Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Murder and Mimosas I'm Shannon and I'm Danica.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Are you looking for a unique twist on your true
crime podcast? Join us on Murder and Mimosis, where a
dynamic mom and daughter duo dolve into its chilling crime stories.
Off sippy Mimosis.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Each Saturday, we mix our favorite bruns, drink, and dive
into some of the most intriguing true crime cases. Are
casual yet captivating conversations blend our Southern sarcasm with fresh perspectives.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
So pour yourself with Mimosis, get cozy, and tune in
as we uncover the darker side of humanity together.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Dark Cast Network the best in indie podcasts. Check out
all of the great dark Cast shows at darkastnetwork dot com.
Hey there, I'm some and it's now time for Rainbow
crimes and hopefully some Unicorn justice.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Hi. This is Courtney from the Book of the Dead podcast.
The Dictionary definition of a frenemy is a person who
is or pretends to be a friend, but who is
also in some ways an enemy or rival. According to
Psychology Today magazine, there are three types of frenemies. The
ambivalent relationship where you feel competitive with your friend or
(01:45):
your friend has hurt you in the past and you've
lost trust. The second type is the involuntary friendship. This
would be someone who is part of your circle of friends,
but you don't really like this person and would break
the friendship off if you could. Unfortunately, by doing so,
it would impact your friendships with others in your circle. Lastly,
(02:08):
there is the long term FRONTEMI. This is someone you've
been in a friendship with for a very long time
and don't want to give it up, purely due to
the length of history between the two of you. For
those listening, perhaps you can relate to one or all
of these categorizations, or maybe you've never had a front
of me. However, the two young ladies in this episode
(02:30):
both were involved in front of me relationships that had
deadly results. Now with that brief teaser, let's get into
this episode's collaboration. The two men in their fifties had
bodies of teenaged boys. They were fit and definitely in
good shape.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Now.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
They have gone hiking together several times a year and
had been friends since they were in grade school in
the San Fernando Valley in California. Many of their hikes
were in the Angelus National Forest, and early on they
had found a hiking area called Camp Colby. Now, this
land had been owned by a family with the last
name Colby, and it was a beautiful nature retreat. During
(03:15):
camping season, it was a family camp where families could
go and participate in arts and crafts, archery, ping pong,
and counselors, let hikes. All sorts of fun activities happened here.
During the off season, the camp was closed, but for
the few hikers lucky enough to find it, it was
(03:37):
a sacred gem of becoming one with the outdoors. Camp
Colby was a bit of a drive and it was
very remote, which is what made its surprise for avid
outdoors men and women. However, by the mid eighties, teenagers
have been encroaching upon the camp to party with drugs
(03:58):
and alcohol, purely because these kids knew police wouldn't be
venturing out there to break up their parties. It is
true that there was a nearby ranger station, but they
never really did anything about the rowdy teens during the
off season, which we'll see was a very serious lapse
in safety protocols. Still, these two male hikers enjoyed their
(04:22):
quiet time hiking the trails near the camp on October fourth,
nineteen eighty five. They met up and ate a hearty breakfast,
and then they took their drive to Camp Colby for
another day of hiking. Once at the camp, the men
got out of the car they drove up in, grabbed
the backpacks that contained everything they needed to sustain them
(04:43):
out in the wild for days if necessary, and they
began their journey. The easiest part of the trail they
were taking was first. It took them to a foot
bridge over a creek, and the men felt fortunate that
the rains of fall had not moved in yet and
the ground was still pretty dry. Even the creek was
moderately more shallow than it usually was for that time
(05:04):
of year. The men knew this trail very well, and
Bullet noticed one part of the bridge, where normally a
large tree trunk lay in the creek, was empty. For
some reason, the downtree log was no longer there. Now.
Both men thought that that was strange, so the hiker
and the lead looked around in the water for the
(05:25):
missing log when something caught his eye. He turned to
his friend and said, I see the missing tree, but
I think there's a body under it. His friend looked
in the direction of the missing tree and he told
his friend, no, that's just some random clothing. You know,
how these kids come up here are with their drugs
and alcohol. They probably got high and forgot to put
(05:48):
their clothes back on. Still, the two men moved in
for a closer look. To their horror, what they discovered
was a body, face down in the world with the
log on top. The body appeared to be that of
a girl. Petite, maybe she was even a small child.
(06:08):
She looked so tiny. Holding back the nausea that overcame them,
the two men headed for the ranger shack. Panicked, they
flew inside and started to tell the ranger on duty
what they had found. The ranger asked the men if
they could go back to where the body was and
wait for law enforcement. So the men said they would,
(06:29):
and then the ranger called for help. He first called
for another ranger who was on duty to go wait
with the men, and then he called the sheriff's department.
