Chapter 90: Frenemies to Fatalities-The Murders of Missy Avila & Skylar Neese feat. Beyond the Rainbow Podcast

0:00 Hi guys. I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa, and welcome to the next chapter in the Book of the Dead. Brought to you by Dark Cast Network indie Podcasts with a Twist. The Dictionary definition of a frenemy is a person who is or pretends to be a friend, but who is also in some ways an enemy or rival. According to Psychology Today magazine, there are three types of frenemies. The ambivalent relationship where you feel competitive with your friend, or your friend has hurt you in the past and you've lost trust. The second type is the involuntary friendship. This would be someone who is part of your circle of friends, but you don't really like this person and would break the friendship off if you could. Unfortunately, by doing so, it would impact your friendships with others in your circle. Lastly, there is the long term front of me. This is someone you've been in a friendship with for a very long time and don't want to give it up, purely due to the length of history between the two of you.

1:24 For those listening, perhaps you can relate to one or all of these categorizations, or maybe you've never had a front of me. However, the two young ladies in this episode, both were involved in front of me relationships that had deadly results. Now with that brief teaser, let's get into this episode's collaboration. The two men in their fifties had bodies of teenage boys. They were fit and definitely in good shape. Now. They have gone hiking together several times a year and had been friends since they were in grade school in the San Fernando Valley in California. Many of their hikes were in the Angelus National Forest, and early on they had found a hiking area called Camp Colby. Now, this land had been owned by a family with the last name Colby, and it was a beautiful nature retreat.

2:20 During camping season, it was a family camp where families could go and participate in arts and crafts, archery, ping pong, and councilors, let hikes. All sorts of fun activities happened here. During the off season, the camp was closed, but for the few hikers lucky enough to find it, it was a sacred gem of becoming one with the outdoors. Camp Colby was a bit of a drive and it was very remote, which is what made it such aprise for avid outdoors men and women. However, By the mid eighties, teenagers have been encroaching upon the camp to party with drugs and alcohol, purely because these kids knew police wouldn't be venturing out there to break up their parties. It is true that there was a nearby ranger station, but they never really did anything about the rowdy teens during the off season, which we'll see was a very serious lapse in safety protocols. Soon these two male hikers enjoyed their quiet time hiking the trails near the camp. On October fourth, nineteen eighty five, they met up and ate a hearty breakfast, and then they took their drive to Camp Colby for another day of hiking. Once at the camp, the men got out of the car they drove up in, grabbed the backpacks that contained everything they needed to sustain them out in the wild for days if necessary, and

3:50 they began their journey. The easiest part of the trail they were taking was first. It took them to a footbridge over a creek, and the men felt for that the rains of fall had not moved in yet and the ground was still pretty dry. Even the creek was moderately more shallow than it usually was for that time. Of year. The men knew this trail very well, and bolt noticed one part of the bridge, where normally a large tree trunk lay in the creek, was empty. For some reason, the downtree log was no longer there. Now. Both men thought that that was strange, so the hiker and the lead looked around in the water for the missing log when something caught his eye. He turned to his friend and said, I see the missing tree, but I think there's a body under it. His friend looked in the direction of the missing tree and he told his friend, no, that's just some random clothing. You know, how these kids come up here are with their drugs and alcohol. They probably got high and forgot to put their clothes back on. Still, the two men moved in for a closer look. To their horror, what they had discovered was a body, face down in the water with the log on top. The body appeared to be that of a girl. Petite, maybe she was even a small child.

5:13 She looked so tiny. Holding back the nausea that overcame them, the two men headed for the ranger's shack. Panicked, they flew inside and started to tell the ranger on duty what they had found. The ranger asked the men if they could go back to where the body was and wait for law enforcement, so the men said they would, and then the ranger called for help. He first called for another ranger who was on duty to go wait with the men, and then he called the sheriff's department. Days earlier, on October one, nineteen eighty five, Irene a Villa's seventeen year old daughter, Missy, had just come into the house after being dropped off by her boyfriend. The two had a very close bond that often seemed more like gray friends than mother and daughter, and Missy told her mom she was going to jump in the shower and wash her hair because Laura was on her way over to pick her up. Irene wasn't thrill. She thought that Missy and Laura had a falling out, but Missy said they had talked the day before and everything was fine. Now, Laura and her boyfriend Vic had just broken up, and the truth of the matter was Vic broke up with Laura because Laura was too possessive. At first, Laura had blamed Missy for the breakup. She thought Missy and Vick were missing around together, but Missy and Vick were just friends.

