MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Friends Like These, new three-part docuseries produced by Hulu, gives another up-close look at the Skylar Neese story.
Neese was reported missing from her Star City home in July 2012. She was murdered by her friends.
Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy, then 18, admitted to stabbing their University High School classmate to death in Greene County, Pennsylvania. After unsuccessfully attempting to dig a makeshift grave for Neese, they covered her body with brushes, sticks, and rocks. About seven months later, Shoaf led police to the body after suffering a nervous breakdown and confessing to the crime.
Both are serving prison sentences.
Friends Like These Director Clair Titley said the installments include The Disappearance, The Betrayal, and The Truth. The crew came to Morgantown several times over a 10-month period to film the series.
“Morgantown, which becomes a character of its own in the series,” Titley said. “I think I’ve been back and forth to Morgantown nine times for filming trips.”
In this film, time was taken to meet with parents Dave and Mary, her friends, and people in the community to get a feel for what Morgantown was like in 2012.
“We’ve really engaged with her friends and the community around Skylar,” Titley said. “We really wanted to investigate what it was like to be a teenager in Morgantown in 2012.”
One of those friends is Eric Finch, who endured the months of questions during the investigation and search. Finch still lives in the Morgantown area and said the tragedy still affects him today.
“It just took so long to navigate that,” Finch said. “I think it’s important to focus on is how much it impacts you to not have an answer; even years later, you don’t have an answer.”
Finch is now a student services coordinator at West Virginia University and said the experience makes him consider circumstances others are dealing with more carefully.
“The entire situation has made me a little more empathetic,” Finch said. “Not so much for what others experienced but because of what I experienced—no one around me would know what I was going through if I didn’t tell them.”
During the three episodes viewers will hear the saga told from the inside out, according to Titley. During those nine trips to the city, they attempted to capture the incident and how it affected Skylar’s family, friends, and community.
“You get a real sense of Skylar and the real kind of person she was, but the community around her as well,” Titley said.