Murder of Shanda Sharer
Shanda Renee Sharer was an American girl who was tortured and burned to death in Madison, Indiana, by four teenage girls. She was 12 years old at the time of her murder. The crime attracted international attention due to both its brutality and the young age of the perpetrators, who were aged between 15 and 17 years old. The case was covered on national news and talk shows and has inspired several episodes of fictional crime shows.
Victim
Shanda Sharer was born in the Pineville Community Hospital in Pineville, Kentucky, on 6 June 1979, to Stephen and Jacqueline "Jacque" Sharer, also known as Jacque Vaught. After Shanda's parents divorced, her mother remarried and the family moved to Louisville, Kentucky. There, Shanda attended fifth and sixth grades at St. Paul School, where she was on the cheerleading, volleyball, and softball teams. In June 1991, after her mother divorced again, the family moved to New Albany, Indiana, and Shanda enrolled at Hazelwood Middle School. Early in the school year, she transferred to Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, a Catholic school in New Albany, where she joined the girls' basketball team.Perpetrators
Melinda Loveless
Melinda Loveless was born in New Albany, Indiana, on 28 October 1975, the youngest of three daughters to Marjorie and Larry Loveless. Larry was drafted into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, reaching the rank of Sergeant, and although emotionally scarred, he was treated as a hero upon his return. Marjorie later described him as a sexual deviant who would wear her and her daughters' underwear and makeup, was incapable of staying monogamous, and had a mixture of jealousy and fascination with seeing her have sex with other men and women. They lived in or near New Albany throughout Melinda's childhood.Larry worked irregularly for the Southern Railway after his military service; his profession allowed him to work whenever most convenient for him. In 1965, Larry became a probationary officer with the New Albany Police Department, but was fired after eight months when he and his partner assaulted an African-American man whom Larry accused of sleeping with his wife. In 1988, Larry briefly worked as a mail carrier, but quit after three months and did very little work, having brought most of his mail home to destroy it.
Marjorie had worked intermittently since 1974. When both parents were working, the family was financially well off and lived in the upper-middle-class suburb of Floyds Knobs, Indiana. But Larry, who was violent and abusive, did not usually share his income with the family and impulsively spent any money he earned on himself, usually purchasing firearms, motorcycles, and cars. He filed for bankruptcy in 1980. Extended family members often described the marriage as loveless, and the daughters as visiting their homes hungry, apparently not getting enough to eat.
The Loveless parents would often visit bars in Louisville, where Larry would pretend to be a doctor or a dentist and introduce Marjorie as his girlfriend. He would also "share" her with some of his friends from work, which she found disgusting. During an orgy with another couple at their house, Marjorie tried to commit suicide, an act she would repeat several times throughout her daughters' childhoods. When Melinda was nine years old, Larry had Marjorie gang raped, after which she tried to drown herself. After that incident, she refused to have sex with him for a month until he raped her as their daughters overheard the event through a closed door. In the summer of 1986, after she would not let him go home with two women he met at a bar, Larry beat Marjorie so severely that she was hospitalized; he was convicted of battery.
The extent of Larry's abuse of his daughters and other children is unclear. Various court testimonies claimed he fondled Melinda as an infant, molested Marjorie's 13-year-old sister early in the marriage, and molested the girls' cousin Teddy from age 10 to 14. Both older girls said he molested them, though Melinda did not admit that this ever happened to her. She slept in bed with him until he abandoned his family when she was 14. In court, Teddy described an incident in which Larry tied up all three sisters in a garage and raped them in succession; however, the sisters did not confirm this account. Larry was verbally abusive to his daughters and fired a handgun in the direction of Melinda's older sister Michelle when she was seven, intentionally missing her. He would also embarrass his children by finding their underwear and smelling it in front of other family members.
For two years, beginning when Melinda was five, the family was deeply involved in the Graceland Baptist Church. Larry and Marjorie gave a full confession and renounced drinking and swinging while they were members. Larry became a baptist lay preacher, and Marjorie became the school nurse. The church later arranged for Melinda to be taken to a motel room with a 50-year-old man for a five-hour exorcism. Larry became a marriage counselor with the church and acquired a reputation for being too forward with women, eventually attempting to rape one of them. After that incident, the Loveless parents left the church and returned to their former professions and drinking.