6:38 Missy now wanted to make sure that she was there for her plain looking, red headed friend Laura. Should Laura need an ear, maybe she could even help Laura get back together with Vic. Missy was a petite and very pretty girl. She was popular at school, and she also attracted many boys. This fact alone could go either way with her friends. It either made them happy because that meant with more boys around, surely one of them would be interested in one of the other girls. Or it made them mad and jealous because Missy always got attention.

7:20 Missy and her friends lived in Arleta, California, which is a neighborhood in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley region, and around three pm, Irene's daughter Michelle Yvette Evella, who went by Missy, was still in her bedroom when her friend Laura Doyle showed up in a Bolkswagen bug. The two teenagers were going to go to the park. They also intended to meet up with some other friends and do some lines of cocaine. For Missy, the drugs were not something she was hooked on, but more experimental if anything. For Laura, drugs meant more they were temporary escape from life problems. Missy had told her mom she loved her and would be back home no later than six pm, and if she was going to be late, she'd call.

8:08 She gave her mom a big hug and then left with Laura. Irene had recently become a single mom with three sons and a daughter. The eldest son was named after his dad, Ernie, who no longer lives with Irene, but her twenty year old son Mark and twelve year old son Chris still did. The boys were great, but Irene needed her daughter, Missy. Missy shared a lot of her life with her mom, and Irene believed Missy shared everything with her, but there were limits to what Missy shared. Irene might not have been thrilled with everything Missy told her, like about sexual experiences she had in smoking marijuana, but Irene understood she did the same things as a kid, and she wasn't about to lose the trust she had gained by getting angry with Missy over the situations. Of course, as I said, Missy didn't tell her everything. She kept some things to herself because Irene would not have been happy to know about snorting cocaine at the park A little before six pm, Irene's house Von rang and it was Laura Doyle. She asked Irene if Missy was home.

9:22 Of course, Irene laughed and said, no, she's with you, but Laura said that she wasn't. They had gone to the park, but Laura needed to go get gas, and Missy had seen some boys in a blue Camaro and wanted to go talk to them. Laura told her she'd be right back, but when she returned, Missy and the boys were gone. Irene asked who the boys were, but Laura said she had never seen them before. However, Missy seemed to know them. Irene hung up the phone very worried about Missy, and then six o'clock came, and six o'clock went and Missy still had not come back home.

10:08 Then seven o'clock, eight o'clock, nine o'clock, no Missy, no phone call, and not even Irene's sons, Mark and Chris were home yet. At eleven pm, Irene urged herself to just calm down, to stop worrying, and to just go to sleep. Missy probably was staying over a friend's house and forgot to call. She was also sure the boys were okay. Now a little after midnight, Mark and Chris rolled up into the house, and Mark did feel a little bit bad forgetting his twelve year old brother home so late on a school night, but Chris loved hanging out with his older brother. They played sports with friends during the day, and then they hung out with Mark's friends and they had a barbecue well into the evening.

11:00 When they walked into the house, the lights were on, which was beard to the boys, and then they walked in and found their mom asleep on the couch, so Mark covered Irene with a blanket and the two boys went to bed. At around three am, Irene sat bolt upright on the couch, shaking herself awake, and then going to check on her children. She could hear the boys snoring down the hall, and when she went into Missy's room, Missy was still not home. More worry and grief flooded Irene's thoughts. At around six am, Mark bounced into the kitchen while his little brother got ready for school. He said good morning to his mom and poured cereal in a bowl, and then his mother broke down, crying that Missy had not come home the night before and hadn't called.

