- New podcast 'Three' details the 2012 murder of 16-year-old Skyler Neese in West Virginia
- The celebrity-supported podcast tells the story of how Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf murdered their friend to prevent their relationship from being revealed.
- Now, Skylar's father Dave has spoken to DailyMail.com about his reaction to the podcast and the nightmare he's lived through for 10 years.
The father of a murdered 16-year-old boy has spoken out about a new podcast that talks about the despicable murder of his only daughter by the teenager's “best friend.”
“Every time I talk about it, it hits me on the nerves. It brings me more hate,” Dave Neese exclusively told DailyMail.com about reliving the murder of his daughter Skyler. .
In 2011, Schuyler was stabbed to death on July 6, 2012, while out with close friends Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy. They left her body in the woods along the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border and later returned to her home to lead the search for her best friend. It was only after one of them confessed that the case was exposed and the teenage murderers were sent to prison.
Now, Schuyler's story has come back into the spotlight on the popular celebrity podcast Three, just as the story has faded and she's starting to get attention from the Nice family.
“I don't want to put the hell I went through on the two girls who put me through it. They took my soul and they had no right to do that,” Dave said. Nice said.
While some grieving families may be upset that the story is being told again after more than a decade, Neese has embraced the podcast and credits the production for accurately telling Schuyler's story. He said he is grateful to the people.
“This is very accurate, and it's important that this story is out there as we approach Mr. Shoaf's next parole hearing on May 1,” he said.
Three is a 10-part podcast created by award-winning journalists Justin Herman and Holly Millea that once again shocked the nation with the brutality of the girls' crimes and featured celebrities such as Billy Bob Thornton. We brought in listeners.
“In a way, it helps tell Schuyler's story,” Neese said when interviewed on the podcast.
The podcast also features DailyMail.com editor Alex Lang, who has covered this story locally for many years.
Schuyler's devoted father told DailyMail.com that he was “shocked” by listeners' response to the podcast and his daughter's story.
“They didn't discuss or communicate, they just put out the facts,” Nice said.
“I've done a lot of other podcasts, and there were always so many mistakes, sometimes 30 or 40.”
Prosecutors have not specified a motive for the killing, but Schuyler stabbed the 16-year-old student at University High School in Morgantown, West Virginia, to death because she feared Shoaf and Eddy would reveal their lesbian relationship. The common theory is that it was done.
“I want parents listening to this podcast to learn that if there's a change in their child's behavior, they can figure out why. It could be something deeper,” Nice said.
“I hope the teens listening to this learn that knowing who your friends are is a really important lesson,” he said.
“Trust is too easily given. Don't give trust until you have earned it.”
On July 6, 2012, Schuyler snuck out of her second-floor apartment to meet Shoaf and Eddie. The trio were close, frequently sharing photos on social media, and spent the night together forever as high school girls.
What Skyler didn't know was that the girls were already planning a sinister plan.
They hid knives under their clothes and planned to attack Schuyler, even pre-planning their words to start the melee.
Skyler met the two girls in the shadows and jumped into Eddie's car, unaware of what was planned. The three took a short drive through the community that is home to West Virginia University and smoked marijuana.
They eventually drove to a rural area known as Blacksville and into Pennsylvania.
There, the three got out of the car, talked for a while, and then launched a brutal attack along a dirt road.
The two men took shovels and planned to bury Schuyler's body, but authorities said they did not have enough force to break through the ground. There they pulled her body from the road and covered her with debris.
Shoaf and Eddie went back to the house and pretended as if they didn't know anything.
When news of Skyler's disappearance broke, Shoaf and Eddie played the roles of concerned friends. They cried with Dave and his wife Mary. They attended a vigil. They helped with the search. Knowing what they did.
Schauf tweeted, “Where's @highastheSky?” The two teenagers, who used the name Skyler on Twitter, continued to post chilling messages on social media in the months after the killings.
The day after the murder, Shoaf was photographed smiling and posing in a bikini on a boat on the beach.
Sightings of Skyler were reported all over the country, but none of them were true, and the case was eventually solved.
It was inside his attorney's office on a cold day in January 2013, six months after the murder, that Shoaf confessed to police what the two had done and led investigators to Schuyler's body.
Eddie was then quickly arrested outside the city's Cracker Barrel restaurant.
Shoaf initially told investigators that he killed Schuyler because she and Eddie no longer wanted to be friends.
The two killers ultimately pleaded guilty to murder. Shoaf was sentenced to 30 years in prison and will be eligible for parole after 10 years. Eddie was sentenced to life in prison with mercy, which meant he could be eligible for parole after 15 years.
Shoaf first sought parole last year, but was denied. She will maintain her parole eligibility with a new hearing each year until she is released or serves time served.
Nice vowed to attend all parole hearings and oppose the release of her daughter's killer.
“The punishment did not fit the crime,” Nice said.
“Whatever you give, you get what you get. If you end your life again, you deserve to spend the rest of your life in prison.”
At his parole hearing last year, Shoaf apologized for the murder, telling the court: “Words cannot express how sorry I am for what I did and the pain I caused.”
“I loved her. I know what we did was terrible and there are no words to explain the pain we caused.”
“After the relationship became public, there was tension between us,” Shoaf said.
“It was hostile and violent. In our teenage minds, we didn't know how to deal with this conflict and just wanted it to stop.”
Shoaf's co-defendant Eddie will be eligible for parole for the first time in 2028. Nice also vowed to be an advocate for her daughter.
“I made one mistake, but that doesn't make me the bad guy,” Nice recalled Eddie telling the court during his 2013 sentencing hearing.
“I still grind my teeth,” Nice said. “She didn't make her mistake, she made the choice to take another person's life.”
“Eddie Girl has no soul. She is sick and there are sick and dangerous animals in cages,” he added.
After the first parole hearing, recording of the new podcast began.
Dave Neese admitted he felt angry in the years after the murder. However, over time his mood changed.
“I had to learn how to express hate in a positive way,” he said. “I was consumed by it for four years. People couldn't be around me and I was just filled with hate.
“But then I realized I could die of hubris, or I could make things better.
“Thanks to this podcast, Skyler's story is now more visible than ever.
“My wife and I are very grateful to the journalists who produced this. They did it in a very kind and thoughtful way.”
In addition to filming the podcast, Nice poured his energy into passes and events. Schuyler's Law went into effect in West Virginia, making it easier to issue an Amber Alert for a missing child.
Traditionally, alerts have only been issued when there is a concern for the safety of a child. Schuyler was initially thought to be a fugitive.
He's also working on Skylar's Promise, which encourages anyone who hears something that doesn't seem right to tell someone about it.
“If people had done their jobs, like the high school principal, this might not have happened, but they didn't and she died,” Nice told DailyMail.com. Told.
“Mary and I want to make sure that no one ever has to go through the hell that we went through,” Neese said of her hope for the podcast's impact.
While Nice has found ways to cope with his grief and keep his daughter's story alive, his wife, Mary, continues to struggle deeply.
“Her mother's condition is not very good,” Nice said. “When Skylar was killed, we were killed too. Mary had health issues, but she doesn't care anymore.
“We lost the only thing we really loved besides each other. When you lose something like that, you can't prepare for it.
“Skyler was a good kid. No one has the right to decide who lives and who dies, especially a 16-year-old girl.”
