Pretty Little Killers (31 page)

“You're right,” she said. “Screw it. Let's get some four-wheelers.”

On their next day off, Hunn and Colebank teamed up with Trooper Berry. Having grown up in the Blacksville area, he had gone to school with Hunn. The trio turned onto Route 7 and headed west. When they got to Blacksville, the three off-duty officers got on their four-wheelers and took off. Together they covered every path and trail they could find. They rode all over the one-lane back roads
and even on the golf course behind Clay-Battelle High School, until it was too dark to see. They continued searching throughout the month of September, riding for hours on end. Still they had nothing. They knew it was hopeless.

Skylar was the type of friend who kept in touch with the people she loved, people like Daniel, Shelia, and Rachel. She also posted or tweeted nonstop, so no way was she going to cut off all her social media ties. Even if she'd run away because she was angry at her parents—and there was no evidence to support that idea—Colebank knew Skylar would have reached out to someone.

Except she didn't. No one had heard one word from the missing girl.

“Skylar would've called someone,” Colebank said later. “She wouldn't let all these people who love her worry about her. That's who she was.” Although none of the law enforcement officers ever met her, they felt like they knew her. Through the pages of her diary the appealing teen had made an impact. Across all departments—from the young FBI agent to the troopers to the detectives and veteran cops—every officer working the case felt that Skylar had touched his, or her, heart.

Even though they suspected Skylar was dead, they weren't giving up. They would keep searching until they found her, even if it was only her remains. The officers promised Mary and Dave—and each another—they wouldn't stop looking until they brought Skylar home.

Behind the scenes, both girls were finding it more difficult to keep up pretenses. In September, Rachel moved in with Rusty to give mother and daughter a much needed break.

Given the way Rachel was behaving, Patricia felt like she was running out of options. Not long after Rachel went to stay with her father, Liz picked her up from Rusty's place. Rachel didn't know her
mother had staged the lunch date because she was so worried about Rachel.

“I think she knows something about that night, about Skylar, but she won't tell me,” Patricia told Liz. “You're so close to her and she thinks the world of you. See if she'll open up.”

Liz chose Rachel's favorite restaurant and while they nibbled on nacho chips, she tried to get Rachel to talk. At first it was difficult. Rachel wouldn't say a word. Then Rachel mentioned Tara. “I had to check with Tara—”

Liz cut her off. “What do you mean you had to check with Tara? She's not your mother, Rachel. You don't need to check with her, or in with her, about anything!” Rachel glanced away, silent.

“Why won't you tell me what's wrong? What really happened that night? What are you not saying?”

Liz could not stop thinking about Skylar. She was terrified of what had befallen the missing teen. She didn't think Rachel would deliberately harm Skylar, but she knew the girls—especially Shelia and Skylar—had been arguing a lot. Patricia had told her about the screaming that had gone on the previous August, and how angry the two girls had been.

Rachel took a sip of her soda.

Liz pressed further. “Did you girls get in a fight?”

Rachel nodded.

“I'm sure when you picked her up, you were in the front seat. Let me guess. Skylar was pissed she had to get in the back seat, and you got to sit with Shelia, right?”

Rachel, silent, nodded again.

“She was jealous of you, wasn't she?”

Rachel only nodded.

Liz sensed Rachel was weakening. “That's why she and Shelia were constantly at each other, isn't it?”

Rachel's head bobbed faster.

To Liz it felt like Rachel wanted her to guess what happened. “Did something go wrong?”

This time Rachel's head went even faster, her nod an emphatic
yes
.

“You girls were out in Blacksville, weren't you?”

That's when Rachel shut down. She looked like she might cry. Liz tried to get Rachel to tell her what went wrong the night Skylar disappeared, not taking her eyes off of Rachel's for a second. She knew if Rachel's eyes darted around she was lying.

“Look, I know you were in Blacksville that night,” Liz felt her temper rising. “Why? Why are you lying to me? What happened to Skylar?”

