>> deborah: a high school girl sneaks away from home and disappears. but are there clues left behind in a diabolical game of "would you rather?" "20/20" begins right now.

>> she walked out, she said, "i love you, daddy." that's the last time i ever heard her. >> her missing poster is up all over town. >> what were you looking for? >> anything and everything. >> denise called me and said, "tom, we have something." >> what were you thinking when you saw her head flash on that screen? >> there was no evidence of a kidnapping. there was no abduction. there was no ransom. >> we're combing through everything, hours and hours decking every picture, every message, everything. >> if they got angry, she would put those tweets out there, too. a girl, a girl, a bitch, a bitch. i'm like, who is she talking about? >> no one realized how bad it was growing. the friction of two versus one.

>> she said that she had to tell me the truth about what happened last night. >> you guys rather suffocate or get shot? >> i don't think that most kids play "would you rather" in terms of how would you rather die? ♪ >> county 911, do you have an emergency? >> i don't know if it qualifies as an emergency or not, to me it is. >> it's the phone call no parent ever wants to have to make, a desperate 911 about a missing child. >> i have a 16-year-old daughter who has not been home, hasn't went to work, can't get ahold of her from any of her friends. i am scared to death. >> what's her name? >> skylar neese. >> what were you feeling at that point for your little girl?

>> i was scared to death. i didn't know where my baby was. how would you feel? it was horrible. >> nothing would ever be the same for dave neese, and his wife mary after that call in july 2012. >> that was one of my favorites, that was number one, had to be. >> or for the small suburban community of star city, west virginia, who would grapple with the mystery of skylar neese's disappearance. >> star city is a small little city off of morgantown. it is a great place to live. it is a wonderful place to raise your family. as much as we have this real small-knit community, we also have a university. >> morgantown was more college town, so your crime was more college, property crimes, college kids having parties, typical stuff that any other college town would have, but nothing really serious.

>> it has that college town shine and bounce. it's not a podunk town, and it's not an urban metropolis, it's a combo, and it's breathtakingly beautiful there. >> a blue-collar middle-class town with working families, like dave and mary neese. he worked at walmart and she at a consider consider's office. and that's the norm for this area. >> morgantown's a fairly decent community. it's peaceful. it's a small town that's growing really fast. >> it's the kind of area where outside of college football, not much happens. so when 16-year-old skylar neese went missing on a summer evening in july, people were stunned. now more than a decade after her disappearance, a new podcast has topped the charts exploring skylar's story which is still reverberating. >> my name is holly millea. >> my name is justine harman, and we are the co-hosts and co-creators of "three." >> the story felt like a gothic re-imagining of everyone's teenage experience. when you peel apart who these

people were and what the circumstances were, they're fairly universal, and human, and relatable, and those are the things that interest me personally. >> this is episode one, "skylar is missing." >> part of the intrigue, the podcasters say, is that often-treacherous intersection of adolescence and social media, a big deal for high school-aged girls like skylar. >> like so many her age, skylar used her voice on social media as a stream of consciousness. updating friends on what she had for lunch that day, what she is watching on tv, and her emotions in the moment. >> it was pretty important you could see flickers of her personality. it was really empowering at the time to have -- >> a voice. >> yeah, a voice. >> also, highly dangerous. it's one thing to write in a diary about that stuff, but when you start broadcasting those thoughts, it can lead to some trouble. >> let's talk about skylar.

how would you describe her? >> i spoiled her beyond rotten. skylar was a very bubbly person, she had a smile that would light up the room, she was also very loyal to her friends, all those things wrapped into one. >> she loved the disney channel. and every friday night, they would have a new disney movie. ♪ let's watch a disney channel movie ♪ >> we'd curl up on the couch to watch a new disney movie, and she just loved that. >> dave neese also told me a story that sticks out for him when skylar was growing up. >> she had a tea party for me, and after mary came home, she noted that skylar couldn't reach a faucet, and i've been drinking toilet water for the whole tea party. that was a good memory. >> at the time it wasn't a good memory. >> at 16, the neese's say skylar is thriving with a 4.0 grade

point average and a part-time job at a fast-food restaurant. >> but in the early afternoon of july 6th, 2012, everything changes. it's a summer friday, and dave neese goes to the bedroom to wake up his daughter who he thinks has overslept and has work in a couple of hours. >> we never bothered skylar in the morning. she was up all hours of the night talking to her friends on the phone, so we didn't bother her in the mornings. i knocked on her door, and there was no answer. i knocked again, still no answer. so, i said, "sky, come on, you got to get up," and i still didn't get an answer. so, i took a coat hanger and opened the door, and i looked down at her bed, and it hadn't been slept in, and it scared me. >> dave neese immediately calls his wife mary, who was working, to ask if she knew where skylar could be. >> mary's like, "relax, she probably spent the night at a friend's. don't worry about it, she'll turn up.

she has to go to work at 4:00." >> a few minutes go by and dave is still worried, so he calls mary again. >> i said, "what do i do?" she said, "well, first of all, call shelia. that's the first person you call." >> shelia eddy and skylar neese met in the second grade at an after-school program near blacksville where shelia grew up. they're about 8 years old, and they were fast friends. >> if they weren't together, they were on the phone together. and that's literally 24 hours a day. so, i called shelia. i said, "do you got any clue where skylar is?" she said, "no." i said, "when's the last time you talked to her?" she said, "last night about midnight." i said, "you don't have any clue where she might be or who she might be with?" and she said, "no." >> dave's mind is racing, trying to piece together the night before in his head, remembering when he saw her last.

>> skylar came home from work and walked through the door, and she went over and petted her dog and said, "hi, mom, hi, dad." she walked out and she said, "i love you, daddy." that's the last time i ever heard her. >> because by the next day, skylar hasn't been seen or heard from, and she has work at 4:00. >> the minute skylar didn't show up for work, mary and dave both knew something was wrong. >> wendy's called and said, "hey, is skylar coming to work today?" and i said, "oh, jesus." and mary said, "call 911." it's started. it's... the side hug. tween milestones like this may start at age 9. hpv vaccination—a type of cancer prevention against certain hpv-related cancers, can start then too. for most, hpv clears on its own. but for others, it can cause certain cancers later in life. you're welcome! now, as the “dad cab”,

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16-year-old skylar neese needed to be in work here at wendy's at 4:00 p.m. on july 6th. 4:00 came and went -- skylar never showed up. >> wendy's called and said, "hey, is skylar coming to work today?" and i said, "oh, jesus." and she said -- mary said, "call 911." so i did. i called 911 immediately. >> county 911, do you have an emergency? >> yeah, i have a daughter that is 16 years old, and she hasn't been seen, she hasn't went to work. none of her friends can get ahold of her. i can't find her. >> where does she work? >> she works at wendy's.

