Outline of extensive reaserch,background for later profiling case of #ShandaSharer

 

 EXTENSIVE OUTLINE/RESEARCH FOR LATER PROFILING on the crime/murder of Shanda Sharer

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SHANDA SHARER MURDER CASE OUTLINE

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Shanda Renee Sharer was born June 6, 1979, and died January11, 1992. She was an American female who was kidnapped, tortured, beaten, sodomized, and burned alive in rural Indiana; she was 12 at the time of her death. This story drew national attention because of the sheer brutality of the murder, but, also, for the ages of the four perpetrators (15-17). Shanda’s parents divorced in 1990 (parents are Stephen and Jackie Sharer). Upon the divorce, Jackie, who had joint custody of Shanda, moved with her daughter to New Albany, Indiana where Shanda began 7th grade that Fall of 1991 at Hazelwood Middle School in New Albany, Indiana.

Shanda, initially, had a difficult time adjusting to a new school, a bigger school, but she started to make some friends. It also seemed like Shanda may have made an enemy as well. During one particular week, in that early fall semester in 1991, Shanda was arguing back and forth with a boy named Nathan in the hallway. While it is not known what they were fighting about, shortly after this started, Nathan’s cousin, and a VERY important figure to this whole story showed up on the scene; by the ways and means of a fourteen-year-old girl. Named Amanda Heavrin. Amanda was very masculine, played sports, was athletic, and was also openly gay at fourteen. Once Amanda and Shanda escalated into a physical confrontation, instead of suspending the girls, they were, instead, placed on ISP or In school suspension. Essentially that meant they were punished by having all day long detention as a consequence of their actions.

Ironically, instead of remaining enemies, Amanda and Shanda both apologized to one another, and, over that week of ISP, they constantly passed notes back and forth, exchanged phone numbers, and continued, day after day, to get to know each other better. As Amanda enjoyed meeting a new friend, Amanda also found that she was very attracted to Shanda; the romantic feelings came. She even confessed them to Shanda. Shanda wrote Amanda a note saying she liked her “in that way” as well. And, once the week of ISP was finished, Amanda and Shanda continued to pass notes, talk on the phone when outside of school, and they both started spending the night or nights on weekends together whenever they could.

In and of itself, this changing of dynamics between Shanda and Amanda was typical of middle schoolers, They went to the mall, the movies, and always had a good time. However, there was one huge aspect that Amanda didn’t initially tell Shanda; that being that Amanda already had a girlfriend, of two years, 16 year old, Melinda Loveless.

Although Melinda was in high school, while the other girls were in middle school, Melinda was able to notice that Amanda began being distant, pulling away, and her friends had informed her she had a new friend at school. Melinda waited, stewing in nothing short of hatred, for Shanda, for Shanda taking her place in Amanda’s life, and she thought of her as a child. Jealousy and hate continued to grow for weeks with Melinda writing notes to Amanda threatening to kill Shanda if she didn’t “back off.” Amanda appeared undecided, or liked both women; and offered her affections to both. But, one thing was clear, Melinda was growing distant. And, Shanda was being pulled closer and closer to Amanda by their relationship. This was the clash that put all unfolding events into motion; ie, the murder itself.

Melinda wanted revenge upon Shanda, she stated she wanted to kill her; at least “scare her or beat her up.” It was so decided, then, that one Friday in January, four girls, some who didn’t know each other, and some did, were brought together by situations and circumstances; by fate. These four girls would eventually be charged with the kidnapping, torture, and murder of Shanda Sharer. These girls were: Toni Lawrence, 15, Hope Rippey, 15, Melinda Loveless 16, and Laurie Tackett, 17.

The girls were gathered that night to all attend a concert just across the river in Louisville, Kentucky. After the concert, some time after midnight, after Melinda looking up Shanda’s father’s address, after the concert, the girls pulled up in her driveway. Two girls went to the door to ask if Shanda could come sneak out with them and meet up with Amanda. It was the “Amanda piece” that sold her on going with these strangers. She was promised Amanda was waiting for her elsewhere and she’d be driven there. Shanda hopped in the front seat, as they set off into the night. Shanda unaware of the horrors the night would have in store for her. After some of the girls made small talk in the car, one of them brought up the topic of Amanda. They were asking Shanda if she was still sleeping with Amanda, did she still love her, etc. It was, at that time, an angry and jealous Melinda Loveless jumped out of backseat from underneath a blanket she was hiding, with a knife, under. Shanda immediately became terrified. Even promising she’d never talk to Amanda again if she’s let her go home. This, unfortunately, would not be the case.

