Episode 13: Skylar Neese

Sarah leads this episode about the tragic case of Skylar Neese.

This is the real life mean girls story of 3 best friends who find out 2's company, and 3's a crowd....

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:20

Hey, deadly demons and dudes.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

I'm Sarah. And I'm Tina. And we are here today to discuss the Hulu documentary, Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Nice. Do you remember this one when it happened? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Such a tragedy. And I was, it was one of the ones I really wanted to do. And then suddenly this documentary popped up. And I was like, perfect. That was the one I wanted to do. And it takes place in Morgantown, West Virginia, at a place called University High School, which I thought was an interesting thing. I was like, wait.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

I was like, wait, is this a college or a high school? Right.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

So the kids at 16 are like, I go to university. Right. Okay, so the school had all the usual clicks, but Skyla Nice only hung out with Sheila Eddie and Rachel Schof, and the three were very close. Skyla was an honest student, she had great grades. She was not quite as wild as Sheila and Rachel, because they were three di very different characters, but they were always seen together and they kept to themselves outside of all the other regular cliques. Friends say Skyla was fairly quiet until she met the others, but the three of them could push the boundaries together, with Sheila being the ringleader. Her mom was very laid back, had a very laid-back parenting style, believing that Sheila should be allowed to make her own mistakes and learn from them as such. It was usually Sheila who came up with most of the trouble they got into. Skyla and Sheila openly smoked weed and introduced Rachel to it. And they posted on social media all about it. Like they were blatant. There were pictures with pipes and it was kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

That's kind of just how social media was back then because adults just didn't have a clue, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

And it seems like Sheila's mom was aware and saw the social media, but she didn't care. She was the one that was like, let her make her own mistakes, whereas Skylar's parents didn't know that she even had a social media account. Right. So now in the documentary, friends are saying how they would pretty much mean girls, Skylar, sometimes. Like in Mean Girls where they have each other on the phone without the other one knowing, they would do that to her, trying to catch her out saying something against one of them. And other people started to notice a rift and Skylar being kind of pushed out. Skyla learns that they've been going to the mall and other places without her, which kind of upsets her. I think they actually even used her as an alibi.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

They were like, come over and stay at my house and say that you're staying here, and we're gonna tell my mom that you're staying here, but I'm actually gonna go out with Rachel. Right. And they just push her. Very shitty. So on July 6th, 2012, it was a Thursday night. Skyla comes home from her shift at Wendy's, she goes straight to bed because she's just so tired. And her family didn't really have any reason to have any interaction with her until her dad came home from lunch. They kind of shared a car, so he would take the car and then come back at lunchtime. She would take him back to work so she could use the car.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Her dad is like father of the year. I just want to say that right now. He's so good. I was so impressed.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

I loved him. And this was their only child. And they you could tell that they were both still like in disbelief.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

All these years later. He was the dad everyone should have. He was amazing. So he comes home from lunch and she's not up yet. So they just assume she's still asleep. He goes into her room to wake her up, but sees that her bed hasn't actually even been slept in. So naturally the first people in call are Sheila and Rachel. Rachel had just left to go to church camp for the summer, but literally none of her friends had seen her. And Sheila and Rachel start calling around the friends as well, saying, Hey, no one's seen Scarlett, do you know where she is? The parents figure out all they can really do is wait till 4 p.m. when she was due back at Wendy's, as they knew that she wouldn't not show up for her shift. But at 4 PM, Wendy's report that she didn't turn up for work.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Now the parents they're just losing it. They call a missing person's report to the police stating how she must have left the house in the night and she just hasn't returned. So the police start their investigation noting that Skylar's room was very clean and they lived in a really nice, quiet neighborhood. But they could tell that she had climbed out the window because the stall that she had used to get up was still there.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Now, as she is 16 and obviously left of her own attention, the police have to question if she's a runaway or maybe she met a boy she wanted to be with. And although Sheila and Rachel both had boyfriends and told Skylar all about their relationships, Skyla was yet to enter the dating world. Actually have it later on, but it's good to mention here. She had actually created a fake profile to try and uh talk to guys where she had a picture that wasn't her, a name that wasn't her, but nobody else knew about this.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

