DingDang
*Fiercest Calm*
Shanda Renee Sharer was 12 years old when she was tortured and brutally murdered by Melinda Loveless, Laurie Tackett, Hope Rippey, and Toni Lawrence.
The motive for Shanda's murder was jealousy. Melinda Loveless was infuriated that her ex-girlfriend, 14 year old Amanda Hearvin, had been dating Shanda. Loveless saw Shanda as the source of all her problems, and wanted to be rid of her, once and for all.
The following excerpts are from David Lohr's article Death of Innocence - The Murder of Young Shanda Sharer.
The motive for Shanda's murder was jealousy. Melinda Loveless was infuriated that her ex-girlfriend, 14 year old Amanda Hearvin, had been dating Shanda. Loveless saw Shanda as the source of all her problems, and wanted to be rid of her, once and for all.
The following excerpts are from David Lohr's article Death of Innocence - The Murder of Young Shanda Sharer.
The Plan
By the night of Friday, Jan. 10, 1992, Melinda Loveless had reached her boiling point. Her girlfriend, 14-year-old Amanda Heavrin, had been cheating on her with Shanda, and she was fed up. It was now time for her to show them just how serious she was. Laurie Tackett was coming over, and Loveless knew that she would be more than happy to help her put a plan into action. Loveless had always thought Tackett was strange, because she dabbled in the occult and claimed to have another personality that was a vampire; but she was, after all, a devoted friend and had often talked about killing someone for the fun of it.
Tackett picked up two of her friends on the way to Loveless' house, 15-year-olds Hope Rippey and Toni Lawrence. Lawrence had never met Loveless before, and Rippey had met her only once or twice herself. When the girls arrived at Loveless', they all went upstairs and began chitchatting about what the night had in store. All of them had lied to their parents earlier that day, telling them they were spending the night at a friend's house. As the girls sat around talking, Loveless pulled a large kitchen knife out of her purse and said she was going to use it to scare someone. She then told Rippey and Lawrence about the problems she had been having with Shanda Sharer.
Loveless obtained Sharer's address, and before long the girls were en route to her house. They had a difficult time locating it, but after asking directions a few times they eventually found it and parked half a block away. Since Rippey and Lawrence had never met Sharer, Loveless instructed them to go to the door, claiming to be friends of Amanda Heavrin. Loveless wanted the girls to lure Sharer out to the car. When the girls knocked on the door, Sharer answered. Lawrence and Rippey explained to her that they were friends of Heavrin, and that she was waiting for her at a deserted stone building in the woods called the Witches' Castle. Sharer said she could not go then because her parents were up, but told them she would sneak out around midnight if they wanted to come back. Lawrence and Rippey agreed and headed back to the car. Loveless was angry that Sharer was not with them, but she calmed down when they told her about Sharer's plan. Since they had time to kill, the girls decided to go to a concert at a nearby state park.
Abduction
It was after 12:30 a.m. by the time the girls made their way back to Sharer's house. Lawrence did not want to go back up to the door, so Rippey and Tackett agreed to go. Loveless was the only one of the bunch that Sharer knew, so she hid in the back seat under a blanket. Sharer was waiting at a side door when Tackett and Rippey walked up. They explained that Heavrin was still waiting for her and that she had sent them back to pick her up. Sharer was hesitant at first, but Rippey was able to convince her to go, and soon they were all getting into Tackett's car. Lawrence slid out of the front passenger seat so that Sharer could sit in the middle, and they were on their way. Tackett explained to Sharer that the Witches' Castle was a short drive away in Utica, and that it used to be the home of nine witches who controlled the town. As they drove to the castle, Rippey asked Sharer questions about Heavrin and their relationship. Sharer said that they had been going out for quite a while and that she really cared about her. Suddenly, Loveless popped her head from the backseat, grabbed Sharer by the hair and placed the knife to her throat. Sharer cried and begged Loveless not to hurt her, but for the remainder of the ride Loveless berated her and repeatedly referred to her as a "bitch," all the while holding the knife tightly against her throat.
