16-year old Skylar Neese disappeared from her Star City, West Virginia, home on July 6, 2012. While initially treated as a runaway, investigators soon came to believe something more sinister had happened to her. A break in the case came when six months later Rachel Shoaf admitted that she and another teenager, Shelia Eddy, Skylar's two best friends, had lured Skylar out of her apartment that night, driven her to a remote backgroad in Pennsylvania and stabbed her to death.
This website is dedicated to the memory of Skylar Neese (1996-2012). One objective of this website is to collect and store material that's been spread over several different websites, discussion forums, books and tv segments. Another objective is to remind, and keep reminding, the public of the terrible crime that Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf committed, and thus to play a part in ensuring that Shelia Eddy is never released on parole. Everything was taken from Skylar, and her parents were robbed of their only child: It would not be right if Shelia were granted a possibility to have all the things that Skylar will never have. Rachel's crime was no less serious, and even if she has legally earned her relatively lenient sentence of 30 years for second-degree murder, she does not deserve to ever have the kind of productive and fulfilling life that Skylar could have lived. You can help by signing a petition.
Use the links on the left to navigate the site. The first five sections (Prelude, The Crime, The Investigation, Breakdown and In Court) describe the events surrouding Skylar's fate in chronological order. The other sections (Why?, Questions and Skylar's Site) provide further information about the case. All the information on this website is from various sources. Photographs are from the public domain unless otherwise noted. See below for updates.
| Posted on Tuesday, April 16, 2019 |
It seems that the Topix forums got shut down several months ago, probably a result of the forums occasionally turning into a cesspool of malicious rumors and gossip with legal repercussions. This is a pity, as it means a whole bunch of Skylar Neese related topics are now gone for good. Topix was where the most heated discussions concerning the case took place. There were rumours, crackpot theories and "contributions" from individuals who claimed to have known the girls. Luckily I saved a backup of the Skylar Neese topic several years ago, so not all is lost forever. I still have to figure out the best way of making it available for the few obsessed. We'll see.
The link to the West Virginia Division of Corrections offender search has changed. The new search page is here.
| Posted on Saturday, November 12, 2017 |
It seems that the civil case against the killers (and their parents) is now over. The case never went to court, because Skylar's parents accepted an offer from the girls' legal teams; they seem to have settled for 5 million dollars. While that sounds like a lot of money, it's not very likely the Neeses are ever gonna get paid:
"Dave Neese said they understand the figure is just a number on a piece of paper and the case was never about money. It is to prevent the two killers from making any money related to the death — such as from from books or television appearances — if they are released."
What this seems to mean is that any money Shelia and Rachel might make off selling their story would go toward paying the settlement. A settlement of this kind might also be considered "nondischargeable" in that declaring a bankruptcy would not wipe out the debt; they'd be stuck with it until it's been paid in full (along with interest). By the way, West Virginia already has a "Son of Sam" law (these laws prevent criminals from benefiting from their crimes) in effect, but the law has not been tested in court yet and may be unconstitutional. A settlement of this kind might get around that.
In other news, Shelia's cousin Alexis seems to have joined the cast of "Are You the One?", a "reality" show on MTV. Those who followed the case were quite critical of how close she was to Shelia in the months leading up to Shelia's arrest. In fact, they had an exchange on Twitter on April 1, 2013, that some believe implicated her as well:
While Shelia probably did intend the "we really did go on three" tweet to be about the night she and Rachel killed Skylar (Shelia posted a few tweets of this nature where she seemed to be taunting those who suspected
her of the crime), Alexis's "that was a good idea" was a reply to Shelia's earlier tweet: Alexis was not responding to Shelia's "we really did go on three" tweet.
While she was never suspected of anything, there are those who believe Shelia may have opened up to her, but Alexis herself claims Shelia never told her anything aside from denying any involvement in Skylar's death. Still,
this is a friendship that's gonna keep haunting her:
| Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2017 |
Not much news since the last update. Earlier this year a federal court ruled (based on West Virginia Supreme Court guidance) that the home & auto insurance providers of Tara Clendenen and Patricia Shoaf (the killers' mothers) are not under an obligation to provide a legal defense for them, because their daughters were "co-insured on the policies". In lay terms this seems to mean that you cannot intentionally kill a person and then expect your insurance company to cover your legal fees any more than you can intentionally crash your vehicle and then expect your insurance company to cover the damages.
In other news, Lakin recently published new "mugshots" of Rachel & Shelia. Compared to the old ones (see the bottom of the page), at least Shelia seems a bit more "adjusted" to prison life:
| Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2016 |
Oxygen's "Snapped" true crime series had an episode about the case a few weeks back. There was nothing terribly interesting about it except for a few details.
First, it's claimed that Rachel said the plan was put in motion in September 2011. Previously we had known that the girls had been heard discussing how to dispose
of a body already back in October 2011. According to Rachel, she initially thought Shelia was joking about the whole thing, but Shelia actually seemed to have
become obsessed with the idea. September 2011 is about when Skylar witnessed the two girls have sex during a sleepover.
Second, the episode claims Rachel left for the church camp "that morning", while she actually spent that day on Cheat Lake boating with her mother and her mother's
friend. It has been speculated that the knives were dumped into that lake on that day, but this is not known for certain; neither of the knives has been recovered to this day.
