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n st virgioncery sce an eerie vision out of her bedroomrs an unknown car and vani >> video from the apartme shows the 16-year-old willingly leaving the apartment. >> reporter: she seems to have left her home voluntarily, so police do not activate an amber alert. officer jessica colebank is assigned to the case two days after skylar's disappearance. did you think it was a runaway case at that pnt >> it does happen. kids run away. they come me cple days later, parents find them. >> reporter: skylar's parents

dave and mary are frantic. dave pleads on local tv for help, begging his daughter to >> we love you. come home as soon as you can, . honey, if you e n trou we need talk and thaall. just come home. >> reporter: each time they get calls with possible skylar sightings they rush into action. >> i'd jump in my car and fly to the place they thought they saw skylar. i'd go down to the supermarket and scream her name. i mean, everywhere they thought they saw skylar, we were there. >> reporter: skylar's friends were worried but hopeful. morgan lawrence has known skylar since they were 3 years old. >> i thought that maybe there was a fight, maybe there was something that made her upset, and that she'd be, you know, she'd be back the next day. >> i thought maybe she just, something happened at home, she wanted to get away. >> reporter: amorette hughes, another friend, writes skylar messages on facebook pleading with her to come home. >> hi beautiful, i love you, and i miss you, come home soon.

>> reporter: the inseparable trio of skylar, rachel and sheila is now missing a key member. as for rachel, just hours after skylar's disappearance she's family friend kelly ke but kelly says rachel is worried about her missing frnd >> i mean, she was texting all . she seemed urgent. >> reporter: meanwhile her other best friend, shelia, is in constant contact with skylar's parents, helping them post missing person posters. tweeting messages like this, was really waiting for skylar come home. ju disappearance, shelia comes to the neese's home, devastated, with a special request. >> she says, "is i if i go ck a s>> she was crying, shelia crying pretty and she was oner bed, so i just sat down on the bed

beside her and rbecki was tryin console her, make her feel beer >> she was going through the same thing we were going through, just at a smaller leve know. i mean, this is ts gone. we're flipping out. aivon herphore s tuo e.'s horr. a doti the runaway theor dn take her contact lens on. >> apparenshe was planning to come back faiy y. morgantown, people are searching for skylarondering what coul d daleen berry.re were lots and. her head. >> somebody followed her home. >> she'd met someone on the teternet. and then a possible break in the case, two bank robberies in nearby blacksville. al ronnie gaskins hears

roies was used to buy drugs for a local teendod oin. >> rep shea ane last two pplve their story. they picked up skylar at 11:00 p.m. ok joyride through the winding backroads of rural star tyr off before midnight. >> very to see the victim alive is looked at with great suspicion. in this case, the girl's story seemed relatively innocent. so police had no reason to believe both of them were lying. >> reporter: but for officer colebank it's the small, unspoken signs that make her suspicious. take me back to that moment where you go to speak to sheila the first time. >> just complete blank on emotions, and there was absolutely nothing.

it was, like, iced o it made me uneasy. >> reporter: colebank's meetint drama star, also strikes her as odd. >> really nervous. >> reporter: has g what does she have to hide? >> their stories were verbatim the same. no one's story is exactly e same, unless it's rehearsed. and she's an actress, so she can memorize lines. i'm sure they had it wttdown so t to stick to it. everything in my gut was sheila. rael is scared to death. hiding, or why.anwhil skylar's closer look at thenfluence ug.ht, you know. found some marijuana in skylar's pocket one time. heard it was shelia'di't like ta

acted a lot of times. but she was skylar's best friend. we kind of oved it. >> reporter: it's becoming clear that the smiling fe of skyl's.f. s about shelia how would they describe her? what was she like?ulative. >> reportelar's friend e wrg way.>>mosther tokiok t of get her way.there w. her best frienbi skylar these pictures thaia become a whl. >> she just thought th ty were becoming cl toshey were j she wareetbout it. sometimes subtle, ear as day for yl. drs the same, they'd both wear dre, esor ts, but they would th would say was more like a coincidence.

but i secretly think that they planned it. >> reporter: are shelia and rachel hiding a secret about what happened to their best friend? officer colebank is determined to find answers to bring the neeses' dauger he.d dave and m very first day that i met them i said, i'm a bulldog in my investigations. i said i don't care if it takes me ten years to find the truth, i will eventually find it.ter: the girls play a strange secret game captured on camera by skylar. >> drowning focating? stay with us. #2020.y do you think the hn twi back. s full and focused.

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ple she's gointhugenough."id, "th do ti.ding actual e shelia and rachel to police their joyride with skylar was contained to the star city areac scoured surveillance video from at 12:39 a.m. heading north, away from star city. >> that was the first variation in their stories, is where they drove around. >> reporter: and there's not just video. cell tower pings from that nigho of blacksville. , sin star city.ere yo >> reporte say, aha, we have this infma what happens when raa? now aty change their storyo fit mismatedeen,ylinthama star, say.

tfohas where she ond en? d hahappen>> reporter:te on the d mary nse.e ytngon ar bt iends to at that point whey writing that the gir assmatesnd even strangere puttil and rachel. anonym "pretty lit all eyes wero

you know, yo u ca kelly kerns, e friends wiacl and her hat rachel is stonewalole. etht opating, so i'd send racheiniss? >> i think that in this situation, you cannot lessen the importance of peer pressure. >> reporter: rachel seems particularly affected. as the lead in that year's school play, she is accustomed to adulation. >> it's like she was getting booed in a performance. it's that type of level of ostracizing her. she couldn't handle that. >> reporter: one night, almost six months after skylar went missing rachel cracks, apparently having a nervous breakdown. her mother calls 911.

