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The Heartbreaking True Story Behind Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine for a second that you're searching for your missing child.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, really picture that absolute panic. You are walking
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the streets of your own neighborhood, taping up flyers on
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: telephone poles, knocking on doors, just begging strangers for any
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: piece of information you can get. Right.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: The worst nightmare any parent could possibly face.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Exactly. The panic is absolute. And standing right next to you,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: handing out the tape, performing the role of the grieving,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: supportive best friend to absolute perfection is the teenager who
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: murdered her.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: That image alone, I mean, it just shatters everything we
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: want to believe about human empathy. You expect a killer
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: to hide in the shadows, right? Not to stand in
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: the harsh light of a search party comforting the victim's father.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's chilling. Okay, let's unpack this. Because we are
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: looking at a story today that completely rewrites the rules
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of how we understand betrayal. Today's deep dive takes us
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: into a deeply unsettling intersection of adolescent psychology and the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: permanence of our digital footprints, and some, well, some catastrophic
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: systemic blind spots.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. It's a heavy one today.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: It is. We are navigating this whole thing through the
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: lens of a new 2026 Hulu docuseries called Friends Like These,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: The Murder of Skylar Neese.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: And what's fascinating here is that the docuseries, which was
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: directed by Claire Tetley, it explicitly refuses to play the
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: typical true crime game. We aren't doing a hooting it today.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: The perpetrators of this 2012 crime, I mean, they've been
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: known for over a decade. Instead, we are attempting this
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: sort of inside-out investigation of a teenage social world. We
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: are looking at a hyper-insular ecosystem where digital archives, so tweets, texts,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: location data, they ended up telling a story that the
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: physical evidence, and frankly, the adults in the room, initially
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: missed completely.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you really have to think about why you
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: should care about a case from 2012. I mean, this
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: isn't just a tragic story about a small town in
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: West Virginia. It is a masterclass in recognizing how large
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: scale systems like law enforcement and bureaucratic alert protocols, how
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: they fail catastrophically when they rely on rigid rules instead
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: of human intuition. Right.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Taking the human element completely out of the equation.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And it's also this profound look at how technology
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: operates as the ultimate double edged sword, you know. simultaneously
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: blinding us to reality while preserving the truth in cold,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: hard data.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: To even begin to comprehend the failure of those systems, though,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: we really have to reconstruct the social architecture of the
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: people involved. We have to map out the environment before
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: it's shattered.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we begin with Skylar. Skylar Annette Neese. In 2012,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: she was 16 years old, living in Star City, West Virginia.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: For those unfamiliar, Star City is a small, pretty quiet
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: municipality tucked right on the edge of Morgantown.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Which is a college town, right?
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Morgantown is a vibrant university town home to West
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Virginia University. So you have this really interesting clash of
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: sleepy residential streets right next to a bustling collegiate atmosphere.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: It provides a very specific backdrop, a place where kids
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: grow up with a certain level of insulated safety, but
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: they are constantly exposed to the older, faster-paced world of
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: the university students right next door.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Schuyler fit that environment perfectly. She was a driven teenager,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the only child of Dave and Mary Neece. Dave assembled
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: products at Walmart, and Mary worked as an administrative assistant
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: in a cardiac lab. They lived in a modest apartment complex.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: And Skylar, she was an honor roll student at university
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: high school. She worked a part-time job at Wendy's after school.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: She was a hard worker.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Very much so. And her ultimate goal was actually to
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: become a criminal defense attorney.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Oh man, the irony of her wanting to be a
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: defense attorney is just agonizing when you look at how
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: her life ended. I mean, she was ambitious. She was
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: building a resume. She wasn't just drifting through high school.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: She was actively planning a future.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Her friends universally described her as loyal, incredibly funny,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: and rebellious in a completely ordinary, healthy way. She was
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: the friend who would stand up for you in the
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: hallway if someone was giving you a hard time. And
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: just to anchor her in time, if she were still alive,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: she would have turned 30 in February 2026, just as
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: this documentary was premiering.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: See, That detail right there, it strips away the true
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: crime abstraction. She isn't a character in a script. She
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: was a young woman who was supposed to be navigating
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: her late 20s right now. And at the foundational center
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: of her adolescent world was a girl named Shalia Rae Eddy.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Their bond went way back to childhood. They met at
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: age eight at a local afterschool and summer program called
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: The Shack. Skylar's mother, Mary, actually used the word inseparable
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: to describe them. And, you know, when you form a
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: friendship at eight years old, it totally transcends casual high
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: school socializing.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. That person becomes a structural pillar of
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: your reality. They know the layout of your childhood bedroom.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: They know how your parents argue. They know your deepest insecurities.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: They are essentially siblings at that point.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But the geometry of teenage friendships is notoriously fragile.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: And the architecture of this specific friendship fundamentally shifted when
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: the third person entered the equation. And that was Rachel
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Elizabeth Shoof. Rachel transferred into University High from a private
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Catholic school, carrying a completely different set of social experiences
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: and pressures. And she just seamlessly integrated into Schuyler and
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Shalia's tight-knit circle.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: You can just see the disaster forming here. Think about
