. i'm craig melvin. and i'm natalie morales. and this is "dateline." i'm craig melvin and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> she was beautiful. her eyes were remarkable. i was going to be there for her and she was going to be there for me. it didn't matter what it was. i thought maybe she'd been kidnapped. no one knew what was happening. there is nothing i could have done or anyone could have done. >> skyler, rachel, sheila. total bffs. >> they hung out all the time. >> you always thought of them as a team. >> the three of them became inseparable. >> then one ended up missing. >> nobody's heard from her. nobody knows where she is. >> something's wrong.

something's bad wrong. >> where was skyler? someone was hiding something. >> i was like it's the fbi. like, they're serious. >> twitter. instagram. facebook. you just see things start to get ridiculously out of control. >> a click of mean girls. were they mean enough to kill? >> she was like well she'll blackmail me. >> it was such a shocking end. scandalous kind of case. >> this was diabolical. >> evil comes in all shapes and sizes. >> hello and welcome to "dateline." for skyler niece's parents, their teenage daughter is all they could have hoped for. a straight a student with lots of friends and happy at her part-time job but then their world turned upside down when their only child seemed to vanish without a trace. at first, police thought she ran

away. but hints on social media would point to a more sinister reason for her disappearance. here's andrea canning with something wicked. >> reporter: in the gentle rolling hills of northern west virginia, in a sweet college town in the heart of coal country lived three teenage girls. their photos capture a moment in time. they were smart, talented, lovely. everything a parent could hope for in a daughter. and so who could have guessed just by looking that some of them carried a dark secret about a friend? >> do you have an emergency? >> i have a 16-year-old daughter. she has not been home. hasn't went to work. i am scared to death. >> these teens played a strange and haunting game. >> would you guys rather suffocate or get shot? >> get shot. >> a game of betrayal that would go way beyond typical teenage drama. >> she's calling out help me. you know, why?

why? why? >> and at the center of it all, was a girl named skyler. dave and mary neese welcomed their only daughter skyler to the world back in 1996. >> tell me about the day she was born. was that the greatest moment of your life? >> i wouldn't go that far. >> first time you saw her. >> first time i saw her, yes, i can say that was the greatest moment of my life. yeah. it was instant love. >> they live in star city. a small suburb of morgantown, west virginia, where dave works at walmart, and mary at a medical office. skyler was a whirlwind. a rambunctious, precocious toddler who owned her parents' hearts. >> hey, gorgeous. >> hi, daddy. >> you're beautiful, baby. >> she was reading way before she was supposed to. doing math and stuff way before she was supposed to so she was very intelligent little girl. >> dance for me. >> when skyler started nursery school, she made her first

friend. morgan lawrence. morgan was drawn right away to skyler. >> did she kind of light up a room? >> oh, yeah. she had the giggle and the laugh. >> the girls' families became good friends, too. morgan's parents dave and sheryl say morgan and skyler were like sisters. >> what are your memories of skyler when -- when she was this high? >> she giggled all the time. it just filled our house. >> she had the biggest eyes. you just wanted to hug her. >> they were good girls. got good grades. morgan dreamed of becoming a meteorologist. skyler, a criminal lawyer. they also had a pact. that they would always be there for one another. >> and you would both be in each other o other's wedding parties? >> everyone has a sister to put in their wedding and we had each other. >> as freshman at morgantown's high school, the two girls drifted apart a little. with a new school came new friends. the bubbly skyler fit in right away. >> friends came first with her. she was always about hanging out with friends if she didn't have work or school.

>> soon, skyler had two new bffs. sheila eddie, who the nieces had known for years, and rachel shoaf, a striking red head with broadway aspirations. it wasn't long before they were calling themselves the three musketeers. and in pictures, they looked the part. >> they were literally together every second of every day it seemed like. they hung out all the time. >> and like all teenage girls, they shared videos and photos with each other and online. giving us a glimpse into their world. skyler and sheila just having fun. >> now, let me try to go on your back. >> and of course, they occasionally got into trouble. but even then, it was for typical teenage things. dave and mary weren't too concerned. >> she's a straight a student who loves her parents. did you sort of chock it up to, okay, we're not thrilled but she's a teenager? >> exactly. >> when summer rolled around after her sophomore year, skyler seemed happy. she had a job at wendy's, which she loved.

