The Day After | Chapter 2

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Speaker 10 So I was actually in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina when everything happened.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 that was like one of the first years where we didn't take like one big van or something because my aunt had,

Speaker 10 she had company vans that we used to take.

Speaker 11 The day after Skylar went missing, her friend Shania Amons was on the way back from Myrtle Beach with her grandma and cousins when she got a text from Sheila.

Speaker 10 And the text said, hey, hey, have you heard from Skylar? And I said, no, why? Can you not get a hold of her?

Speaker 10 Because, you know, like when friends can't get a hold of friends that they're used to talking to every day, you know, you act like it's a huge deal sometimes. And she said, no, she's missing.

Speaker 10 And I said, what do you mean she's missing? Like, you just haven't talked to her. And she was like, no, she's missing.
Like, I can't find her. Her parents can't find her.
The cops can't find her.

Speaker 10 This is actually, like, she's really missing. And I was in shock.
I mean Shania had just talked to Skylar I think technically the last time I talked to her was July 5th

Speaker 10 I think she just kind of felt left out and I was like yeah well as soon as I get back we'll do something you know I'll be back

Speaker 10 but first it was like okay like I'm worried but I have a real good feeling she's coming back you know like you really just in those beginning stages you don't think the worst

Speaker 11 but in the star city neighborhood of Morgantown Mary and Dave were thinking the worst. They were sure Skylar had been kidnapped or was the victim of something even more nefarious.

Speaker 11 Mary was ready to drag the Monon Gahila River for her daughter's body, search along the rail trails, the old train tracks that had been converted into shaded running paths.

Speaker 11 The one thing they knew for certain, Skylar didn't run away.

Speaker 11 From Waveland, I'm Justine Harmon.

Speaker 12 And I'm Holly Millay.

Speaker 12 This is three,

Speaker 12 episode two, The Day After.

Speaker 13 Everything that a girl would take, it was there. Her toothbrush, her deodorant.
She hadn't taken anything.

Speaker 12 That's Mary when I first talked to her and Dave back in 2014.

Speaker 13 Her hair straightener that she hated her curly hair, she wouldn't leave home without that. It was there.
Goody was there.

Speaker 11 What was Goody?

Speaker 13 A little piece of, like a security blanket. You know, she's had silver hair.

Speaker 13 Taking a liking to one of my nightgowns one time, and that was her goodie. She wouldn't give it up.

Speaker 6 If she had cramps or something from that time of the month or something, she'd grab Goody and go to her room.

Speaker 13 She took her cell phone, but not her charger.

Speaker 6 No teenager in the world will run away without her cell phone charger it ain't gonna happen i mean that's priority you know and her hairbrush and all she took nothing and but of course star city police said run away run away run away aunt carol remembers just how bleak that period was

Speaker 13 We were sitting out on her little deck and, you know, she was just all upset and crying.

Speaker 13 And the dog, you know, Lilu, she was just all sad and very said, and, you know, I had this pit in my stomach that we weren't going to find her.

Speaker 13 And then she finally said, I have something to say and don't get mad at me. And I'm like, what?

Speaker 12 Mary was fast losing faith, thinking, feeling that Skylar was dead.

Speaker 13 Then we both started crying because I'm like, I have the same feeling, you know.

Speaker 13 And

Speaker 13 it was just like Mary was just numb.

Speaker 13 I mean, she

Speaker 13 just was numb with everything.

Speaker 13 Dave was a lot stronger than Mary. He could hold up a lot better than her.

Speaker 12 All of a sudden, the phone rang. A familiar voice, Skylar's best friend.

Speaker 14 Sheila wanted to know if we'd heard anything from her. And she had to tell me the truth.
That's what it was. And that's when she was telling me.

Speaker 14 that they had snuck out the night before, but they had dropped her off, I don't know, before midnight. Then she said, well, do you want us to come over? And I said, well, sure.

Speaker 12 Sheila arrived with her mom, Tara, and joined Mary going door to door with Skylar's picture, asking if anyone had seen or heard anything.

Speaker 12 Dave stayed behind to wait for Star City police officers to arrive. When an officer showed up, he and Dave joined the search.

