Murder of Shanda Sharer
The body of Shanda Sharer was found beside a country road in Indiana on the morning of the 11th of January 1992. Two brothers from Canaan, Donn and Ralph Foley, were driving toward Jefferson Proving Ground to go hunting. They noticed something at the roadside and took it for a mannequin. It was a 12-year-old girl who had been tortured and burned to death in and around Madison, Indiana. Four teenage girls, aged between 15 and 17, were responsible. The brutality of the crime and the youth of the perpetrators drew international attention. National news programs and talk shows covered the case, and it later inspired several episodes of fictional crime series. This documentary asks who Shanda was and who the girls were who killed her. It asks how a quarrel over one girl's affection became a plan to kill. It also asks how investigators who first looked in the wrong direction reached the truth, and what became of everyone involved.
Shanda Renee Sharer was born on the 6th of June 1979 at Pineville Community Hospital in Pineville, Kentucky. Her parents were Stephen and Jacqueline Sharer, who went by Jacque and later used the name Jacque Vaught. After the couple divorced, her mother remarried and the family moved to Louisville. There Shanda attended fifth and sixth grades at St. Paul School and played 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. On weekends she stayed with her father at his home in Jeffersonville.
In 1990, Melinda Loveless, who was 15, began dating a 13-year-old named Amanda Heavrin. Loveless soon grew erratic. She got into fights at school and reported feeling depressed, which led to professional counseling. In March 1991 she told her mother that she was a lesbian, as her two older sisters had done. Her mother was furious at first but eventually accepted it. As the year went on, the relationship with Heavrin deteriorated.
Early in the fall semester of 1991, Heavrin started a fight with Shanda at Hazelwood Middle School. The two became friends while serving detention for it, and they later exchanged romantic letters. Loveless grew jealous almost immediately. In early October, Heavrin took Shanda as her date to a school dance, and Loveless found and confronted her there. Heavrin and Loveless never actually broke up, yet Loveless began dating an older girl. After Heavrin and Shanda attended a festival together in late October, Loveless started to talk about killing Shanda and threatened her in public.
In late November 1991, Shanda's parents were concerned about the effect of her friendship with Heavrin. They arranged for her to move to Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, a Catholic school in New Albany, where she joined the girls' basketball team. Heavrin later said she had given Loveless's letters, which contained death threats against Shanda, to a "youth prosecutor." As far as Heavrin knew, the youth prosecutor never did anything about them.
Melinda Loveless was born in New Albany on the 28th of October 1975, the youngest of three daughters of Marjorie and Larry Loveless. Larry was drafted into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and reached the rank of Sergeant. He came home emotionally scarred but was treated as a hero. In 1965 he became a probationary officer with the New Albany Police Department, and he was fired after eight months for assaulting a man he accused of sleeping with his wife. He worked irregularly for the Southern Railway. In 1988 he briefly worked as a mail carrier but quit after three months, having brought most of his mail home to destroy it.
When both parents were working, the family was financially well off and lived in Floyds Knobs, an upper-middle-class suburb of Indiana. But Larry was violent and abusive and did not usually share his income. He spent what he earned on firearms, motorcycles and cars, and he filed for bankruptcy in 1980. Relatives said the daughters often arrived at their homes hungry. Marjorie tried to take her own life several times during the girls' childhoods. In the summer of 1986, Larry beat her so severely that she was hospitalized, and he was convicted of battery.
For two years, beginning when Melinda was five, the family was deeply involved in the Graceland Baptist Church. Larry became a lay preacher and Marjorie became the school nurse. The church later arranged a five-hour exorcism for Melinda. After Larry gained a reputation for being too forward with women, the parents left the church and returned to their old jobs and their drinking.
In November 1990, Larry was caught spying on Melinda and a friend. Marjorie attacked him with a knife, and he was sent to the hospital. Larry then filed for divorce and moved to Avon Park, Florida. Melinda felt crushed, especially when he remarried. He wrote to her for a while and then cut off all contact. Larry died in a car crash in St. Louis, Missouri, on the 16th of December 1998.