Days earlier, on October one, nineteen eighty five, irene A
Villa's seventeen year old daughter, Missy, had just come into
the house after being dropped off by her boyfriend. The
(06:52):
two had a very close bond that often seemed more
like gray friends than mother and daughter, and Missy told
her mom she was going to jump in the shower
and wash her hair because Laura was on her way
over to pick her up. Irene wasn't thrial. She thought
that Missy and Laura had a falling out, but Missy
said they had talked the day before and everything was fine.
(07:14):
Now Laura and her boyfriend Vic had just broken up,
and the truth of the matter was Vic broke up
with Laura because Laura was too possessive. At first, Laura
had blamed Missy for the breakup. She thought Missy and
Vick were missing around together, but Missy and Vick were
just friends. Missy now wanted to make sure that she
(07:36):
was there for her plain looking, red headed friend Laura.
Should Laura need an ear. Maybe she could even help
Laura get back together with Vic. Missy was a petite
and very pretty girl. She was popular at school, and
she also attracted many boys. This fact alone could go
(07:57):
either way with her friends made them happy because that
meant with more boys around, surely one of them would
be interested in one of the other girls or it
made them mad and jealous because Missy always got attention.
Missy and her friends lived in Arleta, California, which is
(08:19):
a neighborhood in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley region, and
around three pm, Irene's daughter, Michelle Yvette Evella, who went
by Missy, was still in her bedroom when her friend
Laura Doyle showed up in a Bolkswagen Bug. The two
teenagers were going to go to the park. They also
intended to meet up with some other friends and do
(08:41):
some lines of cocaine. For Missy, the drugs were not
something she was hooked on, but more experimental. If anything,
for Laura, drugs meant more they were temporary escaped from
life problems. Missy had told her mom she loved her
and would be back home no later than six pm,
and if she was going to be late, she'd call.
(09:03):
She gave her mom a big hug and then left
with Laura. Irene had recently become a single mom with
three sons and a daughter. The eldest son was named
after his dad, Ernie, who no longer lives with Irene,
but her twenty year old son Mark and twelve year
old son Chris still did. The boys were great, but
Irene needed her daughter, Missy. Missy shared a lot of
(09:27):
her life with her mom, and Irene believed Missy shared
everything with her, but there were limits to what Missy shared.
Irene might not have been thrilled with everything Missy told her,
like about sexual experiences she had in smoking marijuana, but
Irene understood she did the same things as a kid,
(09:50):
and she wasn't about to lose the trust she had
gained by getting angry with Missy over these situations. Of Course,
as I said, Missy didn't tell her every thing. She
kept some things to herself because Irene would not have
been happy to know about snorting cocaine at the park.
A little before six pm, Irene's housephone rang and it
(10:13):
was Laura Doyle. She asked Irene if Missy was home.
Of course, Irene laughed and said, no, she's with you,
but Laura said that she wasn't. They had gone to
the park, but Laura needed to go get gas, and
Missy had seen some boys in a blue Camaro and
wanted to go talk to them. Laura told her she'd
(10:35):
be right back, but when she returned, Missy and the
boys were gone. Irene asked who the boys were, but
Laura said she had never seen them before. However, Missy
seemed to know them. Irene hung up the phone very
worried about Missy. And then six o'clock came, and six
(10:57):
o'clock went, and Missy still had not come back home.
Then seven o'clock, eight o'clock, nine o'clock, no Missy, no
phone call, and not even Irene's sons, Mark and Chris
were home yet. At eleven pm, Irene urged herself to
(11:19):
just calm down, to stop worrying, and to just go
to sleep. Missy probably was staying over at friend's house
and forgot to call. She was also sure the boys
were okay.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
Now.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
A little after midnight, Mark and Chris rolled up into
the house, and Mark did feel a little bit bad
forgetting his twelve year old brother home so late on
a school night, but Chris loved hanging out with his
older brother. They played sports with friends during the day,
and then they hung out with Mark's friends and they
had a barbecue well into the evening. Now, when they
(11:55):
walked into the house, the lights were on, which was
weird to the boys. And then they walked in and
found their mom asleep on the couch, so Mark covered
Irene with a blanket and the two boys went to bed.
At around three am, Irene sat bolt upright on the couch,
shaking herself awake, and then going to check on her children.
(12:17):
She could hear the boys snoring down the hall, and
when she went into Missy's room, Missy was still not home.
More worry and grief flooded Irene's thoughts. At around six am,
Mark bounced into the kitchen while his little brother got
ready for school. He said good morning to his mom
and poured cereal in a bowl, and then his mother
(12:38):
broke down, crying that Missy had not come home the
night before and hadn't called. Mark tried to console his
mother and remind her that Missy was most likely over
at a friend's and would be home soon, but by
ten am, Missy was still not home. So Irene called
Missy's boyfriend, and his mother said that he had met
(13:01):
up with some of his guy friends the night before,
but he was home early and Missy was not with him.
