Count to Three

Skylar Neese was sixteen and heading into her junior year at University High School in Star City, West Virginia. Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf were her closest friends. Just after midnight on July 6, 2012, a camera at her apartment complex recorded Skylar climbing out of her bedroom window and getting into a car waiting in the lot. Her parents reported her missing that evening.

The two girls drove her across the Pennsylvania line to a wooded spot in Greene County, counted to three as a signal, and stabbed her more than fifty times, then covered her body with branches. For six months they held to a story about dropping her off, and Eddy handed out flyers beside Skylar’s parents. Shoaf collapsed at home in late December 2012, spent days in a psychiatric unit, and in January told investigators what they had done. She led police to the site on January 16, 2013, and DNA confirmed the remains two months later.

Shoaf pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in May 2013 and was sentenced in February 2014 to 30 years, with parole eligibility after ten. Eddy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in January 2014 and received life with parole eligibility after fifteen. West Virginia passed Skylar’s Law in 2013, letting police issue an Amber Alert for a missing child without first establishing an abduction.