# Murder of Skylar Neese

Skylar Annette Neese (February 10, 1996 – July 6, 2012) was a sixteen-year-old American girl who disappeared from her home in Star City, West Virginia, around midnight on July 6, 2012. Her body was found in January 2013, across the nearby state line, in Wayne Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania.
Neese was murdered by two of her high school best friends, Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf. In January 2013, Shoaf confessed to authorities that she and Eddy planned and carried out Neese's murder. Shoaf pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on May 1, 2013, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison with eligibility for parole after 10 years. Eddy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on January 24, 2014, and was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 15 years. Neese's disappearance led to new West Virginia legislation that made changes to the AMBER Alert missing child alert system.

## Background
### Victim

Skylar Annette Neese was the only child of Mary and Dave Neese. At the time, Mary Neese was working as an administrative assistant at a cardiac laboratory and Dave Neese was a product assembler at Walmart. Skylar was an honor student at University High School in Monongalia County and wanted to become a criminal defense attorney. During the evenings, she also worked at Wendy's.

### Perpetrators

Shelia Rae Eddy (born September 28, 1995) was born in Blacksville, West Virginia to Tara Clendenen and Greg Eddy. Eddy's parents divorced in 2000 after her father was in car wreck that left him with a traumatic brain injury. Eddy had been friends with Skylar Neese since they were 8 years old, after having met at a local children's activity program called The Shack. After her mother remarried in 2010, she and her mother moved from Blacksville to Morgantown, WV, where Shelia was then able to start attending University High School along side Skylar Neese.
Rachel Elizabeth Shoaf (born June 10, 1996) was raised in Morgantown, West Virginia. She is the daughter of Rusty and Patricia Shoaf. Rachel Shoaf attended a private catholic school until high school. She then started attending University High School, where she met Eddy and Neese.

## Disappearance

On July 5, 2012, Neese returned to her family's Star City, West Virginia, apartment after working a shift at Wendy's. Her apartment complex's surveillance video shows Neese left the apartment via her bedroom window at 12:30 a.m. on July 6 and got into a light colored sedan. At first the identities of the occupants were unknown, until early fall of 2012. After having been caught in a lie about the timeline of when Neese was picked up, Eddy finally admitted that the car was hers. Neese's father said she did not take her cell phone charger, contact lenses or solution, her window was left open, and that she planned on coming home.
Murder
According to the court transcript, Shoaf said that she and Eddy picked up Neese in Eddy's car. In the trunk of the car, Eddy and Shoaf had hid cleaning rags, bleach, wet wipes, a shovel, and a clean outfit for each of them to change once the murder was over. They wrapped the knives in towels and tucked them under their arms. They pulled up to Neese's apartment complex around 12:30 AM, where she is seen climbing into the back seat of the car. The girls then drove to Brave, Pennsylvania, and stopped at a location that all three of the girls were familiar with as they had been there on occasions to smoke marijuana. The three girls got out of the car and began socializing. Shoaf and Eddy claimed that they had forgotten to bring a lighter with them. Neese said she would go to the car to retrieve a lighter. After turning her back to them, Shoaf and Eddy then counted to 3, and on 3, Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy attacked Skylar Neese and stabbed her to death. Skylar attempted to run but did not make it very far because Shoaf tackled her and continued to stab her, with Eddy following close behind. At some point during the murder, Neese managed to get Rachel's knife from her and stabbed her above the ankle. Shoaf claimed that she stopped the attack after being injured but that Eddy continued to stab Neese until there was complete silence and Neese's neck "stopped making weird sounds." After they were certain Neese was dead, the teens attempted to bury Neese's body, but were unable to do because the ground was too hard and rocky, and so they instead covered the body with branches, dirt, and leaves. The killers then changed out of their bloody clothing, wiped themselves and the car down with wet wipes, and then left the scene.

## Investigation

Neese was initially considered by law enforcement authorities to be a runaway and an AMBER Alert was not issued for the then-minimum 48 hours in connection with her disappearance. An early tip indicated that Neese had been seen in North Carolina, but the Star City Police Department determined that the person spotted was not Neese. Neese's parents posted flyers about their missing daughter in the Monongalia County region. Police determined that the unknown sedan in which Neese was last seen belonged to Eddy and interviewed her. Eddy admitted to picking up Neese but stated that she had dropped her off an hour later. The FBI and the West Virginia State Police joined the search for Neese on September 10, 2012, and began interviewing Neese's school friends. Approximately 6 months after the murder occurred, Rachel Shoaf suffered a nervous breakdown, prompting her mother to call 911. In the background of the call, Rachel can be heard screaming. She was taken to a local psychiatric hospital, where she remained for 5 days. After she was released Shoaf asked to be immediately taken to her lawyer's office, where she then confessed to the crime. The motivation Shoaf gave for the murder was they "didn't like her" and "didn't want to be friends with her anymore". David Neese stated that these two girls were among his daughter's best friends and that Eddy had even helped the family by distributing missing person flyers. After her confession, Shoaf led investigators to Neese's body. On March 13, 2013, U.S. Attorney William J. Ihlenfeld II issued a press release stating that a body found just over the nearby state line on January 16, 2013, in Wayne Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania, had been identified as the body of Neese. Neese's body was found less than 30 miles (48 km) away from her home.

