That November, Crissy Swanson fidgeted anxiously in a federal courtroom of the Northern District of West Virginia. She’d been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, and she had no idea what they planned on asking her.
Crissy had been terrified of this day ever since she’d met Berry and Spurlock at the Dollar General store in Blacksville. She remembered the meeting well. It began with a phone call from her mom: “Um, there are two state troopers out here looking for you.”
“Can you ask them why?” Crissy said. “’Cause I know I haven’t done anything.”
“They wanna ask you about the Blacksville bank robbery.”
“I don’t know crap about the Blacksville bank robbery. So send them my way.”
The two plainclothes officers arrived at the Dollar Store, walked up to Crissy, and introduced themselves. She remembers them as Berry and Spurlock, who told her that if she lied, “it’s gonna get you seven years in federal prison.”
“Okay,” she said, slapping her leg with her hand, and suddenly feeling quite warm. “I wasn’t gonna lie to you before, but now I’m really not. What do you want to know?”
Once she got down from the witness stand at the grand jury hearing, Crissy felt waves of relief roll over her. She knew she had been honest and forthright, which was all that mattered, all the United States District Attorney was looking for. She even thought her testimony had helped alleviate suspicions about Shelia, after the DA asked Crissy if Shelia would take a polygraph.
“Oh, Shelia will take a lie detector test,” Crissy said. “Why wouldn’t she? She has nothing to hide.”
When Crissy arrived back home in Fairview, she dialed Tara’s number.
“We called to let her know we were out of grand jury,” Crissy said, adding that she wanted to reassure Tara and Shelia that none of the questions had been too troubling. That was when Tara said something that made Crissy question the loyalty she felt for her cousin.
“I know I shouldn’t say this over the phone. I know they can hear me,” Tara said, reflecting her belief that the phone was tapped. “Shelia came out and said they were out in Brave that night.” The town of Brave is about 3.5 miles west of Blacksville, just over the border in Pennsylvania.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Crissy said. Her anxiety instantly turned to anger. She knew exactly where that was—it was one of the darkest, loneliest stretches of road around. If the girls were out that way and Shelia had lied about it all along. . . . Crissy stopped the track her thoughts were taking. If Shelia had lied about that one thing, what else did she lie about? “You heard this from Shelia?”
“Benninger. He said Shelia had admitted that to him.”
They hung up not long after and that’s when it hit her: Crissy realized Shelia wasn’t the only one stonewalling. She remembered back in September when Tara said, “If Shelia had a passport, we’d be gone.” Then there were all those times Crissy’s mother told her Tara seemed to know details about the crime before anyone else did. Crissy also found it troubling that Tara was giving Shelia alcohol and weed to calm her down, saying she was uptight because the police were harassing her.
Crissy worked at an assisted-living home in Fairmont, about twenty miles southeast of Morgantown. She decided to call Shelia on the way to work, because she had told her she would let her know how the grand jury went. “Then I’m not going to talk to her about it anymore,” Crissy told her mom. “I’m not going to ask any more questions.”
“Good,” Crissy said her mom said. “Because whatever’s going on, you don’t want that on you. Shelia’s lied once. You better just leave it alone.”
Crissy called as she promised. Shelia had only been out of school for about a half hour. “Okay, I have you on speakerphone,” Shelia said. “Rachel’s here with me.”
“Grand jury went fine,” Crissy said. “I really don’t think anything’s weird. You know, they just asked me about the boys.” Crissy had gone back and forth about the question—was the grand jury really convened to look for drugs or Skylar? From the tone of the questions, it sounded like they were looking for drugs. Which is exactly what she told Shelia.
“Oh, okay. Whatever.”
“Shelia, don’t you tell your mom I called you right now, okay? Don’t say anything to her, but I want you to understand that you’re ruining your life.”
Dead silence came from the other end of the line. Finally, Crissy spoke up; the rumors and innuendo had eroded her faith in her cousin.
“This is going to destroy you if you’re lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Even if you have nothing to do with this, you’re going to go to jail if you lie. You can’t lie.”
“I said I’m not lying.”
Crissy couldn’t tell if Shelia was angry, but she still wanted to help her—if she could. “Good, because why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you help Skylar come home?”
“I promise that’s all I know,” Shelia said. “I promise. I would tell you if there was something else. I promise I would.”
With that, Crissy felt like Shelia was leaving her no choice. “Okay, and if there’s anything else, I don’t want to know. I want you to tell the FBI.”
On December 1, Gaskins knew he had the girls. Now it was only a matter of time.
