Pretty Little Killers (35 page)

“I know I shouldn't say this over the phone. I know they can hear me,” Tara said, reflecting her belief that the phone was tapped. “Shelia came out and said they were out in Brave that night.” The town of Brave is about 3.5 miles west of Blacksville, just over the border in Pennsylvania.

“You've got to be kidding me!” Crissy said. Her anxiety instantly turned to anger. She knew exactly where that was—it was one of the darkest, loneliest stretches of road around. If the girls were out that way and Shelia had lied about it all along. . . . Crissy stopped the track her thoughts were taking. If Shelia had lied about that one thing, what else did she lie about? “You heard this from Shelia?”

“Benninger. He said Shelia had admitted that to him.”

They hung up not long after and that's when it hit her: Crissy realized Shelia wasn't the only one stonewalling. She remembered back in September when Tara said, “If Shelia had a passport, we'd be gone.” Then there were all those times Crissy's mother told her Tara seemed to know details about the crime before anyone else did. Crissy also found it troubling that Tara was giving Shelia alcohol and weed to calm her down, saying she was uptight because the police were harassing her.

Crissy worked at an assisted-living home in Fairmont, about twenty miles southeast of Morgantown. She decided to call Shelia on the way to work, because she had told her she would let her know how the grand jury went. “Then I'm not going to talk to her about it anymore,” Crissy told her mom. “I'm not going to ask any more questions.”

“Good,” Crissy said her mom said. “Because whatever's going on, you don't want that on you. Shelia's lied once. You better just leave it alone.”

Crissy called as she promised. Shelia had only been out of school for about a half hour. “Okay, I have you on speakerphone,” Shelia said. “Rachel's here with me.”

“Grand jury went fine,” Crissy said. “I really don't think anything's weird. You know, they just asked me about the boys.” Crissy had gone back and forth about the question—was the grand jury really convened to look for drugs or Skylar? From the tone of the questions, it sounded like they were looking for drugs. Which is exactly what she told Shelia.

“Oh, okay. Whatever.”

“Shelia, don't you tell your mom I called you right now, okay? Don't say anything to her, but I want you to understand that you're ruining your life.”

Dead silence came from the other end of the line. Finally, Crissy spoke up; the rumors and innuendo had eroded her faith in her cousin.

“This is going to destroy you if you're lying.”

“I'm not lying.”

“Even if you have nothing to do with this, you're going to go to jail if you lie. You can't lie.”

“I said I'm not lying.”

Crissy couldn't tell if Shelia was angry, but she still wanted to help her—if she could. “Good, because why would you do that? Why wouldn't you help Skylar come home?”

“I promise that's all I know,” Shelia said. “I promise. I would tell you if there was something else. I promise I would.”

With that, Crissy felt like Shelia was leaving her no choice. “Okay, and if there's anything else, I don't want to know. I want you to tell the FBI.”

On December 1, Gaskins knew he had the girls. Now it was only a matter of time.

The day before, Rachel had changed her tune. During an interview, she told Gaskins they dropped Skylar off at the Conaway house—not at the end of her street like they had been saying since early July.

Since Shelia had an interview scheduled the same day, Gaskins couldn't wait to hear what she said. Shelia, though, apparently wasn't up to speed with Rachel. Her story remained the same. No one tried to contradict her or ask her any questions that might tip her off. They just jotted down her information.

The very next day, Shelia called Benninger and told him she wanted to tell him the truth. Benninger called the U.S. Attorney's Office to report what his client told him: “They did drop Skylar off at a house in Blacksville.”

Gaskins was elated when he heard the news, because Shelia's story was identical to Rachel's. That's when he knew: Rachel changed her story, but forgot to tell Shelia in time. When Shelia found out, she had no choice but to change hers. The wall of lies was wobbling.

Two days later Tara was leaving a local grocery store with Shelia and Rachel, who each had another appointment with the police. A Fairmont woman
²⁷
who recognized the two teens from their photos
says that as they were getting into Tara's car, she overheard them telling Tara what happened to Skylar.

“Skylar got mad,” Rachel started.

Shelia finished. “And ran away—”

The woman says Tara broke in before the two teens could finish the story. “That's it, right? She ran away and you didn't see her again? Right, girls?” Tara said, as if telling them not to say anything else.

The girls spoke in unison. “Right.”

Not long after, Shelia and Rachel changed their story again. “We went out to the Brave bridge to smoke pot and Skylar ran off in the woods. We looked for her for hours. We couldn't find her and had to leave.”

That's when the girls became official suspects. At the time, investigators believed the two teenage girls were probably terrified to tell the adults the truth: Skylar had died from an accidental overdose.

They had no idea the truth involved murder.

State and federal officers agreed: it was time for a polygraph. The test would help convince one of the girls to reveal the truth. Berry and Gaskins thought it would be Rachel.

Crissy wasn't the only one thinking about the FBI. So were Jessica Colebank and Chris Berry. It happened the same day Rachel skipped out on her polygraph exam. Both girls were scheduled to take their exams at the WVSP detachment in mid-December.

Tara drove Shelia to the detachment for her exam and Shelia's lawyer, Mike Benninger, met them there. He and John Angotti, Rachel's attorney, had already talked with their teenage clients and their parents. Both men felt the girls were well prepared. Even if the questions strayed away from drugs and toward Skylar's disappearance, Shelia and Rachel had maintained essentially the same story for five months now. Neither attorney was worried.

Shelia's lawyer wasn't the first person to talk with her about the polygraph. She and Rachel had repeatedly texted each other, discussing the procedure. Shelia also had a text conversation with Rachel in early November. At the time, Rachel had asked Shelia where she would take the exam.

       
S
HELIA
:
     
police station probably gonna fail cause of nerves no big fucking deal

       
R
ACHEL
:
   
As long as you don't fail cause you're lying. You can ask to take it again because you were nervous the first time

       
S
HELIA
:
     
oh well im definitely not scared about lying but its not like theyd know the difference lol

She should have been scared. Shelia did “fail” the polygraph. Twice. At least inasmuch as anyone can fail. The test is really scored on a question-by-question basis. The outcome is ambiguous in several ways—that's why it's not usually used as evidence in court. Still, Shelia failed hers.

Rachel was another story. She was nervous and jittery while getting ready at her father's South Park home, a little place near downtown Morgantown. Rusty tried to reassure his daughter as they got into the car. But it did no good. As they drove across the Pleasant Street bridge, Rachel jumped from the moving car—one block away from Angotti's office. She ran in the opposite direction, down Spruce. Stunned and trapped in traffic, Rusty was powerless to stop her. He watched his daughter run until Rachel disappeared down Spruce Street.

Somehow undetected, Rachel made her way upriver about a mile, to a location where she would find safe haven from her parents and the police. The one place they would never look for her.

Tara's office. Rachel knew she would be safe there.