← Criminally Obsessed
Criminally Obsessed
"Cold" 16-Year-Old Killers — Skylar Neese Lead Detective Reveals Dark Case Details
00:52:41
Loading summary
Transcript112 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hi, everyone, I'm Ann Emerson and welcome to crimly obsessed. The 2012 murder of Skylar Neese by her two best friends is back in the headlines because of a new Hulu documentary called Friends. Like these, the Murder of Skylar Neese. Now, this case is as heartbreaking as it is sinister, twisted and gruesome. We're talking about two teenage girls who stabbed their best friend more than 50 times. Even the lead investigator, that's West Virginia State Police first sergeant Ronnie Gaskins. He was shocked when Rachel Sho confessed in the last episode of Criminally Obsessed. Skyler's dad revealed to me that Ronnie stopped him from doing something extreme. You're going to want to hear Ronnie's reaction when I bring it up. Let's get into it. We have West Virginia State Police Sergeant Ronnie Gaskins with us today to go through. Sergeant Gaskins. Ronnie, you know you have been an integral part to the investigation into this brutal, horrible case with Skylar niece. So Ronnie, we know that you know, Skylar went missing back in July of 2012. When did you get called in to start working on this case?
- [01:20]
B
So around that time I had was assigned to work a bank robbery investigation that was had taken place after the disappearance. But it wasn't until about August of 2012 that I was contacted by Star City Police that they were getting some tips and some information coming in that the that the individuals alleged have been involved with the bank robberies. Their names kept coming up on the niece case. So it was around that time I decided, well, let's meet with Star City Police, start sharing notes and try to figure out if there's any type of connection to this case.
- [01:57]
A
That's so interesting because, you know, I've watched the Hulu documentary series Friends like these, the Murder of Skylar Niece kind of put in a timeline of what was going on with this investigation, which I thought was really interesting. But as far as when you got involved and started looking at possible early theories, trying to figure out if there's any connection between these robberies and what happened to Skyler because she was just vanished.
- [02:21]
B
Yeah, so it wasn't until about September of 2012 I was really more involved in the case because that's when a lot of search warrants that were issued for cell phone records started coming in. And once all those records started coming in, it was about September is when we really put our heads together to try to sort out all the information and try to establish some sort of connection to a possible bank robbery. Money used to purchase drugs. Were those drugs supplied to Skyler that Caused an overdose? Did she die because of the overdose? Did the people on scene get scared and they hit her body? So that's kind of what we were working with.
- [03:04]
A
Well, there are a lot of really strong reasons to be suspecting other people. We're talking small towns, right? So everybody knows everybody in some kind of way. That's what it felt like to me. Like there was interesting connections, no matter how you looked at it.
- [03:21]
B
Yes. I mean, Morgantown, it's for West Virginia, it's a big town, but at the same time, it's a small town. You know, there were a lot of smaller towns west of Morgantown out towards the Blacksville area. And those people know a lot. And a lot of the information we were getting were coming from the locals out in that area. And that's just information that we were trying to run with at the time. It was just constant tips that were coming in from. From tips about the bank robbery, tips where there's a connection with her disappearance to that. You know, we were getting tips that her. Her body was allegedly dumped into a mine shaft with the bank robbery money. So that's what we were working with for the longest time, was just constant tips and rumors. And then we try to track down the source of that information, and we never could. It would always be somebody that would tell us, well, I heard it from so and so, who might have heard it from so and so. We tracked them down and. And they can never give us, like, the actual source of that. That material.
- [04:15]
A
Were you dealing with a lot of kids as well? And I'm thinking of one particularly that we've been working on again recently in my area about a young man who was found dead in the middle of a road. That was Stephen Smith out of Hampton county and South Carolina. And it was gossip and rumor mills. And you talk to one person and they would say, yeah, he was there. He knows what happened. And it was just like this. This rolling amount of gossip. I guess that's why I was thinking of Morgantown, how it kind of reminds me of that. That rumor mill that's always going on in a high school or whatever.
- [04:52]
B
Right. Because you had the students from University High School who went to school with. With Shof, Eddie and Skyler. Then you had kids over in Blacksville that knew the guys that were supposedly involved in the bank robbery. So there was a lot of those sources and rumors coming from those two different schools. And also the case was a bit of a challenge for us because a lot of the people that we were talking to were Juveniles, and of course, rightly so. There were very protective parents. It's not every day they get state trooper, an FBI agent, you know, a local PD arriving at the house, wanting to talk to their child.
- [05:28]
A
Yeah. And it's terrifying, Right. You're dealing with a. A young girl who's disappeared, and they're probably scared. They don't know what's happened. And everybody's getting suspicious of everybody else at that point.
- [05:40]
B
Oh, absolutely.
- [05:41]
A
It was a long six months of investigating what happened to Skylar. Talk to me about, like, how closely did you work with Skylar's parents, Mary and Dave Neese?
