Hulu quietly released another true crime docuseries, and this one is a heartbreaker. I have watched a lot of docuseries in my time, but there’s something especially chilling about Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese, which tells the story of the horrifying and senseless murder of a young, promising high school teenager.
Touching on self-confidence, jealousy, bullying, and friendships, the three-part series is easy to binge in a single evening, and I did just that. It will leave you absolutely gutted, hugging your kids tight, and in complete shock at how the events played out before, during, and after Skylar’s tragic death.
‘Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese’ Is Horrifying
Whether you’re familiar with the Skylar Neese case or not, you’ll feel chills run up and down your spine while watching this true crime Hulu docuseries. The basics of the case indicate that Skylar came home after working her shift at a fast-food restaurant and told her parents she was tired and going to bed. But she wasn’t there in the morning, and the bed had clearly not been slept in.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out she snuck out through the window and left in someone’s car. Who did she meet, why, where did she go, and what happened to her? These are the questions that haunted her parents, officials, family members, and friends for months following her disappearance, a parent’s worst nightmare. These are the questions explored throughout the three-episode series through to when her body is found and the shocking truth is revealed.
The entire situation as it evolves raises questions of friendship, jealousy, and a quieter, less overt type of bullying that parents, school officials, and even kids might not recognize as such. The story touches on feelings of isolation, the impact of strict religious beliefs, and reckless, even self-destructive behaviors. The way the docuseries weaves in archived footage and interviews with key figures, and uses a voiceover actor to read Skylar’s real journal entries and Tweets, paints a picture that draws you into the story. You know it isn’t Skylar’s voice, but every sentiment, every expression of feelings of anger, hurt, loneliness, and confusion about how she was being treated, is evident in her own words.
Skylar was going through typical coming-of-age challenges but was, according to friends, family members, and classmates, an all-around great kid. She worked hard, had hopes and dreams, and was navigating fitting in, finding her people, and reconciling the fact that the so-called friends who were supposed to care about her the most were pulling away. By contrast, her killers were lost, erratic, and unable to accept who they were, which ultimately blew back on Skylar and resulted in her undeserved demise.
A Relatable Yet Chilling Story
For anyone who ever had a tough time in high school, the story is so relatable, especially in this day and age of social media. In fact, it’s social media that helps direct authorities to the identity of the killers. As many of Skylar’s former friends and classmates who are interviewed discuss, feelings are amplified at that age: everything feels more intense. Skylar was hurting, and it’s reflected in her social media posts that, in hindsight, show just how much. There was a lot going on in her life, and she was reaching a breaking point.
Twitter was, at the time, relatively new. Kids overshared their every thought. To the naked eye, this just seems like an angry teenage girl upset with her best friends and airing her feelings on a social site where anyone who chooses to follow her can see. But deep down, there was a lot brewing beneath the surface on all sides.
Some of what Skylar shared was concerning. On the flip side, as her high school friends note, since teenagers feel things more intensely, so many likely shrugged them off as cookie-cutter high school drama. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and Skylar’s murder is no one’s fault but the two young women who killed her. Most importantly, this docuseries offers eye-opening revelations that even when you think you know someone, you might not.
Solving the Mystery in ‘Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese’
Once the mystery is solved – anyone familiar with the 2012 case knows what happens – it will shake you to your core. It’s not just what happened but who was responsible, why, the degree of the ferocity, the ease at which the perpetrators covered it up for so long, and the nonchalance about the act after being caught.
You’ll be picking your jaw up from the floor when you watch some of the reactions by her supposed friends Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf, desperate to clutch Skylar’s parents’ tight after seeing the anguish in their eyes at losing their only child. Learning who was responsible and what happened to her is gut-wrenching. For someone who is just 16 years old, only beginning to find herself, it’s devastating. The story will spark conversation and make you think.
This case led to Skylar’s Law in West Virginia, which ensures that immediate Amber Alerts are issued as soon as a child is reported missing, even if authorities don’t believe that the child was abducted. But most important, the story is crucial for parents of school-aged kids who put so much stock in friendships, use social media as a therapeutic outlet, and deal with heightened emotions.
These emotions might just be amplified because the kids are young, in school, and still developing their abilities to deal with their feelings, but they still feel them deeply. What happened to Skylar was a travesty and not something you see every day, but it reinforces the fact that sometimes, you can never truly know a person. Human beings are capable of doing downright evil things for reasons that make little sense. This docuseries sheds light on a case that might be 14 years old now, but it’s one you’ll have a tough time reconciling when learning the intricate details and how things went down before, during, and even after Skylar’s brutal murder.
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