“We got into a fight and she ran . . . Skylar ran away . . . into the woods.”

It wasn't the whole story, but it was more than the police had heard. When Liz and Rachel left the restaurant two hours later, both their faces were red and splotchy, and wet with newly shed tears. Liz was convinced Rachel knew what happened to Skylar—she was just too terrified to say.

After Liz recounted her conversation with Rachel, she and Patricia brainstormed, trying to come up with answers. They wanted to understand why Shelia and her mother had so much control over Rachel. So many times since July, Rachel had openly defied Patricia to be with Shelia, often with Tara's assistance. Patricia didn't get it, and the more she and Liz thought about it, the less they liked it.

The two women would have been even angrier if they knew what Crissy Swanson knew. Crissy's parents live in Core, a little community just outside of Morgantown on the way to Blacksville. There is a medical clinic and a post office, but not much else.

While Liz and Patricia were busy wondering about Tara that September, so were the Swansons. Crissy's mother was Tara's best
friend as well as a distant relative. After Skylar disappeared, Tara seemed to take solace in her visits to the Swanson house. Crissy said it seemed like she needed someone to confide in, and Tara would often tell Crissy's mom details about the case, who in turn would tell Crissy.

What Crissy remembers most is how Tara seemed to be helping the girls coordinate their stories whenever they had a police interview. “Rachel would call Shelia,” Crissy said, “and tell her the new story or they would get together and then they would go and tell Tara the new story.”

Crissy said it was weird, and overhearing Tara help the girls this way made her really uncomfortable.

By late September law enforcement was widening their net in the search for Skylar. On September 24, Colebank applied to the phone company for Rachel's cell records and the records of the cell towers. When that material arrived, the investigators would learn for certain the girls were lying: the records showed that at the time they'd said they were with Skylar, they were actually calling and texting each other.

Shelia and Rachel weren't even in the same place.

twenty-eight

Facebook Follies

As October approached and
the leaves began turning vibrant autumn colors, everyone following Skylar's story on Facebook wanted to weigh in on the role Mary and Dave had played in their daughter's disappearance. While the real-world drama was moving from a slow simmer to a fast boil at UHS, the virtual world was being whipped into a firestorm. Tension, innuendo, and outright accusations only increased on Facebook and Twitter. As if Skylar's parents hadn't already endured enough, Mary and Dave felt like some people were determined to see them suffer even more.

What began as a small schism in a public Facebook group grew into a big and very ugly family battle. In numerous private emails and public postings during August and September, Jennifer Hunt insinuated her cousin Dave and his wife were hiding something. She said their story had changed several times and implied that, as a result, the police were no longer sharing any information with the Neeses. In fact, Jennifer said, police had begun investigating Mary and Dave. One August 30 she wrote,
When her parents became suspicious early on, info wasn't being shared with them anymore. They are part of the investigation now
.

Even though Dave tried to keep from looking in on TeamSkylar<3, sometimes he just couldn't help himself. Other times he didn't need
to, since many members were very loyal to the Neeses and would alert them to such nonsense. So Dave could do nothing but watch as some of the 3,000 people from TeamSkylar<3 took the rumors at face value and ran with them.

Other people weren't as rash; they just accused Mary and Dave of being evasive. They claimed the couple was withholding information from TeamSkylar<3 members in preference to their own, closed group, TEAMSKYLAR 2012. Some said Mary and Dave weren't open with law enforcement. While their countless questions went mostly unanswered, the group seemed to believe it had a right to know anything and everything. After all, hadn't members been posting, sharing, and praying for this missing girl for months? Hadn't Skylar become their child, too? Didn't that mean they owned a stake in the story, and that her parents owed them an explanation?

Mary and Dave somehow found the strength to respond to as many Facebook messages as they could, in an attempt to control the damage. But inside the privacy of their own home, they both teetered near the edge of collapse. The Facebook drama piled on the trauma of Skylar's disappearance was almost more than they could bear.