Rotten Mango - #131: Pretty Little Liars Killers (Case of Skylar Neese)

Episode Date: January 16, 2022

The three girls never went anywhere without each other. They were besties. Well, except Biology Class - the one class that only Rachel and Sheila were in. Maybe that’s why during biology Sheila would ask a lot of strange questions. “Excuse me, what kind of acid would you dispose of a body in?” “I don’t know… why?” “Oh, we’re trying to figure out what to do with Skylar.” Rachel would be off on the side giggling. That’s how the two girls started to plot their best friend’s murder in biology class. Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to this week's mini-sode of Rotten Mingo. I'm your host Stephanie Sue and let's just jump right into it. They were known around their high school as the three best friends, Skylar, Sheila and Rachel, they were inseparable outside of school, and honestly in school, in the hallways, in the bathrooms, gym class, the only class that they weren't together was biology, because only Sheila and Rachel had it. Skylar was not in that class, and maybe that's why during biology, Sheila would get extra, a little weird. She would ask some strange questions, morbid questions She would turn around and whisper, pssss. Do you know how to dispose of a body?

What I don't know why But we want to figure out what to do with Skylar and Rachel would whisper at her shhh no names Sheila was not happy with her classmates answer So she raised her hand and asked the biology teacher. Excuse me shhh, no names! Sheila was not happy with her classmates' answer, so she braised her hand and asked the biology teacher, excuse me, what kind of acid would you use to dispose of a body? And that's how the two girls started plotting their best friend, Skyler's Murder in Biology Class. As always, full source notes are available at rottonmingopodcast.com, but this is a highly

covered case. It's well known in the true crime world, so there were a lot of sources that I was able to pull from for this research. There is, though, in fact, a very good book on this case called Pretty Little Killers by Darlene Berry and Jeffrey Fuller. Now, this is an intense read. It made me feel for a lot of the people that were involved. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Dalline Barry, the author, she had four kids, two of them were runaways in their teenage years. So she just writes with so much passion, so much compassion too, that it, it's a fast read. You get through it so quickly and you're left with this like empty feeling in your heart and you feel so uncomfortable. And this is a true story, so it should make you feel that way.

Now let's get into it. All of this takes place in Morgantown, West Virginia. Now this is a really small town. The population there is about 30 to 50,000 people and most of them are blue-collar workers. It's middle class at best. That's how it's described as. But this is not. And I repeat, this is not one of those towns where I'm going to be like, oh my god, it was as safe as can be. No crime. They left their doors unlocked. Sure, there wasn't a ton of violent crime, but your chance of becoming a victim of crime or property crime was one in 37. What? Yeah. So the niece family, like everyone else in Morgantown just wanted to live a happy, peaceful life. And it all starts with Dave.

Now Dave was a local DJ. He performed at bars around Morgantown. He was a character. He always wore these leather jackets and he had this like longish brown hair and this super cute, dashing smile. And it was at one of these bars. That leather jacket wearing Dave catches the attention of a girl named Mary and she's hooked. Oh God, she has no idea of Dave even looked in her direction. Does Dave even know that she exists?

Absolutely not, but from then on every time that she went to a bar where he was performing at, she would spend maybe an extra hour getting ready. Maybe she would spend a little bit more money and go buy herself a new outfit. She would hype herself up in the mirror right before she leaves with her friends. Now, unfortunately for Mary, on that last time that she went to that bar, they did not even look her way. Not even in that direction. No, not even in her vicinity. Didn't even look at one of her friends. Just completely ignored. The music was ending. Mary and her friends were packing it up, even you know Dave's packing it up, he's heading out. So in the parking lot, she's sad. Damn, Dave didn't even talk to me. He didn't look at me, right? And she hears this huge commotion, and she sees these guys huddled around just kicking something. So she rushes on over and sees Dave

laying on the ground, completely beaten blood everywhere. She's like, oh my god, what happened? So when nearby said, I don't know, three guys jumped him while he was walking to his car. Oh my god, I'm taking you to the hospital. Now Dave's not going to say no to this because he's bleeding profusely. He's bleeding a lot, so she helps him up, drives him all the way over there, and at the hospital the doctors tell them, it's nothing too serious. It looks a lot more dramatic than it actually is, but your jaw is indeed broken.

We're gonna have to seal it shut so it can heal, you won't be talking for a while. Which I remember seeing this on an episode of Grey's Anatomy, and you're like, really Stephanie, you're gonna use that as research. So of course I googled it, I looked into it, and apparently, when you have your jaw wired shut because it's broken, it's gonna be wired shut for 6 to 8 weeks. That's how long it takes. How do you eat? You have to, oh, there was a website that said you won't be able to chew any food for

an extended period of time. So you have to put your food into a blender or a food processor and then suck through a straw through your teeth. You have to worry a lot about brushing your teeth because, and I quote, food caught in the wires is not only unsightly, but it can produce a most unpleasant odor. So, doctors advised Dave, in case you have to vomit,

bend over and just let it flow out of your mouth and nose. Make sure that you don't inhale any of those food particles. That's dangerous, you know? So, yeah, none of this was pretty. None of this description, none of this forer warning by the doctors was cute or romantic, but Dave could not help, but look at that woman sitting in that corner, the woman that drove him to the hospital, and think to himself, marry with her big blue eyes, and her thick black hair,

she looked like the most beautiful woman in the world. And so he blurted out Well since I can't talk for a while. I guess I should ask you out now. Do you want to go to a movie? As cute and you're thinking oh Like they're gonna meet in three months and then you know, they're gonna fall in love No, they went on dates of wall day that is jaw wired shut So you could even talk but Mary fell deeply in love with him. Is this not the cutest love story ever?

That's kind of cool. So sometime after getting his voice back, he proposes to her. And she said, no. I know, applauded to us. She's like, no, I don't think I'm ready. I don't think I want a husband. So the question was just kind of left in the air. He's like, well, I still want to marry you.

So I'm not taking back the question. Even later, Mary got pregnant, and she still wasn't sure. She actually didn't even know if she wanted to keep the baby. So for some reason, Mary was convinced that she was going to be a horrible mom. Like the idea of having kids terrified her. She did not think that she was capable, but she decided to go through it. And on February 10th, 1996, she had a healthy baby girl. The couple named her Skylar.

Mary said since the first time I saw her, this was like the greatest moment of my life. It was instant love. Skylar had Mary's big blue eyes and this cute little round face and everyone would call her, that's Minnie Mary! That's Mary's little Minnie me! They're literally the same people! Mary wasn't scared of being a bad mom anymore

and Dave was persistent. He kept proposing to her. And now with Skyler in the picture, Mary was open to it. So they get married, they move in together and they start raising their daughter. Now, this was not a well-off family, but they did provide with everything that they could, with love, with care, with attention.

Mary and Skyler had a strong mother and daughter bond and Skyler would later write in her journal. This is crazy. Because, I mean, this is her journal, right? My mom, of course, is the most important person in my life. She not only cares for me, but she also listens to me. And I know I can talk to her. I think it's important for parents to not only take care of their children, but also make

sure that their kids can talk to them. Dave also loved playing baby body slam with Skylar, where he would pick her up and throw her onto the bed. But Dave was so careful with his daughter that he did it so carefully he didn't even let go of her until she was touching the mattress. And then she would let out a little giggle and he would do it all over again. So when Skylar's four, a traumatic incident happens. Mary drops her off at daycare and she's driving away.

She was behind this lumber truck, big old truck. And that truck decided, last minute, I missed my turn. So why don't I just back up in the middle of this road? Mary was in this truck's blind spot. So before she could even throw her car into her verse and back up to, she was non-stop blaring her horn, and the lumber-trop was climbing up on Mary's hood. She threw her left arm over her head to protect her face, and in that moment, the airbags in the car engaged, and it snapped her forearm.

She blacked out, and when she came to her left arm was hanging awkwardly over the steering wheel and dripping in blood She had to lift it off the steering wheel with her right arm But even with this even in this moment all Mary could think about was At least Skyler wasn't in the car with me So she gets rushed to the hospital and she had to have a metal metal plate inserted into her arm two operations It took months for her arm to be back to normal and because it was the truck's fault and this is a lumber truck, they were able to cover the medical bills and a small amount for her troubles, not a big amount but a tiny amount for her troubles. Now this was not a lot but it was

something because the family had never gone on a vacation yet and this would be their first ever vacation. You're like the lumber truck almost killed Mary, so where are they gonna go? She deserves to go to Italy, right? Like that's what I'm thinking. Mary, you get out there. Get on that first class international, put it on the company's card, you know? They really, really messed with her health. But no, it was so little in fact that they were only able to drive six hours away to take Skyler to the beach for the first time ever.

