Rachel Shoaf goes up for parole next week

May 2—On a February day back in 1996, Dave Neese's eyes welled, as he regarded his newborn daughter with a whisper and awe.

"Hey, baby girl, " he said, stroking Skylar's cheek.

"It's me. I'm your daddy. Happy Birthday."

On a February day back in 2014, his eyes were lasers — as they bore into the back of the head of one of the people who confessed to Skylar's murder two years before.

Rachel Shoaf, Case No. 13-F-88.

The then-17-year-old was wearing handcuffs, shackles and jail-issued coveralls, as bailiffs led her into a Monongalia County court room for her sentencing.

Shoaf, who comes up for her first parole hearing next week, turned in the direction of Neese and his wife and Skylar's mother, Mary.

She began reading from a sheet of paper.

"I am so sorry, " Shoaf began, in a quavering voice.

"There are not enough words to describe the guilt and remorse I feel each day for what I have done, " she continued.

"The person who did that was not the real me."

Her counsel reiterated that it was Shoaf who made the initial confession that also led to the arrest and additional murder charge for Sheila Eddy in the case.

It was Shoaf, her attorneys continued, who showed genuine remorse.

And, they said, she fully cooperated with the investigation, leading police to a backroad just over the Pennsylvania state line where the killing occurred.

Yes, Dave Neese acknowledged when it was his turn to talk, Shoaf did do all that.

And something else.

"She murdered my daughter in cold blood, " he said.

"She can take her apologies and everything else and sit on them, because that's about what they're worth."

Skylar, Shoaf and Eddy were a once-solid trio of friends at University High School, where they were popular and smart with the books.

All three were honor students and Skylar, in fact, already had her compass set on law school.

Shoaf and Eddy were fixtures in the Neese household, often spending weekend sleepovers there.

Both made it a point, Dave Neese said, to assist in the search in the first hours and days after it was discovered Skylar had gone missing.

"That's sick, " he said. "That's evil."

Skylar crawled out of her bedroom window of the family's Star City apartment the evening of July 6, 2012, to duck into a car with her friends.

They drove W.Va. 7, taking an unmarked turn that put them in rural Greene County, Pa., where a passenger didn't know a fatal plan was in the works.

Using kitchen knives smuggled from home, Shoaf and Eddy counted to three — and started stabbing.

Both are now housed in the Lakin Correctional Center in Mason County.

The now-inmates entered guilty pleas with weighty penalties: Life in prison for Eddy with a possibility for parole.

Thirty years for Shoaf, with, as said, her first chance of parole in the works.

That happens at 10:30 a.m. May 9.

Neese will deliver a statement remotely as part of the proceedings — "I have some things I want to say to Inmate Shoaf."

Skylar, he said, would have changed the world, had her life not been robbed from her.

"She would have become an attorney, like she dreamed. She had this sense of what was right. She wanted to put bad people away."

He wants to put the bad memories away, he said, but he knows he'll never really be able.

Still, there are good memories, though.

And still, they can peek out, he said, like spring shoots through the snow.

Sometimes, that's enough for the moment. Sometimes.

The murder site is now a makeshift memorial, where bouquets of store-bought flowers and knick-knacks can be found adorning the hallowed place on any given day, no matter the weather.

Even as he and Mary tiptoe around the void, they take in those tiny overtures like oxygen.

The K-9 dog working the scene in the hours after the confession wasn't having any luck — until her GPS collar snapped.

For no apparent reason, Neese said.

The broken collar landed square on top of the remains, he said.

Later, the dog's handlers retired her from the service. When the pooch had a litter of pups, one of them was named "Sky, " in honor of the young victim.

"I was really touched by that, " Neese said.

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