- [05:51]
B
I would say around September of 2012 is when I really started getting more involved in the case. And it was around that time another investigator, Chris Barry, and I, decided to drive to the nice residents, and we wanted to talk to the parents that kind of get some, you know, just get a feel for. Just let them know that, hey, you know, we are working on this case. I thought it was appropriate that they meet the investigators. I wanted to get them comfortable with me. I wanted to get comfortable with them. And we decided to, you know, just look over things again. We went to the apartment. We. We did talk to Mary. She was very, very nice, very cooperative. We went through Scholars Room and went to the journals just to try to find anything that might connect or. Or maybe something that was missed the first time. You know, just kind of go over it again.
- [06:42]
A
Yeah. Have you done many missing teen stories like this? Cases, investigations?
- [06:49]
B
Not at this level. The majority of the juvenile type cases are typically runaway, and more times or not they're found the same day or just within minutes or hours apart. But nothing to this scale. No.
- [07:05]
A
Yeah. And the parents, you know, of course, you start off, you're looking at the people that were closest to Skylar at the beginning. And I'm saying, like, parents, friends. Did you have to kind of go through all of that with them, make sure be able to rule people out where they were, what was going on when Skylar disappeared?
- [07:25]
B
Of course. And then once we got Skylar's phone records back, we started combing through who was Skylar talking to leading up to the night that she disappeared. And then once we could figure out who the owner of these phone numbers were, obviously we would go track them down, interview him. What did you and Skylar talk about? Was there anything helpful that would help the investigation, who she might have went out with, where did she go, what happened, that type of thing?
- [07:51]
A
Well, and you touched on it, too, like, you know, to talk to these minors? I mean, I know teens, they're pretty monosyllabic. I mean, like, it's a lot of. Yep. No. Don't know. Not sure. Did you deal with a lot of that when you were trying to talk to them?
- [08:08]
B
Yeah. And there was a lot of. I don't remember. I don't know who told me that. I heard it from. So and so I think. And their first name is this. Don't know their last name. They live over here. So it was very frustrating at times to try to sort out and figure out who. Who was telling us what information that we felt could help us. You know, there were times we weren't sure if we were being told the truth. Were they just scared? We didn't know. So that's why we try to try to filter out as best as we could.
- [08:34]
A
I'm sure you did. I mean, how. Talking, you know, talking to these minors. You were talking to the parents and to the lawyers as much as you were talking to the minors. What were the parents like?
- [08:45]
B
Well, like, there were some teens where the parents were obviously concerned. Why the FBI, why state police were talking to them? So we would try to want to. We want to talk to the. The juveniles away from the parents because we felt if the parents are not around, they might open up, be more comfortable to us. Yeah, they might not want to say something in front of the parents and the kids get in trouble. There were some parents very, very cooperative. There were other parents that Very, very defensive. Like they felt like maybe we were trying to accuse their kids of something. We try to explain to them that's not the case. We got this information. We think your child might know something or might have heard something we don't know. We're just trying to talk to as many people as we can to make sense of all this information that we're getting.
- [09:28]
A
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I want to just ask you, like, when did you start thinking, wait a minute, these girls know something? And I'm talking about her best friends. Her best, best friends once she's grown up with Skyler. But when did you start thinking there's. This is not making sense for, like, Star City?
- [09:48]
B
A lot of things that make sense for them. Even at the beginning, there didn't seem to be, like, a sense of urgency with Eddie and Shoaff about Skyler's disappearance. They weren't really posting anything on their personal social media. You know, where he had scholar who'd become home. They were all posting that stuff on, like, a public forum. And then as the cell phone record started coming in about September of 2012. It wasn't adding up to their statements. Of course you had the, the video surveillance outside the apartment complex. You know, the girl's initial statements was well, we dropped her off at midnight. Well, there's no footage of her coming back home, but there's footage of her leaving the house. And then once we got the cell phone records and then the cell towers. Now why are the girls out in Blacksville 4:00 clock in the morning when they said they were home by 1 o' clock in the morning? So it was even suspicious at the beginning. But it wasn't really until November where for me it felt like these girls are becoming more suspects.
- [10:49]
A
I'm going to pull this up for us to look at real quick. Can you see the surveillance video? I just want to take a look at this because you know, this is a, this is a big part of what you had early on, right? You had this like pretty early on. And can you just explain to me what we're looking at right now?
- [11:09]
B
Sure. So there's a video surveillance camera system mounted outside of the apartment complex. I believe it was Mary niece that said hey, there was a video surveillance outside. So let's try to get the footage and see what happened. So early on in the investigation, Star City got a copy of that video and but what you see is scholar had snuck out of her bedroom window. She ran out of the apartment, gets into the back of the sedan. So then we were okay, so she wasn't kidnapped. She willingly got out of the apartment, got into the car. She didn't seem to be like she was threatened. She didn't seem to be scared. She obviously knew somebody in that car.
