Pretty Little Killers (47 page)

The Close of the Day

Not long before Rachel
and Shelia were taken into custody, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin put pen to paper on April 29 and approved the pending legislation that transformed one angry mother's late-night Facebook rant into Skylar's Law. Governor Tomblin didn't know it, but with his official seal on the new law, he gave the Neeses the only happy ending they would ever have. Skylar's Law is now being used as a model by several other states to help reform their own AMBER Alert systems, and the reform stands to provide a beacon of hope for parents of presently and future missing children.

On May 1, four long months after Rachel's confession, Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf were arrested for the role they played in Skylar's death.

When people heard about the Shoaf family's beach trip just before Rachel pled guilty on May 1, the online discussion boards lit up. Busybodies who knew nothing beyond the pictures that showed up online and Rachel's tweets characterized it as a last mother-daughter
fling. Other people questioned the competence of the authorities charged with investigating and prosecuting the case.

Even though the police already had Rachel's confession, and she had passed an extensive polygraph exam afterward, they still didn't have any hard evidence to arrest her. They were still waiting for the results of the DNA analysis. So the authorities had no reason
not
to let Rachel leave the state. Until the police had enough evidence to charge her with murder, she was free to come and go at will.

Despite the public's misperceptions, the trip was taken for one reason: so Rachel could say goodbye to her maternal grandparents, who lived in Virginia Beach. Because Rachel's arrest was imminent, the Shoafs knew she wasn't going to see her grandparents for a long time, if ever again.

The online community's reaction to the Virginia Beach trip once again highlights social media's uncertain connections to the truth. For instance, Rachel's tweet
sunday is the day when me and my mom get drunk together and its a great time
made their beach trip sound like one nonstop party. In truth, this tweet occurred after Patricia let Rachel have a sip of her mimosa. Rachel tweeted it because she wanted to appear cool, like Shelia and Tara. Liz says Rachel also did it because she was trying to prove to Shelia that her mother was cool, too. Another person close to the Shoafs said Rachel tweeted the lie to make her mother angry. She succeeded.

All through the late winter and early spring, Rachel had been trying to shore up her image as a happy innocent for her friends, her fans, and the strangers who were becoming more curious about her. She said once her name was cleared, she was moving to Canada or England, where no one knew the rumors and she could study acting. Once she simply tweeted,
i just cant wait to get the hell out of here and start a completely new life
.

Some of Rachel's tweets seemed manufactured, as if they were designed to portray her days as normal, when instead they masked her hidden life. On January 16, for instance, she tweeted,
my life is beyond boring right now
. Rachel just wanted people to think she was no different than she ever had been.

Rachel's other tweets held a ring of denial and exhausted depression:
can i sleep til im 18 then wake up? that'd be perfect
and
i can't remember what's a dream and what's reality anymore
.

But sometimes, like someone hiding behind a translucent window sheer, reality has a way of becoming visible. This happened on February 10, when Rachel tweeted,
happy birthday skylar
. Later that same night, she tweeted,
i hate the shit i think about at night
. By the next day, she seemed to be shaking off her dark thoughts:
yeah, there are plenty of things i regret from my past. but im on a completely new path now and i really wish people could appreciate that
. Amidst all of this, Rachel had to face constant harassment, some of which she responded to reasonably (
seriously why can't you guys just mind your own business
) and some with a burst of anger (
GOD I HATE YOU GO AWAY
).

She did receive occasional support from a friend or two (
@_racchh rumors are rumors and that's all they will ever be, people who matter won't believe them anyways!
). Some of Rachel's friends believed the teenager just
couldn't
have done anything so heinous as kill one of her BFFs. Other friends simply thought the legal system accorded her the same right as everyone else: namely, that she should be viewed as innocent until proven guilty.

Rachel tweeted fairly regularly about her life with Mikinzy. There was her January 13
so proud :') @mikinzyboggs
tweet. Two weeks later, on January 29:
mikinzy is so fun to talk to cause he's so curious about life and how people think
. Rachel seemed to value the relationship, and in early March she even tweeted
thank god i have a reliable boyfriend lol seriously
.

Unbeknownst to Rachel, Mikinzy wouldn't be hers much longer. By the time Rachel pled guilty to second-degree murder, they had broken up again.

As previously arranged, Rachel Shoaf turned herself in to Monongalia County Circuit Court on Wednesday morning, May 1. After being
processed, she and her lawyer went straight to Judge Clawges' courtroom, where she pled guilty to second-degree murder.

