MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The horrific murder of a Star City teenager by her so-called best friends is recounted in a network showing on the Oxygen network.
“Snapped, as well as Dateline and 20/20, all the networks have done a pretty good job covering the story. There’s only so much they can
in an hour like that to cover such complex material, but they do a good job,” explained Geoff Fuller, the co-author of Pretty Little Killers.
The book explores the brutal stabbing of Skylar Neese, 16, in July 2012. Fuller, interviewed for the season premiere of Snapped this month, watched the episode after it first aired August 7.
“They essentially took the chronological thread following the story from Skylar’s disappearance to Rachel’s confession and the arrest and conviction of Shelia,” detailed Fuller.
Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy are jailed for Neese’s murder. They attempted to bury her body in a wooded area across the state line in Pennsylvania.
“I think the most chilling aspect of the case is that two teenage girls, apparently well adjusted, did well in school, popular, that they could stab to death their best friend. Toward the end of the episode one of the motivations of the crime may have been an affair between Shelia and Rachel. So, that’s also kind of an unveiled moment,” according to the writer.
Dave Neese, Skylar’s father was interviewed for the show. He explained his daughter and Shoaf had been friends since they were 8 years old. He said when Eddy became a friend, Shoaf and Neese spent less time together.
As details of the crime unfolded, it was reported Shoaf and Eddy killed Neese because they “didn’t like her.”
“They why was a very complex mixture of factors, their personalities, where they were in their lives, what was going on in school and so forth,” deduced Fuller. “The show essentially came down hard on the lesbian affair as being the why.”
The episode of Snapped re-airs on the Oxygen network Saturday, Aug. 13 at 10:00 p.m.