- [11:51]
A
Right.
- [11:53]
B
So it, and then it was later on we were able to get that sheets surveillance footage that showed car had similar characteristics of that one continued out towards the Blacksville area.
- [12:07]
A
So and you're talking about a gas station that was around the corner basically, or, or, or down towards Blacksville.
- [12:13]
B
Well, so yes, there's actually two local sheets. There's one closest to the nice apartment before the bridge and when you go across the bridge again, there's another sheets convenience store. So we had two of them right there in that area. So it's a, so they're local convenience stores in the Star City area.
- [12:31]
A
Well, and here's my question on this right here is you had this pretty much Mary Scholars mom knows that there's surveillance cameras outside the apartment. And so what we're looking at for, for our listeners who may be on audio podcasts, what we're showing on YouTube right now is the surveillance video of this car that Skyler was known to get into. We watch her get into the car, we know it's Skyler. Why can't we figure out whose car that is? Why is it such a mystery to whose car that is?
- [13:09]
B
So early on the, there were attempts to clean up the video. As you can tell, it's, it's a little bit pixelated. They try to get it cleaned up to try to get a license plate number and we could tell it was like a silver looking sedan. But there really wasn't much we could tell from the footage that was provided to us. So attempts were made to clean it up to try to get a plate, but. But they were unsuccessful.
- [13:30]
A
Did you think it was Sheila's car?
- [13:35]
B
Not at first because the early statements were that they dropped her off. It was, was until we got that sheets video surveillance. And then when we had also served a search warrant at the school, we went to the school and collected the girls cell phones. Sheila's car was parked outside in the parking lot and, and I had looked at that car and, and that was, I mean that has to be Sheila's car in that video. So I mean, yeah, it had to be. So that it was around that Aug. It was, it was like September is when it started to register that that has to be Sheila's car.
- [14:08]
A
Well, and it is, you know, and, and when you start connecting the dots that this, what we're looking at right now was Sheila's car, you're still thinking, right? Like there's an excuse, there's a reason for this. The kids were just scared, like they didn't want to tell us that she got in the car. You're not thinking worst case, catastrophic situation yet?
- [14:32]
B
No, we're not thinking there was some sort of premeditated type murder. But what we really believed for the longest time was they were witness to something bad that happened to Scholar because we knew Skyler was into marijuana. But was it possible they introduced her to some stronger type drugs and she took more than what she could handle and then everyone got scared so they had to come up with a story how to distance themselves from that event. So that's kind of what we believed for the longest time. At first, yes.
- [15:01]
A
Well, and here's my other question. I mean there is so much social media evidence, there's so much data, digital evidence in this case. These girls were prolific in their use of social media. But in the documentary you hear one of the investigators talk about how, you know, social media was so different in 2012. There was like, it wasn't like we had this, you weren't immediately, you know, getting a search warrant from Google to learn.
- [15:32]
B
Right.
- [15:32]
A
Tell me what that felt like back then to be investigating a case like this with that digital evidence.
- [15:40]
B
I had no idea what Twitter was. People were talking about Twitter, I had no idea what they were talking about. So I had to look it up. And I'm like people were just posting comments about whatever they were thinking, random thoughts. But then it was like, well this can come in kind of helpful because we're putting all this information out there for us to read. So once we figured out, okay, now we need to get a search warrant on Facebook messaging, also the owners of certain Twitter accounts because people would toast or post certain comments that we would try to follow up on. But we had to figure out who was the owner of this account. So we'd have to do a search warrants for subscriber information, dates and timeframes of the content. And when we submit these search warrants to these out of state companies, we're really at their mercy because they're not going to stop what they're doing to, to take our case. They're going to do it in the order that they receive it. So doing the search warrant, sending the search, search warrant out to these companies and then having to wait was, was kind of frustrating at the same time because I mean we're literally at their mercy waiting to get this information back. And once we get it back, of course teenagers, there's just, I mean thousands and thousands of pages of messages and you got to try to make sense of that and, and sort it out. So that was very time consuming for us.
- [17:02]
A
Oh, it must have been hell. And to have it like literally like a diary in front of you. I mean you had Skyler's diary, you had Rachel's, you know, journal and then you have this like rolling dialogue and it was like a, it was like a stream of consciousness at times, wasn't it on Twitter like, like anybody could read.
- [17:25]
B
Yes. And then of course, moments leading up to scholars disappearance, she had posted that tweet. You doing things like this is why I'll never trust you.
- [17:33]
A
And for Those watching on YouTube, I'm going to put this tweet up on the screen here for you. Skyler's tweet on July 5, 2012 read you doing like that is why I will never completely trust you.
- [17:46]
B
So that was very curious to us and of course we would use that as part of our interview. With Eddie and show, you know, what was she talking about? Was, was she directing it in to you guys or was she upset with anyone? Of course they had no answer for that. They didn't know what she was talking about or who was directed towards.
