Pretty Little Killers (11 page)

All the kids were flocking to see the newly released movie
The Hunger Games
. So were Skylar, Shelia, and Shania one Saturday night in March 2012. On the way, Shelia was on her phone constantly—talking, texting, using social media—even though she was driving. For Shelia, using her phone was like breathing. Unceasing cell phone use is common among teenagers these days, but many UHS students spoke of Shelia's nonstop attachment to her cell.

They were on their way to the theater when they passed a farm, and the foul scent of dung wafted into the car. Shelia held her nose with one hand and steered the car with the other. Riding with Shelia was always an adventure as she juggled the phone, steering wheel, radio, and whatever else attracted her attention. Riding with Shelia was fun
because
it was dangerous.

Along the way Skylar asked Shelia who she was texting. Shelia wouldn't say. She almost never did, even though Skylar constantly nagged at Shelia to learn what she was doing or who she was talking to.

The girls made it up the winding University Town Centre Drive and around to the Hollywood Stadium 12 theater. They went inside and found seats; Shelia sat in the middle, as usual, and held her phone up, the light from the screen shining on her face.

“I heard this was a good movie,” Shania said.

“Yeah,” Shelia said, still texting.

“You need to put that away before the movie starts,” Skylar said.

“Yeah,” Shelia said, but made no move to do so.

“You talking to Rachel?” Skylar asked. If she was jealous it was all for nothing—Shelia was texting a boy she liked.

“Nope.”

“Who
are
you texting?” Skylar asked, more insistent.

“Hang on,” Shelia said, continuing to text even as the theater's lights dimmed.

“Tell me who you're texting.” When Skylar wanted something, she rarely gave up. When she didn't get her way, she would pout. Sometimes she grew more aggressive.

“Hang on,” Shelia repeated.

“Let me see!” Skylar grabbed at Shelia's phone. Shelia smacked her hand away. Skylar punched Shelia in the face with her hand half closed, more of a smack than a punch.

“You bitch!” Shelia yelled. She hit Skylar as she closed and pocketed her phone.

“Fuck you!” Skylar smacked at Shelia's face again. Shelia slapped Skylar's hand away.

An elderly woman near Shania whispered, “Can you get them to stop?”

Shania muttered, “What do you think I can do about it?”

By then Shelia had run out.

“Yes! Go!” a voice behind them yelled.

Skylar looked at Shania. “I didn't do anything,” she said with a cool shrug.

“Skylar, I saw you hit her!” Shania hissed.

“Yeah, well, she was being a bitch.”

“Let's go. Now.” Shania turned to leave, but Skylar grabbed her.

“I can't. My flip-flop is missing.”

The two girls searched the floor until they found Skylar's flip-flop. They made their way up the darkened aisle and out the theater door, Shania in the lead and Skylar right behind her, both of them silent. Shania didn't want to land in the middle of any fight between Shelia and Skylar, but she could tell Shelia was growing tired of Skylar acting like a bratty little sister.

Once outside, Skylar and Shelia continued arguing in the car while Shania sat on the curb. She didn't want to hear any of it. They screamed at each other for several long minutes and as suddenly as it had begun, the fighting stopped.

It was only a matter of time before the two girls came to blows again.

The great divide between Skylar and Morgan began in earnest when they became sophomores. At first the frequency with which they hung out slowed. Then it stopped altogether. Part of the problem was Shelia: Skylar always wanted Shelia to tag along, but Morgan wasn't comfortable around her.

“You and I can go hang out,” she would say to Skylar, “but I really don't want to be a part of you and Shelia and Rachel.” One time, Morgan voiced her concerns a little louder: “Skylar, I just don't think Shelia's a good influence. You're doing things I've never seen you do.” She was referring to Skylar's new habits: smoking weed, sneaking out at night, and generally behaving badly, behavior she thought Skylar was doing to imitate Shelia.

“Oh, it's fine,” Skylar said, waving away Morgan's concern. She wasn't angry, she merely thought her friend was wrong. “It's just high school.”

At the same time, Morgan's friend Alexis was equally troubled by Rachel's behavior. She had known Rachel for a long time, and when Alexis and Morgan compared notes, they found Alexis knew things Rachel had done and Morgan knew things Skylar had done—and both girls realized Skylar and Rachel's behavior was totally unlike them.