I was that kid. I did that. Yeah. I can't imagine doing something like that now, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

No, scared. So all of the other teenagers in her school hear on the grapevine that Skylar is missing, and they come to the house to help with the search. Sheila arrives with her mom, and Sheila confesses that she and Rachel had come to the house to pick Skyla up the night before, just to go joyriding around the town, but says they were all back home and in bed by midnight. Skyla's parents make Sheila show them exactly where she dropped off Skyla, which was at the end of the intersection to their house. Sheila and her mom both offer to do anything they can to help. They take pictures of Skyla, they go door to door asking if anyone has seen her. They check some of the outside camera footage, and they actually see Skylar climbing out of her window and get in the back of the car and drive away. Supposedly an hour after Sheila and Rachel had dropped her off, but the footage is too grainy to see any details of the car. But they could tell that Skyla got into the car willingly. Wow. Wow. Although I did wonder why they didn't look at the footage before then.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Like I wondered that too. And I wonder maybe if they did and didn't see anything.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Or if they did see Sheila and Rachel drop her off when they said they did, but then saw her get into a car again later.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

And they don't mention that, but I guess that's because this is what they were looking for, right? The parents uh do an appeal through social media. They show the video to the public, hoping someone can help in some way. Friends are driving around looking for her, posting on social media looking for her, missing posters formed and handed out by friends and family. Internet and social media was fairly new at the time. Skylar had dabbled in social media a little bit due to loneliness under a fake profile with a fake picture, as we said. Her parents admit they didn't even did not even know what she was up to on the internet. Which I thought was interesting because they say that Sheila's parents were the ones that were really laid back, but Skylar's parents say no, she was on the computer at all hours and we just didn't know what she was doing. Right. Maybe you shouldn't well.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Yeah. But when it's fairly new, they didn't realise the dangers of it, I guess. They seemed like they were really good parents. So the FBI are called in pretty fast, as the local police are just not used to dealing with this kind of case. And the FBI are able to trace her phone calls and do more stuff like that. Once the FBI are involved, more tips come in, various sightings, sending the parents all over to look for Skylar in all different possible locations, but they all turn out to be fake. A total of 172 sightings. Wow. I felt really bad for those parents there. Even just retelling the story. They were crying, saying we went there hoping and it was nothing, and 172 times. Talking of roller coasters, I watched Final Destinations Junior. Did you enjoy it? I love roller coasters. And um what was the other thing? There were like two things on there that I was like, I love both those things, and they were ruined. Oh no. Anyway. Uh when contacted by the police, Rachel just says, Well, I'm at church camp, so I can't really help. Yeah. She was that concerned. So everyone is still speculating. Did Skylar run away? Was she kidnapped? Her friends are all thinking, Well, what if I get grabbed next? Skylar was the only child of Mary and Dave niece. And you can see they were then and still are absolutely devastated. They tell us that Sheila and Skylar met when they were eight years old and they hit it off immediately and went separable. And Sheila had become so close to them, she was like a daughter, too. She would come in the house, help herself to stop in the fridge. My my kids had friends like that. Right. Yeah. My my son, my youngest son's best friend, Jake. I always told referred to him as my favorite son. No. And Jake would be like, Can you ask your mom to make this tonight? Because uh that's my favorite thing she cooks. So and I I get that, you know, the whole like friends are like family. Sheila was a best friend in the world. So police decide that she is the best person to question. She may know any potential boyfriends and stuff like that. So they go to Sheila's house, but the police notice that the teens are just hanging out, having a good time. They don't seem to be at all worried about that where their friend is. So they decide that it's best to bring Sheila into the police station for questioning, and they make her write out statements to see if her story changes. But the statement looks normal.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Once Rachel is back from camp, police go to interview her. And her story matches Sheila, but was actually way too similar.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Mm-hmm. Like exact details. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