as soon as i called 911, the phone rang, and it was shelia. and she talked to mary. >> what did she say? >> her words were, "i have to tell you the truth about what happened last night." i said, "the truth? what are you talking about?" so then she proceeded to tell me that her, skylar, and rachel had snuck out the night before, and that they had driven around star city, were getting high, and that the two girls had dropped her back off at the house. >> rachel is rachel shoaf. by all accounts, rachel is shelia and skylar's very best friend. but what shelia is sharing isn't putting the neeses at ease. >> i don't even know what to think. i just can't believe she snuck out. >> she snuck out. >> she climbed out the window and had put a bench at the base of the window on the outside so

that she could -- >> climb down. >> she was pretty short. >> but skylar's friend tells mary something else that's unsettling. after that joyride, they dropped skylar off a couple of blocks away from the apartment building she lived in so the car noise wouldn't wake her parents. >> so now they're thinking that maybe skylar could have been abducted walking back those two blocks to get back in her house. >> it introduced a question of, well, what happened to skylar after she got dropped off? >> when a person goes missing, a lot of times within 24 hours, we will find them. some take no more than 48 hours. wee locate the child, have them ret returned, him or her returned to the home. >> jessica coalbank, who was a police officer at the time and one of the first people on the

case, she was it right away. >> at some point you think, okay, a little girl is missing, 16 years old. did you think it was a runaway case at that point? >> it was always possible based on whenever i got the case. we had shelia's initial statement, which was that they had dropped her off at the end of the street. so it was always possible that she had run away. >> she didn't take her cell phone charger. she didn't take her contact lens solution or her contact lens, nothing, nothing she would've took if she would've been running away or leaving for an extended period of time. >> yeah, apparently she was planning to come back fairly quickly. >> the neeses are struggling to make sense of everything, including shelia's revelation that their daughter was out smoking marijuana with her friends. it's not the skylar they knew. >> sheila, she shows up

day, she comes back to the house with you at one point, and she wants to go see skylar's room? >> yeah, she knocked on the door. we opened it and she said, "hey." i said, "what are you doing?" she says, "is it okay if i go back and sit in skylar's room for a moment?" and i looked at mary, and she looked at me. and we said, "i guess." so she went back in skylar's room, and i sat on the couch, and i think mary was in the kitchen. and mary heard some sobbing and crying and stuff. so she went back. >> she was crying, shelia was, crying pretty hard. and she was sitting on her bed. so i just sat down on the bed beside her and rubbed her back. she was upset because skylar was gone and hadn't come back. so i was trying to, you know, console her, make her feel better. >> everyone i spoke to said these three girls were inseparable. people like rachel's close

family friend, kelly kerns. she was like a daughter to you? >> yes. once she went to high school and she took singing lessons and, uh, she always had piano lessons and acting lessons. was in the drama. >> rachel's personality is bubbly, i'd say. her voice was absolutely amazing. i really thought she was going to be on broadway one day. she was absolutely stunning with her voice. breathtaking, actually. >> i had never heard anything bad about rachel. she seemed like she was just, you know, she was another skylar. >> rachel had gone to a catholic school previous to university high school. and all of these girls are only children. so the three of them became very close. and shelia gravitated towards rachel because rachel was, you know, popular almost immediately, being a star in the theater, coming from a home that had real money.

and skylar was feeling the squeeze, you know? because now her lifelong best friend is cozying up to this third person. >> just like skylar, rachel and shelia express themselves on twitter. >> "my dad is my favorite person to hang out with. he's a hoot." >> rachel coming off like a typical teenager. >> "awkkwwarrrrdd." >> while shelia's are a bit more rebellious. >> "there's a reason why sober and so bored sound almost exactly the same." >> shelia, her tweets are definitely the most provocative. a lot of dissing her parents, her parental figures. she seems definitely the most comfortable in pushing the boundaries and the most confident. >> since they were the last to see skylar, police take the girls' statements, which are consistent with what shelia told mary. they say that they picked up skylar late in the evening between 11:00 and 11:30 p.m.,

went for a joyride during which they smoked pot, then dropped skylar off a couple of blocks from home around midnight. whatever happened next remains a mystery. we love her. we want her home. >> i promised dave and mary whenever i started, i told them the very first day that i met them, i said, "i'm a bulldog." i said, "i don't care if it takes me ten years to find the truth. i will eventually find it." but until i had skylar back, i wasn't stopping. >> and police are about to uncover their biggest clue yet when some grainy security camera footage captured at the apartment building after midnight is analyzed. is that skylar getting into an unknown car? she developed agitation that may happen with dementia due to alzheimer's disease. sometimes she'd fidget with her fingers, get suddenly overwhelmed, and even throw things.

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skylar neese was last seen at this apartment complex in star city, parents and police meet here to watch a video -- hours of security footage from the previous night. and what they discover is the first big break in the case. >> dave neese called me and said, "tom, we have something. we now have a video of her sneaking out of the house, going in a car and leaving. so now we've got to try and find out who owns the car." >> she went to her room and after midnight, she snuck out. >> she ran to a waiting car which you can see in the cctv footage from the apartment building.

>> it was typical black-and-white grainy footage. and it just shows skylar walking across the parking lot and getting into a car and then taking off. >> remember, shelia and rachel said they picked up skylar in the 11:00 hour and dropped her off close to home about 30 minutes later. now the clock reads 12:30 a.m. skylar not only gets into the waiting car, she does so willingly. >> there was no evidence of a kidnapping, there was no abduction, there was no ransom, there was nothing to indicate that she was kidnapped. >> that changed everything for me. because it meant she was with somebody else, and somebody else was controlling her destiny. she wasn't the driver. >> but the footage was so grainy, they couldn't make out the car. >> you can't tell if it's a sedan or an suv. it's a start, but it's not a lot. >> "not a lot" is exactly what star city lead investigator jessica colebank has to work

with. so, how did you get involved in this case? >> it kind of happened because the officer that got the initial report is actually our part-time officer, and i'm full-time. and i like to investigate cases. it's kind of my thing. i like to dig deep in things and find the truth, and body language and statement analysis, everything like that, that's what i like. >> what were you looking for? >> anything and everything, trying to get pictures of the tires, the rims. but it's just too grainy. >> but then investigators chase a possible lead in the form of a post-midnight text exchange between skylar and a boy named eric. >> eric was a friend out in blacksville. he was good friends with her. i think the only thing it showed us is that she was still alive at 12:14. but we obviously see that on the camera.