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: this dynamic, not like a beaker in a chemistry lab,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: but like a closed-loop ventilation system.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, I like that analogy.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Right. You have this established environment between Schuyler and Shalia.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: They breathe the same air. They have their own equilibrium.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Then you introduce Rachel into that closed loop. Suddenly the
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: air gets thinner. The resentments have nowhere to vent out.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: The entire atmosphere becomes toxic because the three-way dynamic creates
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: an inevitable odd man out scenario.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: And by their sophomore year, that toxic shift was glaringly visible.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Shalia and Rachel began gravitating toward one another with an
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: intensity that actively excluded Skylar. The trio spent their time
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: riding around late at night, hanging out at each other's houses,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: finding secluded spots in the woods. to smoke marijuana.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Pretty typical teenage stuff on the surface. Right.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: But crucially, they were living a massive, highly curated portion
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: of their lives on Twitter.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Let's contextualize 2012 Twitter for a second. This wasn't the
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: corporate algorithmic landscape we have today. For teenagers in 2012,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Twitter was a raw, unfiltered diary. It was the absolute
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: golden age of the subtweet.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the subtweet.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: You know, posting an aggressive or passive-aggressive thought about someone
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: without using their name knowing full well the intended target
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: would see it and understand. Skylar felt herself being squeezed
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: out of her own social circle, and she documented that
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: pain in real time.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Classmates later recounted to police that the arguments between the
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: three girls were constant, just totally volatile. Skylar wasn't suffering
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: in silence either. Shortly before she vanished, she fired off
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: a tweet that read, You doing shot like this makes
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: me never want to trust you.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: And when investigators eventually confronted Shalia with that specific tweet,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: She played completely dumb, claiming she had no idea what
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Skylar was talking about. But everyone in their orbit knew
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the tension was boiling over. The fatal flaw was that
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: the adults, so the teachers, parents, coaches, they looked at
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: this escalating hostility and they completely misdiagnosed it.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: So the classic mean girl's face.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Exactly. They viewed it as a temporary developmental milestone rather
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: than a genuine threat.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: You really have to look at the developmental psychology of
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: the teenage brain to understand why that adult dismissal was
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: so dangerous. Adults have a fully developed prefrontal cortex. They
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: can contextualize a fight with a friend and understand that, hey,
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: life goes on.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Right, you get over it.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Teenagers lack that long-term contextual hardware. For a teenager, their
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: social standing is tied directly to their survival instincts. A
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: threat to their social circle feels like a literal threat
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: to their life.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the most disturbing element of this case,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: which is the motive. The source material presents two wildly
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: diverging explanations for this crime, and they are separated by
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: an entire decade. In 2013, when investigators first unraveled the plot,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: the motive they presented to a horrified public was chillingly juvenile.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the official 2013 narrative was built on a terrifyingly
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: simple premise. The killers claimed, we just didn't like her anymore,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: or we didn't want to be friends with her anymore.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Try to process that through a rational lens. The idea
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: that a human being could be violently erased simply because
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: a childhood friendship had run its natural course. I mean,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: it caused a massive moral panic across the country. Parents
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: were looking at their kids' friends and wondering if a
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: petty argument could end in murder.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: But then you fast forward 10 years to 2023, and
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: a vastly different, far more complex psychological portrait emerges. Rachel
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Schoaf is sitting before a parole board. and she finally
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: offers an explanation that goes beyond just, we didn't like her.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: She details a secret, incredibly intense, and highly volatile romantic
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: relationship between herself and Shalia.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: A relationship they were absolutely terrified would be dragged into
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the light.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Rachel explained that they believe Skylar knew about the
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: romantic nature of their relationship, and that she was going
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: to expose them. For Rachel, who is deeply embedded in
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: a strict Catholic family and school environment, The prospect of
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: that exposure wasn't just embarrassing, it was apocalyptic.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a total world-ender for her.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: It meant the potential loss of her family's support, her
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: standing in the church, and her entire identity.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: So you're looking at two colliding realities here. The 2013
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: version is cold, sociopathic dismissal. The 2023 version is rooted
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: in sheer teenage panic, religious guilt, and the desperate preservation
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: of an identity. In that closed-loop ventilation system we talked about,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Fueled by the fear of being outed, the idea of
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: eliminating the person who held their secret suddenly mutated from
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: an abstract thought into a viable logistical solution.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Rachel actually described the conflict between them as feeling hostile
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: and violent. In their underdeveloped minds, the threat Schuyler posed
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: to their social survival was so severe that permanent erasure
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: seemed like the only way to regain control of their narrative.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Because all of this was happening beneath the surface, masked
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: as normal teenage bickering, it created a massive systemic blind spot.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: No one, not the parents, not the school, not the police,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: was looking at the two best friends when the unthinkable
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: finally happened.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: And the system's failure really began on the night of
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: July 5th, 2012.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Let's examine the timeline of that night. It's a Thursday.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Skylar works her normal shift at Wendy's. She comes home,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: tells her parents she's exhausted, and heads to her bedroom.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: A completely mundane evening. There are no arguments, no slam doors,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: no indications of distress in the Niece household whatsoever.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Early the next morning, July 6th, Dave Niece walks