on thursday, july 5th, 2012, she came home after work and got ready for bed. >> she put her arm around her mom, gave her a kiss and gave her a hug, and said i love you, mom. she turned to me and said, i love you, dad. and she went to the room. >> the next day, dave planned to meet skyler in their apartment at lunch time. he was surprised that she wasn't there. a little worried, he called mary. >> i thought she was out with one of her other friends. i figured they went swimming or shopping. >> dave called her friends, including sheila. no one had seen her. next, he went outside and found more cause for worry. a small bench was tucked near skyler's window, and the window screen was missing. >> at this time, i called skyler's cell phone. i said, hey, you're in trouble. you better be calling me right away. so i called her cell phone about ten times. i called mary again. >> again, mary told him to calm down. she said skyler was expected at work at 4:00. >> i said we're not going to worry. i'll call them about ten after

4:00. give her time to clock in. everything. see if she's there. >> but mary didn't get a chance to call wendy's. >> they called us first wanting to know if she's coming to work. >> was that a big moment for you? >> yeah. >> a few minutes later, there was another big surprise. a call from sheila. >> she said that she had to tell me the truth. and i said, well, what truth? she said, well, we did, we snuck out last night. >> mary's heart fell. skyler had done that once before. gone on a late-night joy ride with rachel and sheila. that time, they had been caught for being out after the town curfew. and now here was a worried sheila saying they had done it again. >> i said where did you go? where's skyler? and she said that skyler insisted they drop her off at the end of the street. so we wouldn't hear her sneaking back in. >> now, that missing screen and bench outside skyler's window made sense. skyler had put it there to boost herself up so she could get back

in. but it left them with a terrifying possibility. >> my first instinct was someone abducted her from the end of the street to our house. >> dave called the police. >> i have a daughter that's 16 years old. apparently, she snuck out of her room last night and she hasn't been seen since. none of her friends can get ahold of her. i can't find her. >> what's her name? >> skyler neese. >> the neese's world had fallen apart. their only daughter had disappeared into the night. and now, she'd been gone for nearly 24 hours. where was skyler? >> the investigation begins and concern for skyler begins to grow. >> coming up. >> just had this horrible feeling in my heart that something terrible had happened. >> mary told me that night she said something's wrong. something's bad wrong. >> a grainy piece of videotape is about to give police one giant clue. what can they glean from this?

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into an all in yes. allegra. live your life, not your allergies. star city, west virginia, has just 1,800 residents. only one stoplight. >> skylar going missing was a tough pill to swallow for the entire community. >> police officer jessica

colebank caught the skylar neese case. >> first impression was it could be a runaway. there are kids that run away all the time. >> it wasn't long before officer colebank got the video from the security cameras at the neese's building. skylar's friend, sheila eddy, had said skylar was home around midnight. so what was this car doing pulling up around 12:30 a.m.? who was in it? dave neese watched, horrified, as there on the tape, out walked skylar. >> she slowly walked down to a car that was sitting there waiting on her. and she got in the backseat. i could tell that. and she drove away. >> police couldn't quite make out a license plate or tell the make or model. skylar's mom mary had a theory. >> she made it home. snuck back in the window. then, a second person or persons had parked behind the building and she snuck out a second time. >> but why? who was in the car?

and where did they go? the police didn't issue an amber alert since it looked like skylar left voluntarily. >> once that video came out that she willingly got in this car, they're not going to come out looking for somebody driving in a car. >> skylar's friend sheila came right over. >> she spent a lot of time telling us it'll be okay. she'll approximate home. i really miss her. i love her. >> the next day, sheila sat with mary on skylar's bed. both of them crying. >> did it bring you comfort when sheila would come by, being skylar's best friend? >> it did me a little bit, yeah. knowing how could skylar leave her behind? >> mary and sheila took to the streets together. posting flyers for skylar. >> they would knock on the doors and ask have you seen this girl? and we showed pictures to people and nobody had seen her. >> sheila was very, very worried about what had happened to skylar. >> chrissy swanson is a close family friend of sheila's and

saw sheila's distress firsthand. >> she was trying so hard thelp them find anything. >> the star city police are still looking for a missing 16-year-old. >> dave made a plea for help on local news station wboy. >> we love her. we want her home. >> by sunday night, skylar had been gone the whole weekend. her family, including her aunt carol, was heartsick. >> i just had this horrible feeling in my heart that, you know, something terrible had happened. and it wasn't like her to run away or disappear like she did. >> mary told me that night, she said, something's wrong, dave. something's bad wrong. >> the community held a candlelight vigil. skylar's school friends came, including rachel and sheila. >> they were crying. came up and hugged me and mary. just crying their eyes out. >> the only thing mary could say

