Pretty Little Killers (3 page)

We can appreciate how difficult it is to rear children today. Challenges exist when they are babies and toddlers, but parenting teens is entirely different. It's like learning Spanish for your vacation to Cancun—only to discover everyone there speaks Russian. Rearing teenagers in today's fast-paced, plugged-in world is so challenging that parents need all the help they can get.

Add crimes against children to the mix and it is easy to see why some couples decide never to have children. Yet, gone are the days when we imagined a stranger in a trench coat lying in wait to snatch an unsuspecting youngster. In today's society, law enforcement has found that most children go missing because a family member has
taken them and a custody dispute is at the root. In these cases, the child's whereabouts usually become clear quite quickly.

When it comes to stranger danger in the twenty-first century, we picture someone far sinister: the internet predator. Today we are much more concerned, and rightly so, about who our children befriend while surfing online. However, Skylar's murder reminds us the biggest danger to our children comes from people they know—and often know intimately.

In the last ten years, ninety-six West Virginia teenagers have gone to prison for murder or manslaughter. Most of these cases involve teens whose young lives have been impacted by violence, neglect, drug use, or early exposure to pornography. In that respect, these two killers are no different: their families have a history of drug or alcohol addiction.

However, when Shelia and Rachel planned and then carried out Skylar's brutal murder, we knew this type of crime was a first for our tranquil state. Mountain State teens are not hardened killers. Girls, especially, do not kill in cold blood. According to the West Virginia Division of Juvenile Services, when it comes to murder the majority of incarcerated teens are there because of gang-related offenses—or else they killed a family member who abused them.

Murders committed by West Virginia teens are “not generally as premeditated and calculated as this one,” Acting Interim Director Stephanie Bond said, “not where they took someone away and (then) helped search.”

Due to these unusual factors, Rachel and Shelia were transferred to adult status. That is a rarity as well, and speaks of a heinous criminal act that carries the capacity to shock us.

Geoff and I were children when Charles Manson and his followers murdered seven people. As adolescents, we both read
Helter Skelter
,
the story about the Tate-LaBianca murders and Manson's subsequent trial. That book provided insight into the controlling behaviors that led up to Skylar's July 6, 2012, disappearance.

We believe the criminal case involving the Manson family also hinted at the motive behind Skylar's murder, so her story captivated us from the outset. Later, Rachel Shoaf's confession and Shelia Eddy's chilling courtroom behavior echoed themes seen in the Manson case.

We realize how difficult it is for teens to understand that parents really
do
know best, when we warn them an acquaintance is bad news or require them to follow rules. We're not being mean when we insist on consequences for wrong conduct. Most rules have reasons behind them. The problem is, teens don't like to listen to their parents, whom they often consider hopelessly uncool.

This problem is compounded by something that only happens to adolescent girls. In
Reviving Ophelia
, author Mary Pipher, Ph.D. said our culture sexualizes young girls and overemphasizes their looks, while pressuring teenage girls to assume a false persona to please their parents. Then, when they are in much need of parental support, these adolescents become secretive and turn to their peers. “They are self-absorbed and preoccupied with peer approval,” Pipher said.

That's what happened to my daughters. Mileah was 14 when she began hanging with the wrong crowd. In fact, Shelia Eddy reminds me of Mileah's friend Debbie. She came from a troubled background, so I tried to keep Mileah away from her. But Mileah was like Skylar, fearless and willful, and determined to be with the friend she admired.

As a news reporter, I worked with local law enforcement, so the Preston County Sheriff's Department quickly dispatched an officer to search for my daughter when she ran away one night. He found her
at Debbie's house within hours. After he cautioned Mileah about the dangers of running away, I took her home.

When my second daughter, Trista, ran away four years later, we were living near Oakland, California. As soon as I realized she was gone I called the police, but California's AMBER alert program was being tested on a regional basis in 1999 and didn't go statewide until 2000. Even if it had been in place, the system wouldn't have been activated in Trista's behalf. She simply didn't meet the criteria.

So I did the same thing the Neeses did: I designed a MISSING poster, planning to make hundreds of copies and personally recruit every friend I could find to help me cover an area that held almost half a million people. Fortunately, a beat officer recognized Trista and brought her home late that same night.

For a few hours, I understood what it felt like to be Mary and Dave Neese, to not know where your daughter is or if you will ever see her again. In the case of Mileah and Trista, my worry and fear lasted less than one day. I lived through two brief episodes—nothing nearly as extreme as the Neese's prolonged anguish—and my heart aches for any other parent who feels that kind of terror.

Not long after Skylar disappeared, Trista, then thirty-one, and I were walking on the rail-trail that circles Morgantown. We were in Sabraton when I wondered aloud if we would see Skylar. Rumors ran amok, saying the 16-year-old had been seen there. Was she really another runaway, hiding out with her boyfriend? Thinking of the gruesome cases I've covered, I hoped that was all that had happened, and prayed Skylar wasn't somewhere being tormented by a psycho. When Geoff and I learned Skylar's close friends had planned and then brutally murdered her, we were as stunned as everyone else. As we began investigating, we concluded that the three-way relationship between Skylar, Shelia, and Rachel was toxic. It wasn't unlike many romantic relationships or marriages where everyone else sees the red flags except the victim; neither
Skylar nor Rachel recognized the danger that came from being close friends with Shelia.

During interviews, many teens said either they didn't have a good feeling about Shelia, or their parents didn't want them involved with her. Those same teens tried to convince Skylar and Rachel that Shelia wasn't a good person. After noticing changes in their daughter's behavior, even Mary and Dave repeatedly tried to pry Skylar away from Shelia. Skylar wouldn't listen.

At the same time, Shelia, Rachel, and Skylar's relationship was already deteriorating. The trio turned mean, and their online fights later became fodder for the public who would follow the unraveling story. Their behavior might not have seemed serious, but it was. “The way girls handle the problems of adolescence can have implications for their adult lives,” Pipher said.

These malignant relationships all look alike. It is only after victims escape that they often say in retrospect: “Everyone else was right. Why didn't I see it?” There is some evidence indicating Skylar was starting to see the inherent dangers in that friendship—but she didn't escape in time.

Talk about dire implications: three years after the trio began fragmenting, Skylar is dead, and Shelia and Rachel are in prison.

To see how damaged Shelia Eddy is, simply look at her behavior following Skylar's murder. She inserted herself into the investigation, helped Mary and Dave search for Skylar, and even distributed the MISSING posters around town. People were appalled and wondered how Shelia could do something so brazen, but this activity seems to be a hallmark of a certain type of criminal.

Over the last several years, many other high-profile cases involved killers or kidnappers who helped families hunt for their loved ones. It isn't at all unusual, especially when the case features a missing wife or ex-wife, such as occurred with two women named Peterson. (Lacie in Modesto, California, in 2002, and Stacy in Bolingbrook,
Illinois, in 2007.) Scott Peterson and Drew Peterson (not related) both helped pass out flyers and canvass neighborhoods looking for their missing wives.