Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy were sixteen when they murdered their friend Skylar Neese. According to court documents The two teen killers planned the murder of their friend, though the reason has never been clear, the two girls would pick up Skylar from her home and drive across the State line from West Virginia to Pennsylvania. Once at their destination the two girls would turn on Skylar and attack her with a series of weapons they had earlier packed into their vehicle. Skylar would be stabbed over fifty times.
Neese body would not be found for over two months until Shoaf would tell police that her and Eddy had talked about killing Skylar. Rachel would eventually lead authorities to the remains of Skylar. Rachel would plead guilty to second degree murder and be sentenced to thirty years in prison with parole possible after ten. Eddy would be sentenced to life in prison with parole possible after fifteen years
Rachel Shoaf 2023 Information
Offender ID (OID) Number: 3573506
Name: Shoaf, Rachel
Sex: Female
Birth Date: 6/10/1996
Height: 5′ 8″
Weight: 130 lbs.
Race: White
Location: LCC
Intake Date: 7/25/2014 11:47:00 AM
Next Parole Hearing: 5/1/2023
Maximum Parole Discharge Date: Not Available
Projected Release Date: 4/30/2028
Shelia Eddy 2023 Information
Shelia Eddy – Current Facility – LCC – Parole Eligibility 2028
Offender ID (OID) Number: 3573487
Name: Eddy, Shelia
Sex: Female
Birth Date: 9/28/1995
Height: 5′ 5″
Weight: 107 lbs.Race: White
Location: LCC
Intake Date: 2/7/2014 12:39:00 PM
Next Parole Hearing: 5/1/2028
Maximum Parole Discharge Date: Not Available
Projected Release Date: Not Available
Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy Other News
As high school sophomores, Skylar Neese, Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf were inseparable.
Living in Morgantown, West Virginia, the then-16-year-olds were pretty and sociable, taking selfies and spending time together.
But everything changed on July 6, 2012, when Neese’s parents discovered she was missing. Six months later, Shoaf told authorities that she and Eddy had stabbed their best friend Neese to death.
At 16, Skyler Neese was thriving, according to her parents. She had a 4.0 grade point average, a part-time job at a fast food restaurant and an active social life.
She was Dave and Mary Neese’s only child.
“Skylar was a very bubbly person,” Dave Neese told ABC News’ “20/20.” “She was also very loyal to her friends, the people she thought was her friends.”
Skylar Neese met her best friend Shelia Eddy at age 8.
“She was like a part of our family. She really was,” Dave Neese said. “I mean, just like one of our kids.”
While entering her freshman year in high school in September 2010, Eddy met Rachel Shoaf. The next month, Eddy transferred to the same high school as Skylar Neese, and Shoaf also soon became friends with her. Before long the three teens began to argue among themselves.
On July 5, 2012, Skylar Neese went home after finishing a shift at work.
The next morning, her dad said he discovered that she didn’t sleep in her bed. He later found her window screen in her closet and a hidden bench that she could use to climb in and out of her window.
“Then I knew: she snuck out last night,” Dave Neese said. “And then, oh my god, she snuck out last night, and she’s not home.”
That same day, after Skylar Neese missed work for the first time ever, her parents called police to report her missing. Star City, West Virginia, police officer Bob McCauley responded to the 911 call and began investigating Skylar Neese’s disappearance.
Later that day, Sheila Eddy called Skylar Neese’s parents to tell them what had happened the night before.
“She proceeded to tell me that her, Skylar, and Rachel had snuck out the night before and that they had driven around Star City, were getting high, and that the two girls had dropped her back off at the house,” Mary Neese told “20/20.” “The story was they had dropped her off at the end of the road, because she didn’t want to wake us up sneaking back in.”
Eddy said she and Rachel Shoaf had picked up Skylar Neese at around 11 P.M. and dropped her back off at home before midnight.
On the Neese’s apartment’s surveillance camera, a car is seen pulling up to the apartment at 12:30 A.M.
At 12:35 A.M., the grainy video shows Skylar Neese sneaking out of her room and slipping into the car, which drives away.
“I was scared to death. I mean I didn’t know where my baby was. It was horrible,” said Dave Neese.