So they ask both girls individually to show them exactly where they drove, and the stories start to come up a little bit different. So now the question is, what are they covering up? They came to the conclusion that Sheila and Rachel knew exactly where Skylar was, so they used social media to help them find out more. They see on social media that Skylar is obviously at odds with some by her tweets. Friends say that they could tell that there had been a shift in the relationship and that Sheila and Rachel were getting closer, and Skylar seemed to be the odd one out. There seemed to be some kind of resentment and jealousy as Sheila and Rachel got closer and closer and started to do more and more stuff without Skylar. Another girl whom Rachel confides in admits that her and Sheila were sexually involved and would make Skylar take pictures and video and watch.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Wow, that detail really floored me.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Not so much that they were doing that, but that you want the third person to literally like, oh, you can do this, you can do that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that must have been really hurtful for Skylar. Yeah. Poor girl. Others didn't believe it because both Sheila and Rachel had boyfriends, and Rachel came from a very strict religious family. Police get Sheila and Rachel's phone records and see that they did not go home when they say they did. And they track down more footage from a gas station that they passed by, and they work out that the car that picked up Skyla later, after she was supposedly dropped off at midnight, was Sheila's car. And they can see from the phone records that they went to Blacksville, which was a town nearby. So they go to Blacksville to investigate. Blacksville is a rougher town than where they live. There's a lot of drug dealing. There was even a bank robbery recently. And they notice the name of a person in Blacksville had been appearing on Skylar's social media. Someone known for criminal activity and drugs, and they wonder if it is connected to the disappearance of Skylar. When searching the house of this friend of theirs in connection with the bank robbery, they find pictures of parties, girls at the house, obviously high. So they get a search warrant for Sheila and Rachel's phones, making sure it is at the same time, so they can't give each other the heads up to erase anything. That was super smart.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Very smart.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Yeah. The phones let them know that there was a sexual relationship between Sheila and Rachel. And although the girls have not told them this, they don't believe that it's any of their business or anything to do with the case. Right. Which again, that's fair. They also come across messages to one of the guys the police were looking at for the bank robbery asking if they could buy drugs on the night that Skylar went missing. Rachel gets all pissy. Why are you asking me about this? Nothing's changed. And they find an entry in Rachel's diary asking the Lord for forgiveness. Remember, she came from a very religious background.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

This makes me cringe so hard. Like, yeah, no, let me not. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Continue. The rumors start to go around that they went to a party at this drug dealer's house and Skylar OD'd and they got rid of the body. Which, I mean, I guess that's a It's a plausible theory. Yeah, sure. Like, sure. The police hear the rumors and they go looking for a body in a mine shaft because that's what the rumors are saying. Blacksville was a mining community. There were lots of mineshafts, and the rumor goes that maybe she OD'd and the body was disposed of there. So they waste waste time literally looking in mineshafts, with their prime suspect being the said drug dealer. Meanwhile, friends notice that Rachel is at odds with her mom and having complete meltdowns of school. And they remember some of the social media posts that Skylar made about being mad at Sheila and Rachel and knowing things about them that she could tell everyone. And others I sounded a little younger then. Other teens start to believe that Rachel knows more than she's telling, and they try to tell her to talk to the police. The school is in turmoil. Are you Team Skylar, Team Rachel, or Team Sheila? Everybody should have been Team Skylar. Everybody. As stories continue to not line up, police ask them to take polygraph tests. But it's Skylar's parents who ask them to leave the kids alone. They were like, look, Sheila was a best friend. She's as upset as we are. Like, stop hassling her, you're making it worse. And that is so upsetting. I know. And that's another reason why they just seem like such lucky people.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

And why it must have hurt so bad. Well, Sheila does take a polygraph, and she admits that she was the one that picked Skyla up at the later time, but fails the polygraph when asked if she knows what happened to Skyla. They go and get Sheila's mom for help in getting the truth out of Sheila. And after talking to her mum, Sheila gives a story that they all went to Blacksville to party, and Skylar just got out of the car and ran away. Because she wanted to go to the boys' house and party, and they didn't. And they tried to find her, but they couldn't. So they left.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

And I thought that was kind of a conflicting detail because Skylar was described as being kind of the more tame one.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