And she freaking loved it. She loved the water so much. She tried to convince her parents, like this girl doesn't, she never been to the beach and she's like, listen, I don't need my floaters. No, you listen to me, Mary and Dave. I don't need them. And she was, she was ready to swim. So they take it off.

They throw her in. She could not swim. So they had to save her. Anyway, you already know, Skylar's gonna grow up to be something or someone special, because this is the kind of personality she has. She's just out there, she wants to jump head first into these things. These are great personality traits. She never grew up with a lot of things, and it made her want to work hard.

And the way that she wanted to do that was she wanted to get into a great college. She cared about other people. When Dave would poke fun at other people, she would kind of punch him and say, stop it, Dad. They're people too. So it seems like she was almost teaching her parents. Sometimes her dad would get so riled up watching football

that his favorite team is losing and he'd be like, ah, so mad on the couch and she would come downstairs and ask him, Dad, why do you care? So they lose, why are you getting all worked up about it? But did you see what he did? It's just like he gave up and he fell down on the field. But dad, how does that affect you? How is your life gonna change if they lose?

Or if they win for that matter? And then he would embarrassingly look at her and sit back down on the couch and watch in quiet peace, okay? Because she was the adult in the house. She was always the one teaching her parents. Even in honors English class, she wrote a poem for a student named Ryan Devine. Now, he had gone to the local college, but he was beaten so badly that he remains in a vegetative state to this day.

By other students? Yeah. Wow. So she would write him notes, she would write him letters, she also had a ton of friends, she was really well liked. One of her best friends was Sheila Eddie. Now, they had met in the second grade and they just kind of got along. They were almost like twins.

They both had long brown hair, they were only children, they bonded and spent all their time hanging out at the community pool outside of Morgantown. That was their go-to hangout spot. Now Sheila Eddie, her mom and her whole like background is very different from Skyler's in the sense that they're not well off. So they're similar, but it's just dysfunctional. Skyler still has like loving parents like care about her, whereas Sheila kind of grew up in a tumultuous household. Now, Tara, which is Sheila's mom and Mary, Skyler's mom, they actually knew each other since they were teenagers. But they weren't close, like they were never best friends, but they weren't strangers. So since the moms knew each other, obviously they felt more comfortable with their kids hanging out,

rather than like our strange family that they've never met before. And that's kind of how Sheila and Skyler became closer and closer. Sheila, like Skyler, had grown up in a low-income household. Her dad had actually suffered a car accident when she was only two years old, and it caused permanent brain damage. He lost a lot of physical functions. Their family was not doing well. He was unable to support the family.

Tara was pretty much a single mom. She had to be the breadwinner. She had to take on the emotional weight of raising their child all by herself. So Tara goes back to school to become an accountant so she can earn more for the family and Greg the dad, he spent most of his time volunteering at local churches. So as she like its older, I mean it's pretty clear, it's pretty apparent that she loved being the center of attention. So for example, when she was only seven years old, she was at this huge restaurant with her friends and family having lunch,

and she took her food like her plate of food. She stands up super randomly in the middle of like a normal conversation, not even about food, not even about sitting up or standing down, and she's holding her food in her hand, and she's eating it. While everybody else has seated, she's just standing. Imagine how awkward that is.

So of course everyone's like, uh, Sheila, what are you doing? Oh, I like to stand up to eat. And her mom's like, what? When it, since when? Sit down, Sheila, like what's going on? Just sit down, but she refused. Like she was just kind of like that. She did really strange, small things to get people's attention.

She was also a pretty stubborn kid, and all of this only got worse when her parents were divorced. She said it felt like she was losing her father twice, once to the car accident, and now to the divorce. Now, it's not like Greg is completely ditching her though. I mean, he's still around. He honestly did everything that she wanted. Every time he came over to babysit or have his alone time with her, she would yell at

him, Dad, go buy me some milk. And he'd rush into his car, go to the store without even questioning it and buy her some milk. Dad go do this. He would go without question and do it. But I get it. She's a teenager, so I mean I'm sure this is rough on her. And it only gets worse. Yeah, it gets worse, okay.

When Tara starts dating another guy named Jim. Now Jim is known to be different. He wore jewelry. He liked to get pedicures. Which for West Virginia in 2010, for some reason was like the most shocking thing ever. You would have thought that Jim had like four legs and he was running around like mango, my dog. Like people were looking at him like, what is up with that one? Something's not right. Okay. Now Sheila instead of thinking Jim was ahead of his time or supporting his individuality I don't know she just made fun of him instead. She even argued with her mom like full on full four screaming matches I hate your new boyfriend Sometimes it escalated to the point where Sheila threatened to kill her own mother

So you would think that Sheila hates Jim's guts, right? Well, no. Because he was generous. And all she had to do was be a little bit nice. And he wanted his girlfriend's daughter to approve of him so he would buy her these gifts, give her allowance, slip her some cash. She even accepted that her mom and Jim were going to get married because she knew that Jim made enough money that they wouldn't have to live paycheck to paycheck.

And on top of that, Jim would give her a clothing budget. Now, it's not like Jim has loaded, but this is a huge step up for Tara and Sheila. Besides, that meant they were moving to a new house that was gonna be only 10 minutes away from Sheila's best friend, Skyler. She was even gonna go to the same school as Skyler. She asked to be in the same class schedule as Skylar's, and it was just gonna be amazing. So now that Sheila is new to the neighborhood, she just kind of instantly gets a little reputation.

That's not the nicest girl on the block. Not by a long shot, no. She was kinda mean. So she started acting out. A neighbor had gotten pregnant, and yet the neighbor was a teenager. So Sheila went around calling her. Skyler did not like that very much. Skyler is all about the other people. She's like,

come on, she's a person to do what's wrong with you. Some people thought maybe she's just acting out in frustration and anger that she's got a new stepdad. Nevertheless, she's spent even more time talking to the very comforting, very warm, very understanding Skyler. What's fascinating is that when Sheila came to Skyler's school, all of Skyler's school friends absolutely despised Sheila. They kept telling Skyler, she's too mean, she's so controlling, we think that she's gonna change you.

You're already changing like the way that you talk to us is changing after you started hanging out with her. And eventually, they felt like they weren't getting through. So Skyler and her old friends, they just start drifting apart. Even Skylar's parents start noticing that she's acting different, but the two of them kept going strong in their friendship and then they welcomed another friend into their tight circle. What didn't necessarily happen like that?

Skylar just said that one day a girl started following them around and she was just their new best friend and that girl was Rachel Shof. Now Rachel was also an only child. And she was very different from the other two girls. Her dad owned a very exclusive clothing boutique in town. She was pretty well off. Rachel's mom Patricia was a stay-at-home mom. And Rachel was the son and the moon and the stars to her parents.

That's what someone who knew them said. They really loved her. She was the center of everything. She wise there everything. But eventually they too would get a divorce and her dad's shop would close its stores. But regardless, she grew up a lot more affluent than her friends, Skylar and Sheila. But it's that that Rachel was never spoiled. She was taught to volunteer.

She was the first person to defend kids were getting bullied, but don't let any of this fool you because she definitely wasn't a golden child by any sorts. She actually hated that her parents divorced. She hated living with her mom. She wanted to be with her daddy. That's what she called her. She was also called daddy's little girl and she loved that label. Whenever her mom called her while she was out she would hang up the phone and gritty and

tell her friends that her mom was, and I quote, a psycho b- I so want to move in with my dad. Anyway, she limits Rachel in class one day, and she's immediately intrigued. Rachel went to the same school as Skylar, but they weren't friends. Like Skylar had a ton of friends don't get me wrong, but Skylar was an honor student. She focused a lot on studying hard. She wanted to be an attorney when she grew up. She did all the right things.

