Pretty Little Killers (53 page)

forty-four

Judgment Days

By her second hearing
,
on October 15, Shelia wasn't smiling. At all.

A photographer later remarked that, unlike the first court appearance, he didn't see Shelia's pearly whites even once. Bespectacled, with her hair pulled back in an updo, she looked even younger than she had at her arraignment two weeks earlier. Extremely subdued, Shelia struck one observer as “possibly drugged,” while another said she “looked like she was
trying
not to have an expression.”

Whatever the reason for her September 17 arraignment smile, Shelia had apparently received a subsequent lesson in appropriate courtroom body language from her defense attorney. Whether out of nervousness or simply being unaware of how she appeared to onlookers, Shelia didn't seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation the first time she was in court. This time, she did.

Benninger filed the motions before Judge Clawges' September 30 deadline. Twelve motions were filed, ranging from a request for bail to a motion to change venue to motions for suppression of evidence. Shelia had waived her right to a speedy trial and was at the pretrial motions hearing at 9:00
A.M
. to hear the judge's rulings.

In support of his motions, Benninger told the court he'd recently received the FBI report. He said it contained numerous “technical lab
studies and photos.” In addition, Benninger had “thousands of pages of documentation” he said supported his request to move the case out of Monongalia County.

Clawges wasted no time on one motion in particular. When Benninger requested bail for his client, Clawges ruled swiftly: “No.”

Benninger also asked to have the trial moved to another county because of “substantial publicity and prejudice”; to bring in jurors from another area; to have Rachel Shoaf's testimony suppressed, due to her supposed mental instability; and to have all the charges dropped, citing prosecutorial misconduct.

Prosecutor Ashdown responded to the motions later that week, saying no misconduct had occurred and disagreeing that Shelia's chance at a fair trial has been hampered by excessive media reports.

As for the motion to move the trial, some Monongalia County residents already knew a lot about the case, but many hadn't even heard of it. Ashdown had gone to great lengths to prevent the media from revealing anything other than details that were a matter of public record anyway. She held no press conferences and made no public statements about teen killers or the plight of today's youth. She had been keeping a tight lid on the case since Rachel's confession in January.

What Ashdown didn't object to was the trial being delayed. Benninger requested this because he said his client's legal team needed time to look through all the documents from the prosecution. Then, the start of the trial was actually moved to an earlier date, since the court had an open date on the docket. But it never came to pass. On a frigid Friday in January, Shelia Eddy shocked everyone when she pled guilty to first-degree murder.

Anyone who saw Shelia's criminal case file would question how the teen's attorney could defend her. In the end, he couldn't.

“I have found negligible, if any, basis . . . to develop a defense,” Benninger said. He looked through “every piece of paper, video, and audio,” he received about the case, and met with or talked to his
client or her family about thirty times. After digging through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and even federal case law, Shelia's defense attorney said he found nothing that would allow him to mount a reasonable defense for his client. In the end, Benninger realized “there was little more that I or anyone else could do for this young lady.”

Media from New York City and elsewhere flew in to cover the January 24 hearing, which was broadcast over a live video feed online. People dressed in purple—Skylar's favorite color—filled the courtroom. As Shelia was escorted in, she passed her mother and stepfather, her father, and other family members, as well as armed bailiffs wearing bulletproof vests.

Her hair was in a low side ponytail, but her blonde highlights had grown out, changing her back to a brunette. She wore large-framed glasses and an orange jumpsuit. Her hands and feet were shackled. Like her last court appearance, Shelia seemed to move slowly, almost as if she were drugged. Or afraid of what was to come.

By the time she took her seat at the defense table, her face was contorted and she began to cry. Oddly, it was one of the few times Shelia showed any emotion—causing many people to claim she cried crocodile tears. As Dave and others later said, “She wasn't crying for what she'd done, she was crying because she got caught.”