Speaker 12 Having no luck canvassing the block, Mary remembered that the apartment complex had surveillance cameras.

Speaker 12 At 7.10 p.m., in a room the size of a closet, the building's landlord, the police officer, Mary, Dave, Sheila, and Tara all watched Skylar climb from her window and get into a waiting car no one could quite make out.

Speaker 12 In the days and weeks that followed, it seemed like Sheila was always around, eager to comfort and be comforted.

Speaker 6 At one point, she came over here by herself, and she never came over here by herself after Scotland went missing. Never.
One time she did.

Speaker 6 She came up to Mary and she goes, Mary, would it be okay if I went to Skylar's room and had some alone time in there?

Speaker 6 Mary said, well, sure.

Speaker 6 Looked at me and I said, sure. She was in there for about 20 minutes.
And Mary heard sobbing come from the room, crying.

Speaker 13 Well, didn't we kind of wonder? We hope she's not taking anything

Speaker 13 because the police aren't done yet. That's why I went to check on her.

Speaker 6 She found Sheila laying on Skylar's bed crying or sobbing. And Mary laid down next to her and rubbed her arm and comforted her.
And she's right now, my David, I'm hurting so bad. I hurt so bad.

Speaker 13 Give telling her, stay strong. The truth will come out in the end.

Speaker 6 Hang in there, sweetie. We'll get her back.

Speaker 12 In the first days, then weeks after Schuyler disappeared, Sheila gave multiple written statements on her memories from that night.

Speaker 12 On July 8th, she filled nine lines on a small yellow legal pad with her pristine handwriting.

Speaker 11 On Thursday night, me and Rachel Shoff picked Skylar up after we snuck out. We drove around Star City for 30 minutes at most.

Speaker 11 Then we had to go home, so Skylar insisted we drop her off at the end of Crawford, and we never talked after that. Sheila Eddie.

Speaker 12 On August 24th, she provided more details.

Speaker 11 I went and got Rachel from her house, and then we went and got Schuyler. I was wearing shorts and a sweatshirt.
We pulled next to the apartments, next to Schuyler's.

Speaker 11 After Schuyler snuck out of her house, we drove around the side streets of Star City for at the most 30 mins. She was insisting that I drop her off at the end of her street, Crawford.

Speaker 11 That was weird, so I asked her why, and she was acting really weird. So I did.

Speaker 11 Drop her off, and then after I left, I dropped Rachel off at her house. Then I went home.
Skylar was wearing yellow shorts and a greenish multicolor shirt with her hair up.

Speaker 11 Rachel was wearing a sweatshirt and jean shorts. Skylar's mood was pretty good and happy until towards the end when I dropped her off.

Speaker 11 While Sheila kept close to the action, Rachel spent Friday, July 6th, the day after Skylar went missing, on a ski boat with a group that included her mother, Patricia, and close family friend, Kelly Kearns.

Speaker 11 In a photo from that outing, Kelly and Rachel are smiling. Kelly is trim and in her early 50s, wearing a coral-red bathing suit and color-coordinated visor.

Speaker 11 Rachel is in a blue leopard print bikini, her unmistakable red hair in a low ponytail.

Speaker 15 There was a huge storm in the southern part of the state, and everything was knocked out.

Speaker 16 And she never went to that first week of camp and ended up being in Morgantown.

Speaker 11 Rachel had been in town that day after all. A pleasant surprise for Kelly.

Speaker 12 Kelly had known the girl from birth, even holding the red-headed baby before her own mother, who was recovering from a C-section.

Speaker 15 Right after she was born, I was in the hospital and I got to hold her

Speaker 16 and she looked like she had been in the fight for her life. Had a little black eye, pointed head where she was stuck in the birth canal.

Speaker 15 I mean, she fought for her little life and there I was because I never had kids.

Speaker 12 That day on the boat, Patricia noticed a cut on the lower part of Rachel's right leg.

Speaker 16 There's mom bitching about this cut. It's going to get infected and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 15 And I wasn't really,

Speaker 15 you know, that bothered by it.