was what can we do to help these girls? how can we help these girls? >> skylar's family friend morgan lawrence was upset, too. she was away at camp when she read on facebook that skylar was missing. >> how worried were you? >> i was sick to my stomach all the time worried. >> so was officer colebank. she was at it nonstop. >> i'd come back to the office in the evenings, you know, watching the video. getting facebook records. >> colebank was swamped with tips from people saying they had seen skylar from morgantown to new york and even california. each sighting was a dead end. at the same time, colebank pulled skylar's records. what she found was ominous. skylar wasn't using her cell phone or her atm card. colebank now had serious doubts that skylar had run away. >> usually, runaways, they take items with them that they want, especially if she had contacts and glasses. she didn't take that stuff with her. >> and then police got an important new lead in the case. there had been two bank robberies in the nearby town of

blacksville. both of them had gone down around the time skylar vanished. >> i was working with other investigators on those bank robberies. >> while looking into the robberies, ronnie gaskins of the west virginia state police was called into skylar's case. there had been a tip that somehow skylar had been at a party with the suspected bank robbers when something bad happened. >> what was the theory? >> just rumors. you know, gossip going around that there was this teenage party. there was a possible overdose. and people there were scared so they hid the body. >> it seemed unlikely. skylar didn't use heavy drugs. >> it was just a lot of tracking down rumors. tons and tons and tons of rumors. >> all leading nowhere. by now, skylar had been gone more than a month. gaskins vowed he would find her. >> i don't like to make promises in my line of work. but the only promise i made to dave was we would never stop. you know, we'd never give up in trying to find out what happened to skylar.

>> their search for skylar had taken them across the united states. what they didn't know then was that the truth was right there in morgantown. at university high. coming up. >> i started posting on facebook. things about karma. karma will get you. you can't hide. >> twitter. instagram. and facebook. things start to get ridiculously out of control. >> whispers in the hallways. was someone hiding something? police are about to get a break. >> that was an ah-ha moment. finally, we have something to go on. >> when "dateline" continues. awesome internet.

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the first day of school. the fall of 2012 was heartbreaking. one of university high school's top students, skylar neese, had disappeared during the summer. classmate shania. >> starting school without her, like that was probably one of the hardest days through the whole thing. like, skylar was a go-to person and she was just gone. >> skylar's friend morgan lawrence was dreading roll call. >> i didn't have any classes with her thank god. >> you didn't want to her her name called. >> it's not the same. you know you can't tell the teacher we don't know if she's coming back. >> in some ways, life seemed normal.

skylar's good friend sheila eddy, seen her in this video taken in the classroom, is back in school. so is bff rachel shoaf. rachel got the lead in the fall play. but everyone was worried about skylar. and in school hallways and on social media, rumors flew. >> between twitter and instagram and facebook, you just see things start to get ridiculously out of control. >> kids saying things from skylar had overdosed. and things that skylar's in a different country. >> daniel hovatter was in drama with rachel and now how close the three girls were. he wondered if rachel and sheila might be helping cover something up for skylar. >> there had been rumors going around. oh, rachel and sheila know where she's hiding. >> daniel knew rachel and sheila were the last ones to see skylar. he worned if they we

he wondered if they were protecting her or maybe protecting someone else. either way, they had to know something. >> there were probably a good three, four, five times where i told rachel if you know anything, you need to say what happened. or where she's at. >> daniel wasn't alone. writers dalene barry and jeff live in the area. they spent hours combing through what kids were saying on social media. >> the one thing that stood out to me is that people, teens were tweeting sheila and rachel had to know something. >> why don't you guys just talk? just say something, you know, tell us what you know. >> the heat got turned up on the girls when the fbi showed up. and started interviewing students. >> i was only interviewed once. i guess i was nervous because i was like it's the fbi. like, they're serious. they asked me about rachel and sheila. if they seemed any different. and i was telling them they didn't seem different. but they were secluded to themselves more. >> the normal fall rituals, like

football and homecoming, were punctuated with police visits to rachel and sheila. kids say rachel left play rehearsal to meet with the fbi. mary and dave neese, desperate to find their daughter, thought the police were wasting their time investigating the girls they knew so well. >> i even went to the police and said will you leave sheila alone, please? i said you guys are harassing her 24/7. the kid's going through enough right now. leave her alone. she was like our daughter. >> but investigators were convinced the two girls knew more than they were saying. that fall, ronnie gaskins interviewed each girl repeatedly. >> how was sheila's demeanor in these meetings you would have with her? >> calm. collect. just would look at you right in the face. right in your eyes. >> he says rachel seemed distracted. >> she would draw on the desk. play with the pencil. just her nonverbal cues spoke a lot.

