MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Monongalia County teenager Rachel Shoaf will spend her 30-year prison sentence in an adult prison.
Circuit Judge Russell Clawges entered an order Wednesday after Shoaf waived her right to a hearing that was originally scheduled for Thursday.
Shoaf, who turns 18 on June 10, pleaded guilty in May 2013 to second-degree murder in the death of Star City teenager Skylar Neese. She was sentenced in February and sent back to a juvenile facility until she turned 18. She was scheduled to be back in court Thursday for Judge Clawges to decide if she should be transferred to an adult prison or stay in a juvenile facility for an additional period of time.
Shoaf waived her right to a hearing and entered an agreed to order.
Shoaf will be sent to the state’s Lakin Prison for women in Mason County sometime after July 25. Co-defendant Shelia Eddy is already a prisoner there, having pleaded guilty to first-degree murder with mercy.
Clawges denied Shoaf’s motion for the reduction and modification of her sentence. Shoaf will have a chance for parole in 10 years and Eddy in 15.
An honor student at University High, Neese disappeared July 6, 2012, after sneaking out the bedroom window of her parent’s apartment in Star City to meet up with Eddy and Shoaf. When she did not return home and failed to show up for her job at Wendy’s the next day, authorities presumed Neese had run away. However, her parents immediately suspected foul play.
Eddy and Shoaf drove Neese to Greene County, Pa., about 30 miles west of Morgantown, where they coordinated the fatal stabbing with kitchen knives and tried to bury her body. Instead, they covered Neese’s body with branches in a ditch, where it remained undiscovered until Shoaf led police back to the scene seven months later.