Sharer was sobbing uncontrollably by the time they reached the Witches' Castle. Loveless and Tackett pulled her out of the car and held her arms tightly as Rippey and Lawrence illuminated the trail to the castle with lighters. Once inside, Loveless tied Sharer's hands as Rippey taunted her with the knife. Loveless then took several pieces of Sharer's jewelry, which she and Lawrence put on. Rippey decided she liked a musical Mickey Mouse watch Sharer was wearing, so she took it for herself.
It was dark in the castle, so Tackett took an old t-shirt and started a fire. As the flames grew, Tackett pointed at the fire and told Sharer that that was what she was going to look like before the night was over. Sharer was so frightened that she could not even speak; she just sobbed uncontrollably. Tackett was growing nervous as several cars drove by the castle and suggested they leave and go to another place by her house, so the girls dragged Sharer back to the car and drove off with their prisoner.
When the girls stopped at a Five Star station, Sharer was stuffed behind the back seat and covered with a blanket as Loveless stood guard. Tackett pumped gas while Rippey went inside to pay, and Lawrence made a phone call to a friend. During the conversation, Lawrence mentioned nothing of Sharer being held captive. For someone who later claimed to be very distraught over the night's events, she made no attempt to seek help. As soon as Lawrence hung up the phone, the group hit the road again.
Assault
It took nearly an hour for the girls to reach Madison. Tackett pointed out her house, and a few miles later they pulled onto an old logging road and stopped. Rippey and Lawrence got out of the car and Loveless and Tackett yanked Sharer from the back seat. Loveless untied Sharer's hands and ordered her to remove her clothes. It was bitterly cold, so Rippey and Lawrence got back in the car and took up positions next to the window to watch what happened. Sharer stripped down to her panties as Loveless threatened her with the knife. Loveless then scooped up the clothes and threw them in the car, telling the others that she wanted them as souvenirs. Rippey picked up Sharer's polka-dot bra and put it on as Lawrence turned on the radio.
Tackett grabbed both of Sharer's hands and held them behind her back so that Loveless could hit her. Sharer begged them to let her go and swore to stay away from Heavrin, but each plea was answered by Loveless' command for her to shut up. Suddenly, Loveless punched Sharer as hard as she could in the stomach, and Sharer collapsed to the ground. Through gasping breaths, Sharer begged them to stop hurting her. Sharer's cries fell upon deaf ears; Loveless picked her up by the hair and repeatedly slammed Sharer's head into Loveless' knee. The multiple blows caused Sharer's braces to cut into her lips, and blood flowed from her mouth.
As Sharer lay on the ground moaning, Loveless pulled out the knife and tried to cut her throat, but it proved too dull to cut the skin. Rippey then jumped out of the car to help hold Sharer down as Loveless tried using her foot to force the knife, but again it failed to have any effect. Unable to slit Sharer's throat, Loveless and Tackett took turns stabbing her in the chest with the knife. The wounds were not severe enough to cause immediate death, so Tackett decided that they would have to strangle Sharer and ran back to the car for a length of rope. Sharer continued to beg for her life, but Loveless simply laughed in her face. When Tackett returned with the rope, Loveless sat on Sharer's legs as Tackett straddled her chest. Tackett then wrapped the rope around Sharer's neck and pulled with all her might until Sharer's body went limp. Uncertain if Sharer was really dead, the girls tossed her body into the trunk and headed for Tackett's house.
Dead?
When the group got to Tackett's house, the girls went upstairs to her room, and Tackett pulled out some stones and tried reading their future. Just as Tackett said that their futures looked good, her dog began barking. When the girls listened out the window, they could hear Sharer's muffled screams. Tackett ran into the kitchen, grabbed a paring knife, and ran outside. She threw open the trunk and without warning stabbed Sharer multiple times, hoping to silence her. Finishing, Tackett closed the trunk and returned to her room, where the others were waiting. She was covered in blood. After a brief pause, Tackett announced that they needed to go for a ride. Rippey and Lawrence refused, so Loveless and Tackett left by themselves.
As Loveless and Tackett drove around, deciding what to do next, they stopped to see whether Sharer was dead. When the trunk lid opened, Sharer sat up, covered in blood with her eyes rolled back in her head. She tried to speak, but was only able to utter the word, "mommy." Tackett then reached into the trunk, picked up a tire iron, and struck Sharer on the head. She then closed the trunk and they were on their way again.