>> their story never varied. they picked skylar up. drove around morgantown. smoked a little pot. and dropped her off a few blocks from home. >> it was like a recording with these two. >> in the meantime, the officers had begun to collect physical evidence. and it didn't match up with the story the girls had been telling. surveillance video from a convenience store put the girls' car not heading east as they had said but heading west toward blacksville. and the girls' phone records from that night showed rachel's phone pinging off a cell tower in blacksville. >> that was an ah ha moment. finally, we have something to go on that's different from their story. >> now, even skylar's parents join the chorus of people trying to get the girls to talk. >> i started posting on facebook things about karma. karma will get you. you can't hide. we were pushing. we were pushing the girls to get them to say what happened. >> by late november, the

pressure seemed to be taking its toll on rachel. in an interview, she surprised police by changing her story. admitting, for the first time, that they did drive to blacksville that night. and that's where skylar told them to let her out of the car. blacksville. where those bank robberies had happened. -l the next day, sheila changed her story to say the same thing. >> that must have been a big red flag for you. >> absolutely. >> at school, kids say rachel was increasingly rattled. >> rachel seemed distressed. she seemed like she was very upset over something. i mean, this was eating at her heart. >> rachel shoaf was about to crack. >> coming up. an emergency at home and an interview with police. what exactly was rachel shoaf about to reveal? >> we were speechless. >> when "dateline" continues.

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hello. more than 80 million americans are being told to stay home in order to contain the spread of the coronavirus. new jersey became the latest state to issue a stay at home order to its residents following california, illinois, and new york. at least 281 dead across the united states. over 23,000 infected. vice president mike pence and his wife karen have tested negative for the coronavirus. pence said he would take a test after a staffer in his office tested positive. now, back to "dateline." >> welcome back to "dateline." i'm natalie morales. in the months after skylarher disappearance, skylar's friends were worried. many wondered if skylar's bffs rachel and sheila knew something. investigators were convinced of it. both girls were sticking to the same story. but that was about to change.

one of them was ready to talk. here's andrea canning with more of something wicked. >> reporter: christmas 2012 came and went for skylar neese's parents dave and mary. it had been six months since their daughter had disappeared. >> the holidays must have been very tough that year. christmas time. >> we didn't celebrate. >> no. we didn't put up any tree. we didn't do anything. >> just another day. >> yep. >> around that time, rachel shoaf and sheila eddy stopped attending university high. their few remaining friends told authors dalin barry that rachel seemed agitated. >> she was acting out. getting into more family altercations at home. >> so the walls were closing in on rachel. >> i have an issue with a 16-year-old daughter of mine. i can't control her anymore. >> and then, on december 28th, rachel apparently snapped.

her upset mother called the police. >> she's screaming. she's running through the neighborhood. give me the phone. no. this is over. this is over. my husband's trying to contain her. please, hurry. >> and rachel was taken to a mental health facility. a few days later, corporal ronnie gaskins got a big surprise. rachel wanted to meet at her lawyer's office. she had something she wanted to say. >> take us inside that attorney's office with rachel. what was her demeanor? >> i remember her pulling up a waste basket next to her. she was afraid she was going to throw up. and then we started asking her the questions we thought she would answer. did she overdose? was there a party? and i remember she just -- her face got really red and she just, you know, glanced at us and said we stabbed her. >> it wasn't an accident. it was a murder. and not only had rachel and sheila killed skylar, they had

planned it for months. all the while, looking and acting like the best of friends as sheila and skylar do in this video. as part of the plan, rachel and sheila settled on the night of july 5th as the ideal time to kill skylar. >> earlier that day, rachel had obtained the shovel from her father's residence. they put it in sheila's trunk. they brought the clean clothes, cleaning supplies, and according to rachel, sheila had provided the kitchen knives. >> they called skylar to say they were on their way over. >> pulled up to the residence. >> and there is skylar, sneaking out in that grainy surveillance video. the car is sheila's. and inside are skylar's two best friends. >> skylar gets in the car and they go driving. >> and they drove for nearly an hour. for miles and miles on dark winding roads out past