In November 1990, after Larry was caught spying on Melinda and a friend, Marjorie attacked him with a knife; he was sent to the hospital after he attempted to grab it. She then attempted suicide again, and her daughters called the authorities. After this incident, Larry filed for divorce and moved to Avon Park, Florida. Melinda felt crushed, especially when Larry remarried. He sent letters to her for a while, but eventually severed all contact with her. Larry was killed in a car crash in St. Louis, Missouri, on 16 December 1998.
Mary Laurine "Laurie" Tackett
Laurie Tackett was born in Madison, Indiana, on 5 October 1974. Her mother was a fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian, and her father was a factory worker with two felony convictions in the 1960s. Tackett claimed that she was molested at least twice as a child at ages 5 and 12. In May 1989, her mother discovered that Tackett was changing from a dress into jeans at school, and, after a confrontation that night, attempted to strangle her. Social workers became involved, and Tackett's parents agreed to unannounced visits to ensure that child abuse was not occurring. Tackett and her mother had periodic conflicts. At one point, her mother went to Hope Rippey's house after learning that Rippey's father had purchased a Ouija board for the girls. She demanded that the board be burnt and that the Rippeys' house be exorcised.Tackett became increasingly rebellious after her 15th birthday and was also fascinated by the occult. She would often attempt to impress her friends by pretending to be possessed by the spirit of "Deanna the Vampire". Tackett began to engage in self-harm early in 1991 when she began dating a girl who was involved in the occult. Her parents discovered the self-harm and checked her into a hospital on 19 March 1991. She was prescribed an anti-depressant and released. Two days later, with her girlfriend and Toni Lawrence, Tackett cut her wrists deeply and was returned to the hospital. After treatment of her wounds, she was admitted to the hospital's psychiatric ward. Tackett was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and confessed that she had experienced hallucinations since she was a young child. She was discharged on 12 April. She dropped out of high school in September 1991.
Tackett stayed in Louisville in October 1991 to live with various friends. There, she met Loveless; the two became friends in late November. In December, Tackett moved back to Madison on the promise that her father would buy her a car. She still spent most of her time in Louisville and New Albany, and by December, spent most of it with Loveless.
Hope Rippey
Hope Anna Rippey was born in Madison on 9 June 1976. Her father was an engineer at a power plant. Her parents divorced in February 1984, and she moved with her mother and siblings to Quincy, Michigan, for three years. She claimed that living with her family in Michigan was somewhat turbulent. Her parents resumed their relationship in Madison in 1987. She was reunited with friends Tackett and Toni Lawrence, whom she had known since childhood, although her parents saw Tackett as a bad influence. As with the other girls, Rippey began to self-harm at age 15.Toni Lawrence
Toni Lawrence was born in Madison on 14 February 1976. Her father was a boilermaker. She was close friends with Rippey from childhood. She was abused by a relative at age 9 and raped by a teenage boy at age 14, although the police only issued an order for the boy to keep away from Lawrence. She began attending counseling after the incident, but did not continue. She became promiscuous, began to self-harm, and attempted suicide in eighth grade.Events prior to murder
In 1990, 15-year-old Loveless began dating a 13-year-old named Amanda Heavrin. After Loveless's father left the family and her mother remarried, Loveless began behaving increasingly erratically. She got into fights at school and reported being depressed, resulting in her receiving professional counseling. In March 1991, Loveless came out to her mother as a lesbian. Her mother was initially furious but eventually accepted it. As the year progressed, Loveless's relationship with Heavrin deteriorated.Heavrin met Shanda Sharer early in the fall semester at Hazelwood Middle School when Heavrin started a fight with Sharer; however, they became friends while in detention for the altercation and later exchanged romantic letters. Loveless immediately grew jealous of Heavrin and Sharer's close friendship. In early October 1991, Heavrin took Sharer as her date to a school dance, where Loveless found and confronted Sharer. Although Heavrin and Loveless never actually broke up, Loveless started dating an older girl.
After Heavrin and Sharer attended a festival together in late October, Loveless began to discuss killing Sharer and threatened her in public. Concerned about the effects of their daughter's relationship with Heavrin, Sharer's parents arranged for her to transfer to a Catholic school in late November. Heavrin later claimed she gave letters Loveless sent her containing death threats towards Sharer to a "youth prosecutor", but the youth prosecutor never did anything about it as far as she knew.