Irene then called Christy, one of Missy's best friends. Christie
didn't know where Missy was either, but she said she'd
drive over and pick up Irene and they could check
some spots Missy might be at together. Irene was pleased
to have the company. Christy and Irene checked a few
(13:23):
of Missy's usual haunts, but Missy wasn't there. Irene then
asked Christy if she drop her off at the police
department so that she could file a missing person's report.
Irene had actually called the previous evening inquiring about a
missing person's report, but she was given the usual BS
statement that a report couldn't be filed for twenty four hours.
(13:48):
Once at the station, Irene was greeted by a very
bored looking officer manning the front desk. She told him
it had been twenty four hours since her seventeen year
old daughter went missing and she wanted to file a
missing person's report. Of course, the officer told Irene her
daughter was probably off with her boyfriend somewhere, which at
(14:09):
that Irene became very agitated, and the officer finally handed
over the paperwork to be filled out. Christi then drove
Irene back home, and Irene contacted another best friend of Missy's,
Karen Severson, to see if Missy was by chance with her.
Missy and Karen had met when they were eight years old,
(14:31):
in the very early days of grade school. Karen had
just moved in down the street and started at the
same school as Missy. Now, Karen was chubby and kids
didn't want to hang out with her because children can
be very cruel, but Missy quickly befriended her, and the
two little girls would walk to their homes hand in hand.
After school. Karen would often come over to Missy's house
(14:54):
to play and seeing how much Missy's brothers loved and
doted over her. Karen told Missi and Irene that she
had two families because her parents are divorced. Karen continued
on saying that she's mostly at the house of the
parents she lives with in Arletta, but sometimes she goes
to her other parents' house, where she has three brothers
that love her even more than Missy's brothers loved Missy. Now.
(15:19):
Weeks later, when Irene made a point to go over
to Karen's home and introduce herself to Karen's parents, Irene
found the second set of parents tale was a lie.
Karen didn't have any siblings. Irene wrote it off as
a child with an overactive imagination, and since Karen had
no siblings, Irene thought the girl maybe a little bit
(15:39):
jealous that Missy had Several Over the years, Missy and
Karen's friendship blossomed. At the age of fourteen, Karen had
gotten her set pregnant, but Missy saw her through it
because Karen wanted to keep the baby. The father of
Karen's baby was also a teenager who wanted nothing to
do with Karen in her fatherhood, so he quickly left
(16:03):
Karen and his baby's life. Now in her fifth month,
Karen dropped that to school and this made Missy sad,
but she still tried to be around for Karen. This
is also when Missy started hanging out with a new friend,
Laura Doyle, but Missy still saw Karen as much as
possible while still trying to live a teenage life. Karen
(16:27):
eventually ended up giving birth to a daughter. Now, Karen
became interested in another boy. This boy, we will call Teddy,
actually really liked Missy, but Missy only wanted to be
friends with him. Besides, Missy had a boyfriend now. One day,
Karen had invited Missy over to her apartment to hang
(16:48):
out with her and her baby.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Girl.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Missy accepted, and when Karen went into use the restroom,
Missy had bent over the small child to pick her
up when she was grabbed from behind. Teddy had quietly
let himself into the apartment without being seen, and when
he grabbed Missy, they fell back into a chair, with
Missy landing on his lap. Teddy quietly said in Missy's ear,
(17:13):
come on, Missy, you know how I feel about you.
Karen means nothing to me. Of course, Karen walked back
into the room at that moment and became enraged with Missy.
She called Missy a slide and grabbed her by the arm,
leading her to the door and telling Missy to get
out of her home. She then turned her anger on
(17:37):
Teddy and slapped him, leaving a welt on his cheek.
She told him that she was taking the baby and
going to the store, and when she got back she
wanted him and his things gone. Of course, Karen was heartbroken.
He was the first guy that didn't make her feel
subconscious about her weight. He made Karen feel special, but
(18:00):
now finding out she meant nothing to him really hard.
And what was worse, he loved Missy more than her
because of course, he did. Everyone loved Missy more than
they loved Karen. Now, Irene was on the phone with Karen,
wondering if she knew where Missy was, but Karen claimed
(18:21):
she hadn't seen her. This heart end, Irene hung up
the phone. What Irene did now was that Karen was
lying about things. Days before Missy's disappearance, Karen had started
a rumor amongst high school friends that Missy was sleeping
with multiple boys that had girlfriends, including Laura's boyfriend Vic. Sadly,
(18:46):
this vindictive, vicious game of Karen's was nothing new. She
had made up rumors before about Missy, which had actually
gotten Missy beaten up in the past, but Missy always
refused to believe her friend Karen was behind the rumors
in spite of what people told her. It was like
it was Karen's life goal to make people hate Missy
(19:08):
so that she'd be Missy's only friend. But Karen was
still holding onto a grudge from a situation that happened
the year prior, when the girls were juniors in high school.