11:50 Mark tried to console his mother and remind her that Missy was most likely over at a friend's and would be home soon. But by ten am, Missy was still not home. So Irene called Missy's boyfriend and his mother said that he had met up with some of his guy friends the night before, but he was home early and Missy was not with him. Irene then called Christy, one of Missy's best friends. Christie didn't know where Missy was either, but she said she'd drive over and pick up Irene and they could check some spots Missy might be at together. Irene was pleased to have the company. Christy and Irene checked a few of Missy's usual haunts, but Missy wasn't there. Irene then asked Christy if she dropped her off at the police department so that she could file a missing person's report. Irene had actually called the previous evening inquiring about a missing person's report, but she was given the usual BS statement that a report couldn't be filed for twenty four hours. Once at the station, Irene was greeted by a very bored looking officer manning the front desk. She told him it had been twenty four hours since her seventeen year old daughter went missing and she wanted to file a missing person's report. Of course, the officer told Irene her daughter was probably off with her boyfriend somewhere, which at that Irene became very agitated, and the officer finally handed over the paperwork to be filled out. Christie then drove Irene back home, and Irene

13:25 contacted another best friend of Missy's, Karen Severson, to see if Missy was by chance with her. Missy and Karen had met when they were eight years old in the very early days of grade school. Karen had just moved in down the street and started at the same school as Missy. Now, Karen was chubby and kids didn't want to hang out with her because children can be very cruel, but Missy quickly befriended her, and the two little girls would walk to their homes hand in hand. After school. Karen would often come over to Missy's house to play and seeing how much Missy's brothers loved and doted over her. Karen told Missy and Irene that she had two families because her parents are divorced. Karen continued on saying that she's mostly at the house of the parents she lives with in Arletta, but sometimes she goes to her other parents' house, where she has three brothers that love her even more than Missy's brothers loved Missy. Now weeks later, when Irene made a point to go over to Karen's home and introduce herself to Karen's parents, Irene found the second set of parents tale was a lie Karen didn't have any siblings. Irene wrote it off as a child with an overactive imagination, and since Karen had no siblings, Irene thought the girl maybe a little bit jealous that Missy had. Several Over the years, Missy and Karen's friendship blossomed.

14:51 At the age of fourteen, Karen had gotten her set pregnant, but Missy saw her through it because Karen wanted to keep the baby. Fo of. Karen's baby was also a teenager who wanted nothing to do with Karen her fatherhood, so he quickly left Karen and his baby's life. Now in her fifth month, Karen dropped that to school and this made Missy sad, but she still tried to be around for Karen. This is also when Missy started hanging out with a new friend, Laura Doyle, but Missy still saw Karen as much as possible while still trying to live a teenage life. Karen eventually ended up giving birth to a daughter. Now, Karen became interested in another boy.

15:38 This boy, we will call Teddy, actually really liked Missy, but Missy only wanted to be friends with him. Besides, Missy had a boyfriend now. One day, Karen had invited Missy over to her apartment to hang out with her and her baby girl. Missy accepted, and when Karen went into use the restroom, Missy had been over the small child to pick her up when she was grabbed from behind. Teddy had quietly let himself into the apartment without being seen, and when he grabbed Missy, they fell back into a chair, with Missy landing on his lap. Teddy quietly said in Missy's ear, come on, Missy, you know how I feel about you. Karen means nothing to me. Of course, Karen walked back into the room at that moment and became enraged with Missy. She called Missy a slut and grabbed her by the arm, leading her to the door and telling Missy to get out of her home. She then turned her anger on Teddy and slapped him, leaving a welt on his cheek. She told him that she was taking the baby and going to the store, and when she got back she wanted him and his things gone.

16:55 Of course, Karen was heartbroken. He was the first guy that to make her feel subconscious about her weight. He made Karen feel special, but now finding out she meant nothing to him really hurd And what was worse, he loved Missy more than her, because of course he did. Everyone loved Missy more than they loved Karen. Now, Irene was on the phone with Karen, wondering if she knew where Missy was, but Karen claimed she hadn't seen her. This heart end, Irene hung up the phone. What Irene did know was that Karen was lying about things. Days before Missy's disappearance, Karen had started a rumor amongst high school friends that Missy was sleeping with multiple boys that had girlfriends, including Laura's boyfriend Vic. Sadly, this vindictive, vicious game of Karen's was nothing new. She had made up rumors before about Missy, which had actually gotten Missy beaten up in the past, but Missy always refused to believe her friend, Karen was behind the rumors in spite of what people told her. It was like it was Karen's life goal to make people hate Missy so that she'd be Missy's only friend. But Karen was still holding onto a grudge from a situation that happened the year prior, when the girls were juniors in high school. Missy had dated a boy named Randy for a month and then

