david and mary neese welcomed their only daughter skylar to the world in 1996. tell me about the day she was d born. was that the greatest moment of your life? i wouldn t go that far. first time you saw her. first time i saw her, yes, i can say that was the greatest moment of my life.th yeah.f it was instant love. they live in star city, a small suburb ever morgantown, west virginia, where dave works at walmart and mary at a medical office.rt skylar was a whirlwind, a rambunctious, precocious toddler who owned her parents hearts. hey, gorgeous. hi, daddy. you re beautiful, baby. she was reading way before she was supposed to, doing maths and stuff way before she was supposed to. she was a very intelligent little girl. a dance for me.ir wee! when skylar started nursery school, she made her first friend, morgan lawrence. morgan was drawn right away to
recognize that the neese family is in a constant state of despair, loneliness and sadness as a result of skylar s death. sheila was sentenced to life in prison and is eligible for parole in 2028. a month later, dave and mary went back to court, this time for rachel shoaf s sentencing. rachel has a profound sadness at this loss and a profound sadness for mr. and mrs. neese. therapist patricia bailey was hired by rachel s family. she s been meeting with rachel in prison since the summer of 2013. from the day i met rachel, she has said to me, i deserve to be in here, i did something terribly wrong, i hurt somebody. rachel does miss skylar very much so and then she also weeps for her because she knows she cannot undo the past and she will never see her again. in court, rachel apologized
continued. the fbi told mary and dave only that remains believed to be skylar s had been found. i broke down pretty bad, yeah. we both did. that was a bad day. it was so lonely and so deserted. and it was a horrible thing to know that she had been there and no one knew. one, two, three, go! happy birthday, skylar! in february of 2013, just as they had since she was a little girl i m ready. the neeses gathered with friends on skylar s birthday. this time without her. they quietly told the lawrences their awful news. did your heart just break for mary and dave? my heart was slowly breaking the entire time. i remember the first thing i felt it was just like a surreal of, i know she s not out there
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.g 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 down. she said skylar was expected at work at 4:00. i said, we re not going to worry. i ll call them about 10 after 4:00, give her time to clock in, everything, see if she s the
and where did they go? 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.