In July 2012, West Virginia teenager Skylar Neese left her family’s apartment for a night drive with her inseparable high school friends. When she didn’t return the next day, a frantic search for her whereabouts began.
What investigators—and Neese’s family—didn’t know was that her classmates were harboring a sinister and deadly secret.
The teenager’s disappearance and death are reexamined in the new three-part docuseries Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese, debuting Friday, March 6, on Hulu. The project includes new interviews and details about Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy, the two friends who eventually pleaded guilty to Neese’s murder.
Neese, 16 at the time of her death, was a promising student with ambitious career goals. Here’s what we know about her life and the days prior to her death.
Who Was Skylar Neese?
Born February 10, 1996, Skylar Neese grew up in Star City, West Virginia, a suburb of Morgantown. Her parents, Dave and Mary Neese, worked at Walmart and a local medical office, respectively, according to an episode of 20/20.
By high school, Skylar was a promising student at University High School. She had a 4.0 GPA and part-time job at a nearby Wendy’s, as well as an active social life. According to her father and aunt, Carol Michaud, she wanted to become a lawyer. “She was a good debater, so you know, I really think she would’ve been a good lawyer,” Michaud recalled.
While Dave admitted to spoiling Skylar, an only child, “beyond rotten,” he lauded her big heart and outgoing demeanor. “Skylar was very loyal to her friends, the people she thought was her friends,” he added.
They included Shelia Eddy, her childhood friend since age 8, and Rachel Shoaf, whom she met during their freshman year of high school. As sophomores, however, the teenagers’ bond began to show signs of fraying.
Why Did Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf Kill Skylar Neese?
In the days before her disappearance, Skylar made multiple social media posts hinting at a rift among the trio. “Sick of being at f—ing home. Thanks ‘friends’ love hanging out with you all too,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter), then adding a day later “you doing s—t like that is why I can NEVER completely trust you.”
Shoaf later testified in court that she and Eddy had begun a romantic relationship, and they worried Neese would reveal their secret. “After things became known with the relationship, there was tension between us,” Shoaf said in her 2023 testimony, according to WBOY. “It was hostile and violent, in our teenage minds we didn’t know how to handle the conflict and we just wanted it to stop.”
On July 5, 2012, Neese returned home from a work shift and later sneaked out of her parents’ apartment through a window to go for a drive with Eddy and Shoaf. What she didn’t know was that her friends were planning a deadly attack.
According to Shoaf’s confession, the trio drove to a remote area across the state border in Wayne, Pennsylvania, early in the morning of July 6 and pulled over to smoke pot. However, Shoaf and Eddy instead counted to three and began stabbing Neese with kitchen knives.
Neese suffered more than 50 stab wounds in the attack and died from her injuries, and Shoaf and Eddy hid her body.
How Did Investigators Solve Skylar Neese’s Murder?
Later that day, Eddy falsely told Neese’s parents she and Shoaf dropped Skylar off at the end of the road to her apartment building. In the days following Skylar’s disappearance, Eddy regularly posted on social media about her friendship with Shoaf and daily activities as if nothing unusual had happened.
Meanwhile, the FBI became involved in the case. As the weeks went on, investigators grew more suspicious of Shoaf and Eddy: Surveillance footage showed they lied about details of the car ride in their initial statements to police.
Eventually, harboring their dark secret became too much for Shoaf. On December 28, 2012, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital after experiencing a mental health crisis. She also requested to speak with her family lawyer and investigators. One week later, on January 3, 2013, Shoaf confessed to Neese’s murder in full detail. She agreed to help lead authorities to the location of her friend’s remains and even wore a wire in an attempt to get Eddy to confess, though the latter failed.
However, once investigators determined the girls used Eddy’s car and found Neese’s blood on the vehicle, they had enough evidence to arrest both girls.
Shoaf’s explanation for the murder was chillingly simple. “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, according to ABC10.
What Crimes Did Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy Commit?
On May 1, 2013, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of West Virginia announced that Shoaf pleaded guilty while in custody to second-degree murder. She agreed to submit her plea as an adult and, because of her cooperation with investigators, received a slightly more lenient sentence of 30 years in prison with eligibility for parole after 10 years. She had parole hearings in 2023 and 2024, but was denied both times.
Meanwhile, Eddy, now 30, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder shortly before her trial in January 2014 as part of a deal with prosecutors. After the teenager entered her plea, Judge Russell Clawges sentenced Eddy to life imprisonment with mercy—a West Virginia legal provision that allows parole eligibility after 15 years.
Skylar’s father, Dave Neese, is adamant that Shoaf, now 29, and Eddy should remain in prison for the rest of their lives. “This inmate is just the rat that narced and got a deal. Yes, she showed us where she murdered Skylar, yet she is also the narcissist liar that put my daughter in that place,” he said following Shoaf’s hearing in 2023. “This monster is a danger to society. If released, no parent can close their eyes at night without fear that their own child could possibly be the next victim.”
What Is West Virginia’s “Skylar’s Law”?
The tragedy of Neese’s death prompted West Virginia lawmakers to expand the state’s criteria for Amber alerts, or child abduction emergency alerts. Per “Skylar’s Law,” enacted in 2013, children who are merely proven to be in danger—as opposed to only victims of an abduction—are eligible for an alert. At the time of her death, Neese did not meet the criteria for an Amber alert because she was considered a runaway, as she had snuck out of her house to meet her friends.
Dave and Mary Neese turned the site where police discovered their daughter’s body into a public memorial. They showed the monument, which includes a wooden bench along with decorated trees and rocks, to 20/20 in 2019.
The mother and father also began speaking at schools, prisons, and churches, encouraging students to accept Skylar’s Promise—a pledge to tell a responsible adult or guidance counselor of any concerns over talk of a potential violent crime.
“It’s so important to me that this never happens again to anyone,” Dave told MetroNews in 2023. “It’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever been through, obviously, and I don’t want anyone else to go through it, I wouldn’t wish it on the two people that put me through it.”
Watch Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese on Hulu starting March 6
Director Clair Titley spoke about the docuseries on the Reality Life with Kate Casey podcast. Showrunners took an “inside-out” approach by speaking with those directly involved in the events of the case, as opposed to focusing on police and legal testimony.
Hulu has already confirmed Friends Like These is told through “social media posts, intimate interviews, and Skylar’s own words.”
“There’s been enough time [that] has passed that we can kind of look back at the kind of social media of 2012, and Twitter and Facebook, and what it was like for teenagers there,” Titley said. “And it was literally the Wild West out there for them in a way. Nobody was really kind of paying much attention to what teenagers were doing online.”
Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese begins streaming Friday, March 6, on Hulu.
Tyler Piccotti joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor and is now the News and Culture Editor. He previously worked as a reporter and copy editor for a daily newspaper recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors. In his current role, he shares the true stories behind your favorite movies and TV shows and profiles rising musicians, actors, and athletes. When he's not working, you can find him at the nearest amusement park or movie theater and cheering on his favorite teams.