18:27 broke up with him. That same boy then got together with Karen. They even moved in together. At a party, Randy pulled Missy onto his lap. Now, Missy was disgusted with Randy and tried to do the honorable thing as a friend to Karen. She told Karen what happened and then told her she should dump Randy instead. Karen turned on Missy. Now they would eventually patch things up and become friends again when Randy was no longer in the picture, but Karen was still angry about it. About ten days before Missy's disappearance, Missy and Karen had another altercation, this time at the park. Karen even pushed and slapped Missy and then threatened Missy with a broken bottle. Now, nothing more seemed to come from that fight. At the time, Karen had always been jealous of the attention Missy got, and since Missy had been well liked, she got good grades and was always complimented by teachers. Adding in the fact that Missy was pretty, she was outgoing, and so many boys liked her was enough to turn Karen green.

19:38 With all of the envies, she felt she really wanted to be Missy, but she couldn't. She could only be herself, that Karen that harbored grudges. Now, at the time of the discovery, the girl's body in the creek was being examined by detectives and a coroner made his initial preliminary findings at the scene before an official autopsy could be determined in his office. The girl appeared to have defensive wounds. She looked to have had quite a bit of head and face trauma before she was held under water and drowned. The victim only weighed ninety seven pounds, and the tree trunk that held her body under shallow water was well over one hundred pounds more than the poor girl weighed.

20:24 There was a dunim purse in the water near where the girl lay, and inside the purse, detectives would find a wallet with the girl's school identification. The name said Michelle Yvette a Villa born February eighth, nineteen sixty eight. When investigators at the scene radioed the victim's information in, they discovered that Michelle Missy a Villa had been reported missing just a couple of days before, on October second, nineteen eighty five, by her mother, Irene. The lead detective radio back, we have her, but don't release any information until her next of kin can be notified. Upon hearing the news of her only daughter's death, Irene was crushed, to say the least. In fact, the whole community of Arletta was reeling with what had happened to this young member of their neighborhood. Laura would reach out occasionally to check on Irene, but she wouldn't come around too often, and Karen, along with her baby, actually moved in with Irene, becoming another daughter of swords to the grieving mother. Karen would tell Irene that she wouldn't rest until Missy's killer or killers were captured, and it actually seemed like Karen became quite obsessed over Missy's murder. She hung articles related to the murder up on the wall in the room she was given in Irene's house. She thought about it constantly. However, police really had nothing to go on. Years went by, nearly three before finally some movement on Missy's case would happen.

21:56 In July of nineteen eighty eight, another friend of Missy would come forward with the story of what happened to Missy. Her name is Eva Cherimbolo. Eva admitted she was with two of Missy's other friends, Laura and Karen, and with Missy the night Missy had been murdered. She said she took the forty five minute drive with Laura, Karen and Missy up into the forest where Camp Colby was now. Eva claimed she never got out of the car when they reached Camp Colby, but the other three girls went into the woods, but only two Laura and Karen, came back to the car. Now, according to court records, Karen and Laura were considerably larger than Missy. In fact, between the two of them, they had around one hundred and forty pounds on Missy, who was only four feet ten and ninety seven pounds. They drove to Camp Colby and Karen and Laura actually had a pretend fight the whole way, screaming at each other, driving rack clessly before pulling into Camp Colby and getting out of the car to continue screaming at each other. Missy had gotten out of the car to try and create peace between the two girls and stop the fighting, when all of a sudden, they stopped screaming and turned around to stare at Missy, telling her that the fight was a lie and they weren't really angry with each other. They were angry at her.

23:25 They accused Missy of sexual promiscuity and then forced her onto the trail. When they got deeper into the forest, Laura stopped and turned to Missy, who was crying she's terrified, scared of what these girls were going to do to her, and punched Missy in the face. As soon as Laura launched the first punch, Karen joined in and within seconds they had Missy on the ground and they stomped on her. And they continued punching at her, and Laura started cutting her hair, with Karen just ripping it out by the fistful because they knew Missy was very proud of her beautiful long hair. Finally, they tied Missy's arms behind her back and gagged her before pushing her over to the creek.