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: down the hall to check on his daughter. He tries
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the doorknob, and it's locked. Now, he immediately notes this as,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: highly unusual because Skylar didn't lock her door. He forces
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: his way into the room and he finds it completely empty.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: The bed hasn't even been touched.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: Mary Neese is already at work when Dave calls her
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: in a panic. Her initial reaction is grounded in standard
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: parental logic. She figures Skylar snuck out the night before
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: with Shalia, they stayed out too late, and Skylar is
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: just sleeping it off on Shalia's floor.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Makes total sense. But when Dave calls Shalia, the entire
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: illusion drops. Shelia casually tells him she has no idea
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: where Skylar is. And the panic accelerates rapidly as the
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: day progresses. Skylar is scheduled to work another shift at
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Wendy's at 4 p.m. Four o'clock comes and goes and
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: she doesn't walk through the doors.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: The manager at Wendy's actually calls Denise's apartment to ask
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: where she is.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: And that phone call is the absolute breaking point for
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Dave Nice. He later said he knew in his bones
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: that something was fatally wrong. Skylar's baseline was her work ethic.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: She was saving money. She did not miss shifts. He
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: immediately contacts the Star City Police Department and officially reports
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: his 16-year-old daughter missing.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Officer Jessica Colbank takes the initial report. And almost immediately,
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: the performance begins. Shelia shows up at the knees apartment
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: with her mother.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: She walks right into the center of the crisis, looking
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: the terrified parents in the eye. And she feeds Officer
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Colbank a carefully constructed story. She claims that she and
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Rapel picked Skylar up late the night before. They drove
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: around the area for a little while. And then they
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: dropped Skylar off right back at the end of her
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: street just before midnight.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: It's a plausible narrative designed to deflect suspicion while technically
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: explaining why Skylar wasn't in her room. But the physical
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: environment of the apartment complex instantly shreds that timeline. Investigators
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: pull the security camera footage from the building.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Right. And the video clearly shows Skylar climbing out her
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: ground floor bedroom window at 1230 a.m.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: This is a massive discrepancy. The video shows her leaving
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: the apartment a full 30 minutes after Shalia claimed they
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: had already dropped her off and gone home. Furthermore, the
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: video shows Skylar voluntarily getting into a light-colored sedan. It
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: doesn't show her returning.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Look at the artifacts left behind in that bedroom, too.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Dave points out to the police exactly what Skylar didn't
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: take with her. She left her window wide open. She
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: left her contact lenses and the cleaning solution right on
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the counter. And crucially, she left her cell phone charger
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: plugged into the wall.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Which, I mean, those items are the universal forensic markers
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: of a teenager intending to return within the hour.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: I struggle so much with the systemic response here. Why
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: do inflexible bureaucratic rules constantly override raw human intuition? Any
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: parent knows that in 2012, a teenager's cell phone was
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: their lifeline. You do not run away to start a
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: new life in another state without your phone charger.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: No, you absolutely don't.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: You do not abandon your contact lenses if you plan
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: on seeing the next day. Dave knew this wasn't a
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: runaway situation, but the system refused to listen to him.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: You are hitting on the exact friction point between macro-level
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: institutional protocols and micro-level human reality. The bureaucracy is designed
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: with rigid criteria to prevent the system from being overwhelmed
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: by false alarms. It forces a categorization. Is this a
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: runaway or is this a kidnapping? It completely lacks the
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: nuance to read behavioral context clues like a forgotten phone charger.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: And that lack of nuance is what caused the Amber
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Alert system to completely fail Skylar Neese.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: We have to look at how the Amber Alert criteria
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: functioned in West Virginia back in 2012. It wasn't a
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: button you could just push because a parent was scared.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Several specific rigid boxes had to be checked. Yes, the
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: child had to be under 18, but law enforcement also
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: had to have a reasonable belief that an actual abduction
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: had occurred.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Right, a confirmed abduction.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, they had to believe the child was in imminent
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: danger of serious bodily injury or death. And finally, there
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: had to be enough descriptive information about the suspect or
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: the vehicle to make a public broadcast actionable.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Because Schuyler was 16 and because the grainy security footage
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: showed her willfully climbing into that sedan, the police department's
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: framework defaulted to runaway. They didn't see a kidnapping. They
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: saw a teenager making a bad choice.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: By classifying her as a suspected runaway, the system triggered
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: a mandatory waiting period.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: The agonizing 48-hour pause.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. During those critical first hours, when the trail is hottest,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: the system forces parents to wait. No highway signs are illuminated.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: No emergency broadcast alerts hijack the local radio stations. No
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: text messages go out to the community.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Instead, Dave and Mary are reduced to printing out physical
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: flyers at the local copy shop. Schuyler's classmates organize independent
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: search parties, walking through the woods and knocking on doors.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: And this is where Shalia and Rachel exploit that bureaucratic
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: gap with terrifying precision. They embed themselves in the search.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: They help hang the very flyers looking for the girl
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: they just buried.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: It is a psychological manipulation of the highest order. By
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: playing the role of the traumatized best friends, they not
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: only monitor the progress of the investigation in real time,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: but they actively divert suspicion. I mean, who would ever
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: suspect the girl's crying in the victim's living room?