blacksville. >> they get to the scene. they park the car. and they found an area where they could sit and talk. and skylar leaves to go back to the car. and then rachel said on three. >> according to gaskins, rachel said she counted. one, two, three. and on three, the two girls began. >> that's when her and sheila started stabbing skylar. from behind. >> gaskins says skylar fought hard to defend herself. >> did rachel indicate what skylar's last words were? her final moments in that meeting? >> she said skylar just said why? that was -- that's all she said. >> rachel said the girls covered the body with dirt and branches. threw their blood y clothes in the trunk and left skylar there.

>> did rachel express how she felt when the crime was over? >> i just remember her saying that this was something she wanted to get done before she went to church camp. >> how did you feel when she said i had to get this done before church camp? >> what are we dealing with? >> did you ask rachel why? why did you two do this? >> she would not give us any specific details other than they just didn't like her. then when i asked what do you mean you didn't like her? clarify that. she said oh, nothing, we just didn't like her. >> after telling police the story, rachel led authorities down that lonely road. past blacksville to a spot just across the pennsylvania border. there, they eventually found a few scattered human remains and sent them to a lab for testing. >> i just couldn't imagine the pain and suffering and the fear she went through. being alone in that place with her two best friends. and she knew what was happening when they started stabbing her. >> authorities kept rachel's confession secret. even from the neeses while the

investigation continued. the fbi told mary and dave only that remains, believed to be skylar's, had been found. >> i broke down pretty bad, yeah. >> we both did. that was a bad day. >> it was so lonely. and so deserted. and it was a horrible thing to know that she had been there and no one knew. >> one. two. three. go. happy birthday. >> in february of 2013, just as they had since she was a little girl, the neeses gathered with friends on skylar's birthday. this time, without her. they quietly told the lawrences their awful news. >> did your heart just break for mary and dave? >> my heart was slowly breaking the entire time. >> i remember the first thing i felt, it was just like a surreal of i know she's not, you know,

out there in the cold. >> ronnie gaskins had a confession from rachel and she'd led him to a body but it wasn't enough. >> why wouldn't you arrest somebody right away who's confessed to killing someone? >> she had lied to us a number of times before. so we had to say, well, who's to say she's lying again? so we had to corroborate her statement. >> what's more, gaskins needed rachel so he didn't arrest her. instead, he was about to use rachel to get sheila. >> coming up. >> i was devastated. it was crazy. >> i was crying. she was crying. >> grieving? or pretending? >> sheila seemed like she was so upset to have lost her best friend. she even asked me how could someone do this to skylar? >> will the truth catch up to sheila eddy? when "dateline" continues. your cells. trillions of them. that's why centrum contains 24 key nutrients to feed your cells,

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incriminate herself. >> we were close by in case something happened. >> sheila did come over but police didn't record anything to pin sheila to the crime. >> the girls did not disclose anything specific. they were just very casual. >> a few days later, the police went to sheila's house with a warrant. >> we seized every kitchen knife we could find. the fbi seized sheila's car and they were able to find presence of dna in the trunk. >> dna in sheila's trunk. if it proved to be skylar's, it would be critical to gaskins' case. a direct link connecting the girls to skylar's death. they shipped the sample off to the lab. and waited. meanwhile, gaskins got a positive i.d. on the human remains found out past blacksville. it was skylar. >> the search for teenager skylar neese is over. >> at university high school,

confirmation that skylar had been found dead was heartbreaking. >> i was devastated. it was -- it was crazy. >> shania called her friend sheila as soon as she heard the awful news. >> i was crying. she was crying. >> there was sheila, suspected murderer, crying tears for skylar. >> and she's like who do you think could have done this? why would somebody do that to skylar? >> sheila also cried with her friend chrissy swanson. >> and once skylar's body was found, sheila seemed like she was so upset to have lost her best friend, she couldn't believe that something like this would happen. she even asked me how could someone do this to skylar? >> and sheila let everybody know how sad she was. she tweeted things like, worst day of my whole life. the pain is real. and rest easy, skylar, you'll always be my best friend. i miss you more than you could ever know.