She joined the marching band for college. She played the full lute. She played the damn thing of that flute, okay? She always knew how to stand her ground. Like that's kind of the click that she was in. It seems like Skyler was popular for her intelligence and like her tenacity, right? Meanwhile Rachel was considered one of the popular kids. Her parents were white collar. She was beautiful, she had this long red hair, she was so talented,

and she told everyone her dream is to make it in Hollywood. I mean they're gonna be a singer or an actress, and everyone believed her. They thought that she had the potential. She's just this incredibly confident person, she was always ready to show the world who the hell she was, so I think the two girls had two completely different appeals, and Sheila was drawn to both of them. Now oddly enough, Sheila was like neither of them. She hated doing anything extra curricular, she liked to smoke weed, she sometimes did scoke, she took pills with her old friends, but somehow she becomes the leader of this

new trio, she's the leader of this friend group. Rachel joins their little friend circle and Skyler really didn't mind, mainly because Skyler got along with just about anyone, so she had no problem with this. Now with the three musketeers, they immediately start getting into a bit of trouble. For example, one night the girls convinced Skyler to sneak out of her house. So I mean it's like I don't want to be that stereotypical high school movie layout, But Skyler was the good girl of the three. She was the one that was like, wow Why do you think Skyler's hanging out with these two? She's gonna be an attorney when she grows up She's she's an honor student these girls seem like they just like to hang out on the weekends

So Skyler was that girl they convinced her to sneak out of her house to go joy writing with some of their friends Now at this point the girls are only 14 and 15 years old. None of them had a license, but they had befriended this 19 year old guy named Floyd and some of his guy friends. So they started driving around Skylar, Sheila and Rachel in the middle of the night so that they could all smoke weed together and this particular night Floyd had been driving pretty fast. He's pulled over by the cops.

Now just a side note, this part of Morgantown had a curfew at 10pm in place for underage kids. So you could leave the house after 10pm if you were with a family member that was an adult. But just not with a guy named Floyd, that you're not related to. So even without the weed, they were already breaking the law, and the girls they look 14. So the cops bring them into the station and he lets them know. I can clearly see you guys are on 18.

I need you to call your parents to take you guys home to pick you up from the station. So Rachel calls her dad. She said if I call my mom she'll get violent so I gotta call my dad. Sheila calls her dad too knowing he would go easier on her. But Skyler couldn't call it either of her parents. Neither of them had a cell phone or a landline. So the police had to drive her home, and you would think that Mary would be the one that's hysterical when she wakes up to the police lights outside and Skyler's at the door being

escorted by an officer. But no, Skyler was the one freaking out. She was so upset, she was sobbing, she was saying you're so disappointed in me I already know. Please don't beat me up. Mary's like what? What have I ever beat you up? Why would I beat you up? Well Rachel's mom always beats her up every time she sneaks out and I thought that that's just what happens when you seek out Please don't beat me up Mary's like what are you saying? I'm not gonna beat you up and she's just crying and crying and so Mary and Dave felt like Skylar's lesson was already being learned with her guilt. They told her, yes it is your fault Skylar. You can't be doing things like that.

Do you even know these boys that well? What if they hurt you? What if they- What if they killed you? And she just keeps saying, oh god I'm so sorry. Oh god Rachel's gonna be in so much trouble. As she should be. Now go off to bed Skylar. Oh god Rachel's gonna be in so much trouble. As she should be. Now go off to bed Skylar.

So they thought that she had punished herself enough. They didn't ground her, they didn't take away her phone. Honestly, they were great parents. Skylar did learn her lesson, but she still hung out with Sheila and Rachel. The longer she did though, the more her personality started to change. She started getting snappy at people. She would just get so angry and lash out when things didn't go her way. Now this is the opposite of the Skylar that people knew and loved. So they were confused by this. Skylar's own dad even half bragged, half alarmingly told his friends that one time Skylar was so pissed, she punched him in the face so hard he was

confused while he didn't block out. I think it's because her friendship was just so isolating and toxic. So for example, August of 2011, the girls were supposed to sleep over at Rachel's. Now Patricia, Rachel's mom, hated Sheila and Skyler, hated them, thought that they were horrible influences on her daughter, and honestly thought that they weren't even that close, because Rachel would always lie to her. Rachel would say, oh, I'm meeting this old friend, but in reality, she'd be going to meet these two girls. But Rachel, for that night, for some reason,

was able to convince her mom to let these two girls sleep over. And once Patricia fell asleep, the girls opened up their bag and started drinking from the vodka bottle that they snuck into the house. After they got drunk, they started to kiss each other. Now, we don't know if Skyler was participating, but we do know that Rachel and Sheila were

making out. There were some pictures taken, and then allegedly, Sheila and Rachel began having oral sex. And then they began to have just like full-blown sex. Now, people that knew Skyler said that she probably would have felt very uncomfortable in that moment, not because they were both girls, but because these are her best friends, and they're like doing it in front of her right now. I mean, who wouldn't be uncomfortable, but she was probably too drunk and she probably couldn't go home. Her parents aren't just gonna come pick her up, so she kind of sat there awkwardly. And then

the three girls awkwardly went to sleep in Rachel's bed. It at least tried to, but she'd like kept shuffling around to cuddle Rachel, and Skyler was getting annoyed. Like, dude, I'm just trying to go to sleep Can you calm down like stop I'm just so tired and somehow this small little thing ended up with Sheila and Skyler yelling at the top of their lungs until Rachel's mom woke up burst through the door and said what is going on here? Mom, sorry, I don't know the girl's Skyler and Sheila they just they just started fighting Will you guys keep it down Rachel you come upstairs and sleep with me. But she and Skylin' kept fighting to the point where Patricia had to come back downstairs, at least one more time to tell them to keep it shut, and to shut it down.

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I'm not a big guy, man, but I love being that dirty mother f***er. Later Skylar told one of her friends about the whole ordeal, and even wrote about how Sheila and Rachel had sex in her diary. She didn't seem to have to be about it, not because they were gay, not because they were, you know, to women, to girls doing that, but more so like, why was I there? Yeah, exactly. I think there was also a lot of jealousy. Skyler always felt like the minute that Rachel came around, Sheila treated her like cold rice. Skyler mentioned that she hated that about Sheila. That whenever another person came around,

she would just immediately favor that person and forget about everybody else. So, that's a pretty good reason to be upset with a friend. I think that Skylar also hated the fact that Sheila was always so secretive, but she wanted to know everything about Skylar. Like, she would ask her all these questions, be so nosy and then if Skylar didn't respond,

she'd be like, why are you telling me, are we not best friends? But then the minute that Skylar asked her about anything, she would just brush it off. So it's just this in balance of information. I think in that teenage angst and frustration she posted a few sub-tweets about Sheila. They weren't tagging her, but it said, yet another reason to f**king hate you. You're really starting to push it. Hashtag I dare you to give me one more. And then another, people who started for no reason at all, hashtag pathetic.

And then another, even bigger than I thought, hashtag not surprising. And then she posted, I tell the whole school all the shit that I have on everything, which is a lot, but if only I could get away with it. She also tweeted about how life would be so much easier if jealousy didn't exist, but it gets the best of her. So while this is also happening,

she's tweeting nice pics with Sheila and Summers and Blacksville with Sheila. Moments I'll never forget. Wait, so she's tweeting like these cryptid messages? Yeah. And nobody knows who she's talking about. Exactly, but she's still kind of posting pictures about Sheila. But that seems to be the only one in her life that was, you know, she was having a tumultuous

relationship with. And even through her tweets, you can see that Skyler's getting really close to Rachel too. She would also tweet about how she's Rachel's number one fan, No Doubt. She even bought Rachel a Lady Gaga shirt, which Rachel proudly tweeted about it. And the three of them, they just kept hanging out. I don't think that skyler really disliked either girls. I think it was just normal high school friend drama and tweeting in the heat of the moment,

and you know, no matter how small the group of friends in high school, it seems like there's always going to be something going on. So that's what this was. But other people saw some alarming dynamics. So there's this guy named Daniel, and he was in the school play with Rachel. So they were kind of close. They spent a lot of time together. And he remembered that one time, he and Rachel were alone in the cafeteria when she

look calls Rachel. Add Skyler in to the three way call, but doesn't tell Skyler that Rachel's there. Rachel's on mute, and they have their own conversation, and the two of them just are fighting. It's not even about Rachel. The two of them are just yelling at each other. Rachel even let Daniel listen, and he heard the two girls screaming into the phone. And at first Rachel's crying, and she said, I can't believe they fight like this.

And he's like, aw, like it's going to be okay. And then slowly that crying turns into full blown laughter. And she's like, oh my god, did you hear what she just said, Duh? What? She's like, what the fork is going on? Like, I didn't know that they could get that nasty and the fact that Rachel's like pretending to be sad

but she's laughing hysterically at her two best friends fighting. What? She's odd. But he knew that Rachel and Sheila's friendship was always a bit different. Rachel and Sheila always had their inside jokes without Skylar, and they were just always closer, physically speaking too.