Mary Laurine Tackett, known as Laurie, was born in Madison on the 5th of October 1974. Her mother was a fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian, and her father was a factory worker with two felony convictions from the 1960s. In May 1989, her mother discovered that Laurie was changing from a dress into jeans at school. After a confrontation that night, her mother tried to strangle her, and social workers became involved. Her mother also went to the home of her friend Hope Rippey, demanding that a Ouija board be burned and the house exorcised.
After her 15th birthday, Tackett became increasingly rebellious and fascinated by the occult. She liked to impress friends by pretending to be possessed by the spirit of "Deanna the Vampire." She began to harm herself early in 1991, and her parents checked her into a hospital on the 19th of March 1991. Two days later, with her girlfriend and Toni Lawrence, she cut her wrists deeply and was returned to the hospital. She was admitted to the psychiatric ward, diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, and said she had experienced hallucinations since early childhood. She was discharged on the 12th of April and dropped out of high school in September 1991.
That October, Tackett stayed in Louisville with various friends. There she met Loveless, and the two became friends in late November. In December she moved back to Madison on the promise that her father would buy her a car. Even so, she spent most of her time in Louisville and New Albany, mostly with Loveless.
Hope Anna Rippey was born in Madison on the 9th of 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. Her parents resumed their relationship in Madison in 1987, and she was reunited with Tackett and Toni Lawrence, whom she had known since childhood. Her parents saw Tackett as a bad influence. Like Tackett, Rippey began to harm herself at age 15.
Toni Lawrence was born in Madison on the 14th of February 1976. Her father was a boilermaker, and she had been close friends with Rippey since childhood. A relative abused her at age 9, and a teenage boy raped her at age 14. The police only issued an order for the boy to keep away from her. She began counseling but did not continue, became promiscuous, began to harm herself, and attempted suicide in eighth grade.
Of the four girls, Loveless is often described as the ringleader. She also had the most extensive history of abuse and mental health problems.
On the night of the 10th of January 1992, Laurie Tackett, aged 17, drove Toni Lawrence and Hope Rippey, both 15, in her car from Madison to Melinda Loveless's house in New Albany. Loveless was 16. Rippey and Lawrence had never met her. After borrowing some clothes, they watched Loveless show them a knife and say she planned to scare Shanda with it. Tackett already knew that the real plan was to murder the 12-year-old. Loveless told the others she disliked Shanda for being a "copycat" and for stealing her girlfriend.
Rippey drove the four girls to Jeffersonville, stopping at a McDonald's restaurant on the way to ask for directions. They reached Shanda's house shortly before dark. Loveless sent Rippey and Lawrence to the front step to introduce themselves as friends of Heavrin. When Shanda answered, they said Heavrin was waiting for her at "the Witch's Castle," also called Mistletoe Falls. This was a ruined stone house on an isolated hill overlooking the Ohio River. Shanda said she had a party to attend and suggested they come back around midnight.
Loveless was angry, but Rippey and Lawrence assured her they would return. The four girls crossed the river to Louisville and went to a punk rock show by the band Sunspring at the Audubon Skate Park. On the drive back, Loveless said she could not wait to kill Shanda. She also said she only meant to frighten her with the knife.
They reached Shanda's house at 12:30 a.m. Lawrence refused to fetch her, so Tackett went to the house with Rippey. Shanda's father and stepmother had gone to bed, and she had been allowed to stay downstairs watching television. Rippey told her that Heavrin was still at the Witch's Castle. Shanda was reluctant but agreed after changing her clothes. Loveless meanwhile hid under a blanket in the back seat with the knife.
As Shanda got into the car, Rippey began asking her about her relationship with Heavrin. Loveless then sprang out from the back seat, put the knife to Shanda's throat, and questioned her about Heavrin as well. The car headed toward Utica and the Witch's Castle. On the way, Tackett told the girls a local legend that the house was once a castle owned by nine witches. According to the legend, the townspeople burned the castle down to be rid of them, leaving a small stone house in its place.
