Pretty Little Killers (32 page)

One night Dave grew so angry when he saw another post from Hunt that he wanted to hurl the computer through the living room window. Mary urged him to calm down, have a smoke, or take Lilu for a walk. She told him to do anything to get his mind off the cousin he'd never even met, as well as all the people on Facebook they'd once considered their friends.

In truth, Mary realized she didn't even know most of the TeamSkylar<3 members. They were just as much strangers as Hunt and her son. Mary knew only one thing: those “friends” were making it harder and harder for her to get through another day at work.

Joanne Nagy knew what Dave and Mary were facing and felt compelled to intervene. On September 23, Dave's aunt Joanne told TeamSkylar<3 members she wanted
to clear up a few things
. She wrote:

Just because Dave and Mary do not report their every move on FB doesn't mean they are not doing anything. People really need to accept this fact
.
Dave and Mary are not holding up good at all right now. But they get up every morning and somehow keep going. God knows how. . . . They cry every day. Their health is suffering. . . . They barely have the strength in them to eat
.

She reminded the Facebook group that the Neeses' lives had become a public spectacle. Neither Mary nor Dave had the energy to answer the hundreds of questions posed to them, especially the
really far-fetched
ones.

Anyone reading her poignant note had to sense the pain Nagy felt for her family. When she begged every one of the 3,000 TeamSkylar<3 members to
please stop the bickering and fussing
[
and
]
to refocus
[
on
]
the reason we are here
, you could see Joanne, a very religious woman, down on both knees praying that her words would help convince people to back off.

Aunt Joanne's words did seem to provide a respite of sorts. For a while, at least, the level of drama in the Facebook sphere dissipated. Until Hunt's story changed: in the blink of an eye, she claimed in a private email that Skylar was safe and sound. Hunt promised to share the truth with the public very soon. But Hunt's promise was as empty as Rachel telling Colebank she would stop by the police station after camp.

Mary and Dave were furious. Who was this woman? What right did she think she had?

About the same time the adults on Facebook began backing off, Twitter, at the time a more popular venue for teens, exploded. Tweets from real people and from those who were hiding their identities tumbled headfirst into the Skylar drama.

The constant stream of tweets intensified public pressure as Rachel and Shelia tried to get through each school day. At first most of the tweets were relatively harmless. Some made light of
the growing suspicions that were beginning to surface. There were days when Shelia and Rachel would be walking down the hallway between classes and someone would blurt out, “Uh-oh! Better step back! Murderer alert!”

Twitter wasn't the only problem. The pressure was two parts Twitter, one part Daniel Hovatter. He kept haranguing Rachel, demanding information. He wasn't alone. Students throughout UHS wanted Shelia and Rachel to come clean, too. Very quickly, a relentless Twitter campaign came from the direction of two new anonymous Twitter accounts: @Snyder28Josie and @MiaBarr8. The newcomers seemed to have one goal: to harass Shelia and Rachel until they buckled.

To onlookers, it seemed like a game, the only players being @Snyder28Josie and @MiaBarr8. For example, @Snyder28Josie subtweeted
besties dont like having to answer questions of their guilt!!
to @MiaBarr8. Shelia and Rachel were clearly the targets of this “shame game”—and there was no way they could win.

The jokes and accusations against the two girls morphed into something uglier, as some tweets and comments could be classified as threats. Two factors seemed to trigger the onslaught of negative tweets: investigators concluded Skylar was dead, and rumors started circulating that Shelia and Rachel were culpable. The result was tweet after harsh tweet, aimed directly at the two teens.

Shelia's friend Shania Ammons was fed up with the accusations. Shania was also disgusted that people she didn't know were directing their rage at her simply because she was Shelia's friend. So on September 30, Ammons came to Shelia's defense, tweeting,
no matter what I will always have @_sheliiaa back. that girl is my bestfriend #loveyou #staystrong
.