They were always hugging each other, playfully pushing each other, and just super touchy-theely with one another. A lot of the kids always wondered if they were a couple. Even Skylar noticed, and she would always complain that she felt like this third wheel. There was a video that kind of summed up their friendships though that was posted six months before everything went down and it was clear that Sheila is the leader of the group.

So the video starts randomly while the girls are already in conversation. The two girls Rachel and Skylar are teasing Sheila for peeing on the couch. And at first, yeah, I don't know if she peed on the couch, I don't know if it was a stain. And at first, Sheila's denying it. She's playful, she's joking around like, no! That's not my pee, I had great popsicle and that's just, that's not my pee! But eventually you can start seeing Sheila getting frustrated with this conversation and out of nowhere. She asks her two friends. Would you guys rather suffocate or get shot?

Whoa, whoa, whoa. And they both say, shot? Rachel blared it up. Wait, never mind. I think it depends on where. She'll across her arms and says, in the head. Oh, okay. Well then, yeah, I'd rather get shot in the head.

What about eating alive by ants or suffocated? Suffocated? Drowning or suffocating? Suffocated. I mean, technically aren't those two almost the same thing? She'll have responded with, I know, but it's not. And it was just this weird dynamic. She was a weird girl, so this is all taking place.

She's the dominant one. She's the ringleader. She also loves this like asking weird bazaar, morbid questions to these girls to throw them off and make them feel on their toes, the energy there is just bizarre. So this is all taking place their freshman year. Now they're starting their sophomore year of high school. Sheila had turned 16, she gets a car from her parents and a driver's license. Rachel still didn't even have her permit, Patricia refused to buy her a car, even though they had the means to, would you only pissed off Rachel even more, and Skyler never asked her parents for one.

She knew that the only way she would have a car is if she earned enough money to buy one. Honestly, it's not that her parents didn't want to give her one, they really just couldn't afford it, and Skyler knew, so she didn't even ask. So Sheila's got the car, she's our designated driver, and in March of 2012, the first Hunger Games movie comes out. Sheila drives Skyler and their friend Shania to the movies to watch it, but the whole time she lets out their phone light illuminating her face texting someone. So she's like, Sheila, who are you texting?

You need to stop before the movie starts. She looks like, yeah, but she's clearly distracted. So Skyler's like, are you talking to Rachel? No, it's just some boy that I like, but she's clearly distracted. So Skyler's like are you talking to Rachel? No, it's just some boy that I like But she's being vague She look who are you texting just tell me and she reaches for Sheila's phone and you know I feel like it sounds like Skyler is the aggressive one But I think Sheila is answering in a way where she's almost like smirking like she's she's got a secret that Skyler doesn't know So of course you're gonna be frustrated. It's not this casual like, oh I'm literally

texting you nobody. It's like a boy, you know, like she's making Skyler go a little bit crazy. So Skyler reaches for Sheila's phone, she lists max her hand away and that leads to Skyler punching Sheila in the face with her hand half closed. It was more of like a smack than a punch to be honest. She lists stands up and yells at her, you bitch! She hits Skylar and Skylar screams, and hits her back, and elderly woman whispered to Shania, can you please get your friends to stop? And she looked at her and said,

ma'am, what do you think I should do about it, huh? So in that moment, Sheila runs out of the theater and the two girls follow her out and they continue to fight outside. And then Shania said that they just stopped out of nowhere. Like they were, and then it's nothing. It's weird. I mean I get it, it takes two people to argue, but everybody who knew Skylar and Rachel before they were friends with Sheila said that they were both changing for the worst because of her. They were always described as, you know, Sheila being the ringleader and Skyler and Rachel asked her puppets. Now, Sheila's only getting more and more sick and twisted.

One time Daniel remembers being in the car with the three of them, smoking weed. When out of nowhere, I mean the car is parked, right? Out of nowhere, Sheila peddles to the metal and boom! She starts cackling. She said 20 points. She said 20 points. So metal and boom she starts cackling She said 20 points She said 20 points. So Daniel knew that she hit something and she wanted 20 points for it She thought it was hilarious. He probably didn't want to see it But he couldn't help himself so he looked back through the back window and saw that she ran over a bunny

What and Rachel was pissed like she lit don't hit the fucking animals Skylar and Daniel they're in the back and they look at each other and they don't even know what to say. They just hated when Sheila did that. Seems like Sheila does it a lot. Now Daniel and Skylar they start becoming closer because the two of them start working at part-time at Wendy's and one of the drawbacks of parking part-time at Wendy's was that uh anytime that they went out with Sheila and Rachel they were the ones that paid for everything. They would blow an entire month's worth of work in just one weekend with Sheila, but they just didn't know how to say no to her. She was always so domineering.

Skylar's mom Mary said that Skylar seemed obsessed with Sheila in a way. That's just the vibe that she was getting. Skylar used to have this naturally light, wavy hair, but she started to dye it a deeper brown, started straining it, just like Sheila's, and her mom suspected that Skyler was really hurt, that Sheila was always leaving her to be with Rachel. Skyler's diary almost pretty much only talked about Sheila, it's like Skyler was living through Sheila. It's not like Skyler didn't have any other friends though, she had a ton of friends,

but it just, it made her, I think Sheila just had a way of driving her crazy always leaving her out on purpose always having these inside jokes with other people giving her just enough information but not enough to really satisfy someone's friendship curiosity it was just a lot. Sheila and Rachel would show up to school and matching outfits and she would be kept out of the loop which like I remember this was such a big thing in high school Matching outfits like girls would use it as a way to bully other girls Like if you had a group of five friends and you didn't like friend number one the four friends would be like Okay, tomorrow we're wearing pink, but don't tell her

So like you get the message without getting the message, you know, so you show up in blue and you're like wow I have no friends they hate me and I'm gonna grow up to be a loser with a podcast. Not speaking from personal experiences or anything. Sophomore Year also didn't make things better for Skyler because she lispent most classes, just whispering to Rachel about Skyler. And one of these classes that Rachel and Sheila had together without Skyler was biology. And all the other students in that biology class, all they remembered was the two girls talking about Skylar. That's it. No biology was done. No studying was done. Uh-uh. Just talking. And when they weren't doing that, they would ask weird

things. Sheila would turn they would ask weird things. Sheila would turn around and ask her classmates. Hey, do you know how to dispose of a body? Uh, I don't know. I think that show breaking bad has like stuff like that on there. Well, we want to figure out what to do with Skylar. And Rachel whispered, shh. Don't use any names.

So Sheila looks at her and smirks and raises her hand and says, excuse me teacher. What kind of acid would you dispose of a body in? Oh my god. The teacher said, how dare you ask me that? Get out of my class. Go to the principal's office right now. The administrators did not care at all. They just sent Sheila back to class. They were like, oh, what a morbid curiosity you have. Go back to school. And that's how the girls started plotting Skyler's murder in biology class. Why? It said that the plan first started as a joke.

They thought that Skyler was annoying and then one day they brought up the murder and both girls looked at each other. They were silent. They burst out laughing literally into tears like they were crying because they were laughing so hard like that's so hilarious. It's really not. Wouldn't it just be so nice if she just disappeared? We would never have to look at her ugly face again, and they start laughing some more, and they start talking about how they would do it. At first it was supposed to be a joke, you know, most teenagers said things that they're joking about. Maybe you would say, like, God, I wish they would just disappear. I wish they would stop bothering me, like a bully or a rude teacher,

that annoying, racist, relative, but almost always it's a joke, right? Mm-hmm. Well, not in this case. One of the kids in biology class with Rachel and Sheila had overheard some of these conversations. Now, he's not friends with Skyler, but he felt it was needed to come up to Skyler and tell her, hey, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I think she and Rachel might be out to get you.

No way, they would never. Listen, I'm just warning you, don't shoot the messenger. They were asking how to dispose of a body. They also said how much you get on their nerves and that they don't like you. They were just probably playing a game. We always play games like that where like would you rather do this or how would you rather die, stuff like that. And he just shrugged. She said okay, I mean I'll still talk to them anyway. Thanks for letting me know. So Skylar does talk to them. She marches up to her friends and is like hey the Skylar told me that

you guys are making jokes about me and biology class about wanting to kill me. What's up with that? And Rachel starts nervous laughing. Why would we do that? And Sheila confidently tells Skyler, God, that kid is high all the time, he needs to stop smoking weed. See? Now that's a lesson for all of us. Don't smoke so much weed that you think people are out to be murders. Rachel giggles and she says, yeah, don't trust a stoner, Skyler. And right after she marches straight into a library and she sits down with one of her

other friends. And this is one of her former friends that she ditched for Sheila and she plops down Huff and Impuffing and it's almost like she wants her old friend to ask her like, what's wrong Rachel? So she does. She's like, what's wrong Rachel? God, I just can't stand Skylar. Why I thought you guys were best friends.

