The Savage Murder of Skylar Neese: The Truth Behind the Headlines (14 page)

BOOK: The Savage Murder of Skylar Neese: The Truth Behind the Headlines
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Chapter 28
All That Remains

By January 16, Gaskins couldn’t wait any longer. Snow had smothered the area for two weeks, slowly melting off. To the veteran trooper, the two very long weeks had seemed to drag on and on. He waited as long as he could, finally deciding to try again.

The team traveled as before: Gaskins and Angotti in the front of the lead car with Rachel in the backseat and Spurlock and Ambrosini in the following car. A cadaver dog unit supplied by the state police would meet them there. Gaskins took the same route as they had two weeks earlier.

Gaskins pulled his cruiser over at the same GPS coordinates Rachel had led them to before. It looked very different with the snow mostly gone. This time, the place was familiar. As they waited for the dogs to arrive, Gaskins remembered all the times he and Trooper Berry had searched the area. All told, the two troopers scoured the wooded mountains and searched six mine shafts. One time in particular, they had hiked up the hillside and looked in a mine shaft. There they found a size medium, green T-shirt similar to the one Skylar had been wearing. They also found bones.

Worried about the find, they were relieved when they learned the bones were those of an animal. But the T-shirt was another matter. That took some time. When it was tested for Skylar’s DNA, the test came back negative.

When the cadaver dog unit arrived and the handler was ready to go, the dog was turned loose and the search began. Not long after, the FBI agent noticed that the small GPS unit on the canine’s collar had fallen off.

The agent called out, saying he needed to find the $300 piece of equipment. He retraced the animal’s steps and discovered the unit stuck between some rotting wood. He bent over. The agent started to pick up the unit, then suddenly stopped when he saw something that looked like it had been dead for quite a while.

There, buried under rocks, branches, and other debris, about fifteen feet from the gravel road, the team discovered human remains. Skylar had been buried just twenty miles from her home.

Already ravaged by weather and time, the remains were unrecognizable except for one feature: they were clearly those of a small human being. Worst of all, the head was missing.

Only Gaskins, a member of an elite state crime scene unit, a veteran trooper who had worked more than thirty crime scenes across the state and had personal knowledge of the case, recognized the tattered fragments of clothing Skylar had worn her last day on earth: a green print shirt and stained yellow shorts.

Feelings of relief that their search had come to an end mingled with feelings of happiness for Mary and Dave. Overwhelmed by emotion, Gaskins couldn’t keep from crying.

***

At 11:53 that same morning, Josie Snyder took to her keyboard to send out a poignant tweet. She wanted the world to know what she knew, but at the same time, Josie wanted the message to be somber and subtle:
SKY is so gloomy today :(
.

Whoever they were, Josie Snyder’s sources were solid. Her tweet about Skylar being found came on the morning of the same day she
was
found.

***

For the next forty-eight hours, the crime scene was sealed off. But the presence of so many FBI agents and State Police troopers wandering around was bound to have caused a stir among the neighbors. All Gaskins and Spurlock hoped was that they could get the goods on Shelia before she got word that Skylar’s remains had been found.

Gaskins alerted Greene County authorities they would be bringing the human remains to the coroner. When they reached the office, Coroner Gregory Rohanna was given strict orders not to release any information about the body. Not to the media or anyone else. The police still had one suspect loose, and they didn’t want her knowing the authorities were onto her.

***

The coming negotiations were likely to be complex. The immunity problem was unresolved and whoever tried the case would need Rachel’s testimony in court. All of the agencies—the Monongalia County prosecutor, the Greene County district attorney, the U.S. Attorney General’s offices in West Virginia, and the FBI, which answered to its Washington, DC, headquarters—had to agree to the deal. Even under the best of circumstances, this kind of three-way legal haggling took time. It would mean acting as if the remains Rachel had spoken of
were
, in fact, Skylar’s. Once the deal was crafted, those remains would have to be identified and examined to determine her death was caused by foul play. Only then could the case move forward.

After these problems were resolved, another, bigger issue arose. Police and prosecutors had to determine if Skylar had been killed in Pennsylvania or murdered in West Virginia first, and then taken over the state line.

West Virginia authorities had been involved from the outset, and both the victim and her alleged killers were West Virginia residents. On the other hand, the remains had been found in Pennsylvania, so if Pennsylvania authorities wanted to pursue the case, they had a right to do so. To further complicate matters, federal authorities also had a claim: whenever criminals cross state lines while carrying out a crime, such as kidnapping, the crime turns into a federal offense.

Ultimately, Monongalia County prosecuting attorney Marsha Ashdown took the case, meaning West Virginia claimed jurisdiction because the “originating crime” occurred in Monongalia County. That is, Skylar Neese really
was
kidnapped. She had been lured into a vehicle under false pretenses. That action set off the chain of events leading to her death. However, the Greene County district attorney and the U.S. district attorney would still need to agree to whatever deal Ashdown’s office crafted.