>> investigators can see from the text messages that skylar and eric had been testing just minutes before she got into the back seat. could he have been driver of that car? investigators track him down and quickly find out that he was not the driver, nor involved in any way. but without any leads based on fact, rumor and speculation take over star city. >> a lot of the rumors we heard was that she met a guy, got pregnant with this guy, ran out of with this guy. >> the big thing they thought happened was that all three girls were doing drugs, and skylar overdosed, and rachel and sheila panicked, and they dispersed with the body. was having financial troubles, so maybe she got involved with unsavory characters, maybe there was sex work -- i mean, everything you can think of.

>> she met someone through the drive-in at wendy's, got a name, and took off. >> we had information that she had some relative that was helping her out and hiding her. which came out to be not true, obviously. >> none of the rumors turn out to be true. but they are a manpower drain for star city's police department. >> that's a lot of stuff to cut through to get to the real story. you have to sort of check off all of these conspiracy theories, and that's a lot of police work. >> for a missing girl, lots of people claim to see skylar. that only serves to stretch the resources of star te p.d. even further. >> people said that they saw skylar run in front of their car. people said that they saw her strung out on the side of the street. people saw her everywhere. people were calling in, people wanted to help, and people were muddying the waters with all of these false accounts of skylar being here, there, everywhere. >> the other thing that was really polluting this investigation was the fact that a lot of people turned into

amateur sleuths. everybody started saying, "okay, we're going to get involved now." >> then what gets me very angry and i grit my teeth is, people always said, "oh, well, if your kid's missing, it's the parents." so a segment of the population started to blame dave and mary. "they did something with their child. they hurt their own child." and dave would call me crying because he couldn't believe people would say that. >> in a police report that would eventually balloon to 700 pages, there's not a single mention of dave and mary neese being suspected of any wrongdoing. meanwhile, about 20 miles away, corporal ronnie gaskins and chris berry from the state police are working with the fbi on two bank robberies out of

nearby blacksville, west virginia, where a possible link between their case and the skylar neese case is made. >> this is blacksville, uh, up here on the left is the huntington bank -- this is the bank that was robbed in june and july of 2012. this is how, essentially, i got involved in this case, a possible linkage with these robberies and the disappearance of skylar neese. this is where it all began for me. >> police learn through social media that one of the suspects from the bank robbery investigation is known to shelia, rachel, and skylar. >> so potentially, skylar was involved in a robbery ring. >> we started stumbling on pictures of skylar neese, sheila, friends, things we were looking into. >> when troopers interview one of the bank robbery suspects, they notice immediately his story has a hole in it. cops want to know what or who is

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when ronnie gaskins and i were investigating the bank robbery out in blacksville, we actually got a phone call from star city police department, from jessica colebank, stating to us that she goes, "hey, we might have connections with one of the male suspects you are looking into at the bank robbery you guys are investigating." >> once again, the rumor mill churns. why would they make that connection? bank robberies to skylar's disappearance? >> we were getting some anonymous tips that there was a teenage party out in the blacksville area. there were rumors that the money used from the bank robbery was used to purchase the heroin that was supplied at the party.

skylar had supposedly overdosed on heroin. she died. people there panicked and they disposed of the body. >> an alternate theory surmises drugs didn't kill skylar -- the bank robbers did. >> we didn't know if she knew the people that did it and figured out that they were the ones that had robbed the bank so they had her killed to keep her quiet. >> so gaskins and berry make a house call. >> so myself and trooper berry, uh, we just did what we call a knock and talk. >> we pulled up to the main male suspect we were looking into for our bank robbery, and we pulled up to the driveway. i remember it was a hot summer day. we were getting out of the cars and walking around, and we actually see the male suspect sprinting across the yard towards us, holding a shovel. his heart was just pumping out of his chest. >> and they thought one of two things. either they're burying skylar or they're burying money from the bank robberies. >> i'll never forget ronnie gaskins looked at him and

he says, "you okay? what are you doing back there, digging a ditch for a body?" and the one thing that threw a red flag towards us was his expression. and he sat back. his eyes opened up like he saw a ghost. >> but i'd act nervous if a cop pulled up to my house, even if i'm not doing anything wrong. >> and he finally came out and said, "no, i'm digging a hole for compost." >> once again, investigators have nothing. no evidence to charge their suspect with bank robbery or skylar's disappearance. no evidence that skylar died of a heroin overdose. no evidence that she knew anything about a bank robbery. just a case file filled with dead-end rumors and conspiracy theories. >> by august, classes are starting up at university high school. >> on august 22nd, "the dominion post" ran the headline, "roll call for neese goes unanswered."

the story reads -- uhs principal shari burgess said that they'd hoped skylar would've turned up by now. they had her schedule filled with the tough classes she requested ready to go. a couple teachers called her name while taking attendance on the first day, but skylar wasn't there. >> you can only imagine how her friends or any student would feel, knowing that her missing poster is up all over town. >> investigators are allowed access to interview students when looking for a solid lead. >> cops did come to the school. they were a frequent presence at the school, so much so that kids who weren't even involved started to sweat around the collar. >> you've covered cases before, but nothing like this? >> this case required a lot of legwork, a lot of interviews, a lot of investigation. so it was a classic whodunnit, which is what made it more complex and difficult. >> trooper chris berry is also getting a crash course in digital forensics to see what students are saying online. >> we're combing through

everything. just hours and hours. go on the page and just dissecting every picture, every message, everything. dates, times. you find out a lot. everybody posts their whole story on facebook. >> and he admitted at the time, he's like, "i didn't even know what a retweet was." so he had to become fluent almost as he had his boots on the ground. >> still to this day, i don't like twitter. it was just one of those things i never got into, and it was hard to follow and hard to figure out. >> the kids had all these concerns and information, and they used twitter and facebook to voice their opinions. >> there was so much to dig through, so many digital artifacts to put into one column. like, this is relevant or this is irrelevant. but it's a lot of noise, and it's a lot of volume. >> but berry gets up to speed quickly and soon finds himself in a pile of digital posts. what he notices is technology

has changed, but human behavior has not. >> well, anybody, any kid, any teen, if they're mad, they're going to put it out there. if somebody was having an issue, you can find out on social media. they have to come out and say something and get it off their chest. it eats them alive if they keep it in and keep it secret. >> the heat increases when police find this ominous video. the three friends playing a dangerous game. >> would you guys rather suffocate or get shot? >> get shot. >> shot. (♪) this is a hot flash. (♪) but this is a not flash. (♪) for moderate to severe vasomotor symptoms due to menopause... veozah is the first and only prescription treatment that directly blocks a source of hot flashes and night sweats. with 100% hormone—free veozah... you can have fewer hot flashes