I said I can't stand her, but I can't not be her friend. Why? Just don't be friends with her. She's like so mean. She's gonna blackmail us all until all of our secrets have we stopped being friends with her. What kind of secrets? And Rachel ignored her, but said,

at this point, I wouldn't mind if she's dead. So in early 2012, Skyler's friendship with the girls was honestly disintegrating. She got the feeling that they hated her, that she needed to make new friends, and that's what she did. She stopped seeing them as often, and she stopped tweeting about them, and in honors English class, she even wrote a poem called different. It went like this. You are once friendly, funny, and flamboyant, but now you are hopelessly needy, negative, and naive.

A new boyfriend changed you for the worst. From happy as a clam to sad as a skeleton, you lost your friends and your spirit. So now the only thing I have to say to you is, I told you so. Now, if this poem is about Sheila, it might indicate that Skyler was trying to, you know, let go of her. But had a hard time shutting off her feelings for Sheila because they were best friends for a really long time. And by June of 2012, Skyler had gone back and forth to Sheila a few times. It was like one of those super toxic friendships. And in June of 2012, Skyler joined Sheila and her family vacation, which was a yearly tradition, so Sheila and her parents would go on vacation and Skyler was going for years.

And with Sheila's family, the Eddie family. Rachel wasn't there, but this year it was different. The two girls could not stop fighting. That's all they did, the entire trip. I mean, it's clear that something very, very wrong happened during this trip, but we just don't know what. Allegedly, Sheila was so done with Skylar that immediately when she got back into town,

she met up with Rachel and said, Skylar has to die. No. Now, a lot of sources speculate and said, Skyler has to die. No. Now a lot of sources speculate that Sheila and Rachel were dating each other. And because of their horrible treatment of Skyler, she had threatened to out them. Now a lot of people really doubt this

because that's just not in Skyler's personality, but I don't know, maybe even someone knowing that they were gay or a bi was too risky for them. So they decided to get rid of her. Some speculate that Skyler wasn't threatening to out them, but was threatening to expose one of the girls for cheating on each other. It said that Rachel might have cheated on Shila and Skyler knew about it. We really have no idea. All we know is that their friendship was unraveling at like high speeds.

I'm talking train wreck, going 110 miles an hour straight into a tree. Now these are all speculations to try and understand what happens next, but Rachel was going to attend Young Life Church Camp that summer. So let's just call this girl Alice. Alice had been close with Rachel before. Before Rachel was even friends with Sheila, honestly. So Alice is at this camp and she's telling Rachel, like I don't think she was good for you. I mean, you just, you seem different than the last camp. Like, it's weird.

And I have bad friends and I just had to get rid of them. That's what my parents said. They were bad influencees on me. And slowly they start bonding and Rachel says, you know what? After camp, let's hang out. You're right. I'm not gonna hang out with Sheila.

I'm gonna hang out with you. So things were looking up. When Rachel gets home for a few weeks she only hung out with her church camp kids, but just like Skylar, she couldn't help but gravitate back to Shila. Rachel's show was a follower, not a leader. Shila was a leader, and Rachel was gonna follow whatever she wanted, and what Shila wanted was Skylar dead. July 6th was a pretty normal day. Skyler was working pretty much the whole day and she wouldn't get off till about 10 p.m. So from there, she would drive all the way home

which takes about 10 minutes and she burst through that front door. Both of her parents are on the couch watching CSI. Hey mom, hey dad. She goes into the kitchen, pours herself a glass of tea. Her mom's like, are you hungry, honey? No, mom, I ate at work! Hey guys, but I'm really tired, so I'm gonna go to bed now.

And she kisses her parents good night. Wait, sweetie, do you work tomorrow? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you want me to wash your uniform? Yeah, it smells like fries. So she hops into the shower, Mary gets to washing her uniform. Now, at this point, it's nearly 12. So, Mary, her mom, she's beat.

She's like, I gotta go. She's like, good night today. If goes into the bedroom and starts passing out. Skyler gets out of the shower and into her room where she locks the door for the rest of the night. That would be the last time Dave and Mary ever see their daughter. Because at 12.30 in the morning, Skyler climbs out of her window. Now all of this had taken a lot of begging, but Skylar had reluctantly agreed to sneak out that night.

You see, Sheila and Rachel had done something really forked up to her. They had gotten into another huge fight, and the two girls begged her. Please come out. We'll make it up to you. Please, we can go on a joy ride like the old times, and seriously, we're so sorry, don't be mad at us. We promised we won't fight. Skylar wasn't even sure that she wanted to be friends with them anymore, but I think she wanted to be an adult about it and ended on good terms so she sneaked out of her

ground floor window, slides into the backseat of Sheila's car, and Rachel and Sheila are in the front blasting music the whole time. They're not even talking, the music is so loud you can't even hear each other. When they finally did, it was very surface level, just bland. Like Skylar was like, oh, this was my shift up Wendy's and they're like, oh cool. So most of the car ride they don't talk. Most likely Skylar was pondering her life and friendships with the girls while looking out the window just stressed about life.

Meanwhile Sheila and Rachel were nervous thinking about what they had in the trunk and what they were planning to do with it. Sheila starts driving down all these remote roads that had these thick forests on each side and it's clear that nobody comes in these areas because there's giant branches that were never cleared just on the road in the path of the cars, but they kept checking on and eventually they end up in Pennsylvania so they crossed the border. I mean they lived in kind of like a border town so it wasn't that far and Skyler's still not alarmed at any point because they had come here to smoke weed before it's pretty remote and you know there's that curfew so they're trying to avoid the police.

I mean I don't know why would Skyler be alarmed? I don't think any teenage high school kid would assume that her best friends had paper towels bleached, wipes, clean clothes and a shovel stashed in their trunk getting ready to kill her. She had no idea that they were hiding kitchen knives in the front pockets of their hoodies, getting ready to attack. So Sheila parks her car on the side of the dark road and the three of them get out and they start walking. To break the silence, Sheila brings out a joint.

She says, shoot! The lighter that I brought down, work! Skylar tells her, wait, I brought my lighter, it's in the cart here, just unlock it and I'll go grab it. The minute that Skyler turns around, Rachel starts to count. One, two, three. When the word three slipped out of her mouth, the two girls jumped and started stabbing Skyler in the back and stabbing and stabbing, and they would not stop. They just kept thinking about how angry they were. Skyler was stunned. She was in shock. She barely had time to react. She was in pain. She tried to get up, but she couldn't get far.

Rachel chased her down, tackled her to the floor, and the two girls went back to stabbing. Skyler was physically stronger than Rachel and somehow even with all those injuries, she managed to wrestle the knife away from Rachel and sliced Rachel's right ankle. And Rachel just starts screaming in pain. She left freaks out, struggles to get the knife out of Skyler's hands, but when she did, she gives it right back to Rachel who continues stabbing. The only word that Skyler could utter over and over again at her two best friends was

why? Why? And when the two girls were satisfied, they stood over her and just watched her die from her wounds. They said they stayed until Skyler's neck stopped making gurgling noises. They had stabbed her over 50 times. They grabbed Skyler's body, they dragged her to the side of the road, and the original plan was to bury her near a creek, but the soil was too rocky.

They couldn't even dig into it with a shovel, so they just left her there and covered her with random debris, so tree branches, leaves, rocks, and that's how they leave her. To clean themselves up, they take off all their bloody clothes, put them into the trash bags with the murder weapons. They clean up any blood on their bodies with the paper towels that they brought. They put on their fresh clothes. And the whole murder, the cleanup, the burial under the rocks, just took over three hours. During the murder, both girls had called someone completely by accident. Rachel had called a boy that she was seeing, and he didn't answer, and Sheila called her own voicemail. But a voicemail was not left.