The episode can be bought at Amazon, Vudu and iTunes. If you're not from the United States, you might be able to purchase the episode using a VPN (Hola browser addon should be enough) & PayPal.
| Posted on Thursday, February 11, 2016 |
Yesterday would have been Skylar's 20th birthday so "Remembering Skylar" YouTube channel put together this nice video in her memory.
| Posted on Sunday, January 31, 2016 |
Not much news lately; the civil trial against the killers' parents should start next month (February). A few news items worth checking out; last September someone stole the bench that had been placed at the memorial site but it was recovered later. Office Colebank reflects on the case three years later.
| Posted on Sunday, April 12, 2015 |
A little correction to the last update: The civil trial against the legal guardians of Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf begins in February 2016, not 2015. This was not specified in any of the news articles but it is specified in court documents, as pointed out by topix user "ADI ABX".
Several interesting photographs have surfaced lately. At some point I wish to store them all on this website so that people don't have to search for them across the Internet. This picture (found by "doxiegal13") is from A Midsummer Night's Dream, a Shakespearean play in which Rachel played the role of Helena:
According to Pretty Little Killers, Daniel Hovatter (second on the left, the Fairy King) kept bugging Rachel (first on the right) about Skylar's whereabout during rehearsals for this play (which was a University High School production). The book also claims that on the opening night Daniel saw Rachel's mother smack Rachel in the face because she had been crying and Patricia wanted her to get her "shit together" for the play. The picture is from November 2012, two months before Rachel confessed.
| Posted on Thursday, January 15, 2015 |
The second episode of the Canadian TV show "See No Evil" can be viewed here. (Once again, if you're outside the United States, simply use Hola to get around the region restriction.) The episode (named Skylar Neese) is pretty much like the "I Killed My BFF" episode that was mentioned back in October (see below), combining interviews with reenacted footage. It's pretty much a waste of time; even Dave & Mary seem bored talking about the events for the billionth time. Interestingly, Dave says "Shelia said [that] after 50 stabs she quitted counting", referring to the amount of stabs they inflicted on Skylar. As far as we know, Shelia hasn't made any statements other than pled guilty so in all likelihood Dave was referring to Rachel.
Several months ago Dave & Mary sued the girls and their mothers (Patricia Shoaf and Tara Clendenen) for damages over Skylar's death. They're arguing that the parents, by neglecting to supervise their daughters, are partially responsible for what happened to Skylar. I don't agree with blaming the parents since their negligence wasn't any worse than Skylar's parents': Skylar herself had a habit of sneaking out in the middle of the night to hang out with her friends. Moreover, holding the parents partially responsible for first-degree murder simply because they couldn't supervise their daughters at all times would only imply that parents should institute rather excessive measures such as putting locks on their children's doors (to be opened from the outside) just in case they might go out one night and kill someone. In this case the parents could not have known what their daughters were up to. The girls themselves, however, should be held financially responsible. The civil trial is set to begin on February 17.
| Posted on Sunday, November 2, 2014 |
It took a while but a user ("newuser") at Topix found Shelia Eddy's Youtube account. It seems to have been active since early 2009, and Shelia has nine videos uploaded, the latest dating back to May 2012, less than two months before the murder. Considering the low amount of video views (around 800 hits across nine videos in nearly six years), the channel seems to have remained totally obscure until this day.
Some interesting picks: When Shelia tells Rachel she has a secret she hasn't told anyone (the secret refers to a minor car accident), Rachel asks "Not even Skylar?", hinting that Rachel still saw Skylar and Shelia as very close friends. If the video was uploaded more or less on the day it was filmed on, this was just about two weeks before the Myrtle Beach fight between Skylar and Shelia. On the same video Rachel worries about smoking weed before her singing practice. The girls then park on a spot near some church and smoke weed. Rachel brags about having had sex there with Mikinzy several times.
There's also an older video from February 2009 where Crissy Swanson breaks into her own basement to get a pair of snowboards for her & Shelia, and some Clay-Battelle (Shelia's junior high school in Blacksville) footage.
| Posted on Tuesday, October 28, 2014 |
You can view the Skylar Neese episode of "I Killed My BFF" on Hulu. If the link
doesn't work, search for the episode on Hulu. The name of the episode is Real Life Heathers (a reference to Heathers (1988))
rather than Pretty Little Killers. In case your location is blocked, use something like Hola (extremely simple to use; it's just
a browser addon) to get past any restrictions.
The episode itself is a rather awkward mix of reenacted footage and real-life interviews. One minute you've got Mary Neese talking and
the next minute "Skylar" (Molly Evans) is talking about growing up Some of the reenacted scenes are rather lazy; a scene that's supposed to take
place on January 16 (the day Skylar's body was found) shows the police investigating the murder site (not the real one)
in the middle of the summer. And is it just me, or did the actress who played Rachel (Laura Barbiea) look a lot like Rose Mcgowan in Scream?
In other news, I should have posted this earlier but here's a petition you can sign
to help keep Shelia and Rachel behind bars. (Rachel's good-time credits are unlikely to be affected though.)
| Posted on Thursday, October 21, 2014 |
Episode Pretty Little Killers of "I Killed My BFF" is based on the Skylar Neese murder and will air on Lifetime Movie Network on October 22. ("Pretty Little Killers" is of course also the name of Daleen Berry's book.) IMDB misspelled Shelia's name.
| Posted on Wednesday, October 20, 2014 |
Website opened! It's not quite done yet though so expect more fine tuning. Google Chrome recommended for browsing. Mobile (Apple, etc.) browsers are NOT officially supported at the moment but the website looks fine, if a bit glitchy, on my iPod Touch. Optimized for 1680x1050 resolution.