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law enforcement investigating the disappearance of skylar neese has been stymied by the lack of physical evidence. so they turn to social media for clues, combing through hundreds of messages that skylar posted in the months before she vanished. and it's a wealth of information. >> there are two skylars, and you can really see that in the tweets. there is the teenage skylar that we can all relate to. >> "looove when my dog's being cuddly." "chapped lips are the devil." >> and then there's this other skylar where if she got angry, if she felt isolated, if she felt like her friends were ignoring her, she would put those tweets out there too. >> "omg you're obviously lying, stop embarrassing yourself." >> often, the girls seemed to be using social media to vent,

posting angry messages, seemingly directed at no one in particular. >> even though you might be directing a tweet at a friend, the world sees it. i think that escalated the trouble between the three best friends is, it was just blasted out there. >> "ugh now it's time to feel bad for being mean." >> investigators learn that the three once-inseparable friends, skylar, shelia, and rachel, had some underlying issues. >> skylar and shelia were friends way, way back before rachel even came in the picture. >> two lemon warheads. >> yeah! >> we all remember those early friends that we had when we were little kids. those friendships change over time, especially as new kids come into the fold. so, rachel comes in as the three

girls are heading into high school and kind of changes the dynamic. >> so anytime you have three, three's a crowd. they say that for a reason. >> you could definitely tell when rachel comes involved in the picture, things started going a little south. >> "you take two-faced to a whole new level." >> it was very evident that there were ups and downs in their friendship. but you're at that age, you're all changing. it's through those teenage years. no one realized how bad it was growing, the friction of two versus one. >> shelia was always, you know, the ringleader of everything. just seemed a very manipulative person. she was very self-centered. she would almost do whatever it took to kind of get her way. >> going back in time and looking, something's going on between the girls. skylar's just blowing up and throwing some really good, nasty posts, to the point of, she's

pissed. >> "a girl, a girl, a bitch, a bitch." >> and i'm like, "who is she talking about?" and we know who she's talking about. >> and in the weeks before she vanished, skylar's posts appear to get even angrier. >> "there's just something about you i can't [ bleep ] stand." "people can be so mean for absolutely no reason." "hope you don't expect me to give a [ bleep ] any more." "#bye." >> and perhaps the most suspicious, if not ominous, glimpse into their dynamic, was this video posted by skylar on social media that captures a strange game between friends where shelia asks rachel and skylar -- >> would you guys rather suffocate or get shot? >> get shot. >> shot. >> in the video shelia's sort of acting as the master of ceremonies and giving skylar and rachel different scenarios, saying, "how would you prefer to die?"

>> drowning or suffocating? >> and the girls kind of think about it, and then they both say in unison -- >> suffocating. >> it's almost the same thing. >> i know, but it's not. >> i don't think that most kids play "would you rather?" in terms of, how would you rather die? >> when shelia was around, skylar was kind of a follower, and not a leader. so i -- i didn't care for that either. i wanted skylar to be herself, you know. >> there's another tweet where it's july fourth weekend, but skylar tweets something that suggests that her friends have all been hanging out without her and that she's feeling particularly left out. >> "sick of being at [ bleep ] home. thanks, friends, love hanging out with you all, too." >> where some of her tweets seem really angry or incensed, this one is kind of sad and defeated. >> and then the night of july 5th, skylar sent out her last tweet the night she went missing. >> there was tension with

somebody based on her last tweet. she didn't trust someone, and to her that's a very big thing, is trust. >> "you doing [ bleep ] like that is why i will never completely trust you." >> so she was adamant that they had crossed the line with her. >> but despite that angry tweet and a portrait of a sometimes-toxic trio, skylar still decided to hang out with shelia and rachel that fateful july night. the police still have no physical proof of what's become of her. >> the surveillance video just -- it didn't really show a whole lot. i mean, it showed her getting in that car, but other than that, at the time we didn't know that was the last time we were ever going to see skylar. >> we were just hitting dead end after dead end. and i remember i said, "we're missing something, and we need to figure out what we're

missing." >> so now detectives circle back to what little they do have, to see if there's a link between skylar's disappearance and the last two people known to have seen her. >> when i was able to review the girls' statements, they were hellbound on 11:00, 11:00 p.m. of picking her up. and it was 12:30 that you see her actually in the vehicle. when i found out from jessica colebank that she had four hours' worth of this video surveillance, i told jessica, i said, "well, let's go back and watch the whole thing." we got all the way up to 12:30. and i told jess, i said, "what'd you see?" >> and the one thing that clicked was chris said, "you only see her leave her window once." >> the girls' statement was 11:00. they pick up skylar. we have her exiting the house at

12:30. from 10:30 to 12:30, we don't have skylar exiting, walking away, walking back, nothing. and now at 12:30, we have her on camera leaving. i said, "they're lying. she didn't get picked up at 11:00. she didn't leave that house. she's been there the whole time until 12:30." i said, "we need to go back and talk to the girls, because their story's not matching up now." what happened, and where's skylar, that's what we want to know. >> but there would be something else police would soon want to know. like, what did skylar mean when she posted what sounded like a veiled threat right before she vanished? >> "just know i know." >> that tweet made me anxious and nervous for her. >> she knows something, some type of secret, that if it gets out would clearly be damaging. >> was skylar about to expose someone's tightly held secret before she disappeared?

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it was one of those things like, okay, let's start all over. what happened? you tell us. >> skylar's in the back seat having no idea what's about to happen. >> rumors are flying.

these girls know something. >> i said, the only thing you can do is tell me where my baby is. she says, what do you mean by that? i said, you know exactly what i mean. >> sick and tired of the cat-and-mouse games. my thing was, i'm going to put pressure on these girls. >> okay, okay. >> this is over, this is over! >> jaws hit the floor. >> this took you completely by surprise. >> right before skylar went missing, she tweeted out -- >> i tell the whole school all the [ bleep ] i have on everyone, which is a lot. >> any time you have three. three's a crowd. they say that for a reason. >> they say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, back up. let's start from the beginning. anyone with information on skylar's whereabouts is asked to

contact the star city police. >> honey, if you're scared, don't be scared. we want you home more than anything in the world. we love you. come home as soon as you can, baby. >> skylar neese went missing from this apartment building in the early morning hours of july 6th, 2012. she was seen on a security camera getting into an unknown vehicle at 12:30 a.m. now months have passed. no word from skylar. and so far, still no evidence of foul play. the new podcast "three" tells the story of skylar neese and the investigation uncovering the mystery of her fate. >> for months, no one could imagine what had actually happened. rumors swirled. watching skylar climb into the backseat during those last few seconds of footage, there's an urge to call out to her, "don't go." but the door closes.