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Because the local area isn't saturated with an official Amber Alert,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: the investigation gets derailed by useless noise. A tip comes
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: in claiming Schuyler was spotted down on a beach in
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: North Carolina with two other girls, one of whom reportedly
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: had red hair matching Rachel's.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: It was a complete phantom lead. Rachel wasn't in North Carolina.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: She had conveniently departed for a Catholic church camp shortly
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: after Schuyler vanished. But law enforcement has to follow the
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: leads they get, which means wasting invaluable time and resources
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: chasing ghosts across state lines.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: The SBI eventually steps in, bringing Special Agent Morgan Spurlock
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: onto the case. By mid-July, Schuyler's disappearance is dominating local
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: news broadcasts. But the prevailing theory dictating the pace of
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the investigation remains exactly the same, which is that a
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: 16-year-old girl simply ran away from home.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: It isn't until Rachel returns from her church camp 13
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: days after the disappearance that the facade begins to crack.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: She sits down for a formal interview with police, and
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: she recites a narrative that is almost a carbon copy
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: of Shelley's original story. They drove around, they smoked, they
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: dropped Schuyler off.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: But Officer Colbank is paying attention to the seams of
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: the story. The detectives decide to put Shalia and Rachel
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: in a car and have them physically retrace the exact
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: driving route they supposedly took that night. When they reach
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: a major intersection on the route, the coordination falls apart.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: One girl points and says they turned left. The other
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: is adamant they turned right.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Colbank realizes in that moment that she is dealing with
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: a rehearsed script.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Mm.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: The girls had spent hours memorizing the macro level timeline
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: of their alibi, but they completely forgot to coordinate the
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: mundane micro level details of the actual drive.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: While the physical search parties are still looking for runaways
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: in North Carolina, the core investigative team realizes they have
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: to pivot their strategy completely. They have to stop listening
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: to what these girls are saying and start looking at
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the one environment these teenagers couldn't completely control.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: They turn to the digital footprint.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting. We are now three
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: weeks into the nightmare. Detectives finally secure the warrants to
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: pull the historical cell phone records and dive into the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: back-end data of the girls' social media accounts.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: This is the moment the illusion of control shatters. The
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: cell phone records reveal that both Shalia and Rachel's phones
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: were pinging off cell towers in Blacksville, West Virginia at
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: approximately 4 a.m. on the night Skylar disappeared.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Keep in mind, both girls had sworn up and down
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: to the police and to Skylar's parents that they were
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: fast asleep in their own beds in Morgantown at 4 a.m.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: The passive data proves otherwise. Investigators don't stop at the
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: cell tower pings. They take that location data and cross-reference
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: it with the physical infrastructure of the area. They pull
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: security camera footage from businesses along the route to Blacksville,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: and they hit the jackpot at a local Sheets gas station.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: High-resolution exterior cameras.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Yep. The footage captures a vehicle traveling toward Blacksville around midnight.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: It perfectly matches the make, model, and distinct features of
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Shalia's sedan, the exact same vehicle the apartment security camera
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: captured Skyler getting into at 1230 a.m.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Think about the supreme, almost laughable hubris of the 2012
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: teenage mindset. These girls were chronically online. They documented every
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: passing mood, every grievance, and every inside joke on Twitter.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: They genuinely believed they were digital masters who could spend
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: any narrative they wanted. But they were completely illiterate when
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: it came to the passive surveillance infrastructure of the modern world.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Very true.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: They didn't understand how cell site location data actively tracks
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: movement or that a mundane gas station camera would act
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: as an unimpeachable witness against them.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: They understood the social internet, but they were entirely ignorant
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: of forensic technology. Claire Tightly, the director of the Docuseries,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: specifically highlights this discovery as the fulcrum of the entire case.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: This is the exact moment the gravitational pull of the
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: investigation reverses. It is no longer a search for a
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: missing runaway. It is a targeted investigation into two best
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: friends who are demonstrably lying to federal agents.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: The technology didn't care about their rehearsed stories, and it
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: didn't care about their performative tears in the knees living room.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: It provided an objective, irrefutable timeline.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: However, investigators faced a massive hurdle. Proving that two teenagers
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: lied about their whereabouts on a given night is not
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: the same thing as proving they committed a homicide. The
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: digital evidence proves they are liars, but it doesn't reveal
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: a body, and it doesn't secure a murder conviction.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Right. There's no smoking gun yet.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: The investigation stalls again. They need a confession. They need