Speaker 16 You know, Patricia was always stressing about something.

Speaker 15 To me, it just looked like a scratch on her leg, on her calf or something.

Speaker 16 I mean, it wasn't any major, like, oh my God, you should have had stitches.

Speaker 12 Patricia's friend and next door neighbor at the time, Kim Keener, remembers the wound a little differently, having examined it up close.

Speaker 18 Kind of in the fleshy part, almost the muscle part of the leg, but yeah, down toward the ankle.

Speaker 17 Not real long, but very deep.

Speaker 18 I've got my fingers open here. Probably three inches, that might be two, three inches, but very deep.
My exact words were, my God, that's deep.

Speaker 18 And she said, yeah, I think she got it on the prop or something on the boat. You know what I'm saying? I mean, the prop is sharp when it's moving, but it's not that sharp to cut flesh like that deep.

Speaker 12 Regardless, Rachel spent the entire time on the boat that day, buried in her phone.

Speaker 16 A normal teenager on the phone, just texting.

Speaker 16 And we, Patricia and I don't stop talking.

Speaker 15 And throughout the day, sometimes

Speaker 15 I'd be like, oh, is there any news of your friend?

Speaker 16 And Patricia would say, you know,

Speaker 16 she's talking to Sheila because Sheila's better friends with Skylar than Rachel.

Speaker 12 After docking, Kelly had a sense of unease. She asked the one question that would eventually consume Morgantown.

Speaker 16 I said to Patricia, she was helping me cover the boat, and I said, do you think they did something to her?

Speaker 16 And Patricia goes, no, they're a friend. They're best friends.

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Speaker 11 The Star City Police Department deletes nearly all 911 recordings after two years, but a clipped version of Dave Neese's 911 call that day lives on the internet. I have a 16-year-old daughter.

Speaker 6 She has not been home, hasn't gone to work. I am scared to death.

Speaker 11 Rookie officer Jessica Colbank was on vacation when Dave's call came in, but when she returned about two days later, she picked up the case.

Speaker 11 When we meet Colbank at Star City Police Headquarters, She's wearing a bulletproof vest and light makeup. Her eyes are dark, as is her hair, which is pulled back in a tight bun.

Speaker 11 A serious person who will not suffer fools, Colbank knows the who's who and what's what around the area, where in any day, you might have to keep the peace or kick some ass.

Speaker 11 Adept at both, she is now the first female chief of police in Star City.

Speaker 12 Back in 2012, Colbank had a feeling that Skylar hadn't run away, an opinion her precinct colleagues didn't share.

Speaker 13 Dave and Mary said Sheila and Rachel will know if she ran away or if where she's at. They should know because they're her best friends.
And then I went to talk to Sheila.

Speaker 13 I had to travel to her parents' house and they were just hanging out in the garage with the garage open.

Speaker 13 She was sitting in a reclining chair and there was alcohol around and she was just having a good time. Nonchalant.
No emotion, no fear, no sadness. She was having a good time.

Speaker 13 If it were my best friend, I would not be consolable. You know, missing for at least four days, you don't know where they're at.

Speaker 13 Sitting there laughing and joking with family is not your typical response, teenager or not.

Speaker 13 Right off the bat, I said, this is not right. That is not normal.

Speaker 11 Next, Colbank turned her attention to Rachel, who, the day after boating, had finally left for church camp. She interviewed the redhead over the phone.

Speaker 13 It was awkward because I'm a person that likes to see people's body language, their reactions, their demeanor, their behavior.

Speaker 13 It's easier to see a lie when they're standing in front of you for most people. So over the phone, it was hard to judge.
She was very not standoffish, but she didn't really want to answer questions.

Speaker 13 It was more, I don't know, talk to Sheila. You know, I don't know anything, was her main stance.

Speaker 11 Like Sheila, Rachel was resolute. Skylar snuck out to meet them around 11 p.m.
They cruised, smoked a little weed, and then dropped her off about an hour later.

Speaker 13 Sheila's story and Rachel's story were the exact same story. No one has the exact same story.
So this was a rehearsed, this was a play for them. This was an act.