At the Witch's Castle, the girls took a sobbing Shanda inside and bound her arms and legs with rope. Loveless taunted her about her pretty hair and wondered aloud how she would look with it cut off. Loveless also took off Shanda's rings and handed them around. Rippey took Shanda's Mickey Mouse watch and danced to the tune it played. Tackett claimed the castle was filled with human remains and that Shanda's would be next. She then lit a shirt with a smiley design on fire to frighten her further, but she feared passing cars would see the flames, so the girls left.
During the ride, Shanda kept begging to be taken home. The girls became lost and stopped at a gas station, where they covered Shanda in a blanket. While Tackett went inside to ask for directions, Lawrence phoned a boy she knew in Louisville and chatted for several minutes. She did not mention the abduction. They got lost again and pulled into a second gas station, where Lawrence and Rippey spoke with a couple of boys. They arrived some time later at the edge of woods near Tackett's home in Madison. Tackett then led them to a dark abandoned building off a logging road in a densely forested area.
At the abandoned building in the forest, Lawrence and Rippey were too frightened to go inside and stayed in the car. Loveless and Tackett beat Shanda, and Rippey came out of the car to help hold her down. Loveless and Tackett took turns stabbing her in the chest and then strangled her with rope until she was unconscious. They put her in the trunk of the car and told the other two girls she was dead.
At Tackett's nearby home, the girls went inside to drink soda and clean themselves. When they heard Shanda screaming in the trunk, Tackett went out with a paring knife and stabbed her several more times. She came back a few minutes later covered in blood. After she washed, Tackett told the girls' futures with her "runestones."
At 2:30 a.m., Tackett and Loveless set out on what they called country cruising, driving toward the town of Canaan while Lawrence and Rippey stayed behind. When Shanda made crying noises, Tackett stopped the car and opened the trunk. Shanda sat up, covered in blood, unable to speak. Tackett beat her with a tire iron until she was silent, and the assault continued off and on for hours as the two drove through the countryside.
Just before daybreak, Loveless and Tackett returned to Tackett's home to clean up again and woke the other girls. When Rippey asked about Shanda, Tackett laughingly described what had been done. The conversation woke Tackett's mother, who was angry that her daughter was out so late but offered to cook the girls breakfast. Tackett declined, saying she needed to drive the others home. Instead she drove to the burn pile and opened the trunk. Lawrence refused to look.
The girls then stopped at a gas station near Madison Consolidated High School, pumped gasoline into the car, and bought a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. Tackett poured out the Pepsi and refilled the bottle with gasoline. They drove north, past Jefferson Proving Ground, to Lemon Road off U.S. Route 421, a place Rippey knew. Lawrence stayed in the car. Tackett and Rippey wrapped Shanda, who was still alive, in a blanket and carried her to a field beside the gravel road. Rippey poured some of the gasoline on her, and they set her on fire. Loveless was not convinced Shanda was dead, so they returned a few minutes later and poured on the rest.
At 9:30 a.m., the girls ate breakfast at a McDonald's restaurant, where they joked about what they had done. Tackett dropped Lawrence and Rippey at their homes and went back to her own with Loveless. Loveless told Heavrin that they had killed Shanda and arranged to pick her up later that day. A friend named Crystal Wathen came to Loveless's house and heard the story too. The three drove to collect Heavrin and brought her back to the Loveless home.
Heavrin and Wathen were reluctant to believe what they heard. Tackett then showed them the trunk of the car, where Shanda's bloody handprints and socks were still present. Heavrin was horrified and asked to be taken home. In front of her house, Loveless kissed her, told her she loved her and pleaded with her not to tell anyone. Heavrin promised, then went inside.
The Foley brothers phoned the police at 10:55 a.m. and were asked to return to the body. State trooper David Camm, Jefferson County Sheriff Buck Shipley and detectives began an investigation and collected forensic evidence at the scene. They first suspected a drug deal gone wrong and did not believe locals were responsible. The girl's face and hands had been burned, apparently to keep her from being recognized.