She was the quiet one that didn't have the um confidence and everything. And yet she just got out of the car and ran in the middle of the night. Because she wanted to go party. And then they couldn't find her, so they just left. Right. None of that makes sense. But the police say, well, the phone still pings in Blacksville at 4 a.m. And they're like, oh, yeah, we left Rachel's phone there and we had to go back and get it at 4 a.m. Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Not even a good lie, y'all. No wonder she failed the polygraph.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Right. Oh, and my next line says, Sheila continues to fail the lie detector. Not shocking. And will not change her story. So they go back to Rachel. So they're confronting her like you keep failing. And she's like, well, that's what happened. Yeah. So they go back to Rachel. They can tell by her diary entries that she's probably the weaker Link and more likely to crack. And Rachel was visibly nervous, and Sheila was constantly calm. Rachel says Skylar was adamant that they go to this guy's house. So they took her there, watched her walk in, and left. A different story. Which made the police think that they were covering someone. So Christmas comes around and Skylar's been missing for six months now. And while her parents faced their first childless Christmas, and I have a step face there, because I just can't imagine. Dave Nies goes to the police station, he says, I just need answers. Like he had to push. So they ask Rachel to take a polygraph. Like, why had they not asked her already? Why six months later, when he's like, dude, I just went through a Christmas. It was hell. You need to do something. But on the way to take it, Rachel's lawyers called to say she's missing. He was driving her to the police station to take the polygraph test, and at a stop sign, she got out of the car and fleed.

SPEAKER_03 17:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Kind of like Spyler did, apparently.

unknown 17:47

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

So a 911 calls in call comes in from Rachel's mom saying, Rachel is out of control. She's screaming, hysterical. They can actually hear her on the 911 call. And then the mum tells the police, she just gave me a black eye. Wow. After this outbreak, Rachel is taken to a psychiatric ward. And then a call comes in that she is ready to talk. The first thing they ask her is, Were you with Skylar when she died? And Rachel says, Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

They ask her, Did Skyla overdose? She says, No. Did Skyla choke on her own vomit? No. Did the boys kill Skyla? No. And then out of the blue, she says, we stabbed her. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Much to the shock of everybody in the room. Of all the theories, this was not one that had even occurred to them. She says Sheila was getting sick of her and had the idea to kill her. Just like that. Hey, what do you want to do, Wednesday? Let's go shopping in the mall and then kill our friend. Yeah. She agrees to take them to the spot where it happened. And she tells them they'd gotten everything ready. Clorox wipes, clean clothes, plastic bags. Sheila brought the knives. Rachel brought the shovel. Talk about premeditated.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Right. The Clorox wipes got me because, like, you're going to need more than Clorox wipes for this.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Yes, just a little bit. They pick her up and they drive her to a remote area in Pennsylvania. She said Skyla walked up ahead of them and they counted one, two, three, and then jumped her from behind, stabbed her in the back, and stabbed her in the neck.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

She tries to fight, but there's two of them and one of her.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

And all Skylar can say is why. So heartbreaking. There's oh poor. She really thought they were her friends.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

Rachel takes them to where it happened and tells the police, it's over there. It. It's over there. Unfortunately, they cannot look for the body at that time due to the snow being too deep. All this time, Sheila does not know that Rachel has confessed. So they ask Rachel not to tell her and ask her if she is willing to record a conversation with Sheila for them. And they have her call Sheila and invite her over to her house. They have video cameras set up in Rachel's living room. And although she says things like, You haven't changed your story, have you? She doesn't say anything really incriminating. So they don't charge Rachel right away as they need to find the body first. And during this time, Rachel confides in her friend that Sheila murdered Skylar that says she had nothing to do with it. But although they have Rachel's confession, they are worried that Sheila could walk free if they can't get more evidence that she was involved. So they get a warrant for her car and they find blood in the trunk. Finally, the body is located and the students are informed. And Sheila starts posting about how devastated she is. I've put here, I am amazed that Rachel didn't tell her because now it's been months. It's been months since Rachel's confessed, and she's so close to Sheila, they have a sexual relationship, but she didn't actually ever crack and tell her. Right. It was impressive.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Then they tell Skyla's parents that Sheila and Rachel stabbed Skyla over 50 times to death. They always suspected that the girls might know something, but they never suspected this. Once they had the body, they were able to match the DNA to Sheila's car to Skyla. So both were arrested on first degree murder. In the police car on the way to jail, Sheila says, But what about my hair appointment? I'm having my hair done for prom.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Like these girls just had absolutely no idea of the gravity.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