Speaker 13 So they had their

Speaker 13 script written way before. They had rehearsed their lines, and that's what they did.

Speaker 11 Schuyler's missing person posters were up all over town. 5'4 or 5'5, weighing approximately 135 to 145 pounds, wearing yellow shorts and a multicolored shirt.

Speaker 11 Last seen getting into an unknown car at 12:31 a.m.

Speaker 11 Because Skylar willingly got into a waiting car, she didn't qualify for an Amber alert, which in 2012 were only issued for suspected kidnapped victims.

Speaker 6 I saw Skylar's picture up at the gas stations, and she was starting to get brought up.

Speaker 6 And it's just one of those things like, oh man, that sucks, you know, girl missing.

Speaker 12 That's Chris Berry, a young hotshot state trooper assigned to investigate double bank robberies in Blacksville, along with Morgan Spurlock, a high-falutin FBI agent brought in from Chicago.

Speaker 6 When Morgan Spurlock FBI, he was dressed in nice, had the suit, the tie, he had pink socks. I'm like, you ain't gonna make it.

Speaker 6 You're not gonna make it. I said, Quit jeankuing your hair and putting moose in it and all that stuff.

Speaker 6 I said, go relax, throw a hat on, throw some ragged ass clothes that you painted or worked on the house with on.

Speaker 6 Take your badge, hide it. Take your gun, hide it.
I said, but be ready to rock and roll. Morgan Spurlock looked at me and goes, he grew up in Chicago.
He was like, this whole

Speaker 6 backwoods country life is definitely different.

Speaker 12 At one point, Barry and Spurlock stumbled on what seemed to be a connection between Skylar's disappearance and the Blacksville bank robberies.

Speaker 12 A picture of Skylar mugging with one of the young suspects. Just some local handsome hoodlum all the girls knew.

Speaker 13 There were a ton of rumors that she was pregnant and she didn't want to tell her family, so she ran away with the baby's father.

Speaker 13 She had a boyfriend that they wouldn't like. She had OD'd at a party.
She had helped rob the bank, so they killed her because she knew too much. You know, it was a full gamut of

Speaker 13 anything and everything was said.

Speaker 11 All of which kept driving Colbank back to the last two people she knew had seen Schuyler alive. She pressed Sheila.

Speaker 13 Basically, you just ask, you know, what were you last doing? When did you last see her? Where did you go?

Speaker 13 Trying to get a timeline because she said she was with her, but way before she disappeared.

Speaker 13 And then whenever I would get too close to something that She didn't quite have the right answer for yet, she would start crying.

Speaker 13 So that caught me because the waterworks would come when she wanted them to, not when they were appropriate.

Speaker 11 After reviewing Schuyler's phone records, Colbeck asked Sheila why she hadn't called her best friend when she'd gone missing.

Speaker 11 She never called her one time?

Speaker 13 Not after.

Speaker 13 I think there may have been one while she was with Dave and Mary. Say, hey, where are you?

Speaker 13 But then nothing. And she said, well, I've tried to reach out on social media, which she did right after I confronted her about it.
She posted on social media that same day.

Speaker 12 On August 6th, one month after Skylar had vanished, Sheila logged onto Facebook and posted a picture of herself hugging Skylar. She added a brokenheart emoticon and wrote, I want my best friend back.

Speaker 11 And on August 10th, she wrote, all I want is for my best friend to come home. I wish I knew something to give the police, but I don't know anything.
I'd do anything to have her home right now.

Speaker 11 And I wish I knew something like everybody thinks I do. Come home, Skylar.
It's been five weeks too long.

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Speaker 11 It's now mid-August 2012.

Speaker 11 The halls of University High School fill with the sounds of returning students eager to reconnect, carrying backpacks and fresh notebooks, searching the rows of red lockers to find their own.

Speaker 11 Most of the students had gone their own way over the summer, picking up a part-time job or going on a quick vacation at a nearby lake.

Speaker 11 But now that everyone is together, back at school, there's an underlying anxiety. Everyone is talking about Schuyler Nice.