but social media revealed two sides to sheila. she could mourn skylar. but on twitter and facebook, she and rachel also seemed carefree. as the police continued their investigation, rachel tweeted i need a mimosa or ten. they were going about their lives, even while the police believed the girls were sto stone-cold killers. >> the locals would whisper in each other's ears and say how are they still free? >> colbert runs a blog called news ball.com. early on, he started following this case and was struck by sheila's tweets. things like ain't no rest for the wicked and incredibly this apparent reference to the countdown to skylar's murder. we really did go on three. >> it's unbelievable that she feels she's so invincible to tweet this publicly. >> and then, finally, by

mid-april 2013, ronnie gaskins got the one critical piece of evidence he needed. confirmation that skylar's blood had been found in sheila's trunk. >> on top of the video surveillance, the phone records, rachel's statement, at that point we felt confident we had the probable cause to make the arrest. >> now, authorities told skylar's parents the whole story. their daughter's two best friends had killed her. >> i think about it every day. i think about the misery my child must have been through. and i'm helpless. i can't help her. she's calling out help me. you know, why? why? why? >> animals got her. they didn't even care. >> nope. they just threw her out like a bag of trash. >> on may 1st, 2013, in exchange for her cooperation with police, rachel shoaf pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. within minutes, gaskins raced across morgantown. his heart pounding. >> obviously, we were going

lights and sirens because we had a murder warrant to serve. >> sheila was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the parking lot of the local cracker barrel restaurant where she and her mom were having lunch. >> sheila was crying and she kept asking her mother is everything going to be okay? and her mother just i don't know, sheila. >> gaskins had promised skylar's parents he wouldn't quit until the case was solved. >> it felt good for once that she was coming with us. >> the question of who had been answered but people were haunted by an unanswered question. skylar's last word, why? >> the girls have their day in court. but what will they say? >> coming up. >> i became caught up in something that i did not want to do. >> the accused killers head to court. and the motive for murder. >> they planned that crime for days, weeks, months. >> what could that be? when "dateline" continues.

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welcome back. skylar neese's best friend rachel pleaded guilty to killing her. and prosecutors were busy building their case against skylar's other best friend sheila. but in a killing that seems so senseless, there was one question that hung over everything. why? here is andrea canning with the conclusion of something wicked.

>> reporter: sheila eddy was not about to give in without a fight. there she was in september, 2013, a lone blonde teen in a crowd of accused men pleading the not guilty to the kidnapping and murder of skylar neese. there was terrible news for skylar's parents. >> i don't want to go through a trial and hear the grizzly, fwrusofwr gruesome details of all this. that would tear me apart. >> the question on everyone's mind was why? investigators want to know, too. they got glimpse of a motive. morgan lawrence saw a disturbing dynamic firsthand. >> i was not a huge fan of rachel and sheila. >> as far back as freshman year, morgan worried her friend skylar was heading to a place she might not belong when she became close friends with rachel and sheila. morgan, especially, didn't like sheila. >> she hung out with the wrong

crowd. she had lot of friends that were 20 something years old. that's just a little strange. >> morgan said she'd watched uneasy as the three girls became inseparable. skylar's cousin kyle adored skylar and said he felt uneasy, too. >> you would walk through the halls, you don't see one without the other. it's always exil it's skylar, sheila, rachel always together. >> it seemed about that time, she didn't have that same nice quality to her. >> she was more sour i think toward people. she started almost acting the way sheila acted. >> it must have been hard to see her changing. >> it's difficult to watch it in general and even harder when it's someone that you called your family. >> students told writers jeff fuller and dalene barry that by mid-sophomore year, the three girls' relationship had begun to deteriorate. they have written about this in their book "the savage murder of skylar neese." >> sheila and rachel were dissing skylar when she wasn't

around and putting her down and that kind of thing. so it was kind of a two-faced situation. >> students say that around this time, they started hearing rachel and sheila discuss the best way to kill someone. and rachel's friend fantasia recalls a chilling conversation. >> rachel was ranting to me how much she didn't like skylar one day. well, she said word for word was i wouldn't mind if she died at this point. >> which makes this cell phone video all the more haunting because it was captured by skylar six months before she was killed. >> you said it two times. >> sheila asked skylar and rachel to choose the best way to die. >> would you guys rather suffocate or get hot? . >> get shot. >> shot. >> it depends on where. >> in the head. >> shot. >> there would be no suffering. >> drowning or suffocating? >> suffocating. >> it's almost the same thing. >> i know. >> an incredibly disturbing scene. friends say in the months before skylar's death, she and sheila fought constantly.