Stephen Sharer had noticed early on the 11th of January that his daughter was nowhere to be found. After phoning neighbors and friends all morning, he called his ex-wife at 1:45 p.m. The two met and filed a missing person report with the Clark County sheriff.
At 8:20 p.m., Lawrence and Rippey walked into the Jefferson County Sheriff's office with their parents. Lawrence had already phoned a friend that morning to tell her about the murder. Both girls gave rambling statements. They named the victim as "Shanda," named the two other girls as best they could, and described the main events of the night. After an inter-county investigation, Shipley contacted the Clark County sheriff and was finally able to match the body to the missing person report. Dental records then positively identified Shanda.
Loveless and Tackett were arrested on the 12th of January. The arrest warrant rested mostly on the statements of Lawrence and Rippey. Prosecutors immediately announced that they would try both as adults. For several months, prosecutors and defense attorneys released no information, so the news media had only the statements by Lawrence and Rippey.
All four girls were eventually charged as adults. To avoid the death penalty, they accepted plea bargains. Tackett and Loveless were each sentenced to 60 years in the Indiana Women's Prison in Indianapolis. Rippey received 60 years, with 10 suspended for mitigating circumstances, plus 10 years of medium-supervision probation. On appeal, a judge reduced her sentence to 35 years. In exchange for her cooperation, Lawrence pleaded guilty to one count of criminal confinement and received a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Loveless appealed, and the Indiana Supreme Court upheld her sentence in 1994. In October 2007, her attorney Mark Small sought post-conviction relief from the Jefferson Circuit Court. He argued that childhood abuse had left her severely impaired and that her counsel had not represented her competently. He said she had accepted a plea bargain after hearing exaggerated claims about her chances of a death sentence. He also argued that, at 16, she was too young under Indiana law to sign a plea agreement without a parent or guardian's consent. If the judge had accepted these arguments, she could have been retried or released outright.
On the 8th of January 2008, Jefferson Circuit Judge Ted Todd rejected Loveless's request. The Indiana Court of Appeals denied her appeal on the 14th of November 2008, upholding his ruling. Small said he would seek to have the case moved to the Indiana Supreme Court.
Lawrence was released on the 14th of December 2000, after serving nine years, and remained under supervision until December 2002. Rippey was released from the Indiana Women's Prison on the 28th of April 2006, after serving fourteen years, and stayed on supervised parole until April 2011. Tackett was released from Rockville Correctional Facility on the 11th of January 2018, the 26th anniversary of Shanda's death. She had served nearly 26 years and completed one more year of supervised release. Loveless was released from the Indiana Women's Prison on the 5th of September 2019 after more than 26 years. She will serve her post-release supervision in Jefferson County, Kentucky.
In February 1993, Larry Loveless was arrested on charges of rape, sodomy and sexual battery. Testimony at his daughter's sentencing hearing had revealed in open court that he abused his wife, his daughters and other children. Most of the alleged crimes took place between 1968 and 1977. He spent over two years in jail awaiting trial. A judge then ruled that every charge but one count of sexual battery had to be dropped under Indiana's five-year statute of limitations. Larry pleaded guilty to that count, received a sentence of time served, and was released in June 1995.
A few weeks after his release, Larry sued the Floyd County Jail in federal court for $39 million, alleging cruel and unusual punishment. The suit failed. Among his complaints were that he was not allowed to sleep in his bed during the day or to read the newspaper.
Stephen Sharer died of alcoholism in 2005, at the age of 53. Shanda's mother, Jacque Vaught, spoke about his death in an interview on the Investigation Discovery series Deadly Women. She said he was so distraught that he "did everything he could to kill himself besides put a gun to his head." She added 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 planned to give scholarships to two students a year from Prosser School of Technology in New Albany. One went to a student continuing an education, and the other to a student beginning a career who had to buy tools or other work equipment. By November 2018, Vaught said the fund had been depleted and was no longer accepting donations.