>> i have an issue with a 16-year-old daughter of mine. >> no, this is over! >> hurry up. >> oh, hurty idal, rachel is admittedns shakg. it was like, now the truth's finally gonna come out. >> reporter: next -- you'll never believe what rache. this was something t fr >> it juucst sme as .be .be glade sc ke the most beautiful feelings. they can inspire and exhilara make you smile. calm you down. our que fragspark every emot lift you uli

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woahitl!bout twentwelve so, give him the toume swe, rmig ikea has it all. "20/20"'s unfriended  continues. once again, ryan smith. >>ep university high's leadinkeep up the act any six m rachel andoning the role of heartbroken best friend and ast into the i >> she was just nervous, s akg.

16-year-old b.f.f. it's plot twist no one saw coming. >> the first words out of her mouth were, we stabbed her. >> reporter: this was something toenfrom what you expected. of settle down. okay, "what do you mean, you stabbed her?" >> reporter: rachel tells corporal ronnie gaskins she and shelia began plotting to kill skylar months earlier during science class. >> they were joking how they would dispose of a body. then it got more sinister, we need to figure out how we're going to kill her.se guns, so they would use knives to stab her. >> reporter: rachel wanted skylar dead now because, get this, she was about to leave for church camp. so one midsummer's night she and sheila gather some critical tools. a shovel, paper towels, bleach, wipes, a change of clothes and kitchen knives. they arrange to meet with skylar. remember this grainy surveillance video? police couldn't make out the car. turns out it had been shelia's all along.

12:30 a.m., they arrive at skylar's house. the knives hidden in their hoodies. five minutes later, skylar emerges. they drive out of star city, past blacksville and across state lines to pennsylvania and into the woods of a town called brave where skylar is about to face the fight of her young life. they are driving on this road that we're on right now and skylar is in the back seat having no idea what's about to happen? >> she has no clue. >> reporter: gaskins takes me back to the murder scene. man, this is dark and creepy. >> just imagine, these girls are out here after midnight. >> reporter: and recounts what rachel confessed. >> all three girls exit the car. and they walk down this road. >> reporter: the girls find a grassy area to sit and smoke marijuana. skylar gets up and starts walking back to the car to get a lighter. that's when they execute their secret plan. sheila and rachel get up behind her and count -- one, two, three.

>> and on three, that was the time for them to start stabbing skylar. >> reporter: right here? skylar is being stabbed by her two best friends? >> yes. >> reporter: skylar takes off running with her two friends giving chase. rachel tackles skylar and the ir repeatedly their b.f. f.>> according to rachel, skyla is screaming "why?" >> and then they tried slitting her throat because they had read that it would kill her quicker if they cut her jugular. >> reporter: the plan was to bury her but t g hard, so instead they drag her thhe conceal her. >> they change into clean clothes, they wipe down the car and they left. like nothing >> this was calculated, planned out, thoroughly thought of before this night. >> reporter: the perfer erythin "t."wh

>> h oer to that was, we just didn't like her. what do you mean, you just le ? we just didn't like her. well, why not? >> reporter: did you ever get th really remorseful about what sh? >> she seemed to bre that the truth has been told, she doesn't have to hold it in anymore, it's not eating at her anymore. >> reporter: shockingly, even though rachel confessed, gaskins doesn't arrest her. >> we had no body, we had no physical evidence. i mean, we had all this circumstantial evidence. but we needed something more concrete. >> reporter: and there had been no cracks in sheila's armor. so to try and nail her that night, police put a wire on her friend rachel, hoping sheila incriminates herself. but sheila doesn't take the bait. instead, the two killers take this smiling selfie together.et see rach. a break, police think have an ace in the hole linking sheila to the murder. ind traces of blood in her car. >> we had to do a dnirmation.or.

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a athe wren how costriend?hesadidn't nyre of tes. >> i thinkt where says shth dci a and rach ju k some type of a sex relationship that they believed skylar knew about it and would ultimately tell everyone. >> reporter: but the neeses say that skylar never would have acted on the veiled threats. >> she had a lot of gay and lesbian friends. it didn't bother her. you know, she didn't care if you were pink, purple, yellow. that was just skylar. >> reporter: why do you think they killed her? >> for the thrill of it. to see if they could get away with it. >> they had a strong dislike for skylar. so it's fitting they stabbed her in the back. >> reporter: a year and a half after the murder, rachel faces justice.

she pleads guilty to second degree murder, a lesser charge based on her cooperation. finally, in court, she directly addresses the neese family. >> i am so sorry. 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've done. the person that did that was not the real me. not the person i am, not what i'm made of and not what i believe in. >> reporter: rachel's mom weeps l. taperhit e ha but mnc lte fered no wordsdo t of t as"d inble." up, 0 inrison. to y

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