the car pulls away, and she's gone. >> she willingly got in the car. it just raised millions of other questions of who did she go with and where did she go? >> now, remember, her best friend shelia told police she didn't know who was driving the car in the surveillance video and stated that she and rachel picked up skylar from the house at approximately 11:00 p.m., went on a joyride, and dropped her off back home a little after midnight. but police are about to catch those girls in a lie. >> chris berry determines there's only two ways that this car could have gone. it could have gone east, or it could have gone west. along both routes are gas stations with their own cameras. >> we started going to gas stations, restaurants. anybody who had video surveillance on the roads and trying to pinpoint their car. ronnie and i decide, "let's go down to the sheetz gas station."

one thing about sheetz -- really good camera systems. >> and sure enough, when watching this footage, they're able to make a positive i.d. that toyota camry? belongs to shelia. >> that is shelia's car. the girls told jessica colebank the vehicle that they saw on the cameras -- they said, "we don't know whose car that is." well, the whole time it was shelia's. >> and there's yet another inconsistency with the girls' story. they had previously told police they drove east during that joyride with skylar. but according to the surveillance footage, the girls were driving west. >> boom, he finds footage of the car going towards blacksville. >> why are you going to blacksville when you said you went towards downtown morgantown? >> an analysis of the girls' cell phone records expose something else not adding up for detectives -- the timeline. >> you had a ping in morgantown

at 12:30. they sent the text message to skylar saying, "hey, we're pulling in." >> there was nothing else except for one ping. out in blacksville around 4:00 in the morning. why is your phone pinging out at 4:00 in the morning out in blacksville when you told us you were home in bed at that time? it was one of those things like, "okay, let's start all over. what happened? you tell us. it's not saying anybody's in trouble. let's just put closure for the family. let's find skylar." >> you speak to rachel about this. you mentioned she changes her story. >> so now we have them from, "yeah, we dropped skylar off -- then we went straight home," to, "now, okay, we did drop skylar off, but we went out to blacksville and smoked marijuana." >> and what did shelia have to say? >> her statement was similar to rachel's. >> what was their demeanor like?

>> the two girls were different, like night and day. rachel was obviously more nervous. she seemed to be distracted. she would not look at us when she was talking. when we would talk to shelia, she would look right at you in your eyes. she did not appear to be nervous. she was calm. she was collect. >> at that point, we didn't want to say too much to them. because "a," if skylar was a runaway, they were telling her if we were close. it was also a possibility that someone else had hurt her, and they were too scared to tell us what had happened. >> school had started by this point. rumors are flying. these girls know something. >> there was five or six cops that came into school, made sure everyone saw them, and pulled them out of class. and then they interviewed them for a couple hours, and then they let them go back to class. rachel came back freaking out, flipping out, just totally

terrified. i kept asking her, "what are you so scared of? why are you so afraid?" and she said, "they're harassing me. i don't know why i'm getting harassed when i didn't do anything wrong." >> and even as the police are saying to you they've got some suspicions about shelia, you were thinking, hey, back off of this girl? >> oh, i even told them. i said, "will you please leave her alone? she's going through enough." i said, "those girls have just lost their best friend. we don't know where she is. will you chill out on her for a while?" >> but police aren't letting up. and the evidence is mounting. for example, those same cell phone records are just as revealing in what they don't show -- that shelia and rachel never reached out to skylar after she went missing. >> there were no calls from shelia, nothing. and that was an issue to me. i would be blowing her phone up, constantly trying to call her. >> not only that, they didn't even text skylar.

but police do notice shelia posting publicly about skylar. >> @hiighasthe_sky needs to come home. i can't take any more of this. >> so very early on, after skylar goes missing, they post about missing their best friend. they want answers. they want to know where she is. >> #searchforskylar. >> she would use social media in an indirect way to declare her own innocence. she said, "you wouldn't like what everyone is saying about us. they think i know more than i know." she's not just talking to skylar. she's talking to the parents and to the authorities with those posts. adding to the mystery was a bunch of internet sleuths who were weighing in and taunting rachel and shelia. >> bring pretty little liars down together.

#promisetoneverleaveyoucold." >> they were putting extra pressure on these two girls because they knew that they knew more than they were telling. they just didn't know what that more was. >> "whatcha gonna doo whatcha gonna doo when they come for you." >> you could tell that the tide had turned and people felt like they were somehow involved, or if nothing else, they knew and they needed to come forth and say. >> now we had to go figure out, how are we going to approach this? we started calling them out, we started hammering them with the questions. "this is a missing girl. this is your best friend. what's going on?" >> police offer shelia the chance to clear her name with a polygraph test. >> she finally just said, "well, i'll just take a polygraph and prove you wrong." >> oh, yeah. shelia doubles down. she's not afraid to double down. we're traveling all across america, talking to people about their hearts. how's the heart? - good. - you sure?

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♪ the security camera video from this gas station was a huge break in the case. so are the cell phone records.

these are the first solid pieces of proof that the stories sheila and rachel had been telling police are not truthful. so now armed with this new evidence, cops ask, "would you be willing to take a lie detector test?" and the girls agree. >> shelia was the first one to take the polygraph. >> so shelia agreed to come to you and take a polygraph? >> she was confident and sure that she was going to pass it. >> and what happened? >> failed miserably. >> the only thing she got right was her name. >> what time did you pick skylar up? where did you go? what did you do? all these questions, and she was failing. the question they never asked her is, "did you murder skylar?" because they weren't thinking along those lines at all. >> pretty much at the end of the day, she lied. we told her, "you're not telling

us the whole story. you're still lying to us. you're not telling us the truth." she just looked straight at us and goes, "i don't know what you're talking about, your machine is wrong." >> and what did you think at that point? >> we knew then, oh yeah, we are on the right track. >> on the right track maybe, but a polygraph isn't admissible in court. and remember, police still haven't found skylar or any murder weapon. still, they are hoping they might have more success when rachel takes her polygraph test. especially because at school, there are signs that the pressure is getting to her. >> according to friends, she was smoking a lot more weed before school, during school. there was an uptick in that behavior. later, she said she was losing weight. her mental and physical health was deteriorating. >> she was crying a lot at school. kids saw that. it looked like she was really starting to crack, if you will. >> she really was probably having a meltdown. >> she was skipping school. she was arguing and fighting with people. >> she was the lead actress in

all the plays, so she was important. and now she was the talk of the town, but not in a good way. so that was really hard for her to deal with. >> rachel was being erratic, behaving erratically, missing rehearsals. she missed a performance. i believe it was "midsummer night's dream." rachel was clearly losing it, for lack of a better word. >> and then, in the midst of all this, on the day rachel's dad is driving her to take her polygraph, they're right here on this bridge when all of the sudden, rachel opens the car door and jumps out of a moving vehicle. her concerned dad goes to the police intending to file a missing person's report. >> it's a literal panic attack that says, "i can't do this. i can't go in there." >> she jumped out of a moving car and ran away to shelia's mom's house.