- [18:01]
A
I know. And they just, they just kept on, kept on going with it. You know, the big break in this case, Rachel Shove comes forward and is ready to confess.
- [18:11]
B
It wasn't till after the new year 2013 that we got that confession from Rachel.
- [18:18]
A
And this happened right after the 911 call by her own mother, is that correct?
- [18:27]
B
I've assumed thereafter. Correct.
- [18:29]
A
I'm going to play that 911 call for you now. You're hearing the voice of Rachel Shoaf's mother.
- [18:34]
C
I have an issue with a 16 year old daughter of mine. I can't control her anymore. She's screaming, she's running through the neighborhood. Give me the phones. Jo. This is over. This is over. Hurry up. Get away from her. No. Just gave me a block. Oh God. Hurry up please.
- [18:51]
A
When you first heard that 911 call, what was your immediate reaction?
- [18:56]
B
I had actually found out about it, actually went into the office one morning and two of the troopers that I know and work with went to that house that night and they told me, hey, that shelf girl that you're investigating for scholars disappearance, we had to go to her house. She had like a mental breakdown. There was a, was a fight between her and her mom. They end up having to call the ambulance trying to get her committed to a hospital. So I'm thinking at that point, okay, obviously it's now Rachel can't hold us in anymore. And I always felt that she was the weakest link, you could say based on her journal entries that I read her nonverbal cues when like when we would interview her in person. And I felt now that she wasn't really able to hold all this in, that she was. So I suspect that, that she was going to give us the information here soon.
- [19:45]
A
Yeah. And she did. And can you just. I'm sure it was incredibly traumatic to hear what Rachel had to say.
- [19:55]
B
So that was a very, I guess you can say very emotional day in a way. So myself and Agent Amber C. Were present when that confession occurred. And I mean just looking at Rachel, she was very, very pale and very white, which stuck out because she's got that like very fire engine red hair. You could tell that she was just visibly nervous. And she had talked about that she thought she was going to throw up. She had a waste basket next to her at the table. And then Agent Amber Cini started asking the basic questions that we kind of thought, was there, okay, was there, was there a party? Was there an overdose? Did she choke on something? Was there her? Heroin? And she just kept saying, no, no and no. And then finally she just said, we stabbed her. And obviously that wasn't what we were expecting to hear. And then of course. Okay, so let's start over. Tell us exactly what happened. What do you mean you stabbed her? Then that's when she started giving us the details of that night.
- [20:53]
A
The premeditation alone was terrible.
- [20:57]
B
It was very methodical because they had, according to Rachel, her and Eddie had these conversations for about a year. It didn't start out as a very like. Like a serious conversation. It was kind of like, what are we going to do with Skyler? And then it progressed over the course of that year to more serious things like, how are we going to kill her? And they started doing research. They didn't have access to guns. They didn't know how to use guns. They knew that knives would be the way to do it. So then they would research what parts of the body you should hit with a knife that would cause a quick death. They knew to bring change of clothes, cleaning supplies. Eddie supplied the knives. Rachel got the shovel from her dad's garage. That all was placed in the trunk. I believe they were wearing like, hoodies that night. So they can conceal the knives under the hoodies. And then once they got out to that location, they. They found the time to. To get scholars back turned away from them. And then that's when Rachel said she did the countdown to three.
- [22:03]
A
And for those of you watching, this tweet is from Sheila's Twitter on April 1, 2013. She says, we really did go on three, which seems to be exactly what they did to Skyler.
- [22:14]
B
And then that's when he pulled the knives out and started attacking her in the roadway.
- [22:19]
A
I mean, would they. How long do you think they have been planning this?
- [22:23]
B
So the conversation between Rachel and, and Eddie, it. It had been going on for about a year, but. But Rachel said it didn't really start out as a serious type, like a serious conversation. But over time it got. It led into, yes, we need to do something to her, we need to kill her, get rid of her. They just didn't know how. And there I had talked to one of these students in the class who had a class with Shof and Eddie, and he told me that the girls would like, ask him random questions like, how would you dispose of a body. And he didn't, you know, he thought they were just crazy. Just, he didn't take him serious. And he told them, I don't know, watch the show Breaking Bad. I don't know, leave me alone with this. And this is a conversation I had with him after it was announced that the girls had been charged with the murder. It was June of 2012. Skyler and Eddie went to the beach together. When they got back from the beach, Eddie and Shove had conversations. And it was in June of 2012 that they decided, this has to be done, they're going to do it. So that's when they really started the planning on, on killing her. So I don't know what happened at the beach between Eddie and Skyler, but there was some sort, something happened because we had gotten statements from friends of Rachel that observed Shof and Eddie had a conversation off to the side and he could tell they were visibly upset, they were yelling, stomping on the ground. So something happened at the beach that, that, that put this in full swing
- [23:57]
A
to do this just got them more and more cold blooded and riled up. But I mean, Ronnie, let's be honest, like two young girls stabbed their best friend more than 50 times. That is, that is so cold blooded. That is so, so crazy.