24:11 They shoved her in and pushed her face down into the water to drown her. They finished their attack by bringing over the log and dropping it on top of Missy to keep her in the water, before walking back to the car and driving home. At the time of their arrest, Karen said that all she wanted to do was torment Missy. She never intended to kill her. In nineteen ninety five, years after murdering Missy, Karen and Laura were tried together for first degree murder. However, several members of the jury didn't believe the young women had pre planned the murder of Missy, so the charge was reduced to second degree murder and the trial carried on. Now At least one juror didn't find a prosecution star witness, Eva term a completely credible either. They felt that Eva was holding something back, most likely something that could incriminate herself, which is possible because the only word that we have that Eva wasn't there and didn't participate is hers. Karen and Laura never said anything about her. At the conclusion of trial, after four hours of deliberation, the jury came back with a guilty verdict. Karen and Laura were both found guilty of second degree murder, and Missy's family were not pleased the charges had been reduced to second degree now.

25:37 When the judge's sentence came in, it was a mere fifteen years to life with the possibility of parole, and the family was understandably furious. Now both Karen and Laura have since been paroled, Karen in December of twenty eleven after serving twenty one and a half years, and Laura in December of twenty twelve after serving twenty two years. Laura, for her part, has been extremely quiet since her release, but not Karen. Karen has appeared on talk shows like Doctor philp She's blogged, wrote a book, and was even talks about a possible movie, which one was made based on this story in nineteen ninety two, starring Patti Duke as the mom and Tiffany Ambertheeson as the daughter who was a victim to her friends, and that movie is called A Killer among Friends. Karen also tore schools to warn kids about the dangers of friends like herself, but sadly, Karen never really shows remorse for what she did to Missy, but she certainly got what she wanted all along the attention, although I will say Karen was barred from making any money on the sale of her book. With that, let's hear from CJ, host of Beyond the Rainbow, True Crimes of the LGBTQ and fellow Dark House Network host with her frenemy case.

27:04 Hey, thanks Courtney. You know the movie Mean Girls, written by Tina Fey, is a comical look at just how shitty teenage girls can be to each other in real life. The stories Book of the Dead and I are bringing you this episode look like mean Girls on steroids, as you just heard in the case of Missy Avola. The story I would like to tell you about is a pretty well known case that's been covered a lot on true crime podcasts and on YouTube shows. I typically like sticking with lesser known cases, but the reason I'm covering this one is because I needed a case that fit the frenemi's theme and a case with undertones of LGBTQ vibes.

27:49 If you're not sure what case I'm referring to, it would be the murder of Skuyler Nice in West Virginia. There are quite a few similarities to Missy's murder and Skuyler's murder, first being that each case would be a nightmare for any mother and father of a teenage daughter. Second, both girls were thought to be missing, and both were reported as missing by their parents. Third, both sets of killers in these cases would insert themselves either in the investigation or they'd get involved with the victim's family to comfort them somehow, playing a huge charade at pretending they knew nothing of what happened to their friend. The victims were both pretty, sweet, petite young girls with bright futures ahead of them. Both of the victims had a hard time believing that their writer die friends could betray them.

28:44 One noticeable difference in Skuyler's case, Skuyler wasn't the only pretty girl. Her besties were pretty girls too. This inspired a book about her murder called Pretty Little Killers, written by Dayleen Berry and Jeffrey Fuller. I used this book as a resource for this episode. In Missy's case, she was the only one described as pretty. Her friends were considered by most people as plain, so it seemed that jealousy was a huge factor in Missy's death. Fear of exposure is what seemed to be the cause of Skuyler's death. Okay, with that, let's get into the case of Skuyler Niece.

29:26 Skuyler Annette Niece was born February tenth, nineteen ninety six. This would have made Skyler an Aquarius. Her parents, Dave and Mary, provided unconditional love for their only child. In return, Skuyler grew up to be a thoughtful, mostly responsible young lady. She had dreams of some day being a lawyer. Skuyler was also a proponent for environmental challenges and for underdogs and those who were picked on. She didn't mind voicing her opinions if she felt somebody was just being mean to be mean about someone else's lifestyle choice with their ethnicity.

