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? how can we help these girls? skylar s family friend morgan lawrence was upset too. she was at camp when she read on facebook that skylar was missing. how worried were you? sick to my stomach worried. so was officer coalbank. she was at it nonstop. i d come back to the office in the evenings, watching video, getting facebook records. she was swamped with tips saying they d seen skylar. from morgantown to california. each sighting was a dead end. at the same time, coalbank pulled skylar s records. what she found was ominous. skylar wasn t using her cell phone or atm card. coalbank now had serious doubts skylar had run away. usually runaways take items with them they want.
did you sort of chalk it up to, we re not thrilled but she s a teenager? exactly. they re all teenagers. yeah. sewing their oats. they ll grow up. that s what we said to each other. that she s going through a growing spurt, you know. she s in her teens and she needs to get this stuff out of her system and, you know, that s the best way to do it, get it out of your system is do it and be done with it. so that s what we thought she was doing. 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 and gave her a kiss and said i love you mom, i love you dad and went to her 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
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? i remember sheila looking at me, when we saw skylar get into the car on the video, she says, of all people, why wouldn t she tell me? i don t know, honey, we ll figure it out, though. mary and sheila took to the streets together, posting flyers for skylar. they would knock on doors and
benninger read a statement from sheila and her family. my client and her family recognize that the neese family is in a constant state of despair, loneliness and sadness as a result of skylar s death. rachel you really didn t flow that well. did you feel like it was the ultimate betrayal by sheila? i ve even used those exact words, the ultimate deprayal. to come to our house every night, cry on our shoulders, tell us how much she missed her and loved us, loved skylar. that s evil. 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
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 in the cold. ronnie gaskins had a confession from rachel and she had led him to a body. but it wasn t enough. why wouldn t you arrest somebody right away who confessed to killing somebody? she lied to us a number of times before. who s to say she isn t lying again? we had to corroborate her statement. once more, gaskins needed rachel so he didn t arrest her. instead, he was about to use rachel to get sheila.