I can't recall when I specifically first heard of this tragedy, but the moment I saw the title and docuseries trailer for Disney+ and Hulu's Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese, I remembered exactly how this story was going to end. With that in mind, it made the viewing experience all the more intense and somewhat personal.
Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese, episode 1, titled "The Disappearance," sets the stage for the events leading up to Neese's murder. The episode flips back and forth between the months leading up to Skylar Neese's disappearance and the disappearance itself.
Skylar Neese was a 16-year-old student of University High School in Star City, West Virginia. The first episode of the docuseries uses that to its advantage by using fonts, imagery, and trends that bring audiences back to 2012.
At times, we hear from Skylar herself through a narrator from diary entries or from her friends via social media posts. This puts a more intimate spin on the story, reminding audiences that she was but a teenager when she was killed. She was focused on her job, school, partying, and living a carefree life with no real fear of consequences.
Throughout, we see interviews with Skylar's mother, father, and several classmates, including those who were her friends. Of all her friends, she was the closest with wild child Sheila Eddy and religious Rachel Shoaf. It is made quite apparent that all three were inseparable and chaotic. Considering this is 2012, during the height of the social media emergence of sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, there is plenty of evidence for it.
There is also evidence of when things turned south. As Sheila and Rachel seemed to become closer, attracting all the boys, Skylar felt as though she was being pushed out.
She had come to argue quite intensely with Sheila online, as evidenced by several tweets on Twitter. The first episode does paint a picture of how the friendship became turbulent, but the specific details remain a mystery for now.
On July 6, 2012, Skylar's parents realized their daughter was not sleeping in her bed. Their first thought was to contact her close friends, Sheila and Rachel. Sheila admits that they had all hung out but dropped off Skylar a few blocks away from her home at midnight the night before. Rachel is unreachable at first due to her attending a church camp.
Preferring not to panic, Skylar's parents waited to see if she would show up for her part-time job at Wendy's. When they received the call that Skylar did not arrive, they knew something was wrong.
From there, like a chain reaction, everyone started sharing the news that Skylar was missing. For Star City, this was unheard of, and soon it became the subject of discussion for everyone at school.
Knowing that Skylar would never run away, the first theory was that she had to have been kidnapped. The internet was new, and Skylar's parents weren't aware or concerned about who she could be talking to online. However, once surveillance video of the apartment complex Skylar lived in with her parents was reviewed, it was revealed that she willingly got into a vehicle.
But the footage was far from helpful in regard to identifying the vehicle and license plate. Thankfully, footage from a nearby Sheetz surveillance camera was far clearer, revealing the vehicle to be Sheila's.
Considering Sheila and Rachel were Skylar's best friends, they would be the ones to know the most about her. Police focused on them, soon realizing their stories were coming off as rehearsed or flat-out incorrect when directing police as to the exact route they took the night before Skylar's disappearance.
Witnessing Sheila act far from concerned over her best friend's disappearance was an immediate red flag. By looking through cell phone records, the police were able to learn that the girls had lied. It wasn't midnight but 4 AM. What could this mean?
Stream Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese docuseries on Hulu and Disney+.