Speaker 12 On August 22nd, the Dominion Post ran the headline, Roll Call for Nice Goes Unanswered.

Speaker 11 The story reads, UHS principal Sherry Burgess said that they'd hoped Schuyler would have turned up by now. They had her schedule, filled with the tough classes she requested, ready to go.

Speaker 11 A couple teachers called her name while taking attendance on the first day, but Skylar wasn't there. Well, that and,

Speaker 11 like, you know how something starts, one person knows something, and then they tell one person, and that person tells two people, and it just keeps going on and on.

Speaker 12 That's Daniel Hovader, back when I spoke with him in 2014. He was Skylar and Rachel's close friend.
He and Rachel were fellow theater rats performing together in school plays and musicals.

Speaker 12 Daniel heard it all. Skylar, Rachel, and Sheila were dealing drugs, and Skylar overdosed.
And so they were really scared, so they ditched her body somewhere.

Speaker 12 There was

Speaker 12 she

Speaker 12 ran away with some person she met on the internet, which I did not. I definitely did not believe that.
Skylar's too smart for that shit.

Speaker 11 The girl's former high school counselor, current county commission president Tom Bloom, was bombarded with speculation.

Speaker 6 The first first rumor was they went to a party, she got wasted, and disappeared, or she left with some people.

Speaker 6 Then it started to say what really happened at that party, you know, and did they do something or did she overdose?

Speaker 13 I was hoping that rumor was the one that was the thing where They went to a party and things got out of hand and something happened and they're too scared to talk.

Speaker 13 That was the initial thought for us of, okay, maybe this rumor is the one that's leaning towards the truth.

Speaker 13 Just because of the circle of friends that they had at the time, there was a predominant drug use through some of them. So it's possible.

Speaker 6 Anything's possible.

Speaker 12 Adding to the endless theories Colbank and company had to comb through were the countless amateur internet detectives on forums like Topics and WebSluce.com. There was at Big Flaw.

Speaker 11 I hope the police interviewed local sex offenders. I only found two from Star City on the West Virginia police website.

Speaker 12 And at Pisces underscore Sun.

Speaker 11 Recently, there was an unconfirmed but possible sighting of Schuyler in Carolina Beach.

Speaker 12 And at Sparky.

Speaker 11 I tend to believe Skylar is alive and in hiding from her parents.

Speaker 12 On August 22nd, a week into junior year and nearly six weeks after Schuyler vanished, Sheila took to Facebook.

Speaker 11 I seriously can't deal with school without you. I miss you too much.

Speaker 12 To which Dave replied, she will be home soon, honey. Love you.

Speaker 11 Love you too.

Speaker 12 At school, the police, the state troopers, and the FBI all took turns showing up to interview students, including Rachel and Sheila.

Speaker 12 Despite Colbank's suspicions, they never wavered from the story they spelled out in their statements.

Speaker 13 Me and Chris, just we had many, many discussions about it, and we just kept saying, these girls know, we just have to keep after them.

Speaker 13 And that's the more pressure we put on them, the matter the parents and the community got for us picking on these girls, like serving the search warrant while they were at school for their phones.

Speaker 13 Even the principal or vice principal at the time said, you know, you guys are really going after these girls. You know, they don't do anything wrong.

Speaker 13 You know, they're just pretty girls that wear short shorts every once in a while, and that's all they get in trouble for.

Speaker 12 Mary and Dave began to actually worry about Sheila and Rachel. With their best friend missing, weren't they suffering too? Add to that the pressures of school and rumors flying.
It was all too much.

Speaker 6 Mary said, call off work tomorrow. We're going to talk to the police.
I said, yeah, I want to talk to them too. I want to tell them to leave them girls alone.

Speaker 6 And she said, that's what I want to talk to them about. They're having those girls day and night, just leave them alone.
They don't know anything. I'm sure of it.
I said, I'm sure of it too, honey.

Speaker 13 Yeah, Dave was very mad that how dare I pick on her friends. They're grieving and everything like that.
And you just, I had that from the community, not just Dave.

Speaker 13 People called and said, you need to leave these girls alone.