- [24:18]
B
And once we got this confession from Rachel and you know, we had to ensure that every, that we could try to corroborate and prove everything that she said because this was a very serious case. We obviously wanted to link Eddie to the case and you know, that helped us get search warrants on the car and some, some more cellular phone devices and. But ultimately, yes, we got the scholar's DNA in the trunk of the car. We did get some more physical evidence because Schuyler's body was sent to Quantico at the FBI lab where they did an analysis and they were able to get some, a tool mark on a part of her body that even further corroborated that she was stabbed to death. So all that evidence started coming in and now that we could link Eddie as well to the murder, you know, that's when things really got serious and the girls were charged. You know, I try to, I try to think about that night, what Skyler could have gone through. And I just couldn't imagine just how scared she was and the pain that she felt. You know, she had at one point overcame Rachel in the fight, got the knife from Rachel. Rachel told us at the confession that Skylar had cut her leg. And she's like, do you Want to see my, my scar? Like, yes. So she puts her leg up on the table, pulls up her pants leg and there's like a 4 inch scar in her shin where Scholar had cut her with the knife. But it was two on one that night. There was two knives. You know, Eddie was on top of Scholar and you have shof. So they obviously overpowered her, but I just can't imagine how scared she was and all the pain that she was in. So it was horrible. I mean, it just is a horrible, terrifying, gruesome death that she went through.
- [26:05]
A
Do you know where these knives came from?
- [26:07]
B
According to Rachel, Eddie supplied the knives. What she did with the knives, we don't know. Eddie basically was the, was the cleanup or those knives and the bloody clothes were thrown away. We don't know. That's why when we did get a search warrant for the Eddie residents, we did collect all the knives that we could find. Just had them analyzed just for DNA. But, but, but nothing come back on those knives. So we don't know where the actual knives went or the bloody clothes.
- [26:42]
A
The other part of it was that Rachel had to tell you where the body was. Skyler went missing in July, and by January it was different conditions. I mean, what did Rachel say about how they left Skylar? Why was it so hard to find her?
- [26:57]
B
So she agreed to show us where the body was. So Rachel was not from that area, she's not from part of that state. And of course when they did, it wasn't July when she took us out, there was in January. So obviously everything was different. I remember she was in the backseat of my car. I had Agent Ambrosini in my passenger seat and I had Shoaff and her attorney in the backseat of my car. And she's navigating, telling us where to turn, where to go. And it took a couple times to go around the the site, but she saw this big massive tree that reminded her that's the tree where this happened. So when she saw that tree, she said this is where it happened. And I stopped a car and of course the snow's like knee deep high, so I didn't want to like walk through the whole scene and maybe disturb anything. I couldn't. It had been impossible to do it an exam that day. So then that's when I contacted Agent Spurlock. And then we coordinated with the FBI Evidence Response Team out of Pittsburgh. And then luckily we had a 70 degree weather break a couple weeks later. I believe that's when all the snow melted and that's when we were able to, to find Skyler but, but, but yes. So yeah, I mean Rachel stayed in the car the whole time. She wouldn't come out. And agent Amber C. Had said on the documentary, he's. Because I wasn't really, I was thinking hard on where I needed to go. Amber scene was paying more attention to what Rachel was saying. But he, he recalled that she said it's over there. Referred to Scholar as it didn't say she's over there. Didn't say Scholars over there, but it's over there.
- [28:31]
A
I mean until that body was found and you were able to corroborate this evidence, was there just a part of you like Rachel's had a mental breakdown. This couldn't be true. This can't be true. I mean, you've got to still be like it's some part of you thinking this is too evil, they're too small, they're too little to do this.
- [28:53]
B
It was hard for me to really fathom how two 16 year old girls can be this methodical, be this cold and premeditated to do this murder. I mean obviously they did put some time into it and get the shovel, the knives, the cleaning supplies, the clothes to bring, all that. And just that told me that they really put a lot of time in thinking about this and just, just how cold, you know, these girls are. And it just, it's, it's just hard for me to believe that 16 year old high school girls could come up with something like this and do it and carry it out. I mean when they picked up Scholar that night, it was like a. From the apartment to the location where the body was found was about, it's about 20 or so miles approximately. That was a long time to think about that. And at any time they could have just turned around and said, you know what, you know, we change our minds, you know, we're not hanging out tonight, we're going home. But they, they drove that far and still carried out the way they did.
- [29:53]
A
There's been a lot of, a lot of questions about why they did it, you know, and they bring up were they having a, having a relationship, some kind of sexual relationship with each other and when it's got out of the picture or did they just want her gone? Did they not like her, did they hate her? Did you ever feel like you understood the motive behind this brutal, brutal act?