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: the psychological weight of the secret to fracture one of
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: their minds.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: So the pressure campaign begins. Investigators uncovered digital messages indicating
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: the girls might have been trying to purchase drugs that
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: night from two acquaintances, Dylan and Derek Conaway. They execute
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: a search warrant at Rachel's house, seizing computers, phones, and
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: a diary. But both girls dig their heels in. They
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: refuse to break.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: The FBI decides to escalate the pressure by bringing in
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: polygraph examiner Rob Ambrosini to test Shilia.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: The polygraph is a fascinating tool. It doesn't actually detect lies.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: It detects the physiological stress responses, so heart rate, respiration,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: skin conductivity, that occur when a subject fears they're being
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: caught in a deception.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: And Shalia's physiological responses betray her. She fails the examination.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Confronted with the fact that she is showing deception and
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: aware that police have her car on the gas station camera,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Shalia is forced to maneuver.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: She executes a classic interrogation room pivot. She takes a
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: tiny kernel of the truth and weaves it into a
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: massive new lie. She finally admits to picking Skylar up
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: at 12.30 a.m., but she claims that once Skylar was
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: in the car, they got into an argument. According to
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: this new narrative, Skylar demanded they go meet the Conaway
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: brothers to buy drugs. Shalia claims she and Rachel refused,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: so Skylar got angry, demanded to be let out of
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: the car, and just walked off alone into the darkness.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Shalia claims they looked for her for a few minutes,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: gave up, and drove home.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: Imbrosini later commented on the sheer audacity of her performance
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: in that room. He noted that while her statements were
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: layered with denial, he could feel the structural integrity of
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: her lies degrading. He could sense the actual truth fighting
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: to bubble up to the surface.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: But sensing the truth isn't enough to make an arrest.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: The standoff continues for months. Summer turns into fall, and
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: fall turns into winter. Schuyler's bedroom remains empty.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: The fracture they were waiting for finally arrives at the
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: end of the year. It is December 28, 2012. Nearly
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: six months have passed since Schuyler climbed out of her window.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: And Rachel Schofe's mind simply gives way.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: The psychological toll of carrying a murder, of lying to
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: the FBI, of pretending to be normal while knowing what
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: she did in the woods, it results in a severe
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: psychiatric crisis.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Her mother is forced to dial 911. The audio of
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: that emergency call is harrowing. You can hear Rachel in
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: the background, entirely unmoored from reality, screaming incoherently. It is
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: a total systemic breakdown of a teenage mind. She is
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: transported to a psychiatric facility where she remains hospitalized for
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: five days.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: The moment she is discharged from the hospital, the facade
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: is over. Her first request is to speak with an attorney.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: On January 3, 2013, Rachel sits down with state and
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: federal authorities. And the dam finally breaks. She confesses. Initially,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: she admits to simply being present when Skylar was killed.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: But as the interview progresses... the full, gruesome reality of
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the plot spills out. She confesses that she and Shalia
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: stabbed their best friend more than 50 times.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: The details she provides to the detectives completely shatter the
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: community's understanding of the crime. This wasn't an argument that
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: got out of hand. This wasn't an accidental death covered
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: up in a panic. Rachel details a long, simmering plot,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: initiated by Shalia, driven by that toxic resentment and fear
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: of exposure we discussed earlier.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: This raises an important question about the deeply unsettling nature
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: of this crime. It is the jarring juxtaposition of how
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: they carried it out. You look at the logistics and
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: it reads like a blueprint drafted by seasoned adult contract killers.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: They packed multiple knives. They brought bleach to destroy the DNA.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: They pack spare changes of clothes.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Yet that meticulous adult level logistical planning is overlaid with
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: the emotional reasoning of a child. They plan a brutal
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: execution with bleach and weapons. but their internal justification is
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: rooted in a high school hallway politics. The cognitive dissonance
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: is just staggering.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Rachel walks the detectives through the execution of the plan.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: They drive out to a deeply remote area in Wayne Township, Pennsylvania,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: just across the state line. It is a secluded spot
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the three girls had frequented in the past to smoke
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: and hang out. Once they are parked, they use a
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: painfully simple pretext to get Skylar vulnerable. They tell her
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: they forgot a lighter and ask her to go back
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: to the car to get it.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: As Skylar turns her back, they initiate the attack. Rachel
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: states they actually synchronized it on the count of three.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I read the transcripts of this attack, and there is
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: one specific detail that is almost impossible to process. During
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: the frenzy of the ambush, as she is being violently
