's sentencing began on February 2nd. She looked distraught, attempting to extend remorse to the Niece family. However, it is notable that Rachel tearfully listed off all the people that she hurt with her actions, not once mentioning Skylar.

She instead mentioned hurting her friends, her family, and God. The judge made a compromise with the Niece family when they expressed that a 20-year sentence wasn't enough for the murder of their only child. He instead sentenced Rachel to 30 years. Both Sheila and Rachel are serving their sentences at Lakin Correctional Center.

In May 2013, West Virginia legislation passed Schuyler's Law, which is an addition to the Amber Alert protocols that allows reports to be made for all missing children, even if they aren't abducted. To this day, the long, secluded road in brave Pennsylvania is home to a memorial dedicated to Schuyler Annette Neese, the young 16-year-old who was betrayed so viciously.