Missy had dated a boy named Randy for a month
and then broke up with him. That same boy then
got together with Karen. They even moved in together. At
(19:31):
a party, Randy pulled Missy onto his lap. Now Missy
was disgusted with Randy and tried to do the honorable
thing as a friend to Karen. She told Karen what
happened and then told her she should dump Randy instead.
Karen turned on Missy. Now they would eventually patch things
(19:51):
up and become friends again when Randy was no longer
in the picture, but Karen was still angry about it.
About ten days before Missy's disappearance, Missy and Karen had
another altercation, this time at the park. Karen even pushed
and slapped Missy and then threatened Missy with a broken bottle. Now,
(20:13):
nothing more seemed to come from that fight at the time.
Karen had always been jealous of the attention Missy got,
and since Missy had been well liked, she got good
grades and was always complimented by teachers. Adding in the
fact that Missy was pretty, she was outgoing, and so
many boys liked her was enough to turn Karen green.
(20:33):
With all of the envies, she felt she really wanted
to be Missy, but she couldn't. She could only be herself.
That Karen that harbored grudges now. At the time of
the discovery, the girl's body in the creek was being
examined by detectives and a coroner made his initial preliminary
(20:55):
findings at the scene before an official autopsy could be
determined in his office. The girl appeared to have defensive wounds.
She looked to have had quite a bit of head
and faced trauma before she was held under water and drowned.
The victim only weighed ninety seven pounds, and the tree
trunk that held her body under shallow water was well
(21:15):
over one hundred pounds more than the poor girl weighed.
There was a dunim purse in the water near where
the girl lay, and inside the purse, detectives would find
a wallet with the girl's school identification. The name said
Michelle Yvette a Villa born February eighth, nineteen sixty eight.
(21:36):
When investigators at the scene radioed the victim's information in,
they discovered that Michelle missy a Villa had been reported
missing just a couple of days before, on October second,
nineteen eighty five, by her mother, Irene. The lead detective
radio back, we have her, but don't release any information
until her next of kin can be notified. Upon hearing
(21:57):
the news of her only daughter's death, Irene was rushed
to say the least. In fact, the whole community of
ar Letter was reeling with what had happened to this
young member of their neighborhood. Laura would reach out occasionally
to check on Irene, but she wouldn't come around too often,
and Karen, along with her baby, actually moves in with Irene,
becoming another daughter of sorts to the grieving mother. Karen
(22:21):
would tell Irene that she wouldn't rest until Missy's killer
or killers were captured, and it actually seemed like Karen
became quite obsessed over Missy's murder. She hung articles related
to the murder up on the wall in the room
she was given in Irene's house. She thought about it constantly. However,
police really had nothing to go on. Years went by
(22:45):
nearly three before finally some movement on Missy's case would happen.
In July of nineteen eighty eight, another friend of Missy's
would come forward with the story of what happened to Missy.
Her name is Eva Churambolo. Eva admitted she was with
two of Missy's other friends Laura and Karen and with
(23:07):
Missy the night Missy had been murdered, She said she
took the forty five minute drive with Laura, Karen, and
Missy up into the forest where Camp Colby was now.
Eva claimed she never got out of the car when
they reached Camp Colby, but the other three girls went
into the woods, but only two Laura and Karen, came
(23:27):
back to the car. Now, according to court records, Karen
and Laura were considerably larger than Missy. In fact, between
the two of them, they had around one hundred and
forty pounds on Missy, who was only four feet ten
and ninety seven pounds. They drove to Camp Colby and
(23:48):
Karen and Laura actually had a pretend fight the whole way,
screaming at each other, driving recklessly, before pulling into Camp
Colby and getting out of the car to continue sc
at each other. Missy had gotten out of the car
to try and create peace between the two girls and
stop the fighting, when all of a sudden, they stopped
(24:10):
screaming and turned around to stare at Missy, telling her
that the fight was a lie and they weren't really
angry with each other. They were angry at her. They
accused Missy of sexual promiscuity and then forced her onto
the trail. When they got deeper into the forest, Laura
stopped and turned to Missy, who was crying she's terrified,
(24:32):
scared of what these girls were going to do to her,
and punched Missy in the face. As soon as Laura
launched the first punch, Karen joined in and within seconds
they had Missy on the ground and they stomped on her.
