‘Friends Like These’: What Happened to Skylar Neese & How Her Case Inspired a New Law

Hulu has another true-crime docuseries on deck: Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese premieres on Friday, March 6, and “immerses viewers in the emotional intensity of adolescence,” the streamer says.

“From the thrill of rebellion to the fragility of friendship, this three-part series captures the pressures of growing up in the digital age — and the devastating consequences when love turns to hate,” Hulu’s logline adds.

Neese died more than 13 years ago at age 16, but she lives on through her namesake law. Read about both the crime and Neese’s legacy below.

Skylar Neese never came home after a night out.

Skylar Neese was a high sophomore with a 4.0 grade point average, a part-time job at a fast food restaurant, and a thriving social life that included her best friends Sheila Eddy and Rachel Shoaf, as ABC News reported in 2014.

“Skylar was a very bubbly person,” father Dave Neese said on 20/20. “She was also very loyal to her friends, the people she thought [were] her friends.”

On the morning of July 6, 2012, Dave found Skylar’s bedroom empty at the family’s apartment in Star City, West Virginia. Skylar had snuck out overnight and hadn’t returned.

The Neeses reported Skylar missing later that day, and Eddy called them to offer an explanation. “She proceeded to tell me that her, Skylar, and Rachel had snuck out the night before and that they had driven around Star City, were getting high, and that the two girls had dropped her back off at the house,” mother Mary Neese told 20/20. “The story was they had dropped her off at the end of the road, because she didn’t want to wake us up sneaking back in.”

As the days passed, police heard rumors Skylar died of a heroin overdose at a house party and other revelers panicked and hid her body.

It turned out Skylar had been murdered by her formerly best friends.

The tide turned when authorities questioned Eddy and Shoaf. Jessica Colebank, a Star City police officer who worked on the case, told 20/20 that Eddy was emotionless during questioning, Rachel was very nervous, and the two girls’ stories and recollections of that night were too much of a match.

“Their stories were verbatim, the same. No one’s story is exactly the same, unless it’s rehearsed,” Colebank said. “Everything in my gut was, ‘Sheila is acting wrong. Rachel is scared to death.’”

Ultimately, surveillance footage and cell phone records contradicted Eddy and Shoaf’s stories. And on December 28, 2012, Shoaf suffered a nervous breakdown and was checked into a psychiatric hospital, and nearly a week later, she confessed to police that she and Eddy had stabbed Skylar to death. She also helped lead investigators to Skylar’s body.

Skylar’s remains were found in Wayne Township, Pennsylvania, on January 16, 2013, as CBS News reported. Between the discovery of the body and the finding of Skylar’s blood on Eddy’s car, police had enough evidence to arrest both girls, according to ABC News.

“We never encountered anything that led us to believe that these two girls conspired with one another to commit premeditated murder,” State Police Corporal Ronnie Gaskin told 20/20. “We asked Rachel, ‘Why did you guys kill Skylar?’ And her only answer to that was, ‘We just didn’t like her.’”

Eddy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced in January 2014 to life in prison with a possibility of parole, according to the Daily News. Shoaf pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 30 years in February 2014, according to the West Virginia Press. The two women are being held in the Lakin Correctional Center in West Columbia, West Virginia. Shoaf was denied parole in 2023 and 2024 and will be eligible for another hearing this June, while Eddy will be eligible for her first parole hearing in 2028, according to WBOY.

After Skylar’s death, a law in her name expanded West Virginia’s Amber Alert program.

The Neese family helped push West Virginia legislators to approve Skylar’s Law, which went into effect in the state in 2013.

Under Skylar’s Law, state police can issue an Amber Alert for any missing children in danger, not possible abductees, according to WPXI. In Skylar’s case, authorities initially considered the teen a runaway and did not issue an Amber Alert, as West Virginia MetroNews reported.

“Would it have helped Skylar? Probably not. It may help someone else down the road,” Dave Neese said, per WPXI.

Charlene Marshall, then a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, sponsored the bill. “We need to be out there right away and be working to search for whatever child might be missing,” she said.

“[Dave Neese] does not want to see another family go through what he and his wife and the remainder of the family has gone through,” Marshall added, per MetroNews. “I think this is something we need to do to show the youth of West Virginia, parents and children, that we are definitely behind our young people.”

Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese, Series Premiere, Friday, March 6, Hulu