## Criminal charges

On May 1, 2013, Shoaf pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. The teens attempted to bury Neese's body, but were unable to do so and instead covered the body with branches. The court transcript indicates that other students overheard conversations between Shoaf and Eddy about the murder plot, but failed to report it, mistakenly believing that the girls were joking. According to Shoaf's plea agreement, she pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree by "unlawfully, feloniously, willfully, maliciously and intentionally causing the death of Skylar Neese by stabbing her and causing fatal injuries". In the plea agreement, the State of West Virginia recommended a sentence of 20 years incarceration. Shoaf's family issued a public apology for their daughter's actions through their lawyer. Following her guilty plea on May 1, 2013, on February 26, 2014, Shoaf received a sentence of 30 years in prison, with eligibility for parole after 10 years.
Rachel Shoaf expressed remorse and apologized to the Neeses, her own family, and God during her sentencing. One of the first clues for police that the girls knew more than what they were saying was a diary entry by Shoaf dated the day after murder occurred. In this entry, Shoaf wrote several pages about the "Skylar situation" and asked God for forgiveness for "what happened that night" and for "all these lies." Shoaf further expressed remorse in her May 2023 parole hearing and finally gave a motive for the crime, which was that she and Eddy had been in a romantic relationship and this caused tension between the couple and Neese. This motive, though it had long been speculated, had never been confirmed by either of Neese's killer until then. Neese herself documented this in her diary in Fall of 2011, after she had attended a sleep over at Shoaf's house, along with Eddy. Neese wrote that all three of them had been drinking alcohol, and that while in their drunken state, Eddy and Shoaf began to have sex. Neese had to stay in the room, fearing that if she left that she would encounter Shoaf's mother, who was known to be very strict, and did not want this to happen because they had all been drinking. Rachel Shoaf was denied parole and remains incarcerated. Also in her May 2023 parole hearing, Rachel Shoaf claimed that she and Eddy were both immediately remorseful following the murder and said that they both cried and vomited after the attack, though Eddy has never shown any public indication of being remorseful for the crime. At Shoaf's second parole hearing in July 2024, she was also denied. She will have her next parole hearing in 2026. Shoaf's estimated release year is 2028, due to credits for good behavior/being a model prisoner. Shelia Eddy will not have her first chance at parole until the same year, 2028.
On September 4, 2013, West Virginia prosecutors publicly identified Eddy as the second alleged perpetrator of the murder of Neese and announced that she would be tried as an adult. Eddy was indicted by a grand jury on September 6, 2013, on one count of kidnapping, one count of first-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. She pleaded not guilty.
The date of the trial was originally set for January 28, 2014. Facing the prospect of additional charges from Pennsylvania authorities, Eddy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. She expressed no remorse, but was sentenced to life in prison "with mercy"; while sentenced as an adult, West Virginia law (as confirmed for the entire U.S. in SCOTUS' 2012 decision Miller v. Alabama) requires that a juvenile offender have a possibility of parole on a whole-life sentence, with Eddy eligible for parole after 15 years. Pennsylvania authorities did not file charges as per the plea deal.
Eddy originally was held in a facility for juveniles after her arrest. As of September 2023, Eddy remains in custody at the Lakin Correctional Center (LCL), adjacent to the Ohio River, West Virginia's western border, with Ohio. As of September 2023, Shoaf also remains in custody at LCL.

## Skylar's Law

An Amber Alert was not issued in Skylar Neese's disappearance because the circumstances did not meet all four criteria for an alert to be issued: (1) a child is believed to be abducted; (2) the child is under 18; (3) the child may be in danger of death or serious injury; (4) there is sufficient information to indicate the Amber Alert would be helpful. A waiting period of 48 hours had to elapse before a teenager could be considered missing. A West Virginia state legislator from the Neese family home district introduced a bill called Skylar's Law to modify West Virginia's Amber Alert plan to issue immediate public announcements when any child is reported missing and in danger, regardless of whether the child is believed to have been kidnapped. Opinion columns appeared in both West Virginia and national media in support of Skylar's Law, some of which also acknowledged criticism and drawbacks of the legislation. On March 27, 2013, the West Virginia House of Delegates approved Skylar's Law with a 98–0 vote. On April 12, 2013, the West Virginia Senate unanimously passed the law, but made minor technical changes to the bill which the House of Delegates voted to accept on the same day. West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin signed the legislation into law in May 2013.