>> and then they go to the police station to pick up shelia's electronics. >> so, i ask shelia's mom, you know, "you know where rachel is? she didn't show up for her polygraph." nobody knows where she's at. she goes, "oh, yeah, she's down in my car with sheila." and my jaw drops like, really? that's where she's at? >> you must see this as another opportunity for them to try to coordinate their stories again? >> oh, absolutely. >> when rachel skipped out on the polygraph, i was done, i had enough. i was sick and tired of cat-and-mouse games. i went and leaked information to dave and mary saying, hey, you know, this is what's going on with the girls. that's when they put it out, and i knew they were going to put it out. my thing was, i'm going to put pressure on these girls. >> mary and dave start a flurry

of posts on the team skylar facebook page which include -- >> "for five months we have watched you lie and lie. how can a beautiful 16-year-old disappear and the two people that know where she is not talk? karma's a bitch." >> we pushed. on facebook, i started posting things about karma and if they knew things, they needed to tell them. you know. "tell us what you know. tell us what you know." and we hounded them pretty good. >> yeah, we did. >> they went to the news, facebook, everything. "rachel's up to something." "this is what rachel did," all that stuff. >> i'll tell you, it was time that someone spoke up to get things moving forward again. >> and the online community joins the chorus with more accusatory posts pointed directly at the girls. >> that's when the wall started to crumble for rachel.

>> at one point, rachel reaches out to mary privately on facebook with a direct message, something along the lines of, "how can i help? what can i do?" >> i said, "the only thing you can do is tell me where my baby is." she says, "what do you mean by that?" i said, "you know exactly what i mean." and that was the last thing i ever heard from her. >> all this stuff happened at once, and it led to her nervous breakdown. >> monongalia county 911, do you have an emergency? >> get away from me! >> no! this is over! this is over! >> you can hear rachel in the background wailing. it's almost inhuman. she sounds like she's shrieking in pain. [ screaming ] >> my husband is trying to contain her. please hurry!

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♪ mon. county 911, do you have an emergency? >> yes. >> rachel and her mother, patricia, got into an argument. >> i have an issue with a 16-year-old daughter of mine. we can't control her anymore. >> she was calling 911 to get her daughter away from her. [ rachel screaming ] >> okay, okay. no, this is over, this is over!

>> they're having a real fight. its getting weird, its getting ugly. >> my husband is trying to contain her. please hurry! >> rachel was out of control, she was becoming physical, she was screaming. >> she was on a self-destruct mode. she tried to shut herself in her room and say, you know, "i want to die." >> two troopers responded, and they advised patricia to get her committed into a hospital for an evaluation. >> she had a nervous breakdown. she went into chestnut ridge, the local psychiatric hospital. it got to the point where she literally could not live with herself. >> patricia shoaf calls her lawyer and says, "rachel is ready to come in and talk, and she has a confession to make." >> this is huge. the most pivotal moment in the case so far. rachel arrives at her lawyer's office, where corporal ronnie gaskins and an fbi agent are waiting to hear what she will say. >> when rachel arrived, she asked her parents to wait outside the room.

rachel pulled over a wastepaper basket in case she vomited and proceeded to recount the events in detail, unburdening herself of her sins. >> they all meet in the conference room of this office. it's there rachel starts talking, and jaws just hit the floor. >> you can tell she's nervous, she was shaking. >> and then she speaks, and tell me point by point what she says to you. >> the first words out of her mouth were, "we stabbed her." >> they didn't want to believe that these two beautiful, popular, exceptionally bright teenagers could commit this horrific crime. and that's why they almost fell off their chairs when rachel announced, "we stabbed her." >> so this took you completely by surprise? >> complete surprise. >> they said, "whoa, whoa, whoa, back up, let's start from the beginning." and she just tells the whole thing. >> and perhaps one of the most chilling parts of the

confession, the murder, according to rachel, wasn't impulsive. it was premeditated. >> they knew that they would kill skylar in the summertime because rachel said her mom would turn off the alarms in the house in the summertime. so that would give her the opportunity to sneak out. >> the plan was put in motion, it looks like, in june. >> they chose a day in which they knew skylar would be working until, you know, 9:00, 10:00 at night and could sneak out of her house. >> according to rachel, late that night, shelia is driving. she picks her up, and as they arrive at skylar's they let her know, "we're waiting for you." >> shelia brought the kitchen knives according to rachel. the girls took the kitchen knives, concealed them underneath their hoodies. once skylar got in the vehicle,

they drove out to the western end of the county. >> she's just thinking we're going somewhere to have fun and smoke pot? >> sure. >> corporal ronnie gaskins and i returned to the area where rachel said it all happened. and they're driving on this road that we're on right now? >> yes. >> and skylar is in the back seat having no idea what's about to happen? >> she has no clue. >> in the trunk of the car that shelia drove, she and rachel had hidden a shovel, they had hidden clorox wipes, and a clean change of clothing. >> shelia parks the car, all three girls exit the vehicle. >> they get out and they start to smoke, and shelia's lighter isn't working. skylar turns around to go back to the car to get a lighter, and at that point when her back is to them, they start stabbing her.