Their first stop was at a location known as The Witch’s Castle. Many folklore Stories of wicked witches surrounded the place. Everyone but Toni Lawrence got out of the car at this time. Melinda punched, kicked, slapped Shanda for her “transgressions” with Amanda. She fell unconscious at some point, and was placed in the trunk. It was way past 2 am when the girls, with Shanda in the trunk, pulled into Laurie Tackett’s home. The girls, shortly after arriving, heard muffled screams coming from the trunk. Laurie was afraid the sounds Shanda was making would wake up her parents. So, she went outside to “take care of it,” Reportedly striking the 12 year old Shanda multiple times with a tire iron. Even telling Melinda she felt her head cave in. As it grew later, Toni and Hope were ready for bed and they went to bed at Laurie’s house, Laurie and Melinda weren’t tired yet, plus, they wanted to go “county cruising” with Shanda in the trunk. They left Laurie’s property slightly after 2am and drove around for 3-4 hours. Only stopping the car to take turns beating Shanda with a tire tool. Reportedly Shanda was semi-conscious at this time as she was able to sit up and say the word, “mama.”

After driving these 3-4 hours they returned to Laurie Tackett’s house. Laurie’s mom had woken up at this point, and told Laurie to take all the girls home; they were too loud. Laurie packed up the girls and set off to do just that. But, there was the Shanda matter to be dealt with as well. Hope Rippey suggested an old logging road for disposal of body. The girls had just stopped at gas station to purchase some gasoline as well. Gasoline they’d eventually douse Shanda in. Before the lit the body on fire, Hope Rippey got a bottle of Windex and sprayed it into Shanda’s open wounds/burns. Then they dumped Shanda’s body on the ground while Hope Rippey and Melinda started the fire. Toni Lawrence stayed in car, screaming, revving the engine, and covering her ears. It would be Toni , who upon arriving home. Immediately confessed to her parents who took her to police station, ASAP. Toni told them everything from A-Z. In the end, Hope Rippey was sentenced to 50 years; she is already out since 2009. Melinda Loveless and Laurie Tackett, both sentenced to sixty years each, are also out, I couldn’t find the dates. And, Toni Lawrence was given 20 years for criminal confinement. Toni had at least three suicide attempts. Toni got out of prison after 8 years on a 20 year sentence. She got her G.E.D. and got some college credit at Ball State University.

THE OFFENDERS AND THEIR BACKGROUND

1. MELINDA LOVELESS: (age, 16): 

Melinda Loveless was born in New Albany, Indiana on October 28, 1975, the youngest of three daughters, to Marjorie and Larry Loveless. Larry was drafted into the US Army during the Vietnam War, and he was treated as a hero upon his return. His wife later described him as a pervert who would wear her and her daughter's 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, Indiana throughout Melinda's childhood.

Larry worked irregularly for the Southern Railroad after his military service; his profession allowed him to work whenever most convenient for him. In 1972, Larry became a probationary officer with the New Albany Police Department, but he was fired after eight months when he and his partner assaulted a black man whom Larry accused of sleeping with his wife. In 1988, Larry briefly worked as a mail carrier but quit after three months and 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, living in the upper-middle-class suburb of Floyds Knobs, Indiana. Larry did not usually share his income with the family, making the mortgage payments and impulsively spending any money he earned on himself, especially firearms, motorcycles, and cars. He filed for bankruptcy in 1980, and extended family members often described the Loveless daughters as visiting their houses hungry, apparently not getting food at home.

Through most of their relationship, Larry was unfaithful to his wife and they often had an open marriage. They would often visit bars in Louisville, where Loveless 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 forced Margie to participate in a gang bang, after which she tried to drown herself. After that incident, she refused him sex for a month, until he violently raped her as their daughters watched. 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 Michelle as an infant, molested Marjorie's 13-year-old sister early in the marriage, molested the girls' cousin Teddy from age 10 to 14, and both older girls said he molested them, though Melinda didn't 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 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 Michelle's direction 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 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, drinking, and open marriage.

In November 1990, Larry was caught spying on Melinda and a friend, and Marjorie attacked him with a knife, sending him to the hospital after he attempted to grab it. She then attempted suicide again and her daughters called authorities. After this incident Larry filed for divorce and moved to Avon Park, Florida. Melinda felt crushed, especially as Larry remarried. He sent letters to her for a while, playing on her emotions, but eventually severed all contact with her.