Chapter 29
Skylar’s Law

Mary and Dave had both missed so much work since Skylar disappeared they didn’t even have enough money to fill their gas tank. Yet they had been invited to address the House Legislative Committee in the middle of February 2013, a month after Skylar’s as-yet-unidentified remains were found. Gas or no gas, they were going to Charleston to help make Skylar’s Law real.

Skylar’s Law had been introduced with Delegate Charlene Marshall as the lead sponsor. The clock was ticking, the time fast approaching for the Legislative Committee to discuss the bill, and Charlene wanted the committee to hear the story of Skylar’s disappearance. She wanted them to know how badly Skylar’s Law was needed.

Dave hoped Mary would join him, but she refused. And Dave—who realized his wife was a more mature copy of Skylar in temperament—understood he shouldn’t push her. Mary felt like she couldn’t hold up through the ordeal. Her emotions were a rubber band stretched to its breaking point. She couldn’t go down there and listen to Dave talk about Skylar in front of all those people.

But one of them had to make the three-hour trip to Charleston. Thanks to Tom Bloom, county commissioner and Dave’s former high school guidance counselor, Dave didn’t have to worry about fuel for their old car. Bloom insisted Dave take the money he and his wife had put aside to help the Neeses make the trip.

When Dave arrived at the state capitol, he went straight to Marshall’s office. Bloom was already there.

“Dave Neese, I’d like you to meet Delegate Charlene Marshall,” Bloom said, introducing Dave to the tireless eighty-year-old representative from Monongalia County.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Dave said, shaking Marshall’s hand.

“It’s very nice to meet you, too, Mr. Neese.”

“I want you to know, Delegate Marshall, that I’ll always cherish the photo of you and Skylar,” Dave told her.

The senior statesman thought the grieving father was probably just confused, because she didn’t think she had ever met Skylar.

“You probably don’t remember. Skylar was your special page when she was ten.”

Marshall felt the hair on her arms and the back of her neck stand up.

“Mary and I, we were sitting up in the balcony that day,” Dave said. “Skylar gave you your lunch. She was so pleased…. You were like a hero to her.”

Marshall could feel tears welling up and she tried to remember the child page. “Well, she did something for me then, and now I’m trying to do something for her,” she said at last.

When Bloom and Marshall offered to pay for Dave’s lunch, he politely declined, but Marshall insisted. She knew he had a long day ahead of him and what he was up against. He was going to need enough energy to get through it.

Dave had to tell the committee about his missing daughter, and it was going to be the hardest performance of his life. He had to address the legislators as though Skylar was still alive even though he was grappling with the reality that she almost certainly wasn’t.

Corporal Ronnie Gaskins and Trooper Chris Berry had paid a personal visit to the Neese home the week before, to break the news in person: they believed the body that had been found in Pennsylvania was Skylar. They’d kept Rachel’s confession under wraps—because Shelia needed to believe their presence had gone undetected. As difficult as it was to keep Rachel’s confession from the Neeses, the troopers hoped it would help Rachel gather evidence against Shelia. Right before they left, the two troopers warned Mary and Dave not to breathe a word about their news to anyone.

So Dave told Mary he would just pretend that Skylar was still alive. After all, in his mind, she still was. Besides, it was their only hope of passing Skylar’s Law.

***

Dave addressed the committee, and though his voice caught with emotion several times, his words were convincing and moving. Skylar’s Law, he said, needed to be passed for other potentially endangered children. Skylar’s Law, he explained, was really a small but crucial amendment to existing AMBER legislation. It would mandate that police contact the AMBER Alert system and that the AMBER system treat all missing children and teenagers—regardless of how they came to be missing—as actual kidnapping cases unless an investigation proved otherwise.

Dave’s trip to the capitol was successful, as Skylar’s Law was overwhelmingly popular with the legislators.

Chapter 30
Skylar Neese Is Dead

Gaskins couldn’t get Skylar Neese out of his mind. He kept replaying the day they had found her and the one thing he felt they had left undone. 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. But they hadn’t found the head.

For almost two months, Gaskins’s thoughts kept coming back to that. He had since moved on to other cases. But his mind was locked on her missing head. By early March temperatures had climbed to the sixties. When First Sergeant Chad Tierney asked Gaskins to take him out to see the site, Gaskins jumped at the opportunity.

As he drove, Gaskins and Tierney talked about the case. He also thought a lot about Skylar. Most likely, scavengers were responsible for the 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 time, weather, and wildlife. 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, but they never believed the teens had stabbed their friend to death. Upon learning that, he realized that the bank robberies were completely unconnected to the murder.

The lack of real evidence, coupled with Rachel’s confession, took the pressure off the Conaway boys. They ceased being primary suspects. Gaskins couldn’t see any reason for their involvement. And he had even begun to wonder how the rumors about Dylan and Darek arose in the first place. Had someone deliberately started them to draw law enforcement’s eyes away from Shelia and Rachel?

When they arrived at the site, Gaskins showed Tierney the place where they found Skylar. Then he led the way up a little road that was more like a footpath than one that 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 about the T-shirt they found.

The two troopers were walking back down the road when Gaskins glanced over. As he scanned the field, he saw something glinting 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 head. 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. But he tried not to. Still, Gaskins was waiting. And Skylar—all of Skylar—could be returned to Dave and Mary.

When Berry arrived, he took photos from every angle. They bagged the skull and took it to the Greene County coroner.

***

When the terrible news about Skylar finally came, on Wednesday, March 13, it didn’t come from the state crime lab. Nor was it really news to Mary and Dave, or to any of the people closest to the case. They had known since February that the body was most likely Skylar’s, and they had shared the news with many of her friends. But on March 13, an impatient public finally learned the truth, too: the remains found in Pennsylvania on January 16 were those of Skylar Neese.

However, instead of coming from Charleston, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wheeling made the announcement, not the Morgantown Detachment of the West Virginia State Police. That small detail suggests the FBI was directly involved in Skylar’s identification. It partly explained why the process had taken so long. But the four-sentence press release explained little else.

***

Even though Rachel had confessed to the murder in early January, only her legal counsel, the prosecutor’s office, and law enforcement knew this. Mary and Dave had not been informed, even though they already suspected that Shelia and Rachel had killed their daughter. Officially, they were not told. Still, the news made its way back to them.

Daniel was painfully aware that Skylar was gone. Mary had broken the news to him about the remains in a Facebook message back in February, and Skylar’s close friend had been absolutely heartbroken. He had not yet been told of Rachel’s confession, either, but when he was told it looked like her remains had been located, he knew immediately who was responsible.

Daniel’s world was falling apart, so he did the only thing he could do to cope with the intense level of pain he felt for Skylar: he went home, locked himself in his bedroom, and lit up a joint. Then he cried and cried—for days on end.

***

Skylar’s other childhood friend, Hayden McClead, heard the same time Daniel did, back in February. Her mother, Katrina, and Mary were close, so when Katrina learned the news from Mary, she told Hayden. For the next month, Hayden’s world was suspended in silent grief. Never having faced something this awful before, she simply didn’t know how to feel. While she had been told Skylar was dead, she didn’t want to believe it. She continued to go to class, suspended in a cloud of numbness and denial—until March 13.

Hayden was listening to her chemistry teacher’s lecture during fourth period when she felt her phone vibrate. Someone had sent her a message on Facebook.
R u ok?
The words confused her. She wondered what they meant and why anyone would be worried about her. Just then, her mom’s picture appeared on Hayden’s cell phone screen. Hayden left the classroom to take the call, worried that something bad must have happened.

Katrina broke the news to her daughter as gently as she could: Skylar’s body had been definitively identified. Hayden could no longer ignore the truth. Still, she was so shocked when the reality set in, she could barely speak. One singular thought kept repeating inside her head:
Shelia and Rachel did it
.

***

Across the county, Shania Ammons’s volleyball coach pulled her from class to deliver the news in person. Shania was so upset that she walked out of Clay-Battelle High School and went straight home. But first, she texted Shelia with the news. She was sure Shelia would want to know what had happened to her best friend.

Shania said that neither she nor Shelia cried that day. She didn’t think it odd, though; they had already cried themselves out when Skylar first disappeared.

Back at the home she shared with her grandparents, Shania told her grandmother the news and said that she was headed over to Shelia’s.

“If you’re going, then I’m going,” Linda said. The slender but forceful grandmother wouldn’t let Shania go by herself, because Linda had her own suspicions about Shelia.

“My family didn’t believe her story,” Shania said, “and they tried really, really hard to keep me away from Shelia. It was a constant fight, an every-single-day fight. But I still hung out with Shelia. They didn’t keep me away from her.”

Ironically, on that March 13, Shania and Linda already had plans to join Shelia and Tara for dinner. So they all went to Martin’s Bar-b-que Joint in Morgantown together. Shania remembers the meal being sad and awkward.

Shania said Shelia asked her who she thought had committed the murder. Shania answered honestly.

“I don’t know.”

***

The high school cafeteria could be called a precursor to today’s social media sites, a hotbed for the same kind of gossip and innuendo that pops up on Facebook, Twitter, and Websleuths. Many students first heard rumors about Skylar’s murder in the lunchroom—some true, some false. One particularly disturbing rumor began floating around after Skylar’s body was found, but long before Rachel and Shelia were arrested.

This dark story especially affected Jordan Carter. She had never given up hope that her onetime summer playmate would come home. Perhaps because the color purple was used at Skylar-themed events after she disappeared, Jordan would think of Skylar every day when she drove home from school past a local bar called the Purple Cow Lounge. Jordan was always looking at the faces of people she passed—hoping one of them might just be her missing friend.

After the news broke about a body being found, Jordan was sitting at a table inside the UHS cafeteria when she overheard someone say something that caught her attention.

“You know Rachel and Shelia killed her, right?” one teen asked another. “You know they cut off her head and dumped her in the woods.”

Jordan was speechless with horror.

BOOK: The Savage Murder of Skylar Neese: The Truth Behind the Headlines
2.56Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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