Pretty Little Killers (7 page)

No matter how many times her mother asked Shelia to sit down, she refused. Crissy believes Shelia's actions were designed to get attention from everyone around her. Those odd mannerisms continued to define Shelia as she grew older, but her loved ones explained them away, saying she was an only child and the center of her mother's life.

Unlike Skylar's parents, Shelia's parents divorced before she ever entered school. By the time Skylar was murdered in 2012, it appears the double tragedy—losing her father twice—might have taken its toll on Shelia. By then, she and Skylar had been friends more than half their lives.

Not too far from the Neeses' home in a nearby section of Morgantown known as Evansdale, another little girl was growing up. Rachel Shoaf was the only daughter of a merchant father—Rusty Shoaf owned and operated Reiner and Core, an exclusive clothing boutique in town—and a stay-at-home mother, Patricia. Rusty's first wife had succumbed to cancer, leaving him a widower with a young son and the proceeds from her life insurance policy. When he met and married Patricia, an outsider from Hampton, Virginia, his family thought he was rushing into a new relationship too soon.

The Shoafs soon had a baby girl. One family friend said she became “the sun, the moon, the stars” to her parents. Before long, Rusty's store went out of business, he and his son, Kevin, moved out, and the marriage ended in divorce. Rachel, whose favorite pastime then was playing Blue's Clues on the family computer, was four years old.

People who have known the Shoafs for many years said they have big hearts—sometimes too big, allowing people into their lives who later take advantage of them. Patricia Shoaf's closest friend, Liz,
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recalled how she struggled as a single mother and how Patricia came
to her aid. Liz's daughter Karen was two years younger than Rachel, but because Patricia gave her all the outfits Rachel outgrew, Karen was the best-dressed child in school.

The Shoafs did not move in the same social circle as the Neeses or the Eddys, so Rachel didn't know either girl. Instead, by the time she began school, Rachel was friends with children from the more affluent families in town. Liz said Rachel was a nervous child when at home. Away from home, though, she often lovingly tended to other children and later, as she grew older, regularly volunteered with the Special Olympics. “Rachel was the first person to defend those kids and wouldn't let anyone be mean to them,” Liz said.

Skylar had always seemed sensible to Dave—sometimes irritatingly so. Many years after the Neeses' vacation to Ocean City, when Skylar was a teenager and the family lived in the Cheat Lake area, she called her father to task for his excessive behavior during televised sports events. Dave was an unabashed fan of West Virginia University football. The team has never won a national championship, but the promise has often dangled. For a rabid fan like Dave, their performance has been exhilarating and frustrating. Dave watched every game, often yelling at the screen.

One day, Dave recalls, when they still lived in Cheat Lake, Skylar came downstairs to the living room where Dave was watching the game. She stood for a few seconds, observing how wrapped up in it he was.

“Daddy, what do you care? So they lose. Why get all worked up about it?”

“Did you see what Slaton did? It's like he just gave up and fell down!”

“How does that affect you? How is your life going to change if they lose? Or if they win, for that matter?”

Something about hearing those questions from his fifteen-year-old daughter brought Dave up short. She was right, and “Ohh—go upstairs with your mother,” was all the frustrated father could say.

Dave went back to watching the game, but Skylar had planted a tiny seed that would germinate inside him and change his outlook on WVU football. He still watched the games but was more objective. Skylar planted many seeds in her dad, changing his views on subjects important and trivial. She was that kind of kid, and he was that kind of father.

As early adolescence approached and cell phone coverage improved, Skylar and Shelia called or texted each other whenever they weren't together. The summer before Shelia moved to Morgantown, Skylar often stayed with Shelia.

Shelia's neighbors said they didn't see anything out of the ordinary during those visits. Skylar seemed friendly and sociable, and the two girls would often walk to the nearby Bell's Grocery store, or they would hang outside on the front porch with local boys who dropped by—usually when Tara was at work.

Neighbor Ted Bice said Shelia was quiet and shy, and would often walk in her bikini through the backyard, where she would sunbathe. He would spray Shelia with a water hose if she was outside when he was washing his truck.

He remembers hearing Tara and Shelia yelling at each other “several times.” That could have been around the time Tara began dating Jim Clendenen, since several people have said Shelia didn't like her mother's new beau.

Even though he mined coal for a living, Jim wasn't your average coal miner: Crissy said he wore jewelry and got pedicures, so she and Shelia often teased Tara. Men in rural West Virginia rarely engaged in such pampering.
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Shelia did find one reason to like Jim: he was generous.

“Jim was so gracious with his money, so gracious,” Crissy said. “He just gave and gave and gave and gave, and if Shelia wanted the best, she got the best.”

Once, possibly during a heated argument over her mother's boyfriend, Bice heard Shelia threaten to kill Tara. “I don't know how many more times she flipped out on her mom,” he said. “She was, like, really getting wild.”

Other neighbors said Shelia seemed odd. An older girl across the street from Tara's old apartment said Shelia was also mean, calling her a “whore” after the teen neighbor got pregnant.

“[Shelia's] always been a little weird, stayed in the house a lot,” a neighbor named Lee Barker said.
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“She acted like she didn't want to be seen in public, 'cause she'd have her dad stop down and go to the store for her and bring stuff down while her mother was at work.”

Crissy said Shelia didn't have a good relationship with her father, but Greg clearly loved his daughter and was more than happy to run errands for her. Greg was often a regular at Dunkard Valley Golf Course, where he and his father would play golf.

“He would come in about three times a week,” Kristen Miller said, “and say he had to get his ‘little girl a sodie pop.'”

Miller, who worked at the golf course restaurant, said none of the staff even believed he had a daughter—because they never saw her. When staffers later heard the news and learned Greg's daughter had been charged with killing Skylar, Miller said they were shocked to learn she was a teenager. “He always talked about her like she was a little girl.”

It took, of all things, a wedding to set in motion a chain of events that would bring the three girls into almost constant contact—and alter the course of their lives forever.

Tara's decision to marry Jim ushered a number of changes into Shelia's life: a new stepfather, a well-appointed townhouse located outside Morgantown, and city living. In addition, gaining a new husband who worked as a foreman for a union coal company meant Tara could say farewell to difficult financial times. So could Shelia.

Jim's generous income added luxuries to the lives of mother and daughter: he sent flowers to his new wife every month and Shelia could finally wear the expensive labels she'd always coveted. She could also get her hair styled and go to the mall for manicures. Even so, Shelia didn't have the same status as the daughters of the local business moguls or the sons of prominent lawyers.

The move did allow Shelia to attend UHS, five minutes away, and her new home was only ten minutes from the Neeses' Star City apartment. Shelia and Skylar were excited about the prospect of being together all the time. That prospect became a reality in October 2010 when Shelia transferred to UHS as a ninth grader and immediately requested a class schedule identical to Skylar's.

Aside from her family, Skylar's life had three constants: Morgan, Daniel, and Shelia. Rachel didn't enter her life until both girls were fourteen and freshmen at UHS.

By then Skylar's friendship with Shelia seemed to grate on the nerves of all her other friends. Those girls said Shelia was “mean” and “controlling.” Sadly, they saw the same thing as Mary and Dave—a change in Skylar's behavior—which they attributed to her close association with Shelia. It impacted her other friendships so much that by the end of middle school, even Morgan and Skylar weren't hanging together very often.