30:08 For example, one of Skyler's good friends in high school was a boy named Daniel. Daniel is gay. Skyler's dad once made an off color remark about gaze, and Skyler set him straight. Maybe that was a poor word choice. Skyler told her dad he shouldn't say things like that because gays are people with feelings too, and a person's sexual orientation shouldn't define who they are as a human. Yes, Skyler kept people on their toes thinking about their biases, and that was a really good thing. At sixteen years old in twenty twelve, Skyler had a four point zero grade point average. She was an honor student, and she loved to read. It would seem that her family were always struggling financially and live paycheck to paycheck. They were not as wealthy as many of Skyler's friend's families, but Skyler held no resentments toward her friends who had more, or towards her parents who couldn't give her more. Skyler never squawked about not having a lot of toys or clothes or the latest electronics like many of her friends had.

31:21 There was even a point where she decided to get a job of her own, so she went out and she was hired at the fast food chain Wendy's to make a little extra cash, and as an added perk, she was able to work alongside her friend Daniel. One of Skuyler's childhood friends and besties was Sheila Eddie. Skyler and Sheila had been joined at the hip pretty much since they met when they were seven or eight years old. Sheila was also an only child with a single mom named Tara, and Tara doted on her daughter pretty much to a fault. Sheila could be very stubborn and very misch manipulative. Her mom, though, seemed to let her get away with a lot of shit without any consequences. This would be what those of us who were in the childcare business would call a queen of denial mom, a mom who let the kid call the shots and run the family dynamics with no boundaries. Usually, a child raised like this is spoiled and used to getting everything they want.

32:26 This to me is what Sheila sounds like. The niece family and Tara, along with their daughter Sheila, all became pretty close with one another. The Nieces felt in many ways, Sheila was another daughter to them and to Skuyler. Sheila was the sister she never had. Skyler and her family lived in Star City, West Virginia. The high school she attended, University High School, was only about four miles away in Morgantown, also in West Virginia. While the girls were in high school, Sheila's Tara would remarry a man named Jim. Sheila wasn't all that crazy about Jim, but Jim was really good to Sheila and he'd buy her gifts all the time, even bought Sheila a car that he put in Tara's name, but Sheila was free to take the car whenever she wanted.

33:19 Sheila could be kind of an asshole at others around her, even to her closest friends. It's thought because Sheila did have a car, that's why her friends put up with her rough exterior and her manipulative ways. For Skyler, this happened a lot with Sheila. It was almost like any time it was Skuyler, Sheila, and some other friend, Sheila would always gravitate towards the other friend, and then she'd push Skyler away like she was a pesky younger sibling. It truly did hurt Skyler's feelings. Another best friend both Sheila and Skuyler had met when they started high school in twenty ten. It was a girl named Rachel Chauff.

34:02 Rachel was also an only child, and she was a natural at many things. Rachel had a mane of beautiful red hair, and the girl could sing and act, which delighted their high school drama teacher. Rachel kind of reminds me of a young Lindsay Lohan. The trio and sometimes other friends would go out for what they called joy writing Essentially, joy writing was just driving around aimlessly, smoking weed and talking. It was something that was fun for them to do in their small town. In twenty twelve, things started to get extra weird between the three besties.

34:42 They played a lot of drinking games and they would sometimes kiss each other on dares, but for Skuyler, the kisses were as far as it went. The three girls spent a lot of time together and engaged in sleepovers. There were an awful lot of times though when Skyler it felt like the third will around Sheila and Rachel. One night, while having a sleepover at Rachel's, Skyler became increasingly uncomfortable, and that's because Sheila and Rachel undressed and began to perform oral sex on one another. Skyler would write about this in her diary that she kept at home. When Rachel and Sheila got dressed again in their pajamas, the three girls climbed into Rachel's bed to sleep, but Sheila wanted Skyler to move aside so she could cuddle with Rachel. After that night, things between the three friends seemed to take a noticeable turn for the worst. Sheila and Rachel became more distant to Skyler. They excluded her from a lot of activities that normally all three of them would do. Skyler honestly didn't know why they were giving her the odd girl out treatment. A war on Twitter with hashtags and subtweets started. Skyler began to allude to the fact that she could out the two girls that she really wanted to, and if they kept up their crap, she just might. It was at this time Sheila and Rachel started to talk mess about Skyler and

36:14 their biology class. Biology was the only class that they didn't have Skyler in. In their class, the two girls asked the teacher questions like what would be the best way to dispose of a dead body? Would acid work? While the teacher just got frustrated with the odd questions. It wasn't long before other students in that class got the idea that these two girls really hated Skyler niece. A couple days later, a boy in the biology class told Skyler that Sheila and Rachel were talking about killing her. Skyler defended her best season said, Oh, it's no, biggie, they were just playing around. We always play that game, would you rather? They didn't mean anything by it, but secretly seething inside, Skyler confronted Sheila and Rachel, and she asked if they were talking about killing her in biology class.