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: assaulted by the two people she trusted most in the world,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Skylar manages to cry out one word. She asks why.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate expression of human betrayal. In her
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: final moments, she isn't just fighting for her life. She
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: is trying to comprehend... The total collapse of her reality.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: That single syllable, just asking why, it encapsulates the entire
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: horror of the case. Schuyler didn't just submit. She fought
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: back with incredible ferocity. She fought hard enough that she
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: actually wrestled one of the knives away and managed to
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: injure Rachel during the struggle. But the sheer volume of
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the attack was too much. Rachel told investigators that Shalia
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: just relentlessly continued stabbing until Schuyler was finally silent.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: And then immediately after the violence... The reality of the
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: physical world thwarts their grand cinematic plan. They had fully
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: intended to bury the body, but they failed to account
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: for the physical labor required. The ground was rocky and hard.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Their shovels couldn't penetrate the dirt.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: So they panic.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: So they have to improvise a much more haphazard cover-up,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: dragging her body to the side of a creek bed
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: and piling branches, dirt, and debris over her.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: They return to the car. They use the bleach to
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: scrub the blood off their hands and the interior. They
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: change into the clean clothes they brought. and they drive
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: back toward Blacksville, tossing the murder weapons and their bloody
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: clothes out the window into the woods. They view the
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: entire event like a macabre theater production. They genuinely believe
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: they could just take off their bloody costumes, step off
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the stage, and resume their roles as normal high school students.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Following the confession, Rachel agrees to physically lead the authorities
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: to the site. The search is heavily delayed by severe
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: winter weather, but finally, on January 16, 2013, Investigators recover
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Schuyler's remains in Pennsylvania. It is located less than 30
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: miles from the bedroom where she left her phone charger
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: plugged into the wall.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Once the body is recovered, the physical evidence cascades rapidly.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Forensics isolate blood found in the trunk of Shalia's car,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: and it is a definitive match to Schuyler's DNA. But
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: perhaps the most chilling piece of post-confession evidence is a
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: monitored phone call. Eight hours after Rachel formally confesses to
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: the FBI... investigators have her call Shalia while they record
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the line. Rachel is clearly distressed, but Shalia is arrogant, dismissive,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and utterly confident that the police have nothing on them.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: The police even attempt to have Rachel wear a wire
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: in person to capture a direct admission from Shalia, but
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Shalia is cautious enough not to give a clean confession
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: on tape. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. The authorities have Rachel's
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: detailed confession, they have recovered the remains, and they have
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: the irrefutable DNA evidence inside Shalia's vehicle. The investigative phase
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: is over.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: The case now transitions out of the woods and into
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: the courtroom. And this creates a monumental dilemma for the
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: justice system. How does society appropriately penalize two 16-year-old girls
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: for a crime of such staggering cremeditation and brutality?
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: To understand the courtroom outcomes, we have to examine the
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: specific legal framework governing juvenile justice in the United States
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: during this era.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Let's break down the legal mechanics of this, keeping in
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: mind for you all listening that we are simply laying
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: out the constitutional standards and the factual timeline here. On
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: May 1st, 2013, Rachel Schoaf enters a plea of guilty
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: to second-degree murder. In her plea, she formally admits that
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: she unlawfully, willfully, maliciously, and intentionally caused the death of
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Skylar Neese.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: The state prosecutors recommend a 20-year sentence as part of
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: the plea agreement. However, the judge... possessing the discretion to
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: deviate from that recommendation, sentences Rachel to 30 years in prison,
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: establishing her initial eligibility for parole after she serves 10 years.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: During her sentencing hearing, Rachel does offer a public apology
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: to Dave and Mary Neese, and her family issues a
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: statement expressing their deep sorrow. Shalia, however, takes a much
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: more combative route initially.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Because of her age, Shalia's identity is initially protected, but
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: she is publicly named in September 2013 when she is
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: officially transferred to adult court. She is charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: and conspiracy. Her initial posture is defiance, and she pleads
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: not guilty.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: But the walls are closing in. She is facing the
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: very real threat of additional federal or out-of-state charges because
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the body was transported across the Pennsylvania state line. Recognizing
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: the inevitability of a conviction, Shalia changes her plea on
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: January 24, 2014, pleading guilty to first-degree murder.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Her sentencing is where the specific jurisprudence of the era
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: takes center stage. Shalia is sentenced to life with mercy.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: In the West Virginia penal system, that specific legal terminology
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: means she's eligible to go before a parole board after
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: serving 15 years of her sentence.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Which is a direct reflection of shifting Supreme Court precedents, correct?
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Precisely. This sentencing structure was heavily influenced by the landmark U.S.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama. That ruling determined
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: that mandatory sentences of life without the possibility of parole
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: for juvenile offenders violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: and unusual punishment. The court orders' rationale was heavily rooted
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: in the very brain science we discussed earlier, the prefrontal cortex.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: The justices recognized that juvenile brains possess a unique plasticity,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: meaning they have a significantly higher capacity for rehabilitation and
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: behavioral change than adult brains. Therefore, the justice system is
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: constitutionally required to provide juveniles with a meaningful opportunity to
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation. Shalia's sentence
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: of life with mercy was designed to adhere to that
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: constitutional standard.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Journalists inside the courtroom during the sentencing noted a chilling
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: lack of effect from Shelia. There were no visible tears,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: no statement of remorse to the niece family. Both women
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: were subsequently transferred to the Lakin Correctional Center in West
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Virginia to begin their sentences. And because of the math
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: of those sentences, the consequences are playing out in real
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: time right now. Rachel had her first parole hearing in 2023,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: and she was denied release. Her next projected hearing is
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: in 2028.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Shelia will cross her 15-year threshold and face her first
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: parole board hearing in May 2028.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Dave Neese has been an unyielding force at these hearings.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: He vehemently opposes any early release for either woman. He
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: anchors his argument not just in the sheer violence of
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the act, but in the calculated cruelty that followed it.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: He reminds the board of the months of premeditation and
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: the psychological torture of Shelia standing in his living room,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: comforting him while fully knowing Schuyler was decaying in the woods.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: It perfectly illustrates the agonizing chasm between legal philosophy and
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: the reality of grief. The constitutional law uses terms like plasticity, rehabilitation,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: and mercy. But for a father who had to bury
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: his daughter in a closed casket, the concept of mercy
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: is fundamentally incompatible with the facts of the crime.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for the people left
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: behind in Morgantown? How does a community reassemble itself after
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: an event like this?
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: The psychological aftershocks for University High School were devastating. As
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: the details became public, a horrifying realization swept through the
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: student body. Multiple students realized they had actually overheard Shelia
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: and Rachel discussing the murder plot in the weeks leading
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: up to it.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: But they didn't report it because they filtered it through
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: the lens of Internet culture.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: It's exactly the issue. Teenagers traffic in dark, sarcastic, hyper-morbid humor.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: When classmates heard them whispering about killing Schuyler, they didn't
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: process it as a genuine threat. They processed it as edgy,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: performative teenage drama. The town had to undergo a brutal
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: loss of innocence, realizing that the most dangerous predators weren't
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: strangers lurking in alleyways. They were the honor roll students
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: sitting in third period English class.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: But Dave and Mary Neese refused to let the narrative
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: end with their victimization. They took an unimaginable reservoir of
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: grief and channeled it entirely into dismantling the bureaucratic blind
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: spot that delayed the search for Schuyler on day one.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: They lobbied the state legislature with incredible ferocity.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Their efforts resulted in House Bill 2453, championed by Delegate
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: Charlene Marshall. The legislation, which rightfully became known as Skyler's Law,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: moved through the legislative process at a completely unprecedented speed.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: It passed the West Virginia House of Delegates unanimously in
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: March 2013, cleared the Senate in April, and was signed
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: into law by the governor in May.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: How does Skyler's Law actually change the mechanics of the
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: alert system on the ground?
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: It tackles the communication bottleneck. It doesn't throw out the
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: federal criteria for an Amber Alert, but it radically alters
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: the initial response protocol. Under Schuyler's law, any law enforcement
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: agency in West Virginia that receives a report of a
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: missing or suspected abducted child must immediately notify the state police,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: regardless of whether they think the kid is just a runaway. Wow.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: OK.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then the state police are mandated to immediately
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: coordinate with the Amber Alert system to evaluate the threat level.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: So it effectively legally bypasses the 48-hour waiting period. It
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: removes the local dispatcher's ability to simply write off a
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: teenager as a runaway and stick the file in a
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: drawer for two days. It forces immediate high-level evaluation.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Dave Nisa stated that this legislation is the one tangible
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: way Skylar's legacy continues to actively protect people. We have
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: to acknowledge the grim reality that an earlier alert on
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: July 6th likely would not have saved Skylar's life since
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: the timeline suggests she was murdered before the sun even
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: came up. But Schuyler's law guarantees that the next family
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: who realizes their child's phone charger is still plugged into
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: the wall won't have to fight a bureaucratic brick wall
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: to get the state to pay attention.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: The courts handed down their sentences and the state altered
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: its laws. But neither the gavel nor the legislation actually
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: provides an answer to the core question. They don't explain
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: the why. And that brings us to how the true
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: crime ecosystem, and specifically this 2026 Hulu docuseries, has attempted
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: to process the unprocessable.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture of media consumption,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: the true crime genre relies heavily on recognizable archetypes. It
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: wants to give the audience a neat, consumable package. The
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: innocent victim, the idyllic small town hiding a dark underbelly,