late on july 5th, skylar tweeted this. you doing blank like that is why i will never completely trust you. later that night, skylar is seen here on that surveillance tape driving away from home for the last time. what were they fighting about? there is a possible answer. hallway whispers that rachel and sheila had developed a sexual relationship. and that skylar knew and threatened to out them. did they kill her to keep their secret? it's as close to a motive as anyone can come up with. >> do you think we'll ever know why this happened? >> i think it's something for rachel and sheila to say. they know the answers to that. >> in january 2014, dave and mary finally got the news they'd been hoping for. a plea deal. >> sheila eddy, how do you plead to the offense of murder in the first degree to the felony charge in count three of the indictment in this case? >> guilty. >> sheila's attorney, michael

benning g benninger read a statement from sheila and her family. >> my client and her family recognize that the neese family is in a constant state of despair, loneliness, and sadness as a result of skylar's death. >> sheila was sentenced to life in prison and is eligible for parole in 2028. a month later, dave and mary went back to court. this time, for rachel shoaf's sentencing. >> rachel has a profound sadness at this loss and a profound sadness for mr. and mrs. neese. >> she's been meeting with rachel in prison since the summer of 2013. >> from the day i met rachel, she has said to me i serve to be in here. i did something terribly wrong. i hurt somebody. rachel does miss skylar very much so. and then she also weeps for her because she knows that she cannot undo the past and that she will never see her again.

>> in court, rachel apologized directly to dave and mary. >> i don't know if there is a proper way to make this apology. because there are not even words to describe the guilt and remorse that i feel each day for what i have done. i became scared and caught up in something that i did not want to do. i never realized the gravity of my actions and how mem many people i've heard. >> skylar's dad, who had once defended the girls, didn't mince words. >> yes, rachel shoaf did cooperate but rachel shoaf also murdered my daughter in cold blood. she can take her apologies, everything else, and sit on them because that's about what they're worth to me and my wife. she has done nothing but make our lives a living hell since this day one. >> dave and mary wish they had known more about what was going on in skylar's life in the months before she died. >> what is your biggest regret, if you have one? >> not knowing the girls better. you know, and i don't know if anyone could have known them that well but there had to be a

sign somewhere. there had to be a clue. >> rachel shoaf, would you please stand? >> rachel was sentenced to 30 years in prison. she will be eligible for parole in 2023. prosecutor marcia ashdown says don't be fooled by the girls' appearance. >> they planned that crime not just for hours but days, weeks, months. the horror of that really is what strikes us in the end. not how those girls look in shackles. >> young, old, attractive, unattractive, male, female, doesn't matter. evil comes in all shapes and sizes. >> around morgantown, there is lingering damage. teenagers who feel they'll never trust anyone again. >> after i had heard all that, i didn't really want to become friends with anybody else. >> it's like finding out your little sister was a murderer. >> i still, to this day, have trust issues. >> skylar's friend morgan lawrence says she thinks about

all the milestones she and skylar had planned to mark together. >> you two should be doing everything alongside each other. >> yeah. they didn't just, you know, take away a bride. they took away a bridesmaid. >> skylar's second parents say they will miss out, too. >> when morgan walks down the aisle, skylar won't be there. >> she will be. >> she'll be watching over. >> she will. >> in june 2013, dave and mary had a memorial service at the site where skylar was killed. and they are proud to have helped passed skylar's law, which requires amber alerts even when police suspect a teen has run away. a national version of skylar's law is currently making its way through congress. it's peaceful here now. they come here often. even in the winter. to tend the small garden they've built for skylar. >> mary, how do you want skylar to be remembered?

>> the happy, loving, little girl that she was. >> and the smile. that smile could light up a room. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm natalie morales. thanks for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> the neighborhood had everything a burglar wanted to find. private yards, wealthy homes. >> and she had the worst of possible luck in that he picked her. >> yes. >> i'd like to report an attempted break-in. >> a mother home alone. cops race to her front door as she walks into an ambush in her back yard. >> how does somebody die within a matter of seconds with officers all around her home? >> surreal. it was awful. it really just all came crashing down. >> your first thought at that time.