37:10 Sheila had a rare silent moment, but always the actress, Rachel giggled and said, whoever said that must have been stoned. We'd never say anything like that. This brought comfort to Skyler. In the meantime, Sheila and Rachel would both find boyfriends. Even though the sexual energy the two girls had when they were together it was explosive, they were still worried that Skuyler would out them to their classmates. Although some of the classmates noticed on their own how intimately close Sheila and Rachel had become. Having boyfriends helped some with hiding their lesbian relationship and throwing anyone who might suspect it off the trail. Verbal altercations between Sheila and Skyler would become more frequent, as well as Twitter fights with subtweets.

38:02 Skyler was just damn sick of the way Sheila was treating her, so again, Skyler toyed with the idea of spilling the girl's secrets on her Twitter account. As Skyler struggled with what felt like the end of her friendship with her besties, Sheila and Rachel started to plot the end of Skyler. It was summer break, now between their sophomore and junior years of high school. Skyler was keeping busy with work and trying to hang out with more of her other friends. The evening of July sixth, twenty twelve, Sheila and Rachel texted Skyler and even though she was still sore with the both of them, they convinced her to come out and go joy riding with them. It was almost midnight as the little figure of Skyler could be seen on a surveillance camera sneaking out of her family's apartment and then running a short distance. Then Skyler would hop and Sheila's silver Toyota Camry. The girls drove around and chit chatted, almost as if there was no bad blood between them at all. They drove a short ways across the state line into Pennsylvania. I want to say that according to the book Pretty Little Killers, they were in a town where Sheila's mother, Tara worked, in Wayne's Township, Pennsylvania, But according to another source, it's an area that the girls had driven to before to go and smoke weed in the trunk of Sheila's car was a large shovel, a change of clothes for each Sheila

39:34 and Rachel, and cleaning supplies like old towels and bleach. Sheila stopped the car and the girls got out in a secluded area to go smoke their weed. They sat down and tried to light up a joint, but Sheila's lighter was out. Skuyla remembered she left her lighter in the car, and she jumped up and said, oh, I got this, and she started to head back to the car to get hers. And that's when Sheila and Rachel counted to three and each produced a knife that they had been carrying in their jacket pockets. They proceeded to jump Skyler and stabber. For her tiny frame, Skyler was no sitting duck. She fought back, and she even tried to run until Rachel tackled her. At one point, Skyler disarmed Rachel and slash Rachel near her ankle, but Rachel got the upper hand and retrieved her knife back. Both Rachel and Sheila continued assaulting Skyler with their knives until Skyler could no longer fight or breathe, and she finally fell silent. In all Skyler had been stabbed at least fifty times by both the girls she had once considered her very best friends in the whole world. Sheila and Rachel walked back to Sheila's car. They got the shovel, and they attempted to dig into the hard ground. Giving up on the shovel idea, they shallowly buried Skyler under dirt, fallen tree branches in brush before they drove back home

41:07 to Morgantown, West Virginia. The morning of July seventh, Skyler's dad, Dave, knocked on Skyler's door, and he told her through the door to get ready. She was going to use his car to drive him to work and then she could take his car to her job at Wendy's, thinking Skyler would love this as she usually did. There was no response that came from Skuyler's room. Dave questioned Mary, Skuyler's mom, about when did Skyler leave their apartment that morning. Mary said she didn't know because she hadn't seen Skyler. It wasn't until Skyler missed her shift at Wendy's restaurant that Dave and Mary began to worry. They contacted Sheila to ask if Skyler was with her, but Sheila lied and she said she hadn't seen Skyler. Days later, Sheila retracted the statement to Dave and Mary, saying, yeah, she did talk to Skyler by phone around midnight. On July sixth, David Mary reported Skyler as a missing person, in which the police believed that Skyler was most likely a runaway.