And they continued punching her and Laura started cutting her hair,
with Karen just ripping it out by the fistful because
(24:54):
they knew Missy was very proud of her beautiful long hair. Finally,
they tied Missy's arms behind her back and gagged her
before pushing her over to the creek. They shoved her
in and pushed her face down into the water to
drown her. They finished their attack by bringing over the
log and dropping it on top of Missy to keep
(25:17):
her in the water, before walking back to the car
and driving home. At the time of their arrest, Karen
said that all she wanted to do was torment Missy.
She never intended to kill her. In nineteen ninety five,
years after murdering Missy. Karen and Laura were tried together
(25:38):
for first degree murder. However, several members of the jury
didn't believe the young women had pre planned the murder
of Missy, so the charge was reduced to second degree
murder and the trial carried on. Now, at least one
jurd didn't find a prosecution star witness, Eva Churmbolo, completely
credible either. They felt that Eva was holding something bad,
(26:00):
most likely something that could incriminate herself, which is possible
because the only word that we have that Eva wasn't
there and didn't participate is hers. Karen and Laura never
said anything about her. At the conclusion of trial, after
four hours of deliberation, the jury came back with a
guilty verdict. Karen and Laura were both found guilty of
(26:24):
second degree murder, and Missy's family were not pleased the
charges had been reduced to second degree. Now, when the
judge's sentence came in, it was a near fifteen years
to life with the possibility of parole, and the family
was understandably furious. Now, both Karen and Laura have since
(26:45):
been paroled. Karen in December of twenty eleven, after serving
twenty one and a half years, and Laura in December
of twenty twelve after serving twenty two years. Laura, for
her part, has been extremely quiet since her release, but
not Karen. Karen has appeared on talk shows like Doctor Shilp.
She's blogged, wrote a book, and was even in talks
(27:08):
about a possible movie, which one was made based on
the story in nineteen ninety two, starring Patty Duke as
the mom and Tiffany Ambertheesen as the daughter who was
a victim to her friends, and that movie is called
A Killer among Friends. Karen also tore schools to warn
kids about the dangers of friends like herself. But sadly,
(27:32):
Karen never really shows remorse for what she did to Missy,
but she certainly got what she wanted all along the attention,
although I will say Karen was barred from making any
money on the sale of her book. With that, Let's
hear from CJ, host of Beyond the Rainbow, True Crimes
(27:52):
of the LGBTQ and fellow Darkast Network host with her
frenemy case.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Thanks Courtney, you know. The movie Mean Girls, written by
Tina Fey, is a comical look at just how shitty
teenage girls can be to each other in real life.
The stories Book of the Dead and I are bringing
you this episode look like mean girls on steroids, as
you just heard. In the case of Missy Avola, the
(28:22):
story I would like to tell you about is a
pretty well known case that's been covered a lot on
true crime podcasts and on YouTube shows. I typically like
sticking with lesser known cases, but the reason I'm covering
this one is because I needed a case that fit
the Frenemi's theme and a case with undertones of LGBTQ vibes.
(28:44):
If you're not sure what case I'm referring to, it
would be the murder of Skuyler Nice in West Virginia.
There are quite a few similarities to Missy's murder and
Skuyler's murder, first being that each case would be a
nightmare for any mother and father of a teenage daughter. Second,
both girls were thought to be missing, and both were
(29:07):
reported as missing by their parents. Third, both sets of
killers in these cases would insert themselves either in the
investigation or they'd get involved with the victim's family to
comfort them somehow, playing a huge charade at pretending they
knew nothing of what happened to their friend. The victims
(29:27):
were both pretty, sweet, petite young girls with bright futures
ahead of them. Both of the victims had a hard
time believing that their writer die friends could betray them.
One noticeable difference in Skuyler's case, Skyler wasn't the only
pretty girl. Her besties were pretty girls too. This inspired
(29:49):
a book about her murder called Pretty Little Killers, written
by Dayleen Berry and Jeffrey Fuller. I used this book
as a resource for this episode. In Missy's case, she
was the only one described as pretty. Her friends were
considered by most people as plain, so it seemed that
jealousy was a huge factor in Missy's death. Fear of
(30:12):
exposure is what seemed to be the cause of Skyler's death. Okay,
with that, let's get into the case of Skuyler Niece.
Skyler Annette Niece was born February tenth, nineteen ninety six.
This would have made Skyler an aquarius. Her parents, Dave
and Mary, provided unconditional love for their only child. In return,
(30:36):
Skyler grew up to be a thoughtful, mostly responsible young lady.
She had dreams of someday being a lawyer. Skyler was
also a proponent for environmental challenges and for underdogs and
those who were picked on. She didn't mind voicing her
opinions if she felt somebody was just being mean to
(30:58):
be mean about someone else's lifestyle choice with their ethnicity.