On July 7, 2012, Shelia Eddy and her mom helped Skylar Neese’s parents canvass the neighborhood looking for her, while Rachel Shoaf left for Catholic summer camp for two weeks.
Two days later, the public learned that Neese was missing through television, radio and internet coverage. As weeks passed, the investigation into Skylar Neese’s disappearance continued. Police believed the most likely scenario was that Neese went to a house party and overdosed.
Corporal Ronnie Gaskins told “20/20” he heard rumors that Neese had supposedly overdosed on heroin. “She died. People there panicked, and they disposed of the body,” said Gaskins.
Jessica Colebank, who was working on the case, found Shelia Eddy’s demeanor suspicious when she went to speak to her for the first time.
“Just complete blank on emotions and there was absolutely nothing. It was like iced over,” Colebank told “20/20.”
Colebank also thought Rachel Shoaf was very nervous when she first spoke to her.
“Their stories were verbatim, the same. No one’s story is exactly the same, unless it’s rehearsed,” Colebank said. “Everything in my gut was, ‘Sheila is acting wrong. Rachel is scared to death.’”
After viewing surveillance video and cell phone records that proved Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf were lying about what happened the night they last saw Skylar Neese, police told Dave and Mary Neese that Eddy and Shoaf had a secret.
Dave and Mary Neese, classmates and even strangers put pressure on Eddy and Shoaf to tell the truth.
On Dec. 28, 2012, Rachel Shoaf had a nervous breakdown and was committed to a local psychiatric hospital, where she had no contact with Shelia Eddy.
After being discharged from the hospital on Jan. 3, 2013, Shoaf confessed to her attorney and police that she and Eddy stabbed Neese to death.
“We never encountered anything that led us to believe that these two girls conspired with one another to commit premeditated murder,” Corporal Ronnie Gaskin said.
The car that Skylar Neese was seen getting into was determined to be Shelia Eddy’s.
After her confession, Shoaf agreed to lead police to the site of the murder to try to find Skylar Neese’s body.
Shoaf talked with Eddy while wearing a microphone, but Eddy failed to incriminate herself.
With the discovery of Skylar Neese’s body and that the blood found on Eddy’s car was Skylar Neese’s, police had enough evidence to arrest Eddy and Shoaf.
“We asked Rachel, ‘Why did you guys kill Skylar?’ And her only answer to that was, ‘We just didn’t like her,’” State Police Corp. Ronnie Gaskin said.
Rachel Shoaf turned herself into authorities at the Monongalia County Circuit Court on May 1, 2013.
Shoaf, now 18, was transferred to criminal court in closed hearing and was charged as an adult. She pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is incarcerated at the Northern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Wheeling, West Virginia.
She faces 30 years in prison and will soon be transferred to adult prison.
Also on May 1, Shelia Eddy, now 18, was arrested in a restaurant parking lot.
She was charged as an adult, pleaded guilty and was sentenced as an adult to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 15 years.
“They’re both sickos, and they’re both exactly where they need to be: away from civilization, locked up like animals. Because that’s what they are, they’re animals,” said Dave Neese.
In memory of their daughter, Dave and Mary Neese helped pass Skylar’s Law in West Virginia. It requires Amber Alerts for all missing children, not only those believed to have been kidnapped.
To honor their daughter, Dave and Mary transformed the site of her murder into a memorial. Dave often makes the 20-mile drive.
“Something horrible happened here,” Dave Neese said. “But I wanted to take the horrible thing that happened here and try to turn it into something good — a place that people can come and remember Skylar and remember the good little girl that she was, and not the little beast that they treated her like.”
Rachel Shoaf And Shelia Eddy Videos
Frequently Asked Questions
Rachel Shoaf And Shelia Eddy FAQ
Rachel Shoaf Now
Rachel Shoaf is currently incarcerated at the Lakin Correctional Center
Rachel Shoaf Release Date
Rachel Shoaf current release date is 2028
Shelia Eddy Now
Shelia Eddy is currently incarcerated at the Lakin Correctional Center
Shelia Eddy Release Date
Shelia Eddy is serving life however is eligible for parole in 2028
Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy Photos
Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy More News
Sixteen-year-old Skylar Neese never made it back home after she snuck out of her Star City, West Virginia, home after midnight on July 6, 2012, to meet up with her two friends, Rachel Shoaf and Sheila Eddy, both of whom were the same age.