2. LUARIE TACKETT: Mary Laurine Tackett was born in Madison, Indiana on October 5, 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 five and twelve. In May 1989, her mother discovered that Tackett was changing 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 came into periodic conflict; 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 Rippey house be exorcised.

Tackett became increasingly rebellious after her fifteenth birthday and also became fascinated with the occult. She would often attempt to impress her friends by pretending to be possessed by the spirit of "Deanna the Vampire". She began to engage in self harm, especially after early 1991 when she began dating a girl who was involved in the practice. Her parents discovered the self-mutilation and checked her into a hospital on March 19, 1991. She was prescribed an anti-depressant and released. Two days later, with her girlfriend and Toni Lawrence, she cut her wrists deeply and was returned to the hospital. After treatment of her wound, she was admitted to the hospital's psychiatric ward. She was diagnosed with Borderline personality disorder and confessed that she had experienced hallucinations since she was a young child. She was discharged on April 12. She dropped out of high school in September 1991.

Tackett stayed in the Louisville area in October 1991 to live with various friends. She met Melinda Loveless but the two did not become friends until 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, most of it with Melinda Loveless.

3. HOPE RIPPEY: (15): Hope Anna Rippey was born in Madison, Indiana in June 1976. Her father was an engineer at a power plant. Her parents divorced in February 1984, and she moved to Quincy, Michigan with her mother and siblings 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 Laurie 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 fifteen.

4. TONI LAWRENCE (15): Toni Lawrence was born in Madison, Indiana in February 1976. Her father was a boilermaker. She was close friends with Hope Rippey from childhood onward. She was abused by a relative at age nine and was raped by a teenage boy at age 14, although the police were only able to issue an order to keep the boy away from Lawrence. She went into counseling after the incident but did not follow through. She became promiscuous, began to self harm, and attempted suicide in eighth grade.

rned alive

The girls drove to a gas station near Madison Consolidated High School, pumped some gas into the car and bought a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. Tackett emptied the bottle and refilled it with gasoline. They drove north of Madison, past Jefferson Proving Ground to a place with which Rippey was familiar off US 421 on what was called Lemon Road. They placed Sharer, still alive, in a blanket and carried her into a field by the gravel country road. Tackett made Rippey pour the gasoline on her, and then they set her on fire. Loveless was not convinced Sharer was dead, so they returned a few minutes later to pour the rest of the gasoline on her.

The girls went to a McDonald's at 9:30 am for breakfast. The girls laughed about Sharer looking like one of the sausages they were eating. Lawrence, horrified, called a friend and told her about the murder. Tackett then dropped Lawrence and Rippey off at their homes and returned home with Loveless. They cleaned out the car, using a hose to wash the trunk. They then drove to Loveless' house around 3:00 pm. Loveless found out Heavrin was at River Falls Mall and had her paged, claiming an emergency, then told her that they had killed Sharer and arranged to pick Heavrin up later that day.

Loveless's friend, Crystal Wathen, came over, and they told her about what had happened. Then the three girls drove to pick up Heavrin and bring her back to Loveless's house, where they told Heavrin the story; while she did not believe it was true, she comforted the hysterical Loveless. Both Heavrin and Wathen were convinced when Tackett showed them the trunk with Sharer's bloody handprints and socks still there.

Investigation

Later on the morning of January 11, two brothers from Canaan, Indiana, were driving toward Jefferson Proving Ground to go hunting when they noticed something on the side of the road. They called the police at 10:55 am. and were asked to return to the corpse. The Jefferson County Sheriff, Buck Shippley, and detectives arrived and began an investigation, taking forensic evidence at the scene. They initially suspected a drug deal gone wrong, and could not believe the crime could be the work of locals.

Steve Sharer noticed his daughter missing early on January 11. After calling neighbors and friends all morning, he called his ex-wife, Shanda's mother, at 1:45 pm and the two met and filed a missing person report with the sheriff.

At 8:20 pm, an hysterical Toni Lawrence went to the Jefferson County Sheriff's office with her parents. She gave a rambling statement, identifying the victim as "Shanda", naming the three other girls involved as best she could, and describing the main events of the previous night. Shippley contacted the Clark County sheriff and was finally able to match the victim to Shanda Sharer's missing person's report.

