Pretty Little Killers (16 page)

The Timeline

After Dave found Skylar's
bench and realized she had snuck out, he immediately called Shelia. If anyone knew where his daughter was, Shelia would. That afternoon when Dave asked Shelia if she'd seen Skylar, the teen said no. But she did admit she had talked to Skylar around midnight the night before.

A few miles away, Mary was growing more concerned about Dave being worried, so she gathered up her purse and prepared to leave work early. The walk from the hospital to Mary's car took longer than the short drive home. When she arrived, Dave was still on his cell. Just as she'd expected, he'd worked himself into a distraught state.

Dave was missing two key phone numbers: for Skylar's friends Hayden McClead and Shania Ammons. He called Shelia again to ask for them. He wasn't sure Shelia would have Hayden's number, because she usually steered clear of Skylar when Shelia was around.

He knew Shania was an old friend of Shelia's from Blacksville. They had gone to middle school together. For social activities like making a McDonald's run or going to concerts and movies, Skylar, Shelia, and Shania were together as often as Skylar, Shelia, and Rachel were. When it came to teen secrets, Shelia often confided in
Shania—which is why Shania knew more about the Skylar-Shelia-Rachel trio than almost anyone.

As Dave expected, Shelia didn't have Hayden's phone number. She also reminded him Shania was at the beach.

Dave snapped shut the cell phone and turned to Mary. “Now what?”

Mary shrugged. “We could give it a little time, see if someone gets back to us.”

“Mary, she's
missing
.” His tone was exasperated and pleading at the same time.

“Okay, then call 911.” As Mary walked toward her recliner, the house landline rang. Mary answered and learned from the Wendy's manager that Skylar hadn't shown up for work.

She hung up and faced Dave. “Call 911
now
.”

The house phone rang again. It was Shelia.

“I need to tell you the whole truth,” she told Mary, “about what happened last night.”

“What happened?” Mary's thoughts raced to images of Skylar at a party, Skylar drunk, Skylar drugged after a boy slipped her one of those date-rape drugs. She even envisioned Skylar deserted in a dark corner after passing out at a party.

“I did see Skylar. She snuck out about eleven. Rachel and I picked her up and we went joyriding for about forty-five minutes. She made me drop her off at the end of the road so we wouldn't wake you.”

Mary was momentarily relieved. She was more concerned about the girls sneaking around than the thought of some random stranger snatching Skylar off the street. That kind of scenario seemed farfetched in their tiny suburb of Morgantown.

“Why do you girls continue to sneak out when we've told you just come to us when you want to do something?” Mary scolded. “You don't need to do this sneaking stuff.” Mary didn't know how upset she was until she realized she'd lit her cigarette inside the kitchen, a strict violation of their lease. She opened the sliding door and stepped out on the balcony. “We can't find Skylar anywhere.”

“I heard. Do you know what happened yet?”

“We don't know.”

Tara, Shelia's mother, then got on the line.

“Mary, what's going on?” Tara asked.

“I don't know. We can't find her. Wendy's called and she hasn't showed up at work.” At that moment worry seized Mary Neese's heart. Somehow, by saying the words “we can't find her,” Mary finally realized Skylar definitely was missing.

“Do you want us to come over?”

“Yes, I do.”

When Shelia and Tara arrived, they accompanied Mary as she went door to door down one side of Crawford Avenue, asking if anyone had seen her daughter. Dave waited for the Star City police to respond to the 911 call. Officer Bob McCauley arrived at 4:41
P.M
. and the two men covered the other side of Crawford. No one had seen a missing sixteen-year-old girl.

Contrary to the rumors saying otherwise, Shelia did not cry during this search. Dave described her face as impassive and expressionless, her walk slightly wooden. At the time, Mary thought it was because Shelia was upset and scared. Shelia's mother, Tara, had cried when she first got to the apartment, but Shelia hadn't.

After the search of the immediate neighborhood proved fruitless, the five of them walked back to the apartment. That's when Mary had an idea:
the surveillance video
. She was surprised the police hadn't already checked it. Security cameras had been installed around the small apartment building, primarily to capture shots of people trying to break in. Cameras were also trained on the inside hallways of both floors. Jim Gaston, the landlord, could access the security tapes. Dave called him, and Gaston said he'd be right over.

An unmarked door close to the Neeses' apartment led to Gaston's small video room, the size of a walk-in closet. The landlord sat at the computer controls and the others—Dave, Mary, Tara, Shelia, and Officer McCauley—gathered around to watch the large monitor. Jim
chose the view from the side of the apartment where Skylar's room was located. The camera faced the complex's parking lot, a small side street, and another apartment building across the way. Jim rewound the tape and let it play forward at double speed.

“Wait, wait,” Dave said when he thought he'd seen something. “Back it up.”

Jim rewound the tape and the small group saw part of Skylar's head blur past. Then nothing for a few seconds, although Dave noticed the shadowy image of a car in the background of the video. The time signature on the video read 12:31.

He tapped the screen. “You picked her up at eleven, Shelia?”