What? Like, Bud-Dial? Yeah. Now, a lot of sources say that the two girls had sex to celebrate. I mean, I don't know. There's really no evidence to support this other than an investigator saying, and I quote, it's highly likely because they'd never felt such excitement in their lives. I mean, I don't know. That doesn't seem like great investigative work for me. Like, what kind of mental

cartwheel is that? But who's to say? I don't really believe it. Mainly because as soon as Rachel got home that night, she started to unravel mentally. She frantically opened up her diary and started scribbling, a letter to God. Only he knew what happened that night, and it was going to stay that way. She said, please God forgive me So while Rachel is finding Jesus that night Dave wakes up in the morning to find that his daughter is not in her room. He kept knocking. Hey honey Get up. I want you to take me to work so you can have my car for the day No response Sky

He unlocks the door and she's not there But the bed isn't made, so it looked like Skylar had slept in and woken up early. So he says, hey Mary, did Skylar tell you where she was going? She left early this morning I guess. She says, don't flip out, she probably went shopping with one of her friends or something, she never misses work, so she'll be fine. That's what I thought too, but her door was locked.

Oh, you know how those, like, little push locks work? I mean, it could be an accident. I'm still gonna go look for her. So Dave rushes to Walmart where he's currently working and he tells a supervisor, I have to take the rest of the day off. I can't find my daughter. I don't know where she's at, but I gotta find my kid.

So he rushes back to the apartment. He parks his car and he's thinking, okay, maybe I'm gonna walk in and she's gonna be there eating breakfast, okay? But before he can even get inside, he notices. Outside of Scott, there's window is a small black bench. So Dave got to thinking, he panicked actually and rushed into Scottie's room and the

window was open, just to finger wide. But it was open. The black bench was positioned partly under her window and he puts two and two together. Oh my god, Scottie's not out again. He tells Mary and both of them are horrified. They were both under the impression that she stopped sneaking out and that she had gone missing this morning after the sun came up and there's probably a very reasonable logical explanation for it, but now that they're realizing that she's been missing

since last night, what do we do? So as their panic, Rachel's dealing with a lot. Rachel and Sheila had everything planned out that any conversation that they had about the murder would only happen in person or FaceTime. I don't know. They believed everything else could be tracked in stored, but not FaceTime. Super cool. But when Sheila picks Rachel up, she tells her, Hey, you don't even have to worry about me calling you because I lost my phone.

Are you freaking kidding me? I lost my phone and must've fallen out, you know, when we were, you know? God! So Sheila starts driving towards the woods and they start texting Rachel's phone. No sound. Yes, they noticed the newly gathered pile of debris and leaves and rocks and branches, but they tried not to look at it, because Skyler was under there. Every minute, Sheila sent Rachel a text till they finally heard the sound.

They picked it up from the leaves and she said, yes, got it. And she walks back to the cart with a giant smug smile on her face. Meanwhile, back to Skyler's parents. They have no idea what to do. Mary just had this nightmare flashing before her eyes. Skyler's drunk or drugged up at a party,

getting assaulted or worse. They start calling all of Skyler's friends. Sheila said, I have no idea where Skyler's drunk or drugged up at a party getting assaulted or worse. They start calling all of Skyler's friends. Sheila said, I have no idea where Skyler is, but keep us posted if you would hear anything. About 10 minutes later, Mary's phone rings in a chila. I actually need to tell you the truth about what happened last night. Okay, what happened? I did see Skyler. She's not got about 11.

Rachel and I picked her up and we went joy writing for about 40 minutes. Then she made me drop her off at the end of the road so that I wouldn't wake you up. Oh, thank God. Okay, why do you guys- why do you girls keep sinking out? Why don't you just come to us? When- when do we ever say no to something you guys want to do? You don't need to be like this. But the thing is, we can't find Skylar anywhere. That is when Sheila's mom hops onto the phone and asks Mary, do you want us to come over and help?

Yes, yes I do. So Sheila and Tara go to Mary's and the three of them go door-to-door to ask everyone how they've seen Skylar. Meanwhile, Dave is waiting for the police to respond to their 911 call. No one in the area had seen Skylar, no one knew where she was. The police come and they ask the landlord of the apartment if they could review the security footage. Now the cameras cover the apartment complex parking lot,

a small side street, and another apartment building across the way. But it was super grainy low quality footage. Like, are you kidding? Potato quality. So they're all sitting there watching it together and they say, just, just, that's it, that's Skylar. And it's around 12, 30 in the morning.

She's sneaking out. They see a car in the background, but it's so grainy that they really don't even know the make and model of the car. They're like, who's cars that? Sheila, you said you picked her up at 11? Yeah. Wait, so she's getting in the back. Who's cars that then?

The landlord said, I don't know. It kind of looks like an SUV or something, no? The car is so blurry and so indistinct in the footage that the police officer said, I don't know if the car looks like an SUV or something, no? The car is so blurry and so indistinct in the footage that the police officer said, I don't know if it's an SUV or a sedan, it's that grainy. Sheila, do you know of any of Skylar's friends that have cars like this? No. So the officer just kind of takes Sheila's statement and her word and it becomes the official story.

Sheila and Rachel picked up Skylar at around 11 p.m. They drop her off at the end of the street around 11.45 p.m. Sheila and Rachel go straight home and are in bed by midnight. And then around 12.30, Skyler gets into a second car. Someone else's car. Now the questions are, who's car and why? Mary and Dave couldn't help but immediately point the finger at Floyd, the older boy that used to take them joy writing,

the one that she was caught sneaking out with. Mary even admits he was one of the suspects in the very beginning. I pretty much harassed him. Dave and I went to him and person and he told us, I miss Skylar and I love to her a lot. I mean, this set them off even more. Like, what kind of bizarre response is that? But the police soon cleared him of any wrong doing. And the niece has apologized to him and he still feels terrible about losing a friend. Now the police initially never questioned the grainy car to be Sheila. Why? Because she said she picked her up at 11 and the footage is at 12.30, and she also claimed

that she parked on the other side of the apartment complex and not here. They just never considered the fact that Sheila would have a reason to lie to them, her high school best friend, or at least, not for a few days. But for now, Sheila pretended she was confused. She would text mutual friends of her and Skylarers and say, where do you think she is? She helped put up missing posters for Skylar, meanwhile, Rachel on the other hand, was gone for the weekend with her mom.

So she went to the lake house with her mom and then eventually she would go back to summer camp, or like some sort of weird camp. And she was feeling a lot better, you know, she had found Jesus and what could go wrong? Meanwhile at the knees house, everything was going wrong. Every time the phone rang or the door rang, they heard police sirens, they jumped up thinking it was a skiler, but it never was. Tara and Sheila were very nice though, they came over all the time to canvas the neighborhood and for the first few searches, Sheila was super nonchalant, not disrespectful but not as panicked.

And one day she says, Mary, can I see Skyler's room? And she sits down on Skyler's bed and she hugs a pillow to her chest and just starts sobbing. Mary and all her grief felt so bad for Sheila, she sat down, rubbed her arm and told her, it's gonna be okay Sheila, everything's gonna be okay. I don't think it was the gravity of what Sheila did that was catching up to her, I think it was all a show. Because she also tweeted nothing about Skylar. All of Skylar's other friends were tweeting about her trying to see if she was okay. Skylar, if you're reading this, we miss you, please come back. Sheila tweeted nothing, except...

And I quote, I'm tired of losing sleep over this. Dada Dada. Meanwhile, the Amber Alert system was failing too. They didn't issue an Amber Alert for Skyler. The system did not consider her to be in danger because they thought that she was run away. Some police officers didn't believe this, so they even tried to talk their bosses into issuing one, but I believe in the end it was never issued. And because of that, there is a new law in West Virginia called Skyler's Law. It was past April of 2013 to issue public announcements when any child is reported missing and in danger, regardless if they're considered kidnapped or run away.

So instead, word gets out, and the community rallies together to look for Skyler. Skyler's aunt, Joanne, she proved to be a one-woman army. She would organize massive search teams at McDonald's. The first one she organized was overflowing that there were too many people in the parking lot. Even people inside McDonald's were waiting to go search for Skylar. Not just friends and family, complete strangers were there to help. They put up posters everywhere that they could. They drove up and down deserted roads, dirt roads, highways looking for Skylar night after night. Sheila was always there. She was a motivated searcher.

She came over every single day and she would ask Mary, what did the police give you any updates? They didn't tell you anything new. They didn't find anything, any evidence? What did they tell you? The police also were checking on Skylar's phone to see who she was in contact with, and that's when they realized that the last calls made on her phone were to Sheila, six times just before midnight, and the last text she ever received was from Rachel, and most texts

in her phone were between the three of them. So if Skyler did go out with someone else, wouldn't she have texted them or at least called them once? So the police asked Sheila to come in for some more questions. They asked about any boys that might be in Skyler's life at the moment, and they ask, have you tried calling Skyler? Like now, now that she's missing, you never tried calling her? No, it just makes me so sad to hear her voicemail, to hear her voice. I can't call her number. So the police asked to search her car, which she consented to, and when they got outside,

the officers looked at her Toyota Camry, they couldn't help but think this could be it this could be the car on the tape but Sheila didn't even bat and eyelash even when they asked tough questions they said Sheila why did you drop Skyler off almost four blocks away for fear of waking up her parents when you pick drop at the complex I don't know Skyler got mad at me and insisted that I drop her off there I don't know why well how long was she with you? For at most 30 minutes? Why haven't you done more online to locate her?