Detective Howard Henry went to the Sharer's house, then obtained dental records that positively identified her as the victim. Loveless and Tackett were arrested on January 12. The bulk of the evidence for the arrest warrant was Lawrence's statement. The prosecution immediately declared its intention to try both as adults. For several months, the prosecutors and defense attorneys did not release any information on the case, leaving the media only the statement by Lawrence, which was repeated in the arrest warrant and contained the general background of the crime.

Sentencing

All four girls were tried as adults. To avoid the death penalty, all four girls accepted plea bargains. Tackett and Loveless were sentenced to sixty years in the Indiana Women's Prison in Indianapolis. With maximum time reduced for good behavior, they could be released in 2020. Lawrence was sentenced to twenty years in prison, and with time reduced for good behavior, she was released in 2000. Hope Rippey was sentenced to 60 years, with ten suspended for mitigating circumstances, and ten years of medium supervision probation. With time reduced for good behavior, Rippey was released in 2006.

Sentencing reductions

In October 2007, Loveless's attorney Mark Small requested a hearing to argue for his client's release. He said that Loveless had been "profoundly retarded" by childhood abuse and was not represented competently by counsel during her sentencing, which caused her to accept a plea only because of exaggerated claims about the chances of her being executed. Small also argued that Loveless, who was 16 when she signed the plea bargain, was too young to enter into a contract in the state of Indiana without consent from a parent or guardian, neither of which had been obtained. If the judge accepted either argument, Loveless could have been retried or released outright. However, after Small was unable to see his client the night before the hearing, the hearing was delayed until December 6, 2007.

On January 8, 2008, a sentence reduction and request to overturn Loveless's guilty plea was rejected by Jefferson Circuit Judge Ted Todd. Instead, Loveless will be eligible for parole in 15 years, thus maintaining the original guilty plea.

On November 14, 2008, Loveless's appeal was denied by the Indiana Court of Appeals, upholding Judge Todd's ruling. Mark Small stated that he will seek to have jurisdiction over the case moved to the Indiana Supreme Court.

Aftermath

The crime was documented in two true crime books, Little Lost Angel by Michael Quinlan and Cruel Sacrifice by Aphrodite Jones; Jones's book on the case became a New York Times Bestseller. The story was turned into a play by Rob Urbinati called "Hazelwood Jr. High," which starred Chloë Sevigny as Tackett. The play was published by Samuel French, Inc. in September 2009.

Mean, an episode from the fifth season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit that aired on February 24, 2004, was based on the murder. Cold Case second season episode "The Sleepover" is also based on this case.

Sharer's father died of cancer in 2005 at the age of 53. He was buried next to his daughter. In an interview with Sharer's mother Jacque Vaught on the TV series Deadly Women, Vaught stated that Sharer's father was so destroyed by his daughter's murder that he "...did everything he could to kill himself besides put a gun to his head," and that he "...drank himself to death. The man definitely died from a broken heart."

The Shanda Sharer Scholarship Fund was established in January 2009. It is written in the contract that the recipient will receive a plaque or document of some type that tells Sharer's story. The fund plans to provide scholarships to two students per year from Prosser School of Technology in New Albany; one scholarship will go to a student who is continuing his or her education, and the other scholarship will go to a student who is beginning his or her career and must buy tools and work equipment.

In 2011, the Dr. Phil show aired a 2-part series on the crime, which featured interviews with Shanda's mother and sister, who also confronted Hope Rippey on the show.

In August 2011, Episode XI Studios interviewed and filmed both Melinda Loveless at the Indiana Women's Prison and Jacque Vaught at her office for a documentary they are producing titled "Charlie's Scars" Both Loveless and Vaught are closely featured in the documentary, which was submitted to the Sundance Film Festival in September 2011 for the 2012 Festival.

Molestation prosecution

In the wake of his daughter's sentencing hearing, in which extensive open court testimony about Larry Loveless was given, he was arrested in February 1993 and brought back to Floyd County, Indiana to face charges of rape, sodomy and sexual battery. The majority of crimes he was accused of occurred from 1968 to 1977. Loveless remained in prison for over two years awaiting trial, however a judge eventually ruled all except one count, for a sexual battery incident in 1989, had to be dropped due to the statute of limitations, which was five years in Indiana. Loveless eventually accepted a guilty plea for sexual battery and a sentence of time served, and was released in June 1995.

A few weeks following his release in 1995, Larry Loveless was briefly in the news again, this time for unsuccessfully suing the Floyd County Jail for $39 million in federal court, alleging he had suffered cruel and unusual punishment during his two-year incarceration. Among his complaints was that he was not allowed to sleep in his bed during the day and not allowed to read the newspaper.