, 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. The girls then drove to the field near Madison, covered her with a blanket, and poured gasoline on her. In January 1992, a horrifying discovery out in a field near Madison, Indiana, led the authorities on a shocking inquiry that ultimately led to the conviction of four teenagers. Her death has been the subject of much speculation and debate over the years. Shanda Rene Sharer (JJanuary 11, 1992) was an American girl who was murdered by a group of girls in early 1992. Toni was released in 2000 after serving almost nine years in prison, remaining on parole until late 2002. Paul School where she was on the cheer leading, volleyball and softball teams. There is no agreement on her sentence.Shanda attended fifth and sixth grades in Louisville at St. In a plea bargain reached in April, Toni Lawrence agreed to testify for the prosecution in exchange for a guilty plea on a The body was discovered an hour after Toni got home. Detective Henry testified that Laurie Tackett and Melinda Loveless told Toni they "planned to burn Shanda's body." But Toni said she was dropped off at home before Shanda was killed. Sometime after daybreak, with Shanda bleeding but still alive in the trunk, the girls went to a Madison gas station, where they filled a 2-liter soda bottle with gasoline. At various times, Shanda was tied up, threatened with death, cut on the legs, choked, and beaten with a metal rod, perhaps a tire tool. came up out of the back seat and put a knife to Shanda's throat, and pulled her hair back."Īs the girls drove back toward Madison, Toni Lawrence told Detective Henry, they made several stops for torture. That, Detective Henry said, was when "Melinda. Senior High Principal Roger Gallatin described Hope Rippey and Toni Lawrence - both also 10th-graders - as "above-average students, not discipline problems." A classmate said Toni and Hope had been spending time with the black-clothes group but had not changed their appearance.Ĭontinuing with Toni's story, Detective Henry testified that the three girls drove down to New Albany, where they picked up Melinda Loveless, 16, a friend of Laurie's who was unknown to Toni and Hope. Her attorney would say in court that she had a history of mental problems. Last fall, after her 17th birthday, Laurie dropped out of school. She joined a small clique of perhaps a dozen like-minded kids at Madison High who were known as the "Alternatives." In the eighth grade, she cut short her long blond hair and began to dress in black. Madison Junior High Principal Larry Cummins said that Laurie, 17, had been "a fine elementary student" with "good values." A classmate recalled that Laurie had once been very religious, like her Christian fundamentalist parents.īut then she changed, her classmates said. Toni said the night of horror began Friday when she and another Madison High sophomore, Hope Rippey, 15, were picked up after school by Mary Laurine "Laurie" Tackett. At Christmastime several years ago, a group of 14- or 15-year-olds stole the baby Jesus doll from the courthouse creche, wrote "666" on it - the "number of the Beast" from Revelations - and burned it. The teens who hang out behind the fast food store on Michigan Road claim they know of lesbian and Satanic circles among other Madison teens, so many of them believe the talk about Shanda's killing.Įven Madison Police Chief Bill Tingle, whose department has had no official role in the investigation, said he knew that "there possibly was a 90 percent chance" that lesbian jealousy touched off the crime.Īs for Satanism, he knew of only one concrete incident. "That's what my granddaughter brought home from junior high school," said Fauna Mihalko, 62, who works in the town library's genealogy section. Today, virtually anyone you ask in Madison has heard the talk - none of it officially confirmed - that the dead girl and one of her killers were involved in a lesbian lovers' triangle or Satanism. Despite the scarcity of facts, or perhaps because of it, rumors and whispers about another dimension to the crime soon began to drift across the town, like some cold fog off the Ohio.
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