Morgan and Alexis discussed it, wondering if Shelia was to blame. “Shelia seemed like she could do whatever she wanted,” Morgan later said, “and there were no repercussions.”

Everyone who saw Shelia at UHS said she controlled Skylar and Rachel. Even Daniel Hovatter was influenced by her magnetic pull, when she convinced him to steal test answers from a teacher's desk.

When Morgan learned this, she wasn't surprised at all. “She did that kind of stuff all the time,” Morgan said. “Stuff like that didn't bother her. She just wanted an A. She just wanted to stay
out late. When she wanted something, that was what was going to happen.”

Got any weed
?

Daniel was at home when he received Skylar's text.

Some
.

Wanna get high
?

Daniel knew Skylar wasn't alone. She couldn't drive except to and from work. Shelia must have been driving and Rachel was probably with them, too.

Sure
, he texted.

Be right there
.

I'll walk to the church
. Daniel's driveway was long and difficult so his friends usually picked him up in the church parking lot a hundred yards down the hill. By the time he got there, they were waiting for him. He assumed they had been close, maybe picking up Rachel.

Daniel climbed in the back with Skylar and away they went. Shelia turned off the main road and onto a smaller one that wound among a few houses. Mostly they were surrounded by trees. There was little traffic and no cops—perfect for what they had in mind.

At a pull-off they'd used before, Shelia parked the car. Daniel packed his small bowl with some weed, as Skylar did. Shelia and Rachel turned to sit cross-legged on the front seats, facing the back.

The four took a few minutes to get high, and then drove around.

“I still got homework,” Daniel said after a bit, more bored than anything. He liked seeing Skylar, but Shelia and Rachel seemed even more into each other than usual. He was surprised because Skylar was there.

“Just going to get us high and get rid of us, huh?” Shelia teased. Daniel knew it was the other way around—they wanted to get high and get rid of him—or at least Shelia did, because she was always doing shit like that.

“That's pretty much—” He was interrupted by a booming sound as the car gave a terrible lurch. “I saw that!”

“Twenty points!” Shelia was laughing. Daniel didn't want to look back, but he couldn't stop himself. He felt sick to his stomach. It was a bunny.

“Shelia!” Rachel yelled, too loudly for the small car. “Don't hit the fucking animals!”

Skylar and Daniel looked at each other; they both hated it when Shelia did that.

“Oh. My. God,” said Daniel, burying his face in his hands.

Skylar patted his shoulder. “There, there, bud.”

“I swear she did it on purpose,” he whispered to Skylar.

Daniel saw fissures beginning to form in the trio's friendship long before Skylar was murdered, but he didn't fully understand what he witnessed. He wasn't the only one; Amorette Hughes, who knew Skylar from dance class, saw the same thing.

By the time she met Amorette, Skylar's baby curls were long gone and she was “obsessed with Shelia,” as Mary would say after reading her daughter's diary. Skylar was coloring and straightening her fair hair so she would be a brunette like Shelia, and Mary said Skylar had written extensively about Shelia throughout her diary. In fact, people who have read it, including police officers who worked the case, say Skylar seemed to be living vicariously through Shelia, writing all about Shelia's life—but saying nothing about her own.
¹⁴

Amorette was a senior and Skylar a sophomore in the spring of 2012 when her relationship with Shelia became more contentious and the trio was in tumult. Amorette and Skylar soon found they shared the same perplexing problem.

“I had two best friends,” Amorette recalled, “and she had the two best friends. We were going through the same thing at the same time.”

Having two best friends instead of one may not seem like a problem, and maybe it isn't for teenage boys, but more than one girl spoke of having a similar experience.

“Sometimes I would see that Rachel and Shelia would match,” Amorette said, “and Skylar wouldn't. They'd both wear jeans and a pink shirt and Skylar would be in yoga pants. My friends would do that to me.”

Amorette and Skylar grew close throughout the 2011–2012 school year and frequently confided in each other. They bonded over their struggle with their two best friends.

They're doing it again
, Skylar texted Amorette one day after Shelia and Rachel made plans without her. Amorette encouraged Skylar to hang in there. Skylar did the same for Amorette whenever she felt sad and slighted.

I know, let's get together after school lets out
, Amorette texted Skylar one day.
We can be BFFs
. Skylar thought it was a great idea but both girls were too busy to connect that first month of summer vacation.

Amorette wished they had taken the time to get together. She believed Skylar might still be alive if they had.

six