I've just been too upset. That's bullshit, and you know that. If that were my friend, I'd be blowing up their Facebook page, blowing up their Twitter account. If I didn't know where they were, you know, I'd be freaking out. So that leads us to believe that you know where she is. So just tell us. I told you, we dropped her off. The officers had a feeling that Sheila was lying. They

said and I quote, I didn't like her from the get go. Her demeanor was just wrong. Erigan, narcissistic. But we had no evidence, no actual evidence to go on. It was all just a gut feeling. Meanwhile Rachel's the way at camp, but when she gets back, she never reaches out to Skyler's parents, or even offer to help search for Skyler. But it's not like she didn't know, the police had called her while she was at camp to speak to her. They told her that Skyler is missing and she goes, Skyler is missing? I didn't know that.

But she went to camp after Skyler was already pronounced missing. So the officers asked her to stop by the station when she gets back from camp and she says, oh yeah, of course I will. But she never does. Now another one of Skylar's aunts named Carol finds some interesting information. She had gone to the salon where she was trying to get her hair done and the hair stop list there said, hey Carol, this is a really weird story but listen, I hung up one of those missing posters about Skylar and someone took it down in the middle of business hours.

What? Yeah, I hung it near the front with tape on all four corners so that the clients would see it as they leave, but someone took it down. I mean, it's just gone. I stood there and I stared at the window for like a full two minutes because I was like, that's weird, that's eerie. I mean, it could not have fallen down.

And then I remembered earlier, that when our skydower's friends was there, getting her hair highlighted. Who? Sheila. But this wasn't the first time the posters were going missing. The searchers said that they hung up posters all over street poles of a street and the next day it all be torn down. Grocery stores reported they're missing posters missing.

Someone was taking them down, making an effort to. Finally, June 19th, FBI agents arrived to talk to Rachel. Now they commented to her house and Patricia told them on the phone because she wasn't home. Rachel was at camp when Skylar was missing so honestly the girls aren't even that close I don't know why you need to question her but I get it. I always never liked Skylar and Sheila. I felt like they were bad influences and you know she's never going to hide anything so you can ask Rachel all the questions you need.

So Rachel's being supervised by a neighbor while FBI is in the house to question her. Her boyfriend was also there by the way and he's a guitarist for a band called Callis Next Tuesday but they preferred to go by the acronym. Yeah, now because Patricia wasn't there Rachel ends up getting questioned alone without the neighbor. The neighbor is like, I'll give you guys some space, like I'll just make some fruit. So the officer is asked again, where did you drop her off? And she said, I told you, at the end there, and like Rachel was whiny. The police said it seemed like she was annoyed having to reiterate the story.

University Avenue, like that's where we dropped her off. Skyler was angry and told us not to take her all the way to the apartment. So you dropped her off after riding around and smoking weed? Look Rachel, we don't care about the weed. We care about where Skylar is. Where did you guys drive around? Rachel looked like she was thinking hard and then she shrugged and said,

I'm not really sure I was pretty messed up. Maybe down Patterson Drive. The police were stoked. I mean, this is a busy road. There must be cameras. So they look at each other and they say, okay, let's look for cameras. Check the cameras.

And she says, yeah, check them if you want, but I don't know if you'll see us. We stayed on the side streets as much as we could. Do you remember the names of any side streets? Now the officers didn't really care for her answer because if she was going down Patterson Drive, the side streets go the opposite way. There was no way to go down Patterson using side streets. So her story wasn't adding up roadwise. So they pressed her. Any names of the side streets? No, how am I supposed to know that? There were just streets with houses like a regular neighborhood.

I wasn't driving. You have to ask Sheila. We have. Listen, I really want to help Skylar, I really do, but I was so high. Rachel, you can't drive on Patterson and stay on side streets. Just tell us exactly what happened and we'll take it from there. Here, look at this map. After you dropped your friend off at 11.30, was that 11.30? But even that doesn't make sense to the police when they say it. You dropped your off at 11.30? You don't sneak out and come home at 11.30. You sneak out at 11.30. But again, this was still not enough evidence for the police. They had to follow up on other leads too. They were tips and sightings being called in and it was really rough on David Mary. One time there was a tip called in for a drug house in a nearby town, someone

claimed to see Skylar there and Dave stalked that house for days. Police warned the parents to be careful of talking to Sheila. They didn't go deeper, but the parents were suspicious. Sheila went to vacation in Florida with her family, and she would nonstop, while she was in Florida, she would nonstop text Shania, another friend, the one that was at the movies, right? And she would just be talking about the investigation. Mary noticed that the minute that Sheila left out of town,

Shania was constantly around the house, constantly looking at her phone, and then looking up and being like, Mary, what did the police say? What about now? So Mary straight up tells her, listen, is that Sheila on the phone? Because I know that she knows more than she's telling. So you tell her to tell the police everything she knows. It got so bad to the point that Sheila demanded Chania put Mary on the phone and begged Mary

to believe her, sobbing. You have to believe me, please, you have to believe me. She said, why should I? Why should I believe you? Would you believe you? With all the things going on, a month passes and Skyler is still not found. No one is arrested. There were just rumors everywhere now that the rumor rail was churning working over time.

Some believed Skyler was off-partying and she would be home soon. But the ones that actually knew her knew better than to believe this because it's just doesn't make sense. Sure, Skye there tweeted about being out at parties late at night, but this girl was an honor role student. She was in marching band. She had a part-time job. She never even had a boyfriend up until this point.

She was honest with her parents. She was like any other teenage girl. She wanted people to think she was a lot more badass and she actually was. Strangers started to push out rumors that she's definitely out there somewhere overdosed. Overshared, it's definitely a drug thing. She was lured into sex trafficking because that's the only thing that makes sense. And then a Facebook page emerged called Team Skylar, where, you know, Sheila posted a picture of Skylar onto the page and it was a selfie of both of them, hugging, and faces

pressed up next to each other, making a classic pouty face and she captioned it, and I want my best friend back. And everyone was just sympathizing with her. Just sympathy comments pouring in. She wrote, all I want for my best friend is to come home. I wish I knew something to give the police a lead, or so she can come home, but I don't know anything. I wish I knew something like everybody thinks I do.

Come home, Skylar. It's been five weeks too long. I miss you, and I love you. Now because Team Skylar was a public Facebook page, a lot of people, not just from the area, but all over the place, started to join it, and soon they had over 3,000 members, and a lot of these members only joined it to gossip. They were not ashamed to share their unsubstantiated allegations. A lot of people started running with the allegation that Dave was abusing her so she ran away

from home. Some people even said Dave impregnated her, so he killed her. Dave and Mary fell apart mentally. This was rough on them. The Facebook page honestly was adding so much stress and misery to their already falling apart lives. They were already going through so much and now it was worse, but they couldn't help themselves.

They read the gossip. The younger generation they took to Twitter to argue it out, a lot of teens rallied together to accuse Sheila and Rachel of being shady. They even started calling them pretty little liars because that's when the first season had dropped. Was that year? Even the cops were referring to Rachel and Sheila as pretty little liars.

So one summer was over, it was time for school, and I think that's kind of when it hit the students. The first day of school, Skylar wasn't there, and she probably would never be. Kids were in tears, and Skylar just really left a big impact and just a huge gaping hole in a lot of people's hearts. And then on September 7th, the police had warrants for Sheila and Rachel, and they wanted to talk to them.

The girls knew something they weren't telling the cops. That was clear. So the police show up to the school and they talk to them. And the officers remember, the girls were in class and they just had these big old smiles on their faces, not a single worry in the world. It was like, life is good. And then they see the police walking in and their faces fall.

But it was less of like a oh shit, we're caught but more of like a oh again. We had to talk to you again. So they're separated and with a warrant they were searched. They found weed and sheeless purse and she started screaming at them when they pulled it out. Darn away, Darn away! Which like okay weird. Yeah and they're like that's not even what we care about. They take Rachel's phone and they compare it to Skyler's, and I mean, it was clear that they weren't together from 11 to 11 to 145. Because during that time Rachel and Skyler were talking about meeting up later. The police searched both the girl's houses. Tara seemed to be the more involved one. Patricia was distraught. Did not believe her daughter to be guilty of anything.