Shelia studied the image. “Yes.”

Suddenly Skylar's head emerged, and she was seen walking briskly toward a gray car. She opened the back door and climbed into the back seat. There was no sign of a struggle. No indication the people inside were strangers. No clue of any foul play whatsoever. Then the car drove off and the scene was empty again.

It was as if they watched Skylar vanish, right before their very eyes. It was all Mary and Dave could do to keep from reaching out and trying to pull their precious daughter back—back into the picture, back into their lives.

For several long seconds, silence filled the small room. Finally Jim spoke up. “I think that looks like an SUV,” he said. On the video, the car had been blurry and indistinct. Officer McCauley said he wasn't sure it was. Shelia said nothing.

“Do you know if any of Skylar's friends have cars like this?”

“No,” Shelia said, shaking her head back and forth.

After McCauley took Shelia's statement, her word became the official story. His handwritten notes were the first recorded in the case. Shelia told McCauley she and Rachel picked Skylar up at 11:00
P.M
. and dropped her off at the end of the street about 11:45. By that account she and Rachel were home and in bed by midnight. It was possible, given the three teens lived so close together. Everyone there believed the vehicle they saw had to be someone else's. It couldn't be Shelia's, because she drove a sporty silver
Toyota Camry—the one her stepfather purchased for Tara before they got married.

That left only one logical explanation in Mary and Dave's minds—but it was the last one they wanted to consider. After her friends dropped her off, Skylar left again—in a second car. In a car whose driver parked in the lower parking lot near the Dumpster, which was captured in the surveillance video.

But who did Skylar leave with? And why?

Most people unwittingly believed this theory for months; it became the basis for a general timeline of Skylar's disappearance:

       
11:00
P.M
.: Skylar sneaks out of the house to joyride with her friends.

       
11:45
P.M
.: Skylar's friends drop her off at the end of Crawford Avenue, along University Avenue.

       
11:45
P.M
.–12:30
A.M
.: Skylar's activity is undetermined.

       
12:31
A.M
.: Skylar is seen getting into the back seat of an unidentified vehicle.

For almost two years, people who have seen the video replayed online at various news sites have asked the same question: Why did no one recognize Shelia's car as the one in the video? More important, why did no one realize Skylar was never seen leaving the first time, when she snuck out with Shelia and Rachel? And why did it take trained law enforcement as long as it did to come to these same conclusions?

The answer is: it didn't. People believed that's how it happened, but it really isn't.

Initially the police didn't suspect anything was amiss because they knew the vehicle seen in the grainy video couldn't have been Shelia's—not when she told McCauley she and Rachel parked on Crawford Avenue in front of a different apartment building, next to the Neeses'. After picking up Skylar they then turned onto Fairfield Street, which intersected with Crawford just a few feet away from where Shelia said she parked that night.

It all made perfect sense: the vehicle in the video couldn't be Shelia's. It had to be someone else's. However, within two days law enforcement realized Shelia's story sounded phony.

That first night, though, no one had a reason to believe Skylar's best friend would lie about the exact time Skylar snuck out or where Shelia had parked. Especially not Mary and Dave. To them, Shelia was still simply a trusted teenager.

No one suspected the real liar she would turn out to be.

eleven

Long Weekend

Two of Skylar's closest
friends learned about her disappearance while on vacation at the beach.

Compared to teens like Morgan and Daniel, Shania was a relatively new friend of Skylar's whom she met through Shelia.

“I was at the beach when I missed a call from Shelia,” Shania said. “She left a message saying no one knows where Skylar is, so I called her right back. ‘What do you mean no one knows?' I asked her.”

Shelia told Shania how Skylar had snuck out with her and Rachel the previous night, but she said that after a small tiff, Skylar insisted they drop her off at the end of the road. Now, no one could find her. Shania was really concerned and had all kinds of questions, but Shelia didn't seem worried about Skylar at all.

“She was casual about it,” Shania said. But she wasn't, and immediately texted and called Skylar, trying to reach her.

Over the next two days, Shania thought about nothing but Skylar. She recalled their last conversation, and how Skylar felt abandoned by her friends. Shelia was in Indiana visiting her maternal grandfather, Rachel was going away to church camp, and Hayden and Shania were both at the beach with their families.

“Skylar was staying at home and going to Wendy's to work,” Shania said. “So . . . she did feel like, out of the circle.”

Skylar hated feeling left out. Her diary said so.

“Skylar was less fortunate than we were,” Shania explained. “Her parents never told her no [or] anything, but she didn't have the money Shelia and I did. And she wouldn't ask for things like we did, because she knew her parents wouldn't have the money. What she did have, it was like a big deal to her. So I can see where she would feel that.”

The last time Shania remembers talking to Skylar was after midnight on July 4, and they made plans to hang out when Shania returned from the beach.

“Skylar said, ‘Yeah, 'cause you're the only one who actually tries to hang out with me anymore,'” Shania said. “Nobody else likes me.”

“That's not true.”

“Well, you're the only one who puts effort into hanging out with me,” Skylar replied.