In 2012, Vaught made her first contact with Melinda Loveless since the trials, though only indirectly. She donated a dog named Angel, in Shanda's name, for Loveless to train for the Indiana Canine Assistance Network program through Project2heal. The program provides service dogs to people with disabilities. Loveless trained dogs for it for several years. Vaught said she had endured criticism over the decision but defended it. In her words: "It's my choice to make. She's Shanda my child. If you don't let good things come from bad things, nothing gets better. And I know what my child would want. My child would want this."
A documentary from Episode 11 Productions, titled Charlie's Scars, captured Vaught's decision to let Loveless train dogs in Shanda's name. The film also includes three interviews with Loveless. Vaught has said she hopes to donate a dog every year in honor of her daughter.
Two true crime books, Little Lost Angel by Michael Quinlan and Cruel Sacrifice by Aphrodite Jones, documented the crime. Jones's book became a New York Times Bestseller. Playwright Rob Urbinati turned the story into a play called Hazelwood Jr. High, which starred Chloë Sevigny as Tackett. Samuel French, Inc. published it in September 2009. The 2023 novel Penance by Eliza Clark is structured as a fictional true crime book. Its central murder borrows details and characters largely from the killing of Shanda Sharer.
Poetry has also taken up the case. Lacy Gray wrote a poem called In God's Arms, dedicated to the Sharer family, which appeared in the Jeffersonville Evening News on the 8th of February 1993 and again on the 11th of May 1995. The 2008 book kissing dead girls includes a poem by Daphne Gottlieb, The Whole World Is Singing. It is told from Shanda's point of view and includes lines from notes she wrote to Amanda Heavrin.
In the 2019 film The World Is Full of Secrets, teenage girls at a sleepover trade horror stories, all of them nonfictional accounts of the murders of girls and young women. The third story is the murder of Shanda Sharer, though the participants are given pseudonyms.
Television has returned to the case repeatedly. The episode "Mean," from the fifth season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, is based on the murder. The second-season Cold Case episode "The Sleepover" is loosely based on it. In May 2011, Dr. Phil aired a two-part series featuring Shanda's mother and her sister Paije, who harshly confronted Hope Rippey about her early release. It also included an interview with Amanda Heavrin. The Lifetime series Killer Kids covered the murder in an episode titled "Jealousy," aired in July 2014. In November 2018, the Investigation Discovery series The 1990s: The Deadliest Decade devoted its episode "The New Girl" to the case, interviewing Shanda's mother and lead police officers. The third episode of Mean Girl Murders, from 2024, also covers it.
American artist Marlene McCarty used the murder as one of the subjects of her Murder Girls series of drawings, about teenage female murderers, their sexuality and their relationships. One drawing from 2000-2001 is now in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Its title names all five girls and ends with a date and a time, "the 11th of January 1992 (1:39 am)."
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Common questions
Who was Shanda Sharer?
Shanda Renee Sharer was born on the 6th of June 1979 in Pineville, Kentucky. She was 12 years old when four teenage girls tortured and burned her to death in the Madison, Indiana area on the 11th of January 1992.
Who killed Shanda Sharer?
Four teenage girls aged between 15 and 17 were responsible for the murder of Shanda Sharer: Melinda Loveless, Laurie Tackett, Hope Rippey and Toni Lawrence. Loveless is often described as the ringleader.
Why was Shanda Sharer murdered?
Melinda Loveless was jealous of Shanda Sharer's close friendship with Amanda Heavrin, her girlfriend. Loveless began discussing killing Shanda and threatening her in public after the two attended a festival together in late October 1991.
How was the Shanda Sharer murder solved?
Toni Lawrence and Hope Rippey went to the Jefferson County Sheriff's office with their parents at 8:20 p.m. on the 11th of January 1992. Their statements identified the victim and the other girls, and dental records confirmed her identity.
What sentences did the Shanda Sharer killers receive?
Laurie Tackett and Melinda Loveless were each sentenced to 60 years. Hope Rippey's 60-year sentence was reduced on appeal to 35 years, and Toni Lawrence received a maximum of 20 years after pleading guilty to criminal confinement.
