DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... 16 y/o girl gets killed by best friends because they 'didn't like' her

STAR CITY, W.Va. -- For nearly nine months, the people of this small West Virginia town saw the face of missing 16-year-old honors student Skylar Neese everywhere – beaming at them from fliers on utility poles, in gas stations, even at the local tattoo parlor.

She had been missing since she slipped out of her bedroom window one night last summer, but some in this town of fewer than 2,000 people never believed she had run away.

Police chased numerous leads with no luck. The break finally came when one of Neese's friends admitted plotting with another girl to kill her – shocking even the investigators working the case.

The two girls were charged with luring the straight-A student at University High School out of her family's apartment in the middle of the night, stabbing her to death at an agreed-upon moment and hiding her body under branches in a Pennsylvania township about 30 miles away from her house, according to court documents.

The pair – one of whom has now pleaded guilty – had spent time with Neese's mother after the slaying and even helped with the search.

The cold calculation and brutality of the plot shocked a community already frustrated by the slow pace and secrecy surrounding the case. Investigators have said little since announcing the charges three weeks ago. Court documents offer no insight into the motive.

People sit in the chairs at John's Barber Shop, gaze at Neese's photo on a bulletin board and wonder: How could anyone so young plot to kill a classmate and friend?

"They look as normal as any other kid that you could ever see," said barber BJ McClead. "Not kids you would think would have anything to do with anything like this."

A newly released transcript of a secret plea hearing reveals that 16-year-old Rachel Shoaf said she and the second girl carried out a plan to kill Neese.

Shoaf, a red-haired student actress and singer with sparkling blue eyes, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Monongalia County Circuit Court on May 1 and awaits sentencing in a juvenile detention center.

The other girl's identity is, for now, shrouded by the confidentiality of juvenile court. Though McClead says most people in town have figured out who it is, it's unclear how long the three girls had been friends or just how close they were.

It's also unclear whether prosecutors will try to have the second suspect charged as an adult, as Shoaf was.

"People are confused. They're like, `What is taking so long?'" said McClead, whose daughter Hayden had been friends with Neese since junior high.

"It's ridiculous. Who's protecting these girls?" said the barber, who still hands out red-and-yellow bracelets bearing the victim's name. "Three families' lives are now ruined because of this heinous crime that these girls committed."

Monongalia County Prosecutor Marcia Ashdown has refused to return repeated calls seeking comment.

The mystery began July 6, 2012, when Neese climbed out of her bedroom window. Surveillance video showed her getting into a car at the end of her street in a quiet residential neighborhood near West Virginia University. With no sign of fear, no money and no contact lenses, she apparently expected to return.

When she didn't, Dave and Mary Neese worried. Police initially suspected their daughter was a runaway, but they knew better. They walked up and down Crawford Street with Neese's photo, then plastered fliers everywhere.

"You couldn't go 5 feet without seeing her," said 24-year-old Brittany Crouse, who moved in around the time of the disappearance. "Everybody really, really wanted her to come home."

For months, police chased down tips to no avail. The transcript from Shoaf's hearing shows the break came Jan. 3, when she finally told investigators the truth – and where to find the body.

But it wasn't until March that authorities confirmed it was Neese, and silence followed until the day of the plea hearing.

"I think police who were involved in the front lines of that interview and that part of the investigation were stunned at Rachel Shoaf's confession," Ashdown told Judge Russell Clawges that day. "She confessed to a plan and conspiracy with another juvenile to kill Skylar Neese. A plan carried out."

The three girls drove to Wayne Township, Pa., got out of the car and the suspects pretended to socialize with Neese.

"And, at a planned and agreed upon moment," Ashdown said, the girls "attacked and stabbed Skylar to death, and they left her there."

They tried to bury Neese, she said, but covered her with branches when they couldn't.

Crouse, who lives a block from the Neeses' apartment, was horrified by the revelation.

"I can't imagine my friends deceiving me like that," she said. "Tragedies happen. Accidents, things like that. But not predetermined murder of a 16- or 17-year-old.

"It baffles me that somebody so young could do something like that," Crouse said. "All of their lives were just starting out."

In the five-page court file on Shoaf, prosecutors say they plan to recommend a 20-year prison sentence. But she could get as many as 40 years under the law.

Shoaf's family issued a public apology through a lawyer but has made no further statements.

"There is no way to describe the pain that we, too, are feeling," they said. "We are truly sorry for the pain that she has caused the Neese family, and we know her actions are unforgivable and inexcusable. Our daughter has admitted her involvement and she has accepted responsibility for her actions.

"Our hearts are broken for your loss," they told the Neese family, "and we are still trying to come to terms with this event."

Mary Neese has declined interview requests.

But the family has tried to spare others their agony, persuading legislators to pass "Skylar's Law" earlier this year.

Under the law, Amber Alerts are no longer limited to kidnappings in West Virginia. Even when authorities suspect a child is a runaway, information is turned over to Amber Alert officials.

But BJ McClead says his family knew the girl they'd taken to amusement parks and had in their home for sleepovers hadn't run away.

"When school went back in session and she wasn't there, we knew something was wrong because she wouldn't miss school," he said. "She was a really, really smart kid."

The transcript of Shoaf's hearing shows other students also had suspicions, chattering on social media about all three girls.

A few overheard a conversation between the suspects about the plot but waited to report it. The teenagers thought it was a joke, Ashdown told the judge, "but only later decided and believed it was all too true and all too prophetic."

McClead marvels that two teenage girls could maintain their deception from July to January.

"Some of the criminals that are locked up for life aren't that hard."