The day before, Rachel had changed her tune. During an interview, she told Gaskins they dropped Skylar off at the Conaway house—not at the end of her street like they had been saying since early July.
Since Shelia had an interview scheduled the same day, Gaskins couldn’t wait to hear what she said. Shelia, though, apparently wasn’t up to speed with Rachel. Her story remained the same. No one tried to contradict her or ask her any questions that might tip her off. They just jotted down her information.
The very next day, Shelia called Benninger and told him she wanted to tell him the truth. Benninger called the U.S. Attorney’s Office to report what his client told him: “They did drop Skylar off at a house in Blacksville.”
Gaskins was elated when he heard the news, because Shelia’s story was identical to Rachel’s. That’s when he knew: Rachel changed her story, but forgot to tell Shelia in time. When Shelia found out, she had no choice but to change hers. The wall of lies was wobbling.
Two days later Tara was leaving a local grocery store with Shelia and Rachel, who each had another appointment with the police. A Fairmont woman27 who recognized the two teens from their photos says that as they were getting into Tara’s car, she overheard them telling Tara what happened to Skylar.
“Skylar got mad,” Rachel started.
Shelia finished. “And ran away—”
The woman says Tara broke in before the two teens could finish the story. “That’s it, right? She ran away and you didn’t see her again? Right, girls?” Tara said, as if telling them not to say anything else.
The girls spoke in unison. “Right.”
Not long after, Shelia and Rachel changed their story again. “We went out to the Brave bridge to smoke pot and Skylar ran off in the woods. We looked for her for hours. We couldn’t find her and had to leave.”
That’s when the girls became official suspects. At the time, investigators believed the two teenage girls were probably terrified to tell the adults the truth: Skylar had died from an accidental overdose.
They had no idea the truth involved murder.
State and federal officers agreed: it was time for a polygraph. The test would help convince one of the girls to reveal the truth. Berry and Gaskins thought it would be Rachel.
Crissy wasn’t the only one thinking about the FBI. So were Jessica Colebank and Chris Berry. It happened the same day Rachel skipped out on her polygraph exam. Both girls were scheduled to take their exams at the WVSP detachment in mid-December.
Tara drove Shelia to the detachment for her exam and Shelia’s lawyer, Mike Benninger, met them there. He and John Angotti, Rachel’s attorney, had already talked with their teenage clients and their parents. Both men felt the girls were well prepared. Even if the questions strayed away from drugs and toward Skylar’s disappearance, Shelia and Rachel had maintained essentially the same story for five months now. Neither attorney was worried.
Shelia’s lawyer wasn’t the first person to talk with her about the polygraph. She and Rachel had repeatedly texted each other, discussing the procedure. Shelia also had a text conversation with Rachel in early November. At the time, Rachel had asked Shelia where she would take the exam.
SHELIA: police station probably gonna fail cause of nerves no big fucking deal
RACHEL: As long as you don’t fail cause you’re lying. You can ask to take it again because you were nervous the first time
SHELIA: oh well im definitely not scared about lying but its not like theyd know the difference lol
She should have been scared. Shelia did “fail” the polygraph. Twice. At least inasmuch as anyone can fail. The test is really scored on a question-by-question basis. The outcome is ambiguous in several ways—that’s why it’s not usually used as evidence in court. Still, Shelia failed hers.
Rachel was another story. She was nervous and jittery while getting ready at her father’s South Park home, a little place near downtown Morgantown. Rusty tried to reassure his daughter as they got into the car. But it did no good. As they drove across the Pleasant Street bridge, Rachel jumped from the moving car—one block away from Angotti’s office. She ran in the opposite direction, down Spruce. Stunned and trapped in traffic, Rusty was powerless to stop her. He watched his daughter run until Rachel disappeared down Spruce Street.
Somehow undetected, Rachel made her way upriver about a mile, to a location where she would find safe haven from her parents and the police. The one place they would never look for her.
Tara’s office. Rachel knew she would be safe there.
When Berry and Gaskins heard what happened, they suspected Rachel’s actions were those of someone with a guilty conscience. They began making calls and looking at all the places they thought she might be. They desperately wanted to go after her and were trying to determine if she met the status of a runaway.
Colebank told Berry that Tara was coming to see her after work to get Shelia’s electronics back, so she wouldn’t be able to sit in on Rachel’s polygraph exam at the detachment like she planned.
Instead Colebank went home to get her son from the bus after her shift ended at four, and then returned to the station to wait for Tara. She didn’t learn until Berry showed up that Rachel skipped out on her polygraph.
