Pretty Little Killers (5 page)

The student said the girls did as instructed and, once there, they reportedly spoke to an administrator who sent them back to class. Since the girls weren't gone long their fellow students assumed they hadn't even been reprimanded.

This is where accounts differ. Mr. Demchak says he never heard Shelia and Rachel casually ask that specific question or mention Skylar's name in connection with it. He is adamant he never commented on a possible “conspiracy,” and said school policy would have required he write up a report if he had. What he did say was, as he had been instructing students about DNA, that it was “very possible” the girls could have asked such a question.

Whatever Demchak did—or didn't hear—that day, it was the last time either girl brought up the subject in class.

When Mary discovered she was pregnant, she was not happy. The thought of raising a child terrified her because she believed she would be a horrible mother. Still, she wouldn't end the pregnancy and when Skylar was born, Mary fell in love with her.

“The first time I saw her, yes, that was the greatest moment of my life. It was instant love,” she told Andrea Canning on
NBC Dateline
in 2014.
¹

Even with a newborn daughter, Mary wasn't sure she wanted a husband. Dave was persistent. He kept proposing, and Mary stubbornly kept putting him off. She hesitated when he said they should move in together. After Skylar's birth, though, Mary had a change of heart, and she and Skylar did move in with Dave.

Mary became the glue that held the family together. Her humor and playfulness created the bond; her will and determination made it stick. As the years passed, Skylar became a miniature version of Mary. People even used the same words to describe them, right down to their unfailing senses of justice, iron stubbornness, and occasional flares of temper. Where Dave and Skylar were best buddies, Mary and Skylar were intertwined in the way only mothers and daughters can be. Their family photos bear this out: Skylar possessed the same bright blue eyes as her mother and occasionally flashed a similar cynical smile.

The DNA discussion could have occurred at the same time students later told police Shelia and Rachel had asked their question. Classes were abruptly dismissed early on October 6, 2011, after students were told there was a gas leak. In reality, they were sent home because police had found a body in the woods behind the school.
²

When classes resumed and students learned about the dead woman, Demchak said his class discussed DNA evidence and analysis. He believes this is the most reasonable explanation for the two girls' questions.

Whether Mr. Demchak is correct, or they asked that question with a more devious motive in mind, other students said Skylar's name came up in connection with the idea of disposing of a body. Rachel confirmed this when she later told police the plot to kill Skylar was hatched that day during Mr. Demchak's sophomore biology class.

When Skylar was a baby, Dave would lift her above his head and toss her onto the bed, never letting her go until his hands touched the linens. Skylar would squeal and laugh, and Dave would repeat the game over and over. He called it “Baby Body Slam.” The game soon became their favorite part of the day.

During Christmas Day the year Skylar turned three, Mary and Dave videotaped their baby girl when she found her gifts. Skylar squealed as she jumped up and down, her blond curls bouncing in time to her steps. Racing around the living room and then running toward the camera, Skylar yelled, “I love you, Daddy!”

Daddy keeping watch while Skylar (age 3) tells him stories.

The constant, daily affirmation that came from the heart of a toddler would become Skylar's best gift to Mary and Dave—and what her parents would miss the most after Skylar was gone.

When the two teens didn't stop talking, Mr. Demchak spoke up again.

“All right, Miss Eddy, Miss Shoaf, one of you needs to move.” He gestured to a male student. “Miss Shoaf, you and Trent switch seats.”

Shelia rolled her eyes at Rachel as she and Trent traded seats. Despite the relocation, she and Rachel continued to chat.

Demchak would later describe having had two murderers in his class as “the most bizarre thing I ever experienced in my teaching career.” At the time, though, he thought they were two girls acting out for attention.

Regardless of when the two girls asked their bizarre question, none of the people who may have heard it—Mr. Demchak, Nick, and the three other students within hearing—had any way of knowing what they actually witnessed that day in the fall of 2011 was the birth of a murder plot. They had no idea Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf, fifteen-year-old University High School sophomores, were planning to kill Skylar Neese.

Love was always a constant in the Neese household, but money wasn't. Skylar's parents lived paycheck to paycheck all her life, which explains why they didn't take their first family vacation until the summer of 2000 when Skylar was four years old. They chose Ocean City, Maryland, six hours away, so Skylar could experience the beach for the first time.

The family could afford the vacation only because Mary had nearly been killed the previous year. A few days before Thanksgiving 1999, Mary dropped Skylar off at Pleasant Day Daycare. On her way home, Mary found herself behind an
O. C. Cluss lumber truck. The truck missed its turnoff, stopped abruptly, and began to back up.

Mary blared the horn and tried to put her green Mercury in reverse, but she wasn't quick enough. When the truck began to climb her hood, she threw her left arm up in reflex and the airbags engaged, cleanly snapping her forearm. Seconds later when she came to, her left arm was hanging awkwardly over the steering wheel and dripping blood. She had to lift it off the steering wheel with her right hand. When she noticed the impact had knocked the car's ashtray into the back seat, she was instantly relieved Skylar hadn't been in the car.

One metal plate, two operations, and several months later, Mary's arm was functioning at nearly 100 percent. In addition, the insurance company agreed to a settlement to cover the medical expenses and pay restitution. It was not an extraordinary amount, but would be enough for a frugal trip to the beach.

While Skylar later became a big fan of the ocean, she didn't like it during her first visit; she was small and the waves kept knocking her over. However, she loved the hotel's swimming pool. One afternoon as Mary laid her towel on a chaise lounge and Dave stripped off his shirt, Skylar stared at the pool, an inflatable seahorse around her waist and floaters on each arm. She waddled toward the pool's edge, peering intently at the sparkling water.

“Daddy's not ready for you yet, honey,” Dave said. “Daddy'll help you. You don't know how to swim.”

“I can so swim!” Skylar shouted. To prove it, she jumped in the water. Dave panicked and leaped in after her. Mary laughed at them.

“It's okay, Daddy!” Skylar sputtered, slapping the water with her floaters while kicking her legs. “I can swim!”

“You can't swim, honey!” Dave grabbed at her, but the small child kept squirming.

“I can so!”

Dave had to admit the floaters gave Skylar the confidence to swim just fine. That was the moment when he began to think of his daughter as fearless. In new situations, she was watchful and held back—until she plunged right in.

Skylar was also willful:
she
would decide what she would or wouldn't do, no matter what her parents or anyone else said.