Dateline: See No Evil aired on NBC on March 24, 2015, and revisited the harrowing 2012 murder case of Skylar Neese, a 16-year-old sophomore student in Star City, West Virginia. She was the only child of her parents, Mary and Dave Neese. In July 2012, Skylar Neese disappeared from her home after being dropped by her high school best friends, Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf.
The official synopsis of Dateline: See No Evil reads as follows:
Every parent's worst nightmare comes true when a schoolgirl disappears without a trace. But a few seconds of surveillance footage leads cops to the most shocking discovery imaginable.
In January 2013, Rachel eventually confessed to killing Skylar with her friend Eddy. While Eddy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment, Rachel was given a shorter sentence of 30 years on a second-degree murder charge.
More on Dateline: See No Evil in our story.
Dateline: See No Evil- A complete account of Skylar Neese's 2012 disappearance
NBC's Dateline revisited Skylas Neese's 2012 disappearance, which eventually took a tragic turn after the police found her body. On July 6, 2012, Skylar Neese went missing from her West Virginia home after two of her friends claimed to have dropped her off at her house. According to Nesse's parents, the three sophomore high school friends were inseparable and spent most of their days together.
However, Rachel, Skylar, and Eddy were going through a rough patch in their friendship before Skylar's murder. But as Eddy told Skylar's parents, the teens had made up and the three friends were driving around town and smoking marijuana, the day their daughter went missing. Additionally, Rachel and Eddy also claimed that they dropped Skylar Neese just outside her house on July 6.
While the girls told the authorities that they picked the Dateline victim at 11 pm, a surveillance video outside her house showed that she was picked at around 12:30 pm. Additional video footage from a nearby convenience store and cell phone records confirmed that Rachel and Eddy were lying to the authorities.
Dateline: See No Evil- Rachel's chilling confession
After discrepancies in their original statements, the police were confident that the girls were harbouring a secret. They started probing both Rachel and Eddy for the truth, which led to Rachel's nervous breakdown.
On January 3, 2013, Rachel confessed that she and Eddy had lured Skylar Neese to the woods and stabbed her to death. As Rachel revealed, she picked the Dateline victim from her house at 12:30 pm and took her to Brave, Pennsylvania. The three friends planned to smoke marijuana, but in reality, Rachel and Eddy had hidden cleaning rags, bleach, wet wipes, and a shovel in the back of their cars and planned to murder their friend.
Upon reaching Brave, the two friends asked Skylar Neese to fetch a lighter from their car, and just when the girl turned her back on them, they counted to three and stabbed her to death. The Dateline victim was stabbed more than 50 times. After Neese stopped breathing, they covered her body with branches and leaves, and changed into a fresh pair of clothing (that was hiding in their car).
Rachel's confession was further legitimized when she took the authorities to Skylar Neese's remains, in a wooded area over the Pennsylvania state line, about 20 miles from West Virginia. Further, the police confiscated Eddy's phone and a Toyota Camry, which contained traces of Skylar Neese's DNA.
Both Rachel and Eddy were arrested for the murder of Skylar Neese and remain in custody at the Lakin Correctional Center. Rachel will be up for parole in 2026, and Eddy will sit for her parole hearing in 2028.
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