Indeed, Shania's battle cry did fortify her friend. Two days later, Shelia lashed out in typical fashion by tweeting @MiaBarr8:
and a fake twitter account. . . you don't know shit so do us a favor and shut your fuckin mouth
.

Shelia's cousin Crissy had also seen enough. Not only was she being harassed at work, but everyone seemed to believe she had
something to do with Skylar's disappearance. That could be due to her family connection; Crissy was distantly related to Shelia through marriage. Crissy believed people's accusations were ridiculous and amounted to nothing more than guilt by association. She was angry.

The petite blonde took to Facebook rather than Twitter. There, on the TeamSkylar<3 page, Crissy posted her heartfelt defense:
Pardon me for being so blunt & know that I feel SO much for Mary&Dave & their situation
, she typed.
I can't imagine the things they're going through at the moment
.

Then Crissy got to the point, with as much tact as Joanne Nagy had employed two weeks earlier. Crissy spoke eloquently, encouraging people to think before they typed words that could ruin more lives—namely Shelia's and Rachel's:

BUT for those of you trying to place blame on any of Skylar's friends . . . all you are doing is taking away the innocence and life of another's child. Placing blame on someone DOES NOT automatically bring Skylar home. . . . We are all here to help Mary&Dave through their struggle & bring back their beautiful little girl NOT ruin someone else's life
. . . .

Gradually, battle lines were being drawn. Three alliances had formed, but at the heart of their skirmishes there was only one big question they all wanted answered: What were Rachel and Shelia hiding?

Beyond that, they also kept trying to figure out whose car the surveillance tape showed Skylar getting into. It was a question for which there seemed no answer.

The first group, which included the girls' UHS classmates, believed that Shelia and Rachel were, at best, not sharing information they had known from the beginning. Some people, including law enforcement, felt certain that the car in the video was Shelia's.
Few of these people still believed Shelia and Rachel's story about dropping Skylar off at the end of her street.

Another faction, filled with the friends of both girls, took their word as gospel. This group believed in Shelia and Rachel's innocence. Its members stood up for the girls in a show of solidarity and support and often directly asked—or even told—anyone who disagreed to back off.

A third camp, represented by Hunt and her TeamSkylar<3 followers, also believed Shelia and Rachel had been telling the truth since the day Skylar disappeared. They believed Skylar had been dropped off before midnight, just like the two girls said. They thought the surveillance video showed Skylar getting into a
different
car. This third group, however, was growing defensive and its members were openly ugly when publicly expressing their staunch beliefs.

But the importance of those beliefs to the search for Skylar was, by then, irrelevant. Regardless of whose car she'd gotten into, Skylar still had not been found—which meant the search was, by then, not for a missing girl but for her remains.

twenty-nine

Opening Night Approaches

Rachel whined into the
phone: “Mom! Make them stop!”

She was complaining to Patricia about the harassment coming from Gaskins and Berry and Spurlock and
everyone
at school. Several students overheard conversations like this more than once.

Rachel huffily pushed away the plate full of lettuce she'd been picking at. She was sitting at the cafeteria table she and Shelia shared. Shelia sat across from her, looking down. She was texting.

“Mother!” Rachel held the phone away from her ear as Patricia's voice burst from it. She looked at Shelia. “I don't believe this shit,” she said, rolling her eyes. Shelia still didn't look up from her phone. When the phone grew quiet Rachel put it back to her ear.

“They won't leave me alone.” Rachel waited a second for her mother to finish, then shouted, “I want you to do something!” into the cell. Heads around the cafeteria turned as more people took notice. Rachel gripped the phone tightly, her eyes widening. Then her eyes got watery. She burst into sobs.

“I don't know how much longer I can take this!” Rachel's voice collapsed under the weight of her sobs. Shelia glanced up with a disgusted expression; Rachel kept right on crying.

The more Daniel pressured Rachel, the more she stonewalled. Most often the teen claimed she had been so wasted she couldn't remember that night very well. All she could remember was dropping Skylar off at the end of the road.