For example, one of Skyler's good friends in high school
was a boy named Daniel. Daniel is gay. Skyler's dad
once made an off color remark about Gaze, and Skyler
set him straight. Maybe that was a poor word choice.
(31:20):
Skyler told her dad he shouldn't say things like that
because gays are people with feelings too, and a person's
sexual orientation shouldn't define who they are as a human. Yes,
Skyler kept people on their toes thinking about their biases,
and that was a really good thing. At sixteen years old.
(31:41):
In twenty twelve, Skyler had a four point zero grade
point average. She was an honor student, and she loved
to read. It would seem that her family were always
struggling financially, and they lived paycheck to paycheck. They were
not as wealthy as many of Skyler's friends fans, but
Skyler held no resentments toward her friends who had more,
(32:05):
or towards her parents who couldn't give her more. Skyler
never squawked about not having a lot of toys or
clothes or the latest electronics like many of her friends had.
There was even a point where she decided to get
a job of her own, so she went out and
she was hired at the fast food chain Wendy's to
make a little extra cash and as an added perk,
(32:28):
she was able to work alongside her friend Daniel. One
of Skuyler's childhood friends and besties was Sheila Eddie. Skyler
and Sheila had been joined at the hip pretty much
since they met when they were seven or eight years old.
Sheila was also an only child with a single mom
named Tara, and Tara doted on her daughter pretty much
(32:51):
to a fault. Sheila could be very stubborn and very manipulative.
Her mom, though, seemed to let her get away with
a lot of ship without any consequences. This would be
what those of us who were in the childcare business
would call a queen of denial mom, a mom who
let the kid call the shots and run the family
(33:12):
dynamics with no boundaries. Usually, a child raised like this
is spoiled and used to getting everything they want. This
to me is what Sheila sounds like. The niece family
and Tara, along with their daughter Sheila, all became pretty
close with one another. The nieces felt in many ways,
(33:33):
Sheila was another daughter to them and to Skyler. Sheila
was the sister she never had. Skyler and her family
lived in Star City, West Virginia. The high school she attended,
University High School, was only about four miles away in Morgantown,
also in West Virginia. While the girls were in high school,
(33:54):
Sheila's mom, Tera would remarry a man named Jim. Sheila
wasn't all that crazy about Jim, but Jim was really
good to Sheila and he'd buy her gifts all the time.
Even bought Sheila a car that he put in Tara's name,
but Sheila was free to take the car whenever she wanted.
Sheila could be kind of an asshole at others around her,
(34:18):
even to her closest friends. It's thought because Sheila did
have a car, that's why her friends put up with
her rough exterior and her manipulative ways. For Skyler, this
happened a lot with Sheila. It was almost like any
time it was Skyler, Sheila and some other friend Sheila
would always gravitate towards the other friend, and then she'd
(34:41):
push Skyler away like she was a pesky younger sibling.
It truly did hurt Skyler's feelings. Another best friend both
Sheila and Skuyler had met when they started high school
in twenty ten was a girl named Rachel Chauff. Rachel
was also an only child, and she was a natural
at many things. Rachel had a mane of beautiful red hair,
(35:06):
and the girl could sing and act, which delighted their
high school drama teacher. Rachel kind of reminds me of
a young Lindsay Lohan. The trio and sometimes other friends
would go out for what they called joy writing. Essentially,
joy writing was just driving around aimlessly, smoking weed and talking.
(35:27):
It was something that was fun for them to do
in their small town. In twenty twelve, things started to
get extra weird between the three besties. They played a
lot of drinking games, and they would sometimes kiss each
other on dares, but for Skuyler, the kisses were as
far as it went. The three girls spent a lot
(35:48):
of time together and engaged in sleepovers. There were an
awful lot of times, though, when Skyler felt like the
third will around Sheila and Rachel. One night, while having
a sleepover at Rachel's, Skyler became increasingly uncomfortable, and that's
because Sheila and Rachel undressed and began to perform oral
(36:10):
sex on one another. Skyler would write about this in
her diary that she kept at home. When Rachel and
Sheila got dressed again in their pajamas, the three girls
climbed into Rachel's bed to sleep, but Sheila wanted Skyler
to move aside so she could cuddle with Rachel. After
that night, things between the three friends seemed to take
(36:33):
a noticeable turn for the worst. Sheila and Rachel became
more distant to Skyler. They excluded her from a lot
of activities that normally all three of them would do.
Skyler honestly didn't know why they were giving her the
odd girl out treatment. A war on Twitter with hashtags
and subtweets started. Skyler began to allude to the fact
(36:57):
that she could out the two girls that she really
wanted to, and if they kept up their crap, she
just might. It was at this time Sheila and Rachel
started to talk mess about Skyler and their biology class.