42:13 This is so very annoying when law enforcement doesn't take a missing report seriously, and it happens far too often. Sheila and Rachel became huge advocates on finding their missing friend Skyler, and they participated in putting up missing flyers. When flyers started being ripped down and disappearing, it was later thought that these girls had been doing that too. More time passed and Sheila again retracted what she told David Mary, saying that yes, Skuyler had been with her and Rachel the night she went missing. She told Skyler's parents that Skyler had sneaked out of Dave and Mary's apartment on July sixth to go joy riding with her and Rachel, and when they were done, they dropped her off down the street because Skuyler didn't want to wake her parents up. Sheila's story continually changing became a huge red flag for law enforcement in their small West Virginia community.

43:15 Even though they figured Skuyler ran away, they did suspect that the girls that she was with that night that they knew something about her vanishing. Soon, the FBI would be called in to help with the investigation of the missing teenager. The FBI and the police spent a lot of time watching Sheila, Eddie and Rachel's chauff as well as questioning them. It got to a point where Sheila's mother, Tara, began to coach the two girls on what they should and shouldn't say to law enforcement. Rachel's parents didn't like that Tara was feeding ideas into their daughter's head, so they did their best to limit time between Rachel and Sheila.

43:58 Tips would come and go with the sightings of Skuyler in different cities and different states, reinforcing the idea that Skuyler was a runaway, but nothing would come of these potential leads. Several months later, Rachel would have a mental breakdown because of the secret her and Sheila had been harboring. Rachel would be institutionalized briefly due to the breakdown, she remained in the hospital for six days. After Rachel's stint in the mental facility, without Sheila's knowledge, Rachel decided to come clean to the police and the FBI. No one's quite sure if it was the guilt of murdering her friend or the relentless shadowing of her by law enforcement that eventually made her break, but Rachel told them exactly what happened to Skuyler the night of July sixth, twenty twelve.

44:55 She even led the authorities to Skyler's remains. When tell us why they did what they did, Rachel simply replied, we just didn't like her anymore, and please put a pin in that we just didn't like her anymore. In May of twenty thirteen, Rachel would take a plea deal of second degree murder, and she'd turn on her one time friend and lover, Sheila. Over a year after Schuyler's murder, in September of twenty thirteen, prosecutors in West Virginia would announce Sheila Eddie as the second alleged murderer of skuyler niece. There'd be no plea deals for Sheila. She was charged with first degree premeditated murder. Both Rachel and Sheila would be tried as adults. At Rachel's trial, with her plea deal, she was convicted of second degree murder. Prosecutors asked for a twenty year sentence because of the plea deal. The judge, however, gave Rachel a thirty year sentence. She was eligible for parole in twenty twenty three, and she had her first parole hearing, but she was denied. She applied for parole again in twenty twenty four, and that too was shot down, much to the happiness of Skyler's family and friends. Rachel will once again be up for parole in June of twenty twenty five. She's currently twenty eight years old, and

46:25 remember asked she to put a pin in what Rachel used as her excuse for why they killed Skyler. After the first parole hearing, Schuyler's family found out and they were able to confirm the real reason their baby girl was murdered, and that's because Rachel and Sheila were in a lesbian relationship together and Skuyler was threatening to expose them when they were being mean to her. Sheila was also found guilty and because she did not have a plea deal in place. She was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole, which is about thirty years.

47:07 She will be eligible to apply for parole in twenty twenty five. It seems to me the Pretty Little Killers have only served out twelve years since they were arrested. I'm not really sure why their thirty year sentences are not being carried out before they're even considered for parole. They haven't even served half of their sentences yet. Sounds kind of ridiculous to me. Rest in Power, Skuyler and Missy, thank. You so much for listening to this chapter of the Book of the Dead, and don't forget that you can always connect with us on Instagram, you can connect with us on Twitter, and you can absolutely connect with us on Patreon. We also have a marchore as well that we have frequent discount codes coming out for so that you guys can get March hand drawn by myself at a better cost. We hope you have a lovely rest of your week, and just remember, please be kind and don't forget to always stay safe, stay curious, and stay vigilant.

48:13 Bye guys, Bye by