A short time later, as they traveled down winding back roads, they heard gurgling noises coming from the trunk. Tackett quickly pulled the car over to the side of the road to assess the situation. Loveless stayed inside while Tackett walked to the rear of the car and opened the trunk. Sharer was lying on her side. She looked as though she had been painted red and strange gasping and gurgling noises were emanating from her chest wounds. Tackett grasped the tire iron again and brought it down hard on Sharer's head several times. One of the blows was so severe that a chunk of Sharer's skull broke off. Satisfied with her handiwork, Tackett shut the trunk and walked back to the front of the car. When she got inside, she placed the end of the tire iron under her nose and smelled it. She began laughing as she explained what had happened and waved the tire iron under Loveless' nose.
The sun was starting to rise, so they decided to head back to Tackett's to burn Sharer's body. Along the way, they stopped several times to try to quiet Sharer with the tire iron. Back at Tackett's, the two girls woke up Rippey and Lawrence and bragged about the blows they had inflicted upon Sharer. Afterward, they explained their new plan, and Rippey and Lawrence followed them to Tackett's burn pile.
The End of Shanda
The girls quickly discovered that their plan would not work. The burn pile was covered in frost, and they did not have any gasoline to start a fire. Instead, Tackett decided to show Rippey her handiwork. Lawrence did not want to look at the body so she was told to start the car and rev the engine if Sharer started to scream. When Tackett opened the trunk, Rippey noticed a bottle of Windex next to Sharer, so she picked it up and began spraying Sharer with the cleaning liquid. As the Windex fizzled in her wounds, Sharer somehow managed the strength to sit up. Her body was covered in blood, and her eyes were pure white. Sharer began swaying back and forth as Tackett talked to her, but she said nothing in response. At some point about this time, the evidence suggests the girls sodomized Sharer with the tire iron; however none of them has ever admitted any knowledge of the wounds inflicted to her anal cavity. Tackett's mother ther, causing Tackett to slam the trunk down on Sharer's head.
Once Tackett returned from the house the girls decided it was time to end Sharer's life once and for all.
As the girls drove down the road, they again concluded that the best way to get rid of Sharer was to burn her. Tackett pulled into a Clark Oil station north of Madison to fill up the gas tank and asked Lawrence to buy a two-liter bottle of soda to fill with gas. Finishing their business at the gas station, the girls then drove out to Lemon Road. Rippey was familiar with the area and suggested that it would be a good spot to get rid of Sharer.
When they spotted an old logging road they turned in and stopped the car. Tackett opened the trunk, and Loveless and Rippey helped her pick up Sharer with the blanket with which they had covered her earlier. Lawrence chose not to help and sat in the car watching as they carried Sharer several feet behind the car before laying her on the ground. Rippey took the bottle of gasoline and poured a significant amount on Sharer; then Tackett struck a match and threw it down on Sharer's gas-soaked body. The gasoline instantly ignited, and the fire appeared to be burning well. The girls hopped back into the car and began to pull away when Loveless became nervous and told Tackett to turn around. She wanted to make sure the body was burning. Back at the scene, Loveless grabbed the bottle with the remaining gasoline and ran over to Sharer's body. She stood staring momentarily as Sharer curled up into a fetal position and her tongue darted in and out of her mouth. After she felt she had seen enough, she poured the remaining gasoline on Sharer's smoldering corpse and ran back to the car. Loveless thought Sharer's death throes were funny and described them to the others.
Sharer was finally out of Loveless' life for good. Tackett had seemed to enjoy herself during the crime, and Rippey and Lawrence must not have been too shaken up, because they had had several opportunities during the night to summon help for Sharer, but they had chosen not to. All of their exertions had tired them, so they stopped at a McDonald's on their way back. During breakfast, Tackett and Loveless joked several times about the resemblance of the sausages they were eating to Sharer. Afterwards, Tackett drove Rippey and Lawrence to their homes and went with Loveless to her house. They had decided earlier that Tackett would sleep over, but first they wanted to make some calls and brag about what they had just done.
