Pretty Little Killers (20 page)

Colebank did not believe Skylar was a runaway so she doubted the teenager would surface in North Carolina. She'd been wrong before, though, and she fervently hoped she was wrong this time.

While Carolina Beach police tried to track down the lead, Colebank phoned the Neeses. Dave answered.

“Who has red hair, Dave?” Not having met her, Colebank didn't know about Rachel Shoaf's trademark tresses.

“That'd be Rachel. Why?”

“We may have something. I'll call you back.”

Next, Colebank called church camp officials. It was possible Rachel had left camp, and she and Skylar had taken a mini-vacation. Maybe they were skipping out on their responsibilities and worrying their parents, acting like typical teenagers. She hoped so.

Colebank lost her optimism when camp officials put Rachel on the line. Skylar's other best friend claimed she didn't know the teen was missing. Colebank found that odd. Even if Rachel was out of touch at camp, she could have learned the news almost any time Friday before she left Morgantown. Rachel suggested Colebank call
Shelia, saying she wasn't as close to Skylar as Shelia was. Colebank said she would. Before hanging up, the young officer asked Rachel to stop by the department when she returned to Morgantown.

“I will,” Rachel promised.

She never did.

Despite the absence of an AMBER Alert in Skylar's case and the lack of widespread media coverage, the news was spreading. Momentum was building on social media, especially on Facebook. More and more people were sharing Skylar's MISSING poster. On Thursday, July 12, Joanne's daughter, Rikki Woodall, posted the following:

Hey family—I'm Al & Nina's granddaughter—my cousin Skylar Neese (on my other side of the family) went missing last week. . . . She's a wild one, so we're hoping it's an extended teenage party break, but the thought of it being something else is terrifying. Would you mind please sharing this? I normally don't share things like this, but she's local in Morgantown area, and she's my family. I appreciate the help
!!

In truth, Rikki did not know her cousin at all. Mary and Dave said they had never met. Despite her concern, Rikki was hardly an insider and her knowledge of the teen was based primarily on what was broadcast through social media.

Oftentimes, social media communication conceals as much as it reveals. It's not necessarily about conveying the full truth so much as sustaining a public image and managing that image. By all accounts, Skylar wanted to be
seen
as a wild child, but she wasn't, not really. Not to say she didn't occasionally get drunk or smoke weed, because she did. Accounts of her drug use vary—some teens maintain it was confined to marijuana and alcohol, while others said Skylar used other substances. In truth, the wild child image Rikki Woodall disseminated appears to have been largely manufactured by Skylar herself.

Skylar looked up to Shelia—even though she had a questionable reputation. As a result of their association with Shelia, many
teens thought both Skylar and Rachel were hanging with the wrong crowd—and even tried to tell them. It did little good, since both girls loved the excitement they felt whenever they were with Shelia.

At various parties she attended, Skylar was often seen sitting on a couch by herself, playing with her phone or her iPod. Rachel was often absent from the party scene; her mother almost always refused to let her go with the other two girls. So while Shelia and her crowd were all drinking, drugging, and making out, Skylar was on Twitter.

Like so many teenagers, she wanted to be perceived as “cool.” Her tweets and Facebook posts reveal a girl who just wanted to have fun. At the same time, they concealed Skylar's true nature. They obscured the girl who was insightful, had exceptional writing skills, and planned to be a criminal lawyer. This was the real Skylar, the one whose peers said was by far the smartest person in her social circle, the Skylar who was a rock for the friends who depended on her.

Not long after Skylar disappeared, Carol Michaud went to the beauty salon to have her hair done. She learned Shelia went there, too, and that's when the beautician told Skylar's aunt an odd story.

“She said she hung one of the MISSING posters in her shop, but someone took it down,” Carol said.

The shop owner later said she remembered the day she hung it near the front entrance, “with tape on all four corners, so clients would see it as they were leaving.”

One day when the owner went to the foyer, the MISSING poster was “just gone. I stood and stared for full two minutes,” she said.