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20 year seems awfully light on this. The girls are what 16-17 so when they get out, assuming they do the full time, they would be 36-37. Being 36-37 they might even be able to have kids. They took roughly 60 years from their victim (71 avg life span-16 victim), I feel like that would be a fair number of years. Throw the book at them. I am pretty conservative when it comes to murder.

For me murder is one of the few crimes where you actually steal time from a person. I'm not a capital punishment proponent, I agree with Justice Brennan, but a punishment for murder especially pre-meditated needs to be more than 10-20 years.

Normal people don't murder each other. The report keeps commenting about how young they are, skipping over the fact they (or one) are psychopaths. Likely the one who confessed is normal and the other one is a remorseless psychopath. Maybe I watch too much Dexter

But these things happen. Just an excuse for me to type the word psychopath 20 times. Shame it happened to this girl, but in my mind it is like being struck by lightning. Horrible luck, very strange circumstances. Lock em up, get them treatment if they are redeemable so they don't murder anyone else.

Sorry, these people need to die. How on earth evil and detached do you have to be to do something like this?

They took a life therefore they need to pay with their own.

I agree, 20 years for pre-meditated murder is just not good enough.

Put them on nationwide TV, put a noose around their necks and pull the lever. Don't cut away the camera until their legs stop twitching.

Then have the bodies rendered into dog food.

It's not a spectacle, it's a lesson.

So I guess the plea hearing was because they did not have enough on 'em to convict without a confession? I don't understand why anybody would plea down a murder charge, why not murder one, it was pre-meditated. Another thing that does not make sense, why wait all these months before coming out and saying these girls did it? Somethings rotten in Denmark.

Maybe when you murder with an accomplice after a few months you start to get worried they'll kill you to keep your mouth shut?

IMO, Cruel and Unusual Punishment is telling someone that their child has been murdered in a calculated plan, they have caught the perpetrator, and that individual will be walking the streets free as a bird, most likely in well under 20 years with time off for "good behavior". After we pay to feed, clothe, house, and educate them.

The law, that we create, molds the society that we live in. The above is not a society that I want to live in. I know not what course others may take.

It is well past time that people stop worrying about how it looks when we try to put a stop to this crap and start asking "do you want more of this type of thing, or less?"

If it was up to me, these evil witches would be dead before sundown. There would be no question in anyone's mind if their actions were acceptable or not.

If you don't like the U.S. Constitution, there are plenty of societies that aren't compelled to live under it.

Saudi Arabia or Iran sounds right up your alley.

The Constitution is a document that is open to interpretation, and we are also capable of changing it.

We are also capable of evaluating the results of particular interpretations of certain sections, and gaining an understanding that the initial evaluation was just wrong. Perhaps it was just too idealistic, or maybe even downright stupid.

We shape it, We make it, and We mold it. We must recognize when the way we interpret it results in failure, and endeavor to gain a fuller understanding of what it was meant to do.

Allowing people to commit pre-meditated murder and walk away in 20 years or less was not, IMO, the plan of the Framers - BUT - IF IT WAS, then their plan SUCKS ROCKS and should be modified. Murderers should no longer walk the earth. Such people are Outlaws in the original sense of the word.

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The Constitution is a document that is open to interpretation, and we are also capable of changing it.

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'careful what you wish for.

I see a public reaching the point that they will no longer tolerate such a mild sentence as currently proposed.

When that point is reached, either the document will be changed, or it will no longer matter.

Is it your suggestion that the currently proposed punishment is either just or effective? Does it demonstrate that we as a society will not tolerate such actions? Or does it say that we just really, really wish they had not done that and that we are very disappointed?

As for the body, then do what with it? Give it back to the parents? Screw that, you want a body to bury, raise better children. Throw it in the ocean, feed it to sharks and crabs, you just won't be able to see it. I don't want it polluting my potato field.

When we cut a cancerous tumor out of a person, nobody cares what is done with it.

As long as we're going this route I believe the correct answer is you grind them up into burgers to feed to the non-hung inmates.

Rather than rambling suggestions about the American penal system. I'll just say I don't like it. I don't know anyone that doesn't think it is terribly flawed in some way.

While I tend to agree with you Loki, this girl confessed. That makes her beyond a shadow of a doubt guilty. I agree that if there is the smallest chance that they are innocent, they should be given the right for appeals, but if they confess that they are guilty to a horrific crime, there should be a public execution. I'm not sure about the grinding up and feeding them to the dogs, but if you start publicly executing people that are definitely guilty, you will start to see the crime rate go down. The problem with our law system is that so many bleeding hearts say cruel and unusual punishment so the penal system is lax. They shouldn't be able to get a law degree while they are incarcerated. How is that punishment for the crime they committed. So not only are we (taxpayers) paying to feed and clothe these criminals, but we also have to pay for their education? The whole system is messed up if you ask me.

Sorry to rant. I don't post much but stuff like this gets me fired up.

I propose the following question to all : Someone steals $100.00 from you. They are caught, convicted, and fined. TEN DOLLARS.

Now, repeat this, MANY, many times.

Describe how you would feel about the legal system, what efforts you would make to support it, and, specifically, your actions as you catch, red-handed, someone in the act of stealing yet another $100.00.

Would you continue to count on the legal system to act accordingly to protect yourself and your property?

Would you conclude that the legal system is adequate to deal with the problem, or would you conclude some other action is necessary?

Or they just don't bother thinking about the consequences at all because for the most part convicts are just plain dumb . I have a lot of childhood friends who have ended up in prison or jail and it is mind numbing just how damn dumb they can be .