Although Shelia Eddy pled guilty to intentionally killing Skylar Neese, she didn't utter one word about what she and her co-conspirator did—she simply pled guilty to all the charges Clawges read from his bench. Shelia said she understood what they meant. She said no one had pressured her to plead guilty. She even said her legal representation was good.

But the words Skylar's family most needed to hear—“I'm sorry”—were the ones Shelia couldn't, or wouldn't, say.

Or perhaps equally important, “Please forgive me.”

Although Benninger read from a prepared statement and said his client and her family recognized the Neeses are in “a constant state of despair, loneliness, and sadness,” the absence of those words from Shelia's own mouth left those in attendance dumbfounded. They wondered how Shelia could plead guilty to premeditated,
first-degree murder—but remain silent when she was given a chance to prove her remorse.

In a room filled with the sound of weeping, Ashdown alluded to the motive behind the murder: Rachel and Shelia, she said, were “worried that Skylar would divulge their secrets. The kind of secrets girls have and . . .” Ashdown paused, “other things.”

The prosecutor didn't elaborate, but it seemed to be a direct reference to Shelia and Rachel's
sexual
relationship. At first, Ashdown said, the two teens began to distance themselves from Skylar. But when they came to believe Skylar planned to expose their relationship, they murdered her.

Ashdown confirmed they lured Skylar into Shelia's vehicle, drove to the Blacksville area, and crossed the state line into Pennsylvania. They turned down a narrow country lane to an isolated area familiar to all three girls, where they planned to smoke weed.

At times while listening to Ashdown, Mary teared up and snuggled closer into the crook of Dave's right arm as he shook his head. The back of his neck was a florid red after the prosecutor described how Shelia and Rachel had hidden knives on their bodies and how the FBI had found blood in the trunk of Shelia's car.

“Relax, relax,” Mary whispered in Dave's ear.

Ashdown continued, saying that instead of doing what Skylar thought they would do that night, Shelia and Rachel “both stabbed Skylar multiple times. Skylar fought back and tried to run but she was overcome by her attackers.”

The prosecutor's next words were especially poignant. “They changed into clean, unbloody clothes and returned to their lives.”

Judge Clawges accepted Shelia's guilty plea, saying she had waived her pre-sentencing rights. The family was invited to give an oral
statement. Skylar's mother, Mary, didn't trust herself to speak. So her sister Carol spoke on her behalf.

“She's taken hopes and dreams from my sister,” Skylar's aunt said. That's because Mary Neese was cheated out of seeing Skylar go to the prom, graduate high school, or get married. With Skylar's murder, Carol told the judge, Mary also lost any chance of becoming a grandmother. Everyone heard the sadness in Carol's voice and saw the tears flow down her cheeks, and more people in the courtroom started crying.

Moments after Carol returned to her seat, Dave Neese walked to the prosecutor's table and began reading from a prepared statement. His voice was small and quiet, in complete contrast to his bearlike size. When he stumbled over the words, the lead investigator, Corporal Ronnie Gaskins, reached his arm out as if to imbue Dave with the strength needed to go on.

Dave did, but not before he broke down sobbing. “My life and my wife's life has been drastically altered. We are no longer a family,” Dave said.

Many people in the courtroom wept openly at Carol and Dave's words. No doubt Clawges was touched by what he heard, too, but in the end, that made no difference when it came to his sentence.
Miller v. Alabama
(U.S. Supreme Court, June 25 2012) requires “the court to impose a sentence of life imprisonment with mercy,” Clawges told Shelia, “which means you would be eligible for parole after fifteen years.”

The decision “is kind of binding on all of us,” he added, since it means imposing “a sentence of life without mercy upon a juvenile would be a violation of the cruel and inhuman[e] punishment provisions of the United States Constitution.”

So while Shelia received a life sentence, she will be eligible for parole in fifteen years. Clawges stressed the law allows for no more. However, that does not mean Shelia will find herself on the road to freedom that soon. The parole board must make that decision. One major factor that entity will consider is Shelia's remorse—or lack thereof—perhaps as evidenced by the words she didn't say to the Neeses that day.