Neither Shelia nor her mother, Tara, had a clue this was happening. By late morning, they were enjoying a meal together at Cracker Barrel.

Corporal Gaskins was not at the hearing. He was on standby, waiting for a call from the prosecutor's office to pick up Shelia. He had already called Tara's cell phone company hoping they would release her location without a warrant. They wouldn't.

Shortly after the hearing ended, Gaskins received a call from the assistant prosecutor.

“It's going to be on the radio soon,” Perri Jo DeCristopher told him. “Time to get Shelia.”

With Gaskins and Spurlock driving lead, two cruisers rushed to the Clendenen house in Canyon. When they arrived, no one was home. Gaskins and Spurlock talked over their options.

Gaskins looked at Spurlock and shrugged. “I'm going to call her.”

To their surprise, it was that easy. In the course of their brief conversation, Tara said she and Shelia were eating at Cracker Barrel.

At one point, Tara asked, “Do I need to get my attorney?”

“Probably should,” Gaskins said, and then he downplayed it, trying to ensure Tara didn't grow nervous: “Well, you guys enjoy your meal. Call us when you're done.”

As soon as he hung up, Gaskins said, “Let's get to Cracker Barrel.”

The cruisers took off, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Gaskins knew speed was important; Tara and Shelia might be gone by the time they arrived. When Gaskins learned that Trooper Tierney was just leaving the detachment, he radioed Tierney.

“Turn around, block the Cracker Barrel entrance,” Gaskins ordered. “Nobody gets in or out.”

Tierney rushed to Cracker Barrel and did just that. He got out of his car and walked toward the restaurant. He didn't know what Tara and Shelia looked like, but he approached two females who were leaving the restaurant.

“Are you Shelia's mom?” he asked Tara.

“Yeah,” Tara said.

“Well, you can't leave,” Tierney said.

When Gaskins and Spurlock pulled up, Tierney was standing with Tara and Shelia on the sidewalk. Gaskins could feel eyes on him and he and his partner jumped out. Sure enough, several people were watching from inside as Gaskins spoke the words he'd been waiting months to say.

“Shelia Eddy, you are under arrest for the murder of Skylar Neese.”

Tara sat down on the curb. Gaskins handed her a copy of the arrest warrant.

“I think you need to call your lawyer now. Your daughter's being arrested for murder. She's coming with us.”

As Gaskins handcuffed Shelia, she asked plaintively, “Mom, is everything going to be all right?”

“Shelia, I don't know,” Tara could barely manage, as her trembling fingers punched the number for Mike Benninger, Shelia's lawyer.

forty

Rachel Cops a Deal

Shelia's arraignment hearing had
been brief, less than thirty minutes, but because she was underage, few people outside of the courtroom knew about it. The public only learned that an unnamed juvenile was facing charges related to Skylar's murder, and that juvenile was in custody. A great many people had already concluded that girl was Shelia Eddy, thanks to details released after Rachel pled guilty to second-degree murder. By then, Shelia was being transported to juvenile detention.

Judge Russell Clawges, Jr., presided over Rachel's May 1 plea hearing. Prosecutor Ashdown had talked with him weeks before. Ashdown wanted Clawges because of his reputation for conducting smooth trials with a minimum of drama. A high-profile case like this one needed to be free of “hitches and mistakes,” a confidential source explained.

They wanted to schedule a ninety-minute block of the court's time, which was tricky. It had to be on a day that the prosecution, the defense, and the judge all had an open ninety minutes. By early April
they had sufficient evidence to corroborate Rachel's confession and arrest Shelia—but it took nearly a month to schedule the hearing on the court's docket.

The prosecution team wanted to sweep through the proceedings with one quick hearing, to keep the news as quiet as possible. They planned to begin with a juvenile hearing to transfer Rachel to adult status, and then move through Rachel's plea hearing, where she would plead guilty to murdering Skylar. A typed note telling the public that court was in session was the only sign anything was happening, as Judge Clawges began.

By the time the proceedings ended ninety minutes later, Mary and Dave had finally learned the answer to the single most important question of the last ten months: What had happened to their daughter?

According to Rachel Shoaf's admission in court, she had “unlawfully, feloniously, willfully, maliciously, and intentionally caus[ed] the death of Skylar Neese by stabbing her and causing fatal injuries.”