- [30:19]
B
I personally feel that we don't have the real answer why they did it. I know the lesbian thing has been tossed around quite a bit. Could that played a part in it? Maybe, I don't know.
- [30:29]
A
This is the theory that Sheila and Rachel killed Skylar because she knew about their romantic relationship and that they killed Skylar to keep her from exposing it.
- [30:38]
B
Mary niece said in that documentary this was something Skylar knew for a year. So why now? And why would it be a problem right now? I would like to know what happened at the beach in June that, that made Eddie so angry that her and Rachel had this discussion that now is the time to do it. You know, I like to know it. Was it something Skyler said? Was it something that she did so something that she knew? I don't know. I feel like that's not been resolved part of this case. And, and to prove murder, you know, we, we don't need a motive. We just, you know, they did it and this is how they did it. I would like to know why. Of course. And I feel that that's not been really answered.
- [31:21]
A
You know, I wanted to bring up something that David Nice said to me. Dave Nice told me that he had one day to basically prepare for the arrest of Sheila Eddie. And then everything was rolled out. Like he basically had X amount of time to prepare. And then he, his, his immediate reaction was pretty volatile, wasn't it? He revealed to us what he wanted to do when he talked to me in our interview. Can you tell me what you understood about that situation? And I got something I want to play for you as well.
- [32:00]
B
I did have a conversation with Dave last night. He had told me he told you the story. I, at the time was under the impression that Dave was going to harm himself. That's what I believed. He never, like I could just, you know, he's a father, he lost his daughter. Now he, he's got to hear the truth of what happened. How his daughter was betrayed by her so called friends. And I, I, I didn't expect him to comprehend it and understand that. But I thought that, you know, I think Dave's gonna kill himself, harm himself. And that's what I was worried that he was going to do. And something just prompted to tell me, you know, Dave, you know, what is Mary going to do without you? What is she going to do? And then that really register for him. I didn't find out until years later that his intent was to go harm the girls. What had happened was I was listening to his interview on a local radio station. He told that story. So I, I didn't know until I heard him on that radio station that that was his original intent.
- [33:08]
A
Oh wow. Well, I, here I've pulled it up for you. I wanted you to hear the way he explained it. And he's talking about how you were able to intercede.
- [33:18]
D
Ronnie Gaskins called, he's lead investigator on the case. And he said, dave, where are you? And I said, it doesn't matter. By the time you get here, the problem will be taken care of. You won't have to rush or anything. He said, dave, think about what you're doing. And then he said, the only thing that could have possibly stopped me is what Ronnie told me. He said, dave, what's Mary gonna do without you? And that stopped me dead in my tracks. And I apologized to Ronnie. I. I called Tom and apologized to him the next day. And I was a mess. I wanted justice and I wanted an eye for an eye. And I wanted. I. My head was so messed up. And I'm glad I didn't do what I thought I needed to do. And that was to rid the world of a psychopath. But I didn't know even know how I was going to do it. I just knew it needed done. And to look into Sheila Eddie's eyes and you can still do it to this day. She has no soul. She is a sick psychopathic killer. And that's what I have to say about that. Stupid.
- [34:38]
B
So when Dave said that Eddie has no soul, I mean, just talking to her when we did those interviews later on, there's just nothing there. It was just a blank stare. It was just like looking into a soulless human being. And there was no remorse. She. She wasn't genuine about Finding Scholar, just a cold hearted individual. And you know, in my career, I mean, I dealt with a lot of bad people, of course that did horrific things, but that's one person that was. I, I don't, I don't even think she has a conscience. The only time that she. She showed any type of emotion, if it was involving her, not anybody else but her, how her life might be affected, you know, she was upset because she wasn't going to the prom or going to a dance or getting her hair done. It was always about her, nobody else.
- [35:29]
A
Ronnie, if you hadn't interceded when you did, even though you thought perhaps he was talking about hurting himself, if you hadn't interceded with DAV exact moment, it could have been unbelievable for, for Mary at the. At the least, you know, it would have put Dave in prison. It would have been so sad. But it. It literally would have just ended Mary. Right?
- [35:58]
B
I mean, Mary lost her. Her daughter. She now knows the truth, what happened To Scholar. She had, you know, she was betrayed by her best friends. And then, you know, Dave. Mary and Dave really needed each other during this. They. I don't think they could have done it alone. So having them together, I think is what really was able to get them through this in their faith, of course. But I think about that, I'm like Mary just could not been able to handle losing not only her daughter, but also her husband. And because Mary had. Because Mary needed somebody there with her all times, you know, and. And I think it just would have been a horrible, tragic thing for. For Mary to have to deal with 100%.
- [36:41]
A
A couple of things I wanted to ask you about. Did. Do you know if these girls ever went back to the murder scene? Is there any evidence of that?