Biology was the only class that they didn't have Skyler in.
In their class, the two girls asked the teacher questions
(37:19):
like what would be the best way to dispose of
a dead body? Would acid work? While the teacher just
got frustrated with the odd questions, it wasn't long before
other students in that class got the idea that these
two girls really hated Skyler niece. A couple days later,
a boy in the biology class told Skyler that Sheila
(37:41):
and Rachel were talking about killing her. Skyler defended her
best season said, Oh, it's no biggie, they were just
playing around. We always play that game, would you rather?
They didn't mean anything by it, but secretly seething inside,
Skyler confronted Sheila and Rachel and she asked if they
(38:01):
were talking about killing her in biology class. Sheila had
a rare silent moment, but always the actress, Rachel giggled
and said, whoever said that must have been stoned. We'd
never say anything like that. This brought comfort to Skyler.
In the meantime, Sheila and Rachel would both find boyfriends.
(38:23):
Even though the sexual energy the two girls had when
they were together it was explosive, they were still worried
that Skuyler would out them to their classmates, although some
of the classmates noticed on their own how intimately close
Sheila and Rachel had become. Having boyfriends helped some with
hiding their lesbian relationship and throwing anyone who might suspect
(38:47):
it off the trail. Verbal altercations between Sheila and Skuyler
would become more frequent, as well as Twitter fights with subtweets.
Skyler was just damn sick of the way Sheila was
treating her, so again, Skyler toyed with the idea of
spilling the girl's secrets on her Twitter account. As Skyler
(39:09):
struggled with what felt like the end of her friendship
with her besties, Sheila and Rachel started to plot the
end of Skyler. It was summer break, now between their
sophomore and junior years of high school. Skyler was keeping
busy with work and trying to hang out with more
of her other friends. The evening of July sixth, twenty twelve,
(39:33):
Sheila and Rachel texted Skyler, and even though she was
still sore with the both of them, they convinced her
to come out and go joy riding with them. It
was almost midnight, as the little figure of Skyler could
be seen on a surveillance camera sneaking out of her
family's apartment and then running a short distance. Then Skyler
(39:54):
would hop in Sheila's silver Toyota camery. The girls drove
around and chit chatted, almost as if there was no
bad blood between them at all. They drove a short
ways across the state line into Pennsylvania. I want to
say that according to the book Pretty Little Killers, they
were in a town where Sheila's mother, Tara worked, in
(40:15):
Wayne's Township, Pennsylvania. But according to another source, it's an
area that the girls had driven to before to go
and smoke weed. In the trunk of Sheila's car was
a large shovel, a change of clothes for each Sheila
and Rachel, and cleaning supplies like old towels and bleach.
Sheila stopped the car and the girls got out in
(40:37):
a secluded area to go smoke their weed. They sat
down and tried to light up a joint, but Sheila's
lighter was out. Skuyla remembered she left her lighter in
the car, and she jumped up and said, oh, I
got this, and she started to head back to the
car to get hers, and that's when Sheila and Rachel
counted to three and each produced a night that they
(41:00):
had been carrying in their jacket pockets. They proceeded to
jump Skyler and stabber for her tiny frame. Skyler was
no sitting duck. She fought back, and she even tried
to run until Rachel tackled her. At one point, Skyler
disarmed Rachel and slash Rachel near her ankle, but Rachel
(41:21):
got the upper hand and retrieved her knife back. Both
Rachel and Sheila continued assaulting Skyler with their knives until
Skyler could no longer fight or breathe, and she finally
fell silent. In all, Skyler had been stabbed at least
fifty times by both the girls she had once considered
(41:41):
her very best friends in the whole world. Sheila and
Rachel walked back to Sheila's car. They got the shovel,
and they attempted to dig into the hard ground. Giving
up on the shovel idea, they shallowly buried Skyler under dirt,
fallen tree branches, and rush before they drove back home
(42:02):
to Morgantown, West Virginia. The morning of July seventh, Skuyler's dad, Dave,
knocked on Skyler's door and he told her through the
door to get ready. She was going to use his
car to drive him to work and then she could
take his car to her job at Wendy's, thinking Skyler
would love this as she usually did. There was no
(42:23):
response that came from Skuyler's room. Dave questioned Mary, Skuyler's mom,
about when did Skyler leave their apartment that morning. Mary
said she didn't know because she hadn't seen Skyler. It
wasn't until Skyler missed her shift at Wendy's restaurant that
Dave and Mary began to worry. They contacted Sheila to
(42:45):
ask if Skyler was with her, but Sheila lied and
she said she hadn't seen Skyler. Days later, Sheila retracted
the statement to Dave and Mary, saying yeah, she did
talk to Skyler by phone around midnight. On July's sex
David Mary reported Skyler as a missing person, in which
the police believed that Skyler was most likely a runaway.