Speaker 11 Colbank couldn't, especially since Sheila had begun turning up at the station.

Speaker 13 She would come in the office a couple times

Speaker 13 and she would dress very provocative for her age. And I always thought that was

Speaker 13 unnecessary. You're coming to a police department to find out your best friend.
You don't need a faceful makeup, short shorts, crop top.

Speaker 13 I don't know if she was hoping that would distract the investigation. Quite honestly, for some, it might for guys, but lucky for me, I'm not.

Speaker 13 And it just, it was very awkward, but she was never

Speaker 13 the entire time, it was just crocodile tears. They were so fake that you could see through it.

Speaker 13 You just didn't understand why she felt the need to do it, other than she didn't want to get in trouble for something.

Speaker 6 But she came in all bouncy and bubbly.

Speaker 6 Hair, I was like, I did. I looked at Brian.
I said, you got to fucking kid me. I said, there ain't no way.
And he looked at me and he's like, he's right. And I'm like, this is strange.

Speaker 6 And that was right there would have been our first red flag, but it was kind of one of those red flags we looked over.

Speaker 6 But right there was our first red flag.

Speaker 6 And I'll never forget, I was sitting back, God damn, she lost her best friend? Like that. And I'm kind of elbowing around him.
I'm like, we got to back out and refigure this one.

Speaker 6 Like, there's something. I don't know.
Like, I was getting that bad vibe already.

Speaker 11 Despite Sheila's best efforts to always keep her cool, police were about to make a major discovery.

Speaker 11 In the apartment complex surveillance video was a crucial clue.

Speaker 6 And I said, all right, I'm going to be over.

Speaker 6 I'm going to change clothes, grab some eat, and I'll be over.

Speaker 6 And actually, I grabbed a six pack of beer. And we went upstairs to the office, and they had a big projector screen where they could play the videos.

Speaker 6 And it was nine o'clock at night. And I said, we're going to start this video from beginning to end.
It was four hours long.

Speaker 13 That is the video that we had. It's such a grainy video.

Speaker 6 And we just sat sat there and watched and watched it all the way up till we see Skylar. And I talked to Jessica, I said, what'd you see? She said, Skylar getting out.
I said, yeah.

Speaker 6 See anything else? She goes, no. I said, exactly.
I said, she was dropped off. She was picked up and dropped off.
Why don't we see her coming back to that damn window?

Speaker 6 I was driving down that night on the interstate. I remember I was passing right over the 68 Interstate 68 Bridge across the river.
It just dawned on me. And I called Ronnie, I called Morgan.

Speaker 6 I was like, I just watched the video.

Speaker 6 The only time she left is when she got in that car. No other time she left that house.
I said, I was like, holy shit, she lost cars.

Speaker 11 Next time, on three.

Speaker 14 She was awakened at five o'clock in the morning to screaming, a screaming fight between the three girls.

Speaker 10 I swear we probably almost died a hundred times that night.

Speaker 6 If you know something, you need to let them know because they're going to find out. They're the FBI.
It's not a game anymore, racial.

Speaker 11 Three is an original production of Waveland. The series is created and written by Holly Millay and me, Justine Harmon.
The executive producer is Jason Hoke, who produced and edited the series.

Speaker 11 Associate producers are Lydia Horne and Leo Culp. Fact-checking by Lydia Horn.
Sound engineering by Shane Freeman.

Speaker 11 Music by Robert Ellis. Studio recording at CDM Studios in New York and Wild Woods Picture and Sound in Los Angeles.
Special thanks to Dave and Mary Neese in the city of Morgantown, West Virginia.

Speaker 11 If you love the series, leave a review and please tell your friends. Follow Waveland on Instagram at Waveland Media for more on this series and upcoming news shows.
Thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 Some cases fade from headlines. Some never made it there to begin with.

Speaker 2 I'm Ashley Flowers and on my podcast, The Deck, I tell you the stories of cold cases featured on playing cards distributed in prisons designed to spark new leads and bring long overdue justice.

Speaker 2 Because these stories deserve to be heard, and the loved ones of these victims still deserve answers. Are you ready to be dealt in? Listen to the deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.