- [36:47]
B
Yes. Rachel had told us that she. The original statement was this, that Rachel lost her phone and that's why they were out there that late at night, was trying to look for her phone that Rachel had lost. But what had happened was Sheila. According to Rachel, Sheila went back out to the murder scene during the daytime to look for Skylar's phone. She never found the phone. And we know this because Eddie's phone hit the same cell tower in Blacksville later on in the afternoon after the murder had occurred. So she did go back out there based on the cell records that we got on her phone and attempt to look for scholars firm that she didn't find. However, the day of the crime scene, the. The evidence technicians did find Scholar's phone.
- [37:41]
A
They did?
- [37:42]
B
Yes.
- [37:43]
A
And what was. What was the final message that Skylar had sent? Did she know she was in trouble in the back of that car once
- [37:50]
B
she was got into the car? Her. There was no activity on her phone whatsoever.
- [37:55]
A
Huh.
- [37:56]
B
When she was outside the Morgantown area, there was no activity.
- [37:59]
A
Yeah, I guess she was with people that she trusted even though she was mad at him or whatever the heck was going on.
- [38:05]
B
Right. She knew these girls. She'd been in Sheila's car before. They have. She snuck out of the house before they've driven around. But. So what she was doing wasn't anything that they hadn't done before. So she was comfortable. So I'm not surprised there wouldn't be activity on her phone when she left the Morgantown area.
- [38:25]
A
Have you been able. I mean, I know you said you still don't think you've gotten the why of why they committed this crime, but do you think we're any closer? We're going to hear from Rachel. In June 2026, we got an upcoming Parole hearing. Do you think we're going to get closer to figuring out what happened?
- [38:41]
B
I think the one who has the. The real answer to that is Eddie. And she's the one. I've not heard her story yet. I want to hear her story. And the only words I heard from her when she was sentenced was guilty. She never gave an explanation. She never talked about why she did it that night. But I think Eddie knows the answer to that, the real reason, and I would like to hear her story. She's the one that's not said anything about this yet. I believe she's the one that holds that answer.
- [39:10]
A
Dave told us that Sheila's mom sent back Skylar's necklace after she was cleaning her room. Later on. Did you hear about that? Dave said that he saw that necklace around Skyler's neck the last time he saw her. If that was the last time Dave saw his daughter Skyler and Sheila had Skyler's necklace, does that mean Sheila had kept that as some kind of token, do you think, of what she had done?
- [39:40]
B
I did.
- [39:42]
A
You know that.
- [39:43]
B
Not really. I don't think I was real. He might have mentioned that some time ago. I. I forgot if he did.
- [39:50]
A
But he said he had not shared that with anyone before in an interview. This was information he had never shared before in. In this kind of way. But. So I didn't know if he had told you about that, but he. I think it just made him that much more horrified that she had held on to Skyler's necklace. And as one who has done not a lot, but a fair amount of investigating as a reporter, that's very concerning. That's a very concerning thing. Sheila's mom had sent it back to Dave. It was. She had held on to Skylar's necklace.
- [40:32]
B
Okay.
- [40:32]
A
And. And Dave is assuming that was after she had killed Skylar.
- [40:37]
B
Okay. I don't know. I don't think I knew that. I mean, that's almost a slap in the face to Dave and Mary. It is, you know, like. Like she's handing over an item that belonged to her and they're giving it back. Just. It's almost like it's a slap in the face. I think that Mary and Dave.
- [40:53]
A
I think so, too. I mean, I think it's. There were probably channels that. That could have been handled differently as well, for sure, by the mom. But it does worry me because the only times I've seen cases like that are with serial killers is if they're holding on to a token from someone that they. That they killed. And that I, I'm not, I don't want to speculate. I'm just saying that considering the age of this person to hear that that was what she thought of when she walked away from that body, if that's how this went down, really freaks me out.
- [41:31]
B
Well, because we, we do know that Eddie went back out to the scene during the daytime after the murder, and we can tell that by that the cell phone tower hit, so maybe that's when she got it. And so yeah, I, yeah, that's learning that now. That's very disturbing. And I, again, it's just a, just a terrible tarot slapped in the face than marrying Dave. It's just like rubbing it in. I mean that, that's just an evil hearted individual.
- [42:03]
A
Yeah, it's sick. It is absolutely sick. I, I know that Dave mentioned that you had a daughter as well. I mean, as far as going through this, I've listened to this story. I've got my own daughter. I'm a girl mom. You know, when I had to listen to this, it's so hard because you process it as you do it based on what your experience is with your own kids. You know, like, you look at it and you go, you know, how can kids be that evil? How can this happen? Have you been able to frame this in your head so that it, how did it affect you as a parent?