After Neese went missing, her mother said Eddy told her that the three of them had been driving around town that night getting high before she and Shoaf had dropped Neese off at the end of the road from her apartment building so that Neese could sneak back in. The surveillance camera on Neese’s apartment building captured her sneaking out and getting into a car at around 12:30 a.m.
As the investigation into Neese’s disappearance continued, suspicion mounted that the girls were harboring a secret. A few months later, Shoaf suffered a nervous breakdown. Then, on Jan. 3, 2013, she confessed to her attorney and police that she had stabbed Neese to death with Eddy. She agreed to lead authorities to Neese’s remains, which were in a wooded area over the Pennsylvania state line, about 20 miles from Star City.
“We asked Rachel, ‘Why did you guys kill Skylar?’ And her only answer to that was, ‘We just didn’t like her,’” State Police Cpl. Ronnie Gaskin told “20/20” in a previous interview.
Neese’s parents told “20/20” that the three high school sophomores used to be inseparable. But in the days leading up to her death, Neese’s Twitter account, which was eventually deleted, showed that something had gone awry.
On July 4, 2012, two days before she was murdered, Neese tweeted, “It really doesn’t take much to p*** me off,” and, “Sick of being at f****** home. Thanks ‘friends,’ love hanging out with you all too.”
The day before she was killed, Neese tweeted, “you doing s*** like that is why I can NEVER completely trust you.”
Neese’s last tweet, sent out hours before she snuck out of her bedroom window, was a retweet from a friend who had posted, “All I do is hope.”
Prior to Shoaf’s confession and before the truth about Neese’s disappearance was revealed, Eddy remained active on Twitter, posting regularly about her thoughts and day-to-day activities as authorities searched for her “missing” friend. In hindsight of Neese’s murder, several tweets from Eddy seemed disturbing.
Eddy’s first tweet on July 7, 2012, the day after she and Shoaf killed Neese, was a message to a friend wishing her a happy birthday:
In the months that followed, Eddy regularly tweeted about watching TV, school, hating homework and other typical teenage things. She even tweeted about her and Shoaf’s close friendship, writing in one tweet, “no one on this earth can handle me and rachel if you think you can you’re wrong.”
Then, on Jan. 3, 2013, Shoaf confessed to stabbing Neese to death with Eddy and told authorities where they had left her body. Meanwhile, Eddy kept up appearances that everything was normal, tweeting about watching her favorite TV shows: “staying home on a Tuesday is the best cause law and order svu is on all day.”
On the morning of March 13, 2013, the U.S. Attorney’s Office publically announced that the human remains found in the wooded area in Brave, Pennsylvania, belonged to Skylar Neese. Eddy, still keeping up appearances, pretended to be devastated over the news that her friend had been found dead, tweeting, “Rest easy Skylar, you’ll ALWAYS be my best friend,” with a photo montage of her and Neese together, and the words “worst day of my whole life.”
During her January 2013 confession, Shoaf had told authorities she and Eddy had planned Neese’s murder while in science class together. The plan was to pick Neese up from her house at night and drive to a remote area to smoke marijuana. Once they were in the woods, Shoaf said the plan was to count to three, then stab Neese to death.
On March 30, 2013, Eddy tweeted “we really did go on three”
As the investigation continued, police determined that the car Neese had been seen getting into on surveillance footage was Eddy’s car and that blood found on the car belonged to Neese. On May 1, 2013, Eddy was arrested in a restaurant parking lot and Shoaf turned herself in to authorities. Both teens were charged with murder as adults.
Eddy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for her role in the killing. On Jan. 24, 2014, roughly 18 months after Neese’s death, she was sentenced to life in prison.
Shoaf, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, was sentenced to 30 years in prison the following month.
Today, both women are 23 years old and remain incarcerated at the Lakin Correctional Center in West Virginia.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/teenage-killers-eerie-tweets-stabbing-friend-death/story?id=64541231
Skylar Neese Photos
