On July 9, WBOY, one of three area TV stations, told viewers a local girl was missing. That same day, WAJR, a radio station with a popular call-in show, tweeted Police looking for a missing Star City teen.
One day later, The Dominion Post ran its own story. “Police, Family Seek Missing 16-year-old,” read the headline in the July 10 edition. The story described the teenager and the clothing she was last seen wearing. It also quoted Dave, who said Skylar’s cell phone was “shut off or out of power.”
The article ended on a poignant note, relaying the distraught father’s message for his missing daughter: Just come home, baby.
As the media geared up to cover the story, the Star City Police Department received good news: Skylar had been spotted in Carolina Beach, North Carolina. She was reportedly seen hanging around a boardwalk with an unidentified red-haired girl. A local woman with West Virginia connections had learned about Skylar on Facebook and called in the tip.
Colebank was skeptical. She had read Skylar’s Twitter feed, and those of Shelia and Rachel. She saw the constant online arguing between them. But it was the June 9 tweets that really captured the young officer’s attention. Skylar had been angry at someone but she wasn’t willing to name them publicly, so she subtweeted, youre just as bad as the bitches you complain about, and a liar, and well now im too fucking annoyed to sleep.
As she read them again, looking for any clue, Colebank realized Skylar’s tweets were growing angrier by the second: fuucckk yoouu.., then and no I do not type like that, which made it sound like perhaps Skylar was texting someone—or receiving texts at the same time she was tweeting. If so, it was a really good way to hide a private conversation, while blaring your anger about that person through tweets. Then there was Skylar’s final tweet from the argument—and it sounded like she got the last word: just know I know.
Colebank leaned forward in her chair, eagerly staring at Skylar’s Twitter feed. “Know what, Skylar? What did you know?” she mused, talking to the computer.
Colebank did not believe Skylar was a runaway so she doubted the teenager would surface in North Carolina. She’d been wrong before, though, and she fervently hoped she was wrong this time.
While Carolina Beach police tried to track down the lead, Colebank phoned the Neeses. Dave answered.
“Who has red hair, Dave?” Not having met her, Colebank didn’t know about Rachel Shoaf’s trademark tresses.
“That’d be Rachel. Why?”
“We may have something. I’ll call you back.”
Next, Colebank called church camp officials. It was possible Rachel had left camp, and she and Skylar had taken a mini-vacation. Maybe they were skipping out on their responsibilities and worrying their parents, acting like typical teenagers. She hoped so.
Colebank lost her optimism when camp officials put Rachel on the line. Skylar’s other best friend claimed she didn’t know the teen was missing. Colebank found that odd. Even if Rachel was out of touch at camp, she could have learned the news almost any time Friday before she left Morgantown. Rachel suggested Colebank call Shelia, saying she wasn’t as close to Skylar as Shelia was. Colebank said she would. Before hanging up, the young officer asked Rachel to stop by the department when she returned to Morgantown.
“I will,” Rachel promised.
She never did.
Despite the absence of an AMBER Alert in Skylar’s case and the lack of widespread media coverage, the news was spreading. Momentum was building on social media, especially on Facebook. More and more people were sharing Skylar’s MISSING poster. On Thursday, July 12, Joanne’s daughter, Rikki Woodall, posted the following:
Hey family—I’m Al & Nina’s granddaughter—my cousin Skylar Neese (on my other side of the family) went missing last week. . . . She’s a wild one, so we’re hoping it’s an extended teenage party break, but the thought of it being something else is terrifying. Would you mind please sharing this? I normally don’t share things like this, but she’s local in Morgantown area, and she’s my family. I appreciate the help!!
In truth, Rikki did not know her cousin at all. Mary and Dave said they had never met. Despite her concern, Rikki was hardly an insider and her knowledge of the teen was based primarily on what was broadcast through social media.
Oftentimes, social media communication conceals as much as it reveals. It’s not necessarily about conveying the full truth so much as sustaining a public image and managing that image. By all accounts, Skylar wanted to be seen as a wild child, but she wasn’t, not really. Not to say she didn’t occasionally get drunk or smoke weed, because she did. Accounts of her drug use vary—some teens maintain it was confined to marijuana and alcohol, while others said Skylar used other substances. In truth, the wild child image Rikki Woodall disseminated appears to have been largely manufactured by Skylar herself.
Skylar looked up to Shelia—even though she had a questionable reputation. As a result of their association with Shelia, many teens thought both Skylar and Rachel were hanging with the wrong crowd—and even tried to tell them. It did little good, since both girls loved the excitement they felt whenever they were with Shelia.
At various parties she attended, Skylar was often seen sitting on a couch by herself, playing with her phone or her iPod. Rachel was often absent from the party scene; her mother almost always refused to let her go with the other two girls. So while Shelia and her crowd were all drinking, drugging, and making out, Skylar was on Twitter.
Like so many teenagers, she wanted to be perceived as “cool.” Her tweets and Facebook posts reveal a girl who just wanted to have fun. At the same time, they concealed Skylar’s true nature. They obscured the girl who was insightful, had exceptional writing skills, and planned to be a criminal lawyer. This was the real Skylar, the one whose peers said was by far the smartest person in her social circle, the Skylar who was a rock for the friends who depended on her.
Not long after Skylar disappeared, Carol Michaud went to the beauty salon to have her hair done. She learned Shelia went there, too, and that’s when the beautician told Skylar’s aunt an odd story.
“She said she hung one of the MISSING posters in her shop, but someone took it down,” Carol said.
The shop owner later said she remembered the day she hung it near the front entrance, “with tape on all four corners, so clients would see it as they were leaving.”
One day when the owner went to the foyer, the MISSING poster was “just gone. I stood and stared for full two minutes,” she said.
She knew the poster had been there earlier, and said she was confused about why it was gone. The poster couldn’t have fallen down. Then she remembered: Shelia and her mom were there earlier, when Shelia had her hair highlighted.
Looking back, Carol had to wonder whether Shelia took it down to keep people from connecting the dots to her and Rachel. But the salon owner has another theory: she believes Tara could have removed it, “because she didn’t want Shelia upset over seeing it there.”
It wasn’t the first time someone noticed Skylar’s MISSING posters were being removed. Many volunteers who spent hours every day hanging up posters began to wonder what was happening to them. They kept disappearing. Was someone following behind and taking them down as fast as the volunteers were putting them up? The MISSING posters had been removed at more than one local grocery store. Dave’s aunt Joanne said it had happened repeatedly in Sabraton, too.
It turned into another mystery, since no one could say who was behind it.