Pretty Little Killers (8 page)

“Hey, just tell Skylar we're not going to go,” Morgan's friend said.

Earlier that day in the cafeteria, several UHS freshmen had made plans to see a movie. Skylar was there at the time so Morgan assumed she was included. Most of the teens were good friends with Morgan but none of them were close to Skylar.

It happens in high schools and everywhere else in society: people associate with other people who are like them. Often that means economic and cultural similarities. Morgan's father was a doctor and many of her friends' parents were white-collar professionals as well—lawyers, consultants, accountants, and professors.

“No, no,” Morgan said. “That's not how that works. Either we're both going, or I'm not going at all. Skylar and I'll do something, 'cause I'm not doing that. That's stupid.”

“I think it would be awkward if she went,” her friend replied. “This could be weird. We're not that good of friends with her.”

“Well, I am. I'm friends with all of you.”

Morgan didn't think it was a conscious choice on her friends' part. They weren't trying to exclude Skylar because her family didn't have money; they just weren't on the same wavelength.

Class differences weren't always fueled by snobbery, but the effects could be equally divisive. Especially when it appeared snobbery was alive and well at UHS. Whether or not this attitude of entitlement affected Morgan's friends, Skylar must have been aware of it. How could she not be? It was all around her. Students say some of the wealthier teens, the more mean-spirited ones, actually referred to the rural kids or those from working-class backgrounds as “the dirty kids” or simply, “the dirties.”

three

The Lesbian Connection

Skylar and Shelia met
Rachel when the three had a class together and the next thing Skylar knew, wherever she and Shelia were, so was Rachel. This was fine by Skylar, who made friends with everyone. While they were freshmen, Shelia, Rachel, and Skylar became a well-known trio who turned the heads of other students they passed in the UHS hallways.

Skylar was ecstatic when Shelia Eddy—
her
Shelia—transferred there from an outlying rural area. Skylar and the tiny brunette had been friends since second grade, and she could imagine how fantastic it was going to be. Although Shelia was boy crazy and always on her cell phone, she had connections and could get weed.

Slender and sharp-tongued, Shelia had been popular at her old school, Clay-Battelle. But at UHS, she was an unknown. Except for Skylar, all her childhood friends lived in Blacksville. When Shelia didn't become popular at UHS, she used her budding sexuality to make friends and influence people. UHS teens say Shelia was the least liked of the three.

Unlike Shelia, Rachel was surrounded by her childhood friends, many of whom also came from Saint Francis, a parochial school. Unlike Skylar, Rachel had money, and her parents were considered
more white-collar workers than blue-collar. A popular redhead, Rachel was known for her staunch Catholic faith and her volunteer work during Special Olympics. A songbird and aspiring actress, Rachel was the most talented of the three.

Finally, there was the five-foot-two blossoming environmentalist and champion of the underdog. The girl whose every step became a bounce, who smiled all the time, aced every exam, did her friends' homework, and insisted she was going to law school. That, of course, was Skylar. A likable honors student, she was the smartest of the three.

By the time they became fast friends, they were inseparable: the brunette, the redhead, and Skylar, the beautiful girl with Bette Davis eyes.

Despite the three girls' desire for excitement—or perhaps because of it—their relationship would soon be marked by tension, distrust, and one fight after another.

During those two years, Skylar must have assumed the social payoff was worth the occasional drama. She either wasn't bothered by the shifting alliances and two-on-one disputes that can occur between three close friends, or she tolerated the problems for the sake of having fun and partying. It was the worst mistake she ever made.

Fellow students wouldn't forget Skylar after they saw a firsthand glimpse of her stubborn streak during band practice early in the fall semester 2010.

Skylar and the rest of the UHS marching band had gathered in a parking lot downtown, preparing for a parade. It was the beginning of the school year and quite hot outside when the band got into position. Ariah Wyatt, Hayden McClead, and Skylar were all in the flute section.

As Ariah later described it: “We'd always practiced like that, every single time, the same order.” As performance time neared, however,
the upperclassmen decided to switch up the order. The freshmen didn't like it.

“We'd already told our parents,” Ariah recalled, “so they're . . . ready to watch us march by. We were all not wanting to move.”

The upperclassmen insisted on the order change but Skylar would have none of it. As the older students physically moved people, Skylar got angry. “No, this is where I told my family I was gonna be, this is where I'm gonna to be,” Ariah remembers Skylar saying.

“Skylar stood there with her flute in her hands,” Ariah said, “clutching it to her chest, going, ‘I swear, if one of them touches me, I am going to flip out!' She was so mad, all the upperclassmen backed off as soon as she said that.”

At that instant they knew: Nobody messed with Skylar Neese when she was angry.

Rachel's voice defined her freshman year at UHS. The first time students heard Rachel sing, their jaws dropped. “Oh, my gosh,” one student said. “She's a freshman. She's gonna be so good!”

Richard Kyer, the UHS drama teacher, wanted to gauge the incoming freshmen so he held an informal audition in drama class at the beginning of each school year. The event told him who could sing—and who couldn't.

“Who wants to come up and sing?” Mr. Kyer asked.

Rachel volunteered and practically ran up on the stage. Students knew instantly they were watching someone who likely would land lead roles.

Other than her childhood friends, the only students who spoke well of Shelia were a few boys who considered themselves modern-day hippies.

One of them was a UHS student named Frankie.
⁹
He had known Shelia since third grade. “She was just like the sweetest girl,” he said.

Frankie said he and Shelia smoked weed, did coke, and took Roxicet—a form of oxycodone—many times. They also slept together. Frankie believed Shelia's unpopular status had more to do with her arrest than people were willing to say. “She was cool,” he said. “She was funny, and nice. I'm probably the only one who would admit it.”

Many students liked Shelia before Skylar disappeared, Frankie said. But later he believed they were afraid to say they'd ever liked her, because she'd been labeled a murderer.

As did Shelia, Daniel remained fast friends with Skylar throughout elementary, middle, and high school. Although Daniel often found Shelia annoying, her presence never seemed to interfere with Skylar and Daniel's friendship. Because he was a boy, it was possible Shelia didn't see Daniel as competition, which she might have with Skylar's female friends—many of whom said Shelia tried to push them away.

Later on, Daniel often joined Skylar, Shelia, and Rachel on their weekend joyrides. He also hung out with the trio on a regular basis before classes or during lunchtime, and he and Rachel performed in high school plays together.

“We never argued,” Daniel said about his calm and steady bond with Skylar. “I cannot think of one argument we were in. We would get irritated with each other, but we never had an actual argument where we didn't talk to each other.”

By the time they turned into teenagers and entered high school, Skylar's relationship with Shelia—and later Rachel, once she joined the Skylar and Shelia club—came to dominate her world. Rachel's
friends said it seemed Shelia was trying to control Rachel, and said they could see the bad effect Shelia was having on her.

Skylar's friends echoed those sentiments and were equally troubled about Skylar, but both girls brushed off their friends' concerns. In the process, Rachel and Skylar drew even closer to Shelia—until the three-way friendship turned tumultuous, leaving Skylar the odd girl out.