She was just upset. Tara, on the other hand, was always coaching the girls on how to handle the cops. So it's hard to not wonder did the girls tell Tara something more? Did they tell her everything? How much did she know? Rachel definitely was feeling a lot more pressure. She was feeling the heat a lot more than Sheila was. And by the end of 2012, the girls were suspects. They are changing their stories every two seconds.

You know, no, we just dropped her. So they had a warrant for the girls to suspects. They are changing their stories every two seconds. No, we just dropped her. So they had a warrant for the girls to be searched. They didn't have a warrant for their arrest yet. So we dropped her off at the boys' house. Oh no, we actually went to the local bridge and we were smoking wheat. No, she ran into the woods. We never saw her again.

Please, we're like, okay, what? But they're still not suspecting murder, though. They believe that Skylar had overdosed and the girls were just too scared to say something about it. So to get to the bottom of it, they asked the girls for a polygraph, and surprisingly, they both agree. Sheila failed, twice. And Rachel failed, to show up to her polygraph.

She literally jumped from her dad's moving car on the way to the police station and ran straight to Tara's office. The police even confronted Sheila's mom, Tara, and said, you are there to all. They are using you to hide. The girls know exactly where Skylar is and you're an idiot if you haven't seen that by now after all the evidence that we know and that we have. And she's not having it. Meanwhile, the niece is really cut off contact with both girls at this point. And mid-December of that year, Mary posted on social media for the first time in a really long time. And Mary vented. She said, the time has come media for the first time in a really long time, and Mary vented. She said,

The time has come to tell the full Skylar story, from beginning to end. She recapped all the strange things about her disappearance, how she straight up called the other girls out. She said, You are not telling the whole truth. You have continued to withhold information and have been caught and multiple lies to the police. This is truly the ultimate betrayal. These girls are more guilty than originally suspected. It looks like foul play has occurred and murder has not been ruled out. So meanwhile, Rachel is sweating under this pressure. Any time she was away from Sheila, she would straight up have separation anxiety, like it was bizarre. On top of that, whenever

she fought with her parents, she would face time Sheila, basically live streaming it for Sheila to just be a part of. On one occasion it got so bad that Rachel punched her mom in the eye through an unlit candle at the wall and both Rachel's parents fell down the stairs trying to restrain her. Rachel is screaming, Patricia calls 911 and at first she's remarkably calm. She said, 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. She's screaming in the back, give me my phone, give me my phone!

No, no, no, no, Rachel won't stop screaming. My husband is trying to contain her, please hurry. Rachel runs into her room, locks herself shut in there and her screams were so loud a neighbor heard and looked out the window and that's when you heard Rachel threatening to take her own life. She said, you ruined my life and I'm gonna kill myself. So her dad is able to get inside, get a hold of her, and the police said that they could not arrest her. This is what the parents wanted, but they said that they could take her to a mental health check at a hospital.

So the parents go with that advice, and within a few days, she's released. And immediately, taken into the station to be polygraphed. She's shaking the whole time. I mean, she's in a fetal position most of the time, and she told the cops, I think I'm ready to talk, but first I need a trash can because I'm gonna throw a web.

The polygraph began. Was there a party? No. Did she overdose? No. Did she choke? No. Well, what happened, Rachel?

And Rachel let out a small smile, probably from utter fear, but it was still a small smile very creepy. And she said, we stopped her. The three men almost fell out of their chairs, and they said, sorry, we didn't hear you right. You what? She and I, we stabbed Skyler. Are you saying you killed Skyler Nese?

She nodded. And the floodgates open and she told them everything. She even talked about how Skiler grabbed the knife from her and she still has the scar on the leg. Do you want to see? She pulls up her pants revealing the three-inch scar on her ankle. Rachel answered all their questions except one. The same one that Skiler had asked her, which was, why? She hesitated, struggled, and said, we just didn't like her. Rachel said Sheila threw away all their stuff that night, so she has no idea where the murder weapons are, but she agreed to take the police to the body in exchange for a plea deal.

Meanwhile, the police rushed over to Sheila's house to confiscate everything. They took every knife in that house and terror complained. I mean, a kid is dead and terror complains, can you at least leave me one knife so I can make dinner? They did not. The next day Sheila wrote on Twitter, life fucked me yet again. Officers finally find Skyther's body. They couldn't for months because of the snow, and Rachel couldn't lead them there. But when they do, both girls were immediately arrested. Four long months since Rachel's initial confession. She was first questioned to the cops where,

wait, can I write in the front so that nobody thinks I'm under arrest? She had no concept of the seriousness of this all, only about how she would look at other people. She would also ask, how often do I get to use my phone? Do I get a scrunchie? The lead investigator told her, you get nothing here. You committed a crime, you killed someone, don't expect royal treatment here, there are rules here."

She listed her crying at that. Rachel pled guilty to second-degree murder. She begged Skyler's parents for forgiveness. She said that there were no words to describe the guilt and remorse she feels. Rachel listed all the people she heard as her family, Skyler's family, and the list was long, even her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ made an appearance on the list. Dave responded,

Rachel murdered my daughter in cold blood. Skyler would not be where she was if it wasn't for Rachel's show. She should take her apologies and sit on them because that's about what they're worth to me and my wife. Your honor, I ask that you give her 50 years in plus if you can. Rachel was given 30 years with parole after 10.

Sheila was tried as an adult. The media was finally able to print her name. Her first court hearing was just 11 days before her 18th birthday, and in court she was smacking on a piece of gum. At some points, she seemed to almost be smiling at Skyler's family. But just a few months later, she shocked everyone by pleading guilty to first-degree murder. This was the first time she showed any real emotion in court. She cried. She was given the life sentence, but she was eligible for parole after 15 years. What?

Yeah. And apparently in prison, Sheila kept having sex to get what she wanted. She even had sex with a male guard, and it caused this huge scandal, and thankfully, he was fired, and Sheila was transferred to a different prison. But she never showed remorse for the murder. She said that there's two life events that caused her to murder someone, which was moving to Morgan Town and meeting Rachel. Yeah, not conspiracy to commit murder and murder.

The girls are in their 20s and they are still awaiting parole in prison, but the question still remains why. I mean, I just don't believe it's because they didn't like her. And the whole lesbian theory, I mean, yeah, it's common for girls to get drunk and experiment. It was also common in their social circles, like this was a common thing in that high school where they would just kind of like make out if they were drunk, right? Even at parties that would happen, pictures would be taken, boys would get like, oh, they would hype them up.

Rachel also had boyfriends, while this was all. Shila hooked up with boys and girls. I mean, I'm not dismissing it. I just find that it's a very strange reason. Some people say it's because Skylar was obsessed with Shila. And then Rachel and Shila killed her for what exactly? There was a comment on Reddit, though, by Reddit her named, Masta Blasta.

And it said that Rachel would have done anything to impress Shila. And Shila loved more bit things. She left talking about these weird dark things, and she always loved asking these types of crazy questions. So maybe Sheila brought up killing Skylar as a joke. Rachel latched on to the idea trying to impress Sheila, not expecting her to be serious, but as they planned it more and more, neither of them wanted to back down.

They were almost challenging each other to go further and further. Sheila didn't want to lose her position as this all-knowing leader, whereas Rachel really wanted to prove to Sheila that she was badass. Sheila probably wanted Skylar dead, but was too much of a coward to do it on her own. Rachel on the other end probably didn't care if Skylar was dead, but wanted to impress Sheila. People believed Rachel was also going through a manic episode during the whole killing and planning phase.

She was always seeming so hyperactive at the time, almost slurring her speech with excitement. She just seemed so obsessed with partying and drinking and bragging about how permiscuous she was, and it was a lot. And honestly, Sheila never even really liked Rachel. Other than the fact that Rachel was in love with Sheila, that's just what she was into, having a sidekick. Skylar was standing up to Sheila too much, and that's why Sheila started to hate her. Rachel wasn't though, so Skylar was replaced,

and it makes you wonder, would Sheila have turned on Rachel too, if she started to stand up for herself? Which to clarify, I don't feel bad for Rachel at all. She deserves everything that she got, but I pity her, because she threw away two lives to impress someone who probably doesn't give a fork about her. Wow.

And that is the story of Skylar Nees. And these two, I don't even know what to call them. They're not even pretty and they're not little. They're just killers. But I hope you guys enjoyed this week's mini-suit, and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode.