little sister was a murderer. i still to this day have trust issues. skylar s friend morgan lawrence says she thinks about all the milestones she and skylar had planned to mark together. you two should be doing everything alongside each other. yeah. they didn t just take away a bride. they took away a bridesmaid. skylar s second parents say they ll miss out, too. when morgan walks down the aisle, skylar won t be there. she will be. she ll be watching over her? she will. in june 2013, dave and mary had a memorial service at the site where skylar was killed and they re proud to have helped pass skylar s law, which requires amber alerts, even when police suspect a teen has run away. a national version of skylar s law is currently making its way through congress. it s peaceful here now. they come here often, even in the winter, to tend the small garden they ve built for
saw sheila s distress firsthand. she was trying so hard to help them find anything, so hard to help them figure out what had happened. the star city police are still looking for a missing 16-year-old. dave made a plea for help on local news station wboy. we love her. we want her home. by sunday night, skylar had been gone the whole weekend. her family, including her aunt carol, was heartsick. i just had this horrible feeling in my heart that, you know, something terrible had happened and it wasn t like her to run away or disappear like she did. mary told me that night, she said, something s wrong, babe. something s bad wrong. the community held a candlelight vigil. skylar s school friends came, including rachel and sheila. they were crying, came up and hugged me and mary, just crying their eyes out. the only thing mary could say was, what can we do to help these girls?
the police didn t issue an amber alert because it looked like skyler left voluntarily. once the video came out that she willingly got in this car, they re not going to come out and look for someone driving in a car. skylar s friend sheila came over. she spent a lot of time telling us, it will be okay. she ll be home. i really miss her. i love her. i want her back. the next day, sheila sat with mary on skylar s bed, both of them crying. did it bring you comfort when sheila would come by, being skylar s best friend? it did me a little bit, yeah. knowing, how could skylar leave her behind? mary and sheila took to the streets together, posting flyers for skylar. they would knock on doors and ask, have you seen this girl? we kept showing the picture to people. nobody had seen her. sheila was very, very worried about what had happened to skylar. chrissy swanson is a close family friend of sheila s and
when summer rolled around after her sophomore year, skylar seemed happy. she had a job at wendy s which she loved. on thursday, july 5th, 2012, she came home after work and got ready for bed. she put her arm around her mom, gave her a kiss and hug and said, i love you, mom, turned to me and said, i love you, dad, and she went to the room. the next day, dave planned to meet skylar in their apartment at lunchtime. he was surprised she wasn t there. a little worried, he called mary. i thought she was out with one of her other friends. i figured they went swimming and shopping. dave called her friends, including sheila. no one had seen her. next he went outside and found more cause for worry. a small bench was tucked near skyler s window, and the window screen was missing. at this time, i called skyler s cell phone. i said, hey, you re in trouble. you better be calling me right away. so i called her cell phone about ten times. i called mary again. again, mary told him to calm
punctuated with police visits to rachel and sheila. kids say rachel left play rehearsal to meet with the fbi. mary and dave neese desperate to find their daughter thought the police were wasting their time investigating the girls they knew so well. i even went to the police and said will you leave sheila alone, please? you guys are harassing her 24/7. the kid is going through enough. leave her alone. she was like our daughter. investigators were convinced the two girls knew more than they were saying. that fall, ronnie gaskins interviewed each girl repeatedly. how was sheila s demeanor in these meetings you would have with her? calm. collect. would look at you right in your face, right in your eyes. he says rachel seemed distracted. she would draw on the desk, play with the pencil. just her nonverbal cues spoke a lot. their story never varied.