(43:09):
This is so very annoying when law enforcement doesn't take
a missing report seriously, and it happens far too often.
Sheila and Rachel became huge advocates on finding their missing
friend Skyler, and they participated in putting up missing flyers.
When flyers started being ripped down and disappearing, it was
(43:32):
later thought that these girls had been doing that too.
More time passed and Sheila again retracted what she told
David Mary, saying that yes, Skyler had been with her
and Rachel the night she went missing. She told Skyler's
parents that Skyler had sneaked out of Dave and Mary's
apartment on July sixth to go joy riding with her
(43:53):
and Rachel, and when they were done, they dropped her
off down the street because Skyler didn't want to wake
her parents up. Sheila's story continually changing became a huge
red flag for law enforcement in their small West Virginia community.
Even though they figured Skuyler ran away, they did suspect
(44:14):
that the girls that she was with that night that
they knew something about her vanishing. Soon, the FBI would
be called in to help with the investigation of the
missing teenager. The FBI and the police spent a lot
of time watching Sheila, Eddie and Rachel's chauff as well
as questioning them. It got to a point where Sheila's mother, Tara,
(44:37):
began to coach the two girls on what they should
and shouldn't say to law enforcement. Rachel's parents didn't like
that Tara was feeding ideas into their daughter's head, so
they did their best to limit time between Rachel and Sheila.
Tips would come and go with the sightings of Skuyler
in different cities and different states, reinforcing them the idea
(45:00):
that Skuyler was a runaway, but nothing would come of
these potential leads. Several months later, Rachel would have a
mental breakdown because of the secret her and Sheila had
been harboring. Rachel would be institutionalized briefly due to the breakdown,
she remained in the hospital for six days. After Rachel's
(45:24):
stint in the mental facility, without Sheila's knowledge, Rachel decided
to come clean to the police and the FBI. No
one's quite sure if it was the guilt of murdering
her friend or the relentless shadowing of her by law
enforcement that eventually made her break, but Rachel told them
(45:45):
exactly what happened to Skyler the night of July sixth,
twenty twelve. She even led the authorities to Skuyler's remains.
When asked why they did what they did, Rachel simply replied,
we just didn't like her anymore, and please put a
pin in that we just didn't like her anymore. In
(46:07):
May of twenty thirteen, Rachel would take a plea deal
of second degree murder and she'd turn on her one
time friend and lover, Sheila. Over a year after Schuyler's murder,
in September of twenty thirteen, prosecutors in West Virginia would
announce Sheila Eddie as the second alleged murderer of skuyler niece.
(46:30):
There'd be no plea deals for Sheila. She was charged
with first degree premeditated murder. Both Rachel and Sheila would
be tried as adults. At Rachel's trial, with her plea deal,
she was convicted of second degree murder. Prosecutors asked for
a twenty year sentence because of the plea deal. The judge, however,
(46:52):
gave Rachel a thirty year sentence. She was eligible for
parole in twenty twenty three, and she had her first
parole hearing, but she was denied. She applied for parole
again in twenty twenty four, and that too, was shot down,
much to the happiness of Skuyler's family and friends. Rachel
(47:12):
will once again be up for parole in June of
twenty twenty five. She's currently twenty eight years old, and
remember asked she to put a pin in what Rachel
used as her excuse for why they killed Skyler. After
the first parole hearing, Skuyler's family found out and they
were able to confirm the real reason their baby girl
(47:35):
was murdered, and that's because Rachel and Sheila were in
a lesbian relationship together and Skuyler was threatening to expose
them when they were being mean to her. Sheila was
also found guilty, and because she did not have a
plea deal in place, she was given a life sentence
(47:57):
with the possibility of parole, which is about thirty years.
She will be eligible to apply for parole in twenty
twenty five. It seems to me the pretty Little Killers
have only served out twelve years since they were arrested.
I'm not really sure why their thirty year sentences are
(48:17):
not being carried out before they're even considered for parole.
They haven't even served half of their sentences yet. Sounds
kind of ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
To me.
Speaker 5 (48:27):
Rest in power, Skuyler and Missy. I'd like to end
this collaboration episode with a funny little coming out story.
I found. A sixteen year old girl was watching The
Ellen Show with her mom. When Ellen danced out onto
the stage. The mom said, look, it's my favorite lesbian.
(48:49):
The teenage daughter looked at her mom and said, I
thought I was your favorite lesbian. The mom froze for
a moment, and she said, oh, okay, and then they
continued watching the show. I don't know what happened after
the Ellen Show was over, but I thought it was
a pretty good way to come out. I love your warriors.
(49:10):
You matter. Remember it's not a crime to be gay
or to live your truth. Am I sure a murderer.