- [42:35]
B
So I had talked about this on the documentary, but they didn't, you know, they didn't show that. But I, and I told them I was like 32 at the time when this was going on. So I wasn't, you know, I wasn't, I had no children, I wasn't a dad. And it was hard for me to relate to Mary and Dave because I, because, yeah, I mean, I feel horrible. I couldn't imagine losing your child. But I'm. Here's me thinking this and telling them this because I don't have a child. I didn't have a child at the time. And it was hard for me to, to kind of like, I don't know how to say, but it was just hard for me to, to try and relate and comfort them because early on when I would talk to them, it was more like, you know, I'm a police officer. I'm here to try to help you to get answers that you need to try to find out, you know, the who did this. I don't know if I was very passionate or compassionate, I guess you could say. Now that this has all happened and I have my own daughter. I, I wish I was more compassionate and just more personal than, like, because, you know, I have a daughter, of course, so I can. I just. I just couldn't imagine, you know, losing my daughter to something like that. So it really put things in perspective for me. What just the hell that Mary and Dave went through of losing her own daughter. And. And my daughter, I mean, she gets the sniffles, I get worried, you know, so I just. Just the fear of someone harming her or she comes up missing. I don't know where she's at. I mean, that's. That's. That'd be literally hell on earth. And I. But, yeah, I mean, I. This is something you don't get training at the academy. They don't teach you how to work and deal with grieving parents. So. But if I, you know, had my daughter, then I probably been able to bend a little bit more personal, I guess you can say, with him, and instead of just being the role of a state trooper, but try to be also dad to dad. I couldn't do that to him, you know, because I. I didn't know. So that was hard for. For me. That was probably one of the hardest things for me to try to do on this case was how do I comfort and try to talk to grieving parents. And I. I wasn't sure how to do it, honestly, so.
- [44:55]
A
But, well, I'm smiling because I think that you probably did a brilliant job. I'll be honest, Ronnie, because I hear from day that grateful for what you could do. I don't know if anybody could break through the grief of what those parents went through, because thank God we haven't gone through it. But I will say that your compassion that you showed during this investigation is obvious. I mean, you stopped a catastrophic ending to this story as well of. Of something happening with Dave from what he said. So I know you're saying you're being modest because maybe someone else knew that you were going to be a girl dad one day. So, you know, whatever came through in your personality, it certainly made a difference for this family. So I'm glad you were the one that was there.
- [45:42]
B
I appreciate it. And I told Dave, I said, dave, I don't make promises in my line of work, but I will promise you this. I won't stop trying to find out the truth for you guys. And what happened to Scholar and I. And I meant that. So. And. And that. That. That's really what helped drive me to keep going on this case. Now, I. I had a lot of help with great investigators. We were phenomenal teams. There was a lot of people involved in this that made this happen. But I, I told Dave I'm not going to stop. This is something that's going to keep me going every day and then every night and every morning I try to think of a new game plan, what we can do different. So, and, and I'm so, and, and they saw that. And so that, I mean, that at least helped me because I was like, again, I wasn't a father at the time. So I felt that, you know, him seeing that passion from the investigators and, and me making that promise to him, you know, I'm glad that I, you know, it worked out well.
- [46:42]
A
I, you know, it got to a conclusion, which is good. And I just want to ask you, like with Sheila Eddies also, right? She will become eligible for parole in 2028. We have to deal with that as well.
- [46:57]
B
Right. And I had that conversation with Dave last night. It's just, it's, it's a constant reminder he has to go through it again every year. It's, it looks likely that Rachel will get released in 28 and then he's going to have to deal with that. And then he's got to go through every year now of Eddie going through a, a parole hearing. So it's, it's, it's just a constant reminder for him and Mary to have to go through this.
- [47:25]
A
Well, I think after I heard about this, Sheila, you know, what happened with that necklace, it does concern me. Yes, that really bothers me and I hope that does get brought up in, you know, as the parole board is looking at possible releases, because that's not a good sign. That's not a good sign at all.
- [47:45]
B
And we, we know she went back out there, so.
- [47:47]
A
Yeah, it's not good. Well, thank you so much. I'm very grateful that you could talk to me today. It was a really interesting case to look at and I'm certain that we're going to be following up with everybody on it as we go through these parole hearings. So thank you so much.
- [48:04]
B
I, I thank you guys for having me. It was a good interview and I did watch some videos before this and I was impressed. You know what I saw you guys were putting out and doing so well.
- [48:14]
A
Thank you. Can you like and subscribe and send us a five star review?
- [48:17]
B
Of course.
- [48:19]
A
It's great to hear that a seasoned investigator like Ronnie and someone so involved in these cases was impressed with our videos. Between our conversation with Dave and now hearing Ronnie's take, I feel like I have a whole new perspective on the Skylar nice case. I mean, that's what we're all about, going behind the headlines and telling stories that have never been told. If you enjoyed this conversation, be like Ronnie. Subscribe and please leave us a five star review. It goes a long way for other people to find our episodes. And if you want to know more about this case, be sure to check out the docu series Friends like these. The Murder of Skylar Nese is streaming right now on Hulu.