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: and the obvious monstrous villain.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: But the Skyline East case violently rejects those comfortable tropes.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Shalia Eddy and Rachel Shoff were not cinematic masterminds. They
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: were utterly ordinary 16-year-old girls. They complained about homework, they
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: went to church camp, they obsessed over their Twitter feeds.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: And they sat in the same fast food parking lots
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: as millions of other teenagers. The horror of this case
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: is the banality of evil in its absolute purest, most
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: terrifying form. And that banality is what makes it impossible
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: for the media to look away.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Over the years, the case has been dissected from every angle.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: There were extensive books published like The Savage Murder of
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Skylar Neese and Pretty Little Killers. Network procedurals like 2020
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: and Investigation Discovery mapped out the timeline with forensic precision.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: But the Hulu series, Friends Like These, attempts a radical
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: departure in how the story is told.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Director Claire tightly understood that the procedural facts were already
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: public record. So she utilized highly stylized visual techniques to
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: force the audience out of the role of a passive
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: observer and directly into the claustrophobic headspace of a 2012 teenager.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: The series takes the girls' actual historical tweets and visually
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: projects them across the lockers and hallways of the school
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: on screen. creating a physical manifestation of their digital hostility.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: They even utilized Schuyler's digital voice to narrate portions of
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: her own archive.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: The critical reception to those specific creative choices was certainly mixed.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: If you look at the IMDb ratings, it hovers in
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: the mid-20s. Some television critics argued that painting tweets on
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: the walls and heavily relying on dated teenage slang felt
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: a bit gimmicky, perhaps distracting from the gravity of the crime.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: However, where the documentary universally succeeded and earned deep praise
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: was in its quiet moments. The extensive interviews with Dave
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Neese anchor the series in raw, undeniable human grief. Furthermore,
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: the documentary makes a very conscious, concerted effort to de-objectify Skylar.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: They interview her classmate, Ariah Johnson, who forcefully reminds the
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: audience that Skylar wasn't just a plot device in a
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: murder mystery. She was a vibrant, protective, three-dimensional person.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: And that really brings us to the central thesis of
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: the documentary and of our deep dive today. We can
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: sit here and read a 10,000-word forensic recap. We can
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: binge a highly produced three-hour series that inventories every single
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: subtweet and analyzes every frame of gas station security footage.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: But no matter how much media we produce, it will
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: never generate a motive that makes logical sense. It will
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: never provide an answer that satisfies parents who have to
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: walk past an empty bedroom every single day. Producing more
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: media doesn't make the crime more sensible, it only makes
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: it slightly less abstract. Giving Skylar her voice back through
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: her own digital archive is the absolute least we can
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: do to honor her memory, even if the reason she
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: was taken remains forever elusive.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: This case is a multilayered challenge to society. It demands
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: that we elevate parental intuition above rigid institutional bureaucracy. It
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: challenges educators and parents to stop dismissing the escalating toxicity
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: of adolescent echo chambers as just a phase. It forces
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: us to scrutinize the dark humor of teenagers and recognize
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: when it crosses the line into genuine threat.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Add to that the fact that it perfectly illustrates the
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: terrifying duality of our technology. The cell phones and the
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: digital networks couldn't act as a shield to save Schuyler
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: in those woods, but they acted as an infallible, silent
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: witness that ensured her killers could not hide behind their
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: own lies. To summarize the tragedy we've explored today, it's
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: the story of a foundational friendship that began in an
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: after-school program at age eight, mutated into something incomprehensibly dark,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: and ended in a shallow grave across the Pennsylvania border.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: with every single step of the dissent meticulously documented on
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: social media.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: It represents a profound generational trauma that the community of
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Morgantown will carry for decades to come.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: As we wrap up this deep dive, I want to
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: leave you with a final thought to mull over, something
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: that extends beyond the specific facts of this case. Think
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: about the sheer uncompromising permanence of the digital archive we're
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: all building right now. In generations past, a tragedy of
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: this magnitude would eventually, slowly, fade into the collective memory.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: preserved only in fading memories and yellowing newspaper clippings in
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: a library basement. But today, the digital ghosts of these teenagers,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: their petty grievances, their inside jokes, their final entirely mundane thoughts,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: they don't fade. They are frozen perfectly in time, etched
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: onto servers, existing forever in a perpetual present tense. We
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: are living in an era where we can never truly
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: leave our past behind, and that fundamentally alters how parents, communities,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: and society as a whole must navigate the landscape of grief.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: What happens to our humanity when the digital echoes of
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: those we've lost and those who took them simply never
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: stop speaking?
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: It is a haunting, inevitable reality of the modern human condition.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Thank you for taking the time to explore this incredibly
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: difficult terrain with us today. We encourage you to keep
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: questioning the protocols of the systems that govern you and
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: to constantly seek out the nuance behind the headlines.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Until next time, remember that the landscape of human behavior
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: is vastly more complicated than we want it to be.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Stay curious, stay observant, and we'll see you on the
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: next deep dive.