So Rachel pleads guilty to second degree murder due to her help with the case. Both had hearings to transfer them to a DOS stand. And Sheila's was done in open court and she was still smirking and she even smirked at Skylar's parents. Disgusting. Everyone thinks Sheila was the ringleader in the murder, also. And Sheila won't say why she did it. But Rachel says it was because she was getting in the way of their relationship. So 19 months after the murder, Rachel takes a plea deal. She makes an apology to Skylar's parents, and she is sentenced to 30 years, eligible for parole after 10. As of right now, she's still incarcerated despite two parole hearings, and she is eligible to apply for parole again in June 2026. So once a year she can apply. But I guess they obviously don't see any remorse because she's been denied. Right. Sheila's plea and sentencing, Skylar's dad gives a victim statement. Sheila pleads guilty to first degree murder, and her lawyer admits that he didn't see any reason for a trial as they don't have a defense. So there is no trial. Wow. Sheila makes no statement and she is sentenced to life in prison for the rest of her natural life. However, due to the mercy rule, she is eligible for parole after 15 years. As she's being escorted out of the courtroom to go to jail, Sheila says to the security guards, Can I say goodbye to my parents before going to jail? And he says, No. Skyla didn't get to say goodbye to Hose.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

There you go. And that is the end of Flya's story.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

So what are you saying?

SPEAKER_02 23:36

I think these girls were just like in another world.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

They were definitely in another world. And one thing that I wanted to call out is how their their parents were like polar opposites and how they were raised. So you had Rachel, who was like in a very Christian, Catholic, strict household. And then you have Sheila, who was in a do whatever the hell you want household. And yet they both end up murdering their friend.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

So the no attempt to hide the body. And I mean it was premeditated insofar as they got clean clothes and clerk swipes and a shovel and everything else. But so they thought through the pre-murder and then they did absolutely no thought in the after. And they just seemed like no one was going to notice and then just get away with it.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Right. And here's something else I think that we were talking about earlier is like, how did nobody in in all those months, through all the search efforts, it seems like they didn't really hide the body all that well? I mean, they described it as just like they had covered it up with like some brush and some leaves. They hadn't even buried it. So it's not.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Remember that it was found in a different state. Oh, that's right. I mean, I'm surprised that somebody else hadn't come across it. Right. How did nobody come across? Although they didn't say, but they did drive over state lines. So the West Virginia police wouldn't have been looking in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Yeah. Yeah. They got lucky on that. That's just luck. Yeah. Luckily not for too long. And what about those two, the two men? Like, were they just trying to throw them under the bus? They aren't scared of the consequences. Like, they were obviously dangerous men. Were they really just But these girls thought they were untouchable. Right. Yeah. I mean, I guess so.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

They they were Sheila and Rachel. They were untouchable. I think it was an easy target because the guys were already involved in criminal activity, sold drugs, were wanted on a bank robbery. I mean, so it just attracts the, you know, throwing them under the bus would probably be the best bet.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Yeah. You guys already did all this, so why not murder? Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Well, it's a very sad story, and she should have she should have known when they were doing the mean girl stuff. I mean, not to blame Scholar in any way, shape, or form, obviously, but it's kind of like people in abusive relationships. Like as soon as it starts getting that way, move on.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Move on. Yeah. That's hard to do though, especially like when you're a teenager and she didn't have any other friends.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

Yeah. All right. Well, we better save anything else we have to say for the after show. For the after show. For our subscribers. And we have some now. Yay! Yay! All right, guys. Well, we hope you enjoyed this episode. We're interested to hear any feedback you have about Skyline's case. Our thoughts are still with her parents. They are the sweetest people and didn't deserve anything.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Mm-mm.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

And their only child. I just can't even imagine. So, what do we have coming up next week?

SPEAKER_00 26:35

I believe it is Jennifer Pan. Ooh, what Jennifer did. What Jennifer did on Netflix, yes. Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

You're doing that one. I can't wait for that. So tune in next week if you want to hear about her. And you do. You definitely want to hear this story, y'all. It's crazy. It is crazy, crazy. All right, until next time. Be divas. But not deadly. Bye.