“Yeah, Rachel didn’t show,” Berry said when he dropped by. “Maybe Tara can tell us where she is.”
“Good, let’s see what Tara knows,” Colebank said.
The city officer had all of Shelia’s electronics ready when Tara arrived, but she was determined to get as much information as she could before she released them. “By the way, you know Rachel’s missing, right?”
“No she’s not. Rachel’s down in the car with Shelia,” Tara said.
“What’s she doing with her?” Colebank said. Her eyes met Berry’s. “She’s supposed to take her polygraph.”
“Well, she’s hanging out with Shelia now.”
“We need to take her over to the State Police detachment before they list her as a runaway.”
“Her dad knows she’s with me.”
Colebank was pissed. So was Berry. They both believed the more the two teens were together, the less chance they had of finding Skylar. They also knew they couldn’t question either girl without their attorney present.
That’s when Colebank realized: Tara doesn’t have an attorney. I can question her.
“Tara, why are you helping them lie?”
“I have nothing to do with what these girls are doing,” Tara said.
“Christmas is coming up. How would you feel if your child was missing at Christmas? You need to end this.”
“Me? I told you they don’t know anything.”
“You need to try and appeal to them as a mother. Step up and if they did something, we can deal with it.” As a mother herself, Colebank thought this approach was worth a try. “I want Skylar brought home. So does everybody else.”
“We do too!” Tara said. Colebank believed her distress was genuine. The strain showed on her face as it increasingly had for the last few months. She wasn’t yet sure why Tara was so worn down. Was it from the pressure to learn something—or to hide something?
“How can you do this?” Tara continued. “You guys are ruining their lives. They’re getting harassed and picked on at school. All their friends are accusing them. The whole town’s accusing them. They don’t know anything.”
That’s when Colebank snapped. She was tired of how Tara coddled Shelia. She had seen enough of Shelia’s arrogance and Tara’s constant defensiveness and accusations. Whenever she or Spurlock got close to something, either Tara or Benninger would shut down the interview.
“You are her tool and she is using you to hide from us,” Colebank said. “These girls know exactly where Skylar is. You are an idiot if you have not seen that by now, after all the evidence you know we have.”
While Colebank was dealing with Tara, Berry texted Gaskins, asking if they could hold Rachel and take her to the detachment. He was waiting for a reply when the confrontation occurred.
As Shelia’s parent, Tara had been present for many of the interviews and had spoken to Colebank and Spurlock. They pointed out inconsistencies and small changes in the story. Tara refused to listen, refused to see the obvious.
“I just can’t believe it,” Tara said.
“Well, you need to open your eyes and believe it because those girls did something to her and know exactly where she is. She is dead,” Colebank said. “Wherever she is, she is dead, and they know where she’s at. You need to end this for Dave and Mary’s family.”
Tara began crying and left the building.
“Like daughter, like mother,” Colebank said to Berry.
They wanted nothing more than to follow Tara out and yank Rachel from the car. Make the truant teen wait there until her parents showed up to take her home. But they couldn’t. The minute Tara told Colebank and Berry that Rusty knew Rachel was with her, they couldn’t do a thing. It didn’t take Colebank long to figure out her heated discussion with Tara had made her the first law enforcement casualty of the investigation. She realized it the next time she called Gaskins and Berry to ask what their day’s agenda included—and no one called her back.
Whoever Josie Snyder was, she had very good sources. Even the police thought so. They followed Josie’s online harassment of Rachel and Shelia. Trooper Berry felt certain she knew something about the case. He tried unsuccessfully to get a warrant to learn her identity, prompting Josie to go dark for a while.
Then after nothing but stony silence since November 21, Josie came alive the evening of December 16 with a series of colorful tweets. They were addressed to Mia Barr, but everyone familiar with the case knew they were really subtweets for Shelia and Rachel.
At 6:31 that evening Josie tweeted: failed lie detector. no shit no one gonna come out and say the truth how ya purposely od ur bff.
Josie clearly believed Shelia and Rachel had killed Skylar by causing her to overdose.
Josie tweeted again at 6:59: oooh no no! Hiding from po po.
Nine minutes later, at 7:08, possibly in reply to a text message from Mia Barr, Josie’s third tweet was nothing if not ominous: no but one failed, one hiding out so the one that failed doesnt take care of business like she has witnessed #bffscaredofbff.
There was no mistaking what Josie meant: she thought Rachel was in hiding so Shelia wouldn’t kill her. Of course that really meant Josie had no clue that Rachel had run to Shelia, not away from her.