Pretty Little Killers (46 page)

In silence, Mary and Dave both cried, their arms supporting each other in their shared grief. Dave felt the snow pelting his face and thought of his little girl,
their
little girl, and what she must have gone through that night. Again, he told himself that he should have been there for her.

Riding home, temporarily cleansed by tears, Mary spoke: “How did you all find this place?”

“Rachel told them,” Dave said. Even though the prosecutor's office hadn't officially told them about January's confession, several people whom Dave believed were in the know had already laid it out.

“Through investigation,” was all Tessa would say, but it looked to Dave like she was nodding as she said it.

Riding back in silence it occurred to Dave that he should try to remember how to return to the spot. Then he realized he didn't need to. He knew Mary would know the way if they wanted to come back, but at that moment he also couldn't imagine why either of them ever would.

Gaskins couldn't get Skylar Neese out of his mind. He kept replaying the day they had found her. The crime scene unit had been on site for nearly forty-eight hours after they found the remains. Gaskins, several other state troopers, and FBI agents had carefully sifted, bagged, and tagged anything that might contain clues to how this person—who Gaskins was convinced was Skylar—died. Or who might have been responsible, or where the knives and shovel were. Most worrisome was that they hadn't found her skull.

For over two months, Gaskins' thoughts kept coming back to that. He had since moved on to other cases, but he couldn't forget about her missing head. By March 29 temperatures had climbed to the 60s. When First Sergeant Chad Tierney asked Gaskins to take him out to see the site, Gaskins jumped at the opportunity.

“That shovel might still be around there,” Gaskins said.

As he drove, Gaskins and Tierney talked about the case. Most likely, scavengers were responsible for her head being missing. Gaskins knew bodies that are left outdoors for months are always victimized a second time—first comes the death and then the ravages of wildlife and weather. In earlier cases Gaskins had worked, he'd found bones as much as a quarter mile or farther from the victim's body.

He also thought about how Rachel's confession had taken him completely by surprise. He and Berry had known for months that Shelia and Rachel were withholding information, but they never believed the teens had stabbed their friend to death. That's when he realized the bank robberies were completely unconnected to the murder.

The lack of real evidence, coupled with Rachel's confession, had taken the pressure off the Conaway boys. They ceased being primary suspects. Gaskins could no longer see any reason for their involvement.

When they arrived at the site, Gaskins showed Tierney where they found Skylar. Then he led the way up a little road that was more
like a footpath than one vehicles would travel. It curved around the mountain and led up to a pond. Gaskins told Tierney about the mine shafts he and Berry had searched, and the T-shirt they'd found.

The two troopers were walking back down the road when Gaskins glanced over. Scanning the field, he saw an odd glint in the sunlight. “Man, that doesn't look right.”

Gaskins and Tierney kept walking. “It might be the skull,” Tierney told him.

“It can't be that easy.”

But it was. As they drew near, they could tell it was a human skull. Gaskins couldn't believe it. He was so excited he could barely find the right screen on his phone to call Berry.

“Grab my camera. Grab my crime scene stuff. Get out here right now.”

Berry had to restrain himself as he drove the familiar route. He knew the road so well he could easily drive much faster than the speed limit. Still, Gaskins was waiting, and so was Skylar—all of Skylar could be returned to Dave and Mary.

When Berry arrived, he took photos from every angle. Then they gently placed Skylar's skull inside an evidence bag and took it to the Greene County coroner.

Not long before Rachel pled guilty, she invited Wendy Evans for a sleepover. Wendy had been friends with Rachel since they were freshmen but over time their friendship had faded. Because they hadn't done anything together in many months, Wendy was surprised but pleased to receive Rachel's invitation. Ever since Shelia came onto the scene, Rachel had been different. Wendy thought Rachel was trying to rekindle their friendship, so she was excited about the upcoming visit.

However, that night Rachel dropped a bombshell. “I have something to tell you,” Rachel said once they were alone in her bedroom. “You know all those rumors, about Skylar, about the FBI pulling me out of classes, going around school? The police caught Shelia and she's probably going to jail. I just found out she killed Skylar.”

Wendy stared at her friend as though she couldn't believe what she was hearing. “What do you mean? Weren't you both with Skylar that night?”

“I know!” Rachel said, a look of sincere shock seeming to spread across her entire face. “So she must have gone back and done it after she dropped me off, right? That's the only thing I can figure. I can't believe all these months I've actually been friends with a murderer!”

“How did she kill her?”

“I don't know—but I could have been next! What if it had been me instead?” Rachel looked truly terrified at having been such close friends with a girl who turned out to be a murderer.

Wendy was stunned. “Wow!”

“I know, it's like—all those jokes, about being a murderer—those kids were right! Right?” Rachel gave Wendy an incredulous look, her brows raised high.

Wendy had never liked Shelia, who seemed sketchy and rolled her eyes a lot. In fact, Wendy had harbored her own suspicions the previous fall. She believed Shelia could do such a terrible thing, but not Rachel, who often wrote her very best friends little notes in class, telling them how amazing they were, how much she loved them, and loved being with them. No. Rachel would never have killed Skylar. She was far too sweet to hurt anyone—much less murder them.

It was a Twitter exchange—over baby turtles, of all things—that left people chattering.

The short series of tweets among Shania, Shelia, and her cousin, Lexy Eddy, was intensely scrutinized in light of Rachel's plea and Shelia's arrest. People trying to interpret it said the tweets were a sign of Shelia's deep pathology. A thread on the local Topix Morgantown site called it “disgusting.”

The tweet exchange took place about 9:45 in the evening on April 9, 2013:

       
S
HELIA
:
     
my father is telling me to kill my wittle baby turtles
.

       
L
EXY
:
        
that's the solution. you wouldn't have to worry about em anymore
.

       
S
HELIA
:
     
-_-

Shelia then retweeted Lexy's
wellll do ya have a hammer on ya
? and added
HAHAHA exactly what he said
.

Shania chimed in, and Shelia retweeted it:
@slexy_@_shelia let me hit them with a hammer
.

The troubling tweets ended with Shelia's,
it's not that i don't want them. it's that they're fucking green dude

Normally, this kind of “conversation” would be seen as absurd. But the people who were combing through Shelia, Rachel, and Skylar's Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram records were looking for evidence of anything that would indicate the two teens had killed Skylar.

What would have been taken for silliness before Skylar's murder became an example of callous neglect at best, sadism at worst.

When asked about the exchange, Greg Eddy shed some light on his daughter's baby turtles—and therefore, the tweets about them.
²⁹
Greg said Shelia bought the tiny creatures from a pet store. Over the next few weeks, though, she discovered her new pets were sick, so she said she wanted to take them to a vet's office, to have them put to sleep. When Shelia told her father that, he said it would be ridiculous to pay so much money when she could easily take care of
the turtles herself. He suggested she hit them with a hammer, which would be quick and painless.

Greg's explanation certainly sounded plausible, and from her own tweets, Shelia seemed to be in a light-hearted, joking mood, typing
wittle
for
little
. She also said they were green, which could have been a reference to their being sick.

While Shelia was talking about humanely putting her baby turtles down, or merely taunting the world she knew was watching her online movements, Rachel was packing a suitcase and preparing for what she knew would be a final visit to her grandparents' home.

thirty-nine