>> right here, skylar, who is just walking back to the car to get her lighter, is being stabbed by her two best friends? >> yes. according to rachel, skylar is screaming "why?" >> she apparently was putting up quite a fight. >> she somehow manages to get rachel's knife and rachel ends up getting a knife cut on her leg. >> so it went on for a while. >> how many times did they stab her? >> rachel did not know the exact number of times. she indicated that at one point, it was becoming a blur to her. >> it just became a frenzy. it was a frenzy. >> she made the statement of they stabbed her so many times, she kept stabbing till she quit hearing noises. >> she was, in fact, stabbed over 50 times. >> that's rage. >> and then, what did the girls do afterwards? >> they thought they could dig a hole and bury her. >> they could not get the shovel

through the ground because there was a lot of rocks, it was -- they just couldn't do it. so they -- they drug her body. they covered her up with branches, rocks, leaves, you know, whatever they could find. and once they had covered her remains up, they change into clean clothes, they wipe down the car, and they left. >> as if nothing happened? >> right. >> did she say why? >> the answer she gave us was that they just didn't like her. what do you mean, you just didn't like her? we just didn't like her. i'm trying to comprehend what could skylar have done to make these girls so mad, wanting to kill her in such a violent way? >> but that's not the only lingering question for law enforcement after the shocking confession. the most important one -- how do they prove what she is saying is true? >> what if rachel had a nervous breakdown? what if this girl is just making this up because there's something wrong with her? >> we would be skeptical of any murderer's statement. if one co-conspirator gives a statement against another co-conspirator, you really have to use it as a starting point to

corroborate the facts. >> we had no body, we had no physical evidence. we had to corroborate that confession. had we arrested rachel right then and there, what are we going to present to the judge? >> after confessing, rachel agreed to lead authorities out to the murder site in the woods past blacksville. >> they said, "take us to where the body is." but the snow was so deep that they couldn't traipse through it to recover the body because they might destroy evidence. and so they let rachel go home. >> the thinking is two-fold. they don't have enough evidence, and they're hoping rachel can help them get it. >> they have to make sure it's not a story from a teenage girl. >> they really wanted to get shelia, so leaving rachel loose was the way to do that. >> so it only made sense to use her as an instrument of the investigation. >> and that's when a plan is hatched to try to get incriminating evidence against shelia.

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it's been six months since skylar neese's disappearance. rachel shoaf is permitted to go back home, even after her shocking confession that she and shelia stabbed skylar to death. that's because so far, there is no body and no physical evidence to corroborate her story. now authorities, led by the fbi, launch a plan they hope can help them get that corroboration. >> the fbi had wanted to do this wire to see if shelia would say something to confirm what rachel had said. >> that night, rachel invites shelia to come visit her. >> under the guise of reconnecting with her friend, who she hadn't seen in about a week, but unbeknownst to sheila, she was wearing a wire. >> in rachel's house, it's just packed with people hiding in

closets and bathrooms and everywhere you could think of, waiting for shelia to finally admit it. >> rachel asked the questions, and she tried to get shelia to say anything. shelia deflected everything. >> rachel tried so hard to get shelia to incriminate herself. and she even said, "they know." and shelia is like, "they don't know." they needed shelia to say skylar's name. >> they tried. it didn't work. shelia just would not say anything. at the end of the day, we just -- we were kind of hosed on that. >> was that rachel not following your direction of trying to get something out of shelia, or was it rachel walking in maybe a little freaked out and you think maybe shelia noticed, didn't want to say anything incriminating? >> it was just shelia not wanting to talk about it. >> at the same time, they took a selfie, and shelia went home and

tweeted, "got to see my friend rach." she's all excited. and rachel looks so stressed out because she is wearing that wire. and shelia, she must have known, because that relationship was essentially over. >> it was a little weird when they were posting very normal photos, when a lot of these pieces were getting put together, and they're pretending like everything is normal. >> but things were not normal. according to a police report, a tipster calls in describing a post supposedly coming from shelia soon after saying something like, "you stupid expletive. you should have kept quiet." but the caller said the supposed post was since deleted. >> so even though we have rachel's confession, at this point, police are really in a tough position. they can't kind of connect all the dots. >> it's not as simple as, "she

confessed. we're going to arrest her." >> exactly right. and we also needed to see what else could be done to bring shelia into the circle of evidence. >> which eventually leads them back here to sheila's house. they get several search warrants, which leads to a treasure trove of key evidence. from inside sheila's computer, phone, and tablet, not to mention the knives from inside the kitchen. but more important than anything else, right here in this driveway, that silver toyota camry that sheila was driving. they tow it away. >> they did the search warrant on the vehicle and sent it to quantico, virginia, to the fbi to have a detailed search on it. >> but as that critical search takes place four hours away, something else happens closer to home.

a team of law enforcement officers returns to those woods to search for skylar's body now that the snow has melted. >> it was wet. it was muddy. they had brought a -- a cadaver dog, and the dog picked up on the scent. >> the dog had a gps collar around his neck. and they were looking and looking and looking. >> and how they found her, i would like to say that it was a divine intervention moment. >> the k-9 handler kept pulling on him. but he pulled on it, his leash, a little too hard, and his gps collar fell off. >> and where it fell, when they picked the collar up, skylar was underneath the debris. >> a little more than six months after she disappeared, skylar is found. >> can you show me where they found her? >> approximately right where this -- these purple rocks are.

>> how did you process that? >> not real well. i was mad. i wanted revenge. i wanted all these different things. all these emotions running through my head at once. it was horrible. it really was. >> could you even believe that they would do something like this? >> i couldn't. and i think that's -- that's the worst part. it was so sad. how could they do that to their best friend? >> and why? >> so when people looked at that situation, they say, "well, they had rachel's confession. they had a body. why didn't they rush to arrest shelia and rachel?" you would say? >> that's just not how it works usually. you have to have more than probable cause. >> and even once you had that physical evidence of the body, that still was not enough to get you there at that moment? >> well, the physical evidence of the body doesn't point to shelia. it certainly wasn't a smoking gun pointing to shelia. >> by february 10th, rachel and shelia are just going about

their business. in fact, that very day when skylar would have turned 17, shelia tweets -- >> "curly fries and wings. mmm mmm mmm." >> that night, dave and mary hold a public vigil for their daughter. incredibly, they had to fake that they were still holding out hope. >> the police are kind of hoping that emotions might run a little high, that shelia will attend, that the emotion of the moment might push her over to confess. >> that doesn't happen. but next, something else does that changes everything. the lab report comes back on shelia's car. >> i got the phone call from the fbi. and that was just news that i was waiting to hear. ♪ stay ahead of your child's moderate—to—severe eczema, and they can show off clearer skin