She knew the poster had been there earlier, and said she was confused about why it was gone. The poster couldn't have fallen down. Then she remembered: Shelia and her mom were there earlier, when Shelia had her hair highlighted.

Looking back, Carol had to wonder whether Shelia took it down to keep people from connecting the dots to her and Rachel. But the
salon owner has another theory: she believes Tara could have removed it, “because she didn't want Shelia upset over seeing it there.”

It wasn't the first time someone noticed Skylar's MISSING posters were being removed. Many volunteers who spent hours every day hanging up posters began to wonder what was happening to them. They kept disappearing. Was someone following behind and taking them down as fast as the volunteers were putting them up? The MISSING posters had been removed at more than one local grocery store. Dave's aunt Joanne said it had happened repeatedly in Sabraton, too.

It turned into another mystery, since no one could say who was behind it.

fifteen

Gone

On July 13, the
day after Rikki's Facebook post, Mary and Dave loaded their bags into Carol's car and prepared to drive down to North Carolina. Skylar had bonded with her mother's sister at birth. Carol and Skylar had spent so much time together since then that Carol looked at Skylar like the daughter she never had. Skylar was also like a little sister to Carol's son, Kyle, who was two years older. Carol would do whatever it took to bring Skylar home.

Mary and Dave's car wasn't in the best shape. They had already put a ton of money into the beater to keep it on the road just so they could get to work each day. Taking it on a road trip was another matter. Dave was afraid it would break down and leave them stranded. God knows they already had enough stress; the last thing they needed was more.

They had to check on this latest Skylar sighting, though, to see for themselves if the girl spotted on the boardwalk was their daughter. For all they knew, it
was
her. In just a few hours, they believed, they might see their baby again. Carol's offer of her own car had been an answer to their prayers.

The same day Mary and Dave were getting ready to drive to North Carolina, someone who called herself “Pisces_Sun” posted on
Websleuths, one of the largest online crime discussion sites, saying she had barely seen or read anything about the story. Pisces_Sun's post highlighted a disturbing reality:
Me and my husband drove through Star City on our way to the store just now . . . I'm shocked that there aren't missing posters for this girl up anywhere on the main drag! . . . Haven't heard anyone mention it around town, either
.

Even though Skylar had been missing for one week, few people outside of Mary and Dave's immediate circles seemed to know about it. Skylar's story illustrated a sad truth: traditional media can't raise awareness as quickly as necessary in the case of a missing juvenile. Thus the need for AMBER Alerts. The program was a testament to Amber Hagerman, the 9-year-old who was riding her bicycle when she was kidnapped and brutally murdered in 1996. It was the brainchild of Dallas-Fort Worth broadcasters and local police who wanted a fast, efficient way to warn communities when children are abducted.

However, the AMBER system didn't consider Skylar to be in danger. As far as Mary and Dave were concerned, the AMBER Alert system was broken and needed to be fixed.

Once national news programs did pick up the story, the networks requested sound bites from the parents. Ultimately, all of them came from Dave because Mary couldn't look into a camera without crying uncontrollably. With his close-cropped, gray-flecked hair, knitted eyebrows, and a tight skepticism pulling at the left corner of his mouth, Dave reminded people of the actor John Goodman. In spite of his obvious concern and frustration, every news clip portrayed a man who was bearing all the disappointments with an admirable, soft-spoken dignity.

As the online momentum intensified, more people learned about Skylar's disappearance. The mainstream media struggled to catch up to all the social media sites that had been covering the story since it began. By the time the Neeses were ready to leave for what they hoped would be a joyful reunion with Skylar, Colebank got word from the Carolina Beach police. The girl who had been seen was indeed a runaway. She just wasn't Skylar.

Mary and Dave could barely find the energy to unpack Carol's car.

On Sunday, July 15, a week and a half after Skylar came up missing, Mary Neese awoke to the certainty she'd never see Skylar again. Her maternal instincts told her as much. Across town, her sister Carol had the same feeling. Carol dressed quickly and drove to Mary's.