Are the Shanda Sharer killers out of prison?
Yes. Toni Lawrence was released on the 14th of December 2000 and Hope Rippey on the 28th of April 2006. Laurie Tackett was released on the 11th of January 2018 and Melinda Loveless on the 5th of September 2019.
Has the Shanda Sharer murder been made into books, films or television episodes?
Yes. True crime books include Little Lost Angel by Michael Quinlan and Cruel Sacrifice by Aphrodite Jones, and the play Hazelwood Jr. High is based on it. Television episodes include Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Cold Case, Dr. Phil and Killer Kids.
All sources
40 references cited across the entry
- 2NewsShana Sharer's mother to appear on Dr. PhilJanelle MacDonald — WAVE 3 News — May 20, 2011
- 3NewsThe Pain of RememberingPam Runquist — January 14, 1992
- 5Amanda Heavrin Speaks About Shanda Sharer - In Cold Blood: A Daughter's Brutal MurderTrueCrimeVideos — May 28, 2011
- 6BookLittle Lost AngelMichael Quinlan — Gallery Books — 2012
- 8NewsThinking the Unthinkable: What Led 4 Teens to Torture, Murder Child?Bob Lewis — January 31, 1993
- 10NewsTeen Girls Charged in Torture Slaying of New Albany GirlDeborah Yetter — January 13, 1992
- 11NewsOn July 29, Tempo reported a caseRon Grossman — January 8, 1993
- 12NewsJudge denies Loveless' request for early release in torture-killingJanelle MacDonald — Wave 3 News — January 8, 2008
- 13NewsWoman convicted in 1992 murder released from prisonCourtney Shaw — WLKY — January 11, 2018
- 14https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7197689953794483015November 17, 1994
- 15NewsLoveless seeks release from jailStephanie Mojica — The Tribune (New Albany) — October 14, 2007
- 16NewsWoman's torture-murder sentence standsAssociated Press — January 8, 2008
- 17https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=9858662336838718160November 14, 2008
- 18NewsAppeal denied in 1992 torture deathWLFI-TV
- 19Woman convicted in 1992 murder released from prisonCourtney Shaw — January 11, 2018
- 20Mastermind behind brutal murder of Indiana girl in 1992 released from prisonSeptember 5, 2019
- 21NewsFate Of Loveless Sex-Abuse Case Unclear Two Years After ArrestJohn C. Pillow — February 3, 1995
- 22NewsInmates' Suit Nears HearingJohn C. Pillow — June 21, 1995
- 23Thrill KillersHawker Paul
- 24NewsNew Albany memorial focuses on Shanda, not her murderTrisha Dunn — January 11, 2009
- 25NewsShanda Sharer's mother and murderer form unlikely allianceAnne Ryder — WAVE 3 News — May 21, 2012
- 26BookCruel SacrificeAphrodite Jones — Pinnacle — 1999
- 27JournalReview: 'Hazelwood Jr. High'Greg Evans — May 6, 1998
- 28BookHazelwood Jr. HighRob Urbinati — Samuel French, Inc. — 2009
- 29NewsEliza Clark: 'I'm more primary school teacher than enfant terrible'Anthony Cummins — June 24, 2023
- 31Bookkissing dead girlsDaphne Gottlieb — Soft Skull Press — 2008
- 32BookTrue Stories of Law & OrderKevin Dwyer et al. — Berkley Trade — 2007
- 33MeanMichele Fazekas et al.
- 34The SleepoverLiz W. Garcia
- 35In Cold Blood: A Daughter's Brutal MurderMay 20, 2011
- 38The 1990s: The Deadliest DecadeDiscovery Communications Inc. — November 12, 2018
- 39MagazineSex and Death: Interview with Marlene McCartyAna Finel Honigmann — Artslant.com — August 2013
- 40MOCA Collection: Marlene McCarty: 2000–2001: Melinda Loveless, Toni Lawrence, Hope Rippey, Laurie Tackett, and Shanda Sharer – January 11, 1992 (1:39 am)Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)