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♪ the investigation into skylar's neese's murder begins and ends with a silver toyota camry. the vehicle that was once unidentifiable on grainy security footage will soon provide clarity about who killed the young teenager. this was just one missing piece left. >> they had to wait for all the stuff to come back from the fbi lab, from quantico. >> and that day finally comes. >> after the fbi seized shelia's car on january 9th, they sprayed the trunk with luminol. and there inside, skylar's blood

dna lit up in fluorescent blue. that was the ultimate evidence of the murder and who had committed it. >> it's that final piece that really nails shelia. so -- so tell me about that dna evidence. >> there was blood and skylar's dna in the trunk of shelia's car. i was ecstatic to finally get that piece of evidence. now i can get sheila. >> on the same may morning rachel turns herself in as part of a prearranged plea deal, cops arrest sheila. it happened right over there at the cracker barrel restaurant here in morgantown. inside, shelia and her mom were finishing up lunch. outside, federal, state and local authorities swooped in and surrounded the place. >> shelia and her mother were walking across the cracker barrel parking lot, and the cars came in, blocked them from leaving. and ronnie gaskin said, "shelia

eddie, you are under arrest for the murder of skylar neese." and shelia looked at her mother taryn and said, "mom, is everything going to be okay?" and her mother said, "i don't know, shelia." >> they said that she was crying and upset, which -- because you were caught. that's why sheila cried, because she got caught. >> shelia would be taken to jail by officer jessica colebank. and what did you say when you brought her to jail? >> home sweet home. and then we shut the door, with a big old grin on my face. >> you had gotten your woman at that point? >> oh, yeah. >> seven months after shelia asked her mother, "is everything going to be okay?" she would learn the answer. with rachel now ready to testify

against her, shelia eddy realizes there's no way out. >> shelia eddy, how do you plead to offense of murder in the first degree? >> guilty. >> guilty of first-degree murder. shelia shows no signs of remorse. why do you think that shelia has never apologized? >> because she's not sorry. you don't apologize for murdering somebody in cold blood, because she meant to do it. >> i really wanted to see her go down, and i got to be there to see her get convicted and go to jail, which was awesome, honestly. >> one month later, rachel learns her fate. 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. >> rachel's court case, she was sobbing and crying and she was sad. she showed remorse. not that it matters, because of what she did, but she at least showed it. >> rachel's mom weeps as she listens. >> again, i'm so sorry, and i pray each day for everyone involved, and i pray each day for forgiveness. >> she can take her apologies and 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 day one. >> she was crying, she was emotional. you didn't think that was remorse? >> to me, that was her final act in front of an audience. she's the big actress, star of the high school plays. this was her last broadway performance.

>> there was so much made of the differences in the court appearances between rachel and between shelia. what did you make of that? >> each one of those girls knew that there was lots of media attention. and so i don't -- i think that maybe both of those appearances were very contrived. and i don't -- i don't use that to draw any distinction between the level of guilt or evilness. >> rachel convicted of second degree murder, a 30-year sentence. sheila convicted of first-degree murder, a life sentence. but there's a caveat. so can you define for me how sentencing with mercy works in west virginia? >> in west virginia, if a person is convicted for first-degree murder, they are given the opportunity to ask for mercy. and if mercy is granted, then that defendant has an opportunity to seek parole after 15 years of prison time.

they can maybe get parole at that time, maybe get it later, maybe may never get it. >> and it's at rachel's first parole hearing last may where she drops a bombshell. revealing why she says the bond between the toxic trio turned deadly. >> whenever our relationship became more exposed, we feared what would jeopardize our relationship. ♪ jardiance! ♪ ♪ it's a little pill with a big story to tell ♪ ♪ i take once-daily jardiance ♪ ♪ at each day's start! ♪ ♪ as time went on it was easy to see ♪

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shelia eddy and rachel shoaf are serving their sentences at this west virginia state prison, lakin correctional facility. >> they're in lakin correctional center, which is a woman's prison, the only woman's prison in the state. it has a nickname within the prison. they call it "camp cupcake." >> they watch tv, work out, they get their hair done, nails done. so what really punishment are they getting, besides missing out on life? >> ten years after the

conviction in 2013, and rachel shoaf is up for parole. >> we couldn't believe it's been ten years. it meant that she had the possibility of being free. >> rachel shoaf, one of skylar neese's killers, was up for her first parole hearing today. >> and for the first time, rachel admits to the parole board what she says is the stunning motive behind the murder. >> i realized that i was gay as an early teenager, and that scared me. when i met shelia and skylar in high school, the relationship between shelia and i was immediately very unhealthy and intense and obsessive. whenever our relationship became more exposed, we feared what would jeopardize our relationship. >> and then you kind of look back at the tweets, the social media posting from right before skylar went missing, she tweeted out basically, "know that i know."

>> and in fact, skylar had tweeted something else in september of 2011 which was far less cryptic. >> "i'd tell the whole school all the [ bleep ] i have on everyone, which is a lot. #ificouldgetawaywithit." >> it gives credence to that idea that skylar was going to out them on something. >> 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. >> why do you think they killed her? >> for the thrill of it, to see if they could get away with it. i feel that they had a strong dislike for skylar, so it's fitting they stabbed her in the back. >> rachel ended up not getting parole. >> at this time, the board has not granted parole at this time. >> but in the end, they're still

left to go home without skylar, so. >> nobody wins. skyler isn't around, the two girls are in jail, the two girls' parents are living through this, and morgantown still is ripped apart because of this situation. >> our job is to go out to catch the bad guys, we caught the bad guys. it doesn't solve the heartache and the sadness for the family. >> i was there back in 2014 when dave was cleaning out skylar's room and came across some old cards. >> "uh oh," that's what i think of that one. >> yeah. >> that was from shelia, by the way. >> the card reads, "happy birthday. love, shelia. love you like a sister for life." for dave, it's just one more reminder of a searing betrayal that has destroyed their world. >> there's a hole in your heart, and it feels like it can never be patched. >> they took our lives as well as hers.

you know, they destroyed their lives as well as hers. >> they destroyed their families' lives, their friends' lives. i mean their parents didn't raise them thinking, "oh, she's going to be a killer one day." no parent does that. >> it's just a tragedy that keeps on living. we're going to heal, and we are going to make sure that this doesn't happen again. >> the place where skylar was murdered is now a memorial. and it's a beautiful place. dave and mary have a mailbox on that oak tree. he reads all the letters that are left for her. >> this one says "rest in peace, sweet skylar. you will not be forgotten, soar with the angels." >> you live a life, and you hope no matter who you are, you'll never be forgotten by the people that love you. and now total strangers love skylar.

>> deborah: loved by so many. as for rachel, it's possible she may still get out of prison as early as 2028, because she was sentenced with mercy. sheila won't have her first parole hearing until that same year. that's our program for tonight. thanks for watching. you can now check us out on tiktok as well as our "20/20" podcast three episodes a week. i'm deborah roberts. for david muir and all of us here at "20/20" and abc news, good night.

a bad situation. >> even worse, new extremes for california's home insurance crisis. thousands of homeowners are losing their insurance. and now we're learning. even fire stations can't get coverage. >> san francisco is sending its mayor to the other side of the globe, trying to bring back new business and possibly pandas. it's all tonight on abc seven news at 11. >> always live. abc seven news starts right now