March 16, 2023 • 38 mins
The 1992 murder of 12-year old Shanda Sharer is considered one of the most disturbing cases in recent history. In January of that year, four teenage girls abducted, tortured, and burned Shanda alive in a jealous rage. We discuss this gruesome case with writer Aphrodite Jones, who wrote a book about the murder and its aftermath.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
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Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hi, everyone, welcome back to Facing Evil. I'm Yvette Gentila
and I'm Rasha Paccuerrero. This week, we are talking about
a truly shocking case, and that's the case of Shonda Cherer, who,
at the age of twelve, was abducted, tortured, and killed
by four teenage girls. Yeah. This is a case of
(00:48):
teenage bullying gone completely off the deep in and it's
been the subject of at least two true crime books
and a play featuring Chloe Sabagnier, and many poems about
this as well.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
And I think what fascinates everyone, or so it seems,
is how this crime was perpetuated by teenage girls. I
mean mean girls is an understatement on this case. It's
the original mean girls, right.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, And so we're going to be getting into that today,
and we're also going to be talking with our guest
who is a author and journalist. She is Aphrodite Jones,
and she's written a book about this case.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
But first our producer Trevor is going to take us
through today's case.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Jackie Vaught's daughter Shanda, was kidnapped and murdered in nineteen
ninety two by four teenage girls.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Court testimony showed some of the girls had been abused
by their parents.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
It turns into anger. If you keep that hurt and
don't let it go or don't forgive that person, that
hurt can turn into anger and hate, and I'll make
you do things that you would never really do. That evening,
there were four girls there that had a lot of
hatred inside of them, and it just all exploded.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Shanda Shearer was a twelve year old girl who was
killed in nineteen ninety two by four other girls in Madison, Indiana.
The year before, She and her family had just moved
to the nearby town of New Albany, Indiana. That fall,
she met a girl named Amanda Heron. Soon they began
exchanging romantic letters, and in October they went to a
(02:33):
dance together. At the dance, they were confronted by another
girl named Melinda Loveless. Loveless was older sixteen. The previous spring,
she and Amanda had been romantically involved, and although the
relationship had fizzled out, they had never formally ended things.
Seeing Amanda at the dance with someone else, Melinda got angry.
(02:58):
Melinda had a difficult home life with a violent and
sexually abusive father. She was close friends with seventeen year
old Laurie Tackett, who also had a difficult time at
home and had dropped out of high school that year.
Also in their orbit where two other girls named Hope
Rippy and Tony Lawrence, who were both fifteen years old.
(03:18):
The night of January tenth, nineteen ninety two, the four
girls were hanging out and Melinda Loveless told the girls
that she was going to use a knife to scare Shanda,
a girl they'd never met. She wanted to intimidate Shanda
for dating her girlfriend. The girls drove to Shanda's house,
where Tony Lawrence and Hope Rippy went to the door
(03:39):
and told Shanda they were friends of Amanda's and that
Amanda wanted to meet her at a building known locally
as the Witch's Castle, an abandoned stone house by the
Ohio River. When she got in the car with them,
Lawrence held a knife to Shanda's throat. The girls drove
to Witch's castle and dragged a sobbing Shanda inside. There,
(04:02):
Melinda Loveless tied Shanda's hands as Rippy taunted her with
the knife. The girls took her jewelry and a Mickey
Mouse watch that she was wearing. Later, Melinda Lovelass and
Lori Tackett made Shanda strip down to her underwear. Then
the girls began assaulting her, punching her and taking turns
stabbing her in the chest. Then they strangled her with
(04:24):
a rope until she passed out, and then put her
in the trunk. At one point, Shanda began screaming from
the trunk, and so Laurie Tackett went to go stab
her again with a pairing knife. Melinda Lovelace reportedly laughed
and bragged about the torture to her friends, and finally
the girls drove Shanda to a secluded area where they
(04:46):
poured gasoline on her and lit her on fire. Shanda's
body was found by two hunters and they alerted the police.
The next day. Hope, Rippy and Tony Lawrence went to
the county Sheriff's office and gave statements describing the night before.
They put most of the blame on Melinda Lovelace and
Lori Tackett. All four girls went to trial and entered
(05:10):
plea bargains to avoid the death penalty. Melinda and Laurie
were tried as adults and were both sentenced to sixty
years in prison. However, they were released on parole in
twenty nineteen and twenty eighteen, respectively. Hope Rippy received a
thirty five year sentence and was released on parole in
two thousand and eight. Tony Lawrence received twenty years and
(05:33):
was released on parole in two thousand and So what
led to the murder of Shanda Scherer and how could
four teenage girls be driven to torture and kill another
person so violently?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Hello?
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Everyone, We are so pleased to welcome our guests for
today's case. Writer, journalist, and crime expert Afrodyite Jones is
here with us today. She has written a book on
the case of Shanda Sharer entitled Cruel Sacrifice. She's also
written numerous other true crime books, including The FBI Killer
(06:13):
and A Perfect Husband. Many of Aphrodite's books have been
made into films and television shows, and she even produced
her own show, True Crime with Aphrodite Jones, which ran
for six seasons on Investigation Discovery. The list of amazing
credentials goes on and on and on. So, without further ado,
(06:36):
Aphrodite a komo mai or welcome to facing evil.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Thank you. I've been used to facing evil my whole
professional life.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Oh you and us both, Aphrodite, who we got a
lot to talk about.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
I'm like kidding when I say that.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
You know that, right?
Speaker 7 (06:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
I know.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Well, now that we know a little bit about you, Aphrodite.
You know, of course we want to talk today about Shanna,
but we want to learn even more about you. So
we fell into true crime because of our lineage and
its connection to our mom's story. How did you fall
into true crime? Like how did you first get interested
(07:16):
in it?
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Like?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
What led you to this, you know, facing evil of
your own?
Speaker 6 (07:21):
Well, it was it was honestly a calling for me.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
It was a fluke. I was living in Kentucky, Appalaysia
at the time. I was a professor college and I
also did a radio gig because I always was involved
with media and broadcasting. So I was doing a radio
gig as well, and an FBI agent killed his lover
informant and became the first FBI agent in history and
(07:46):
still to this day to cop a murder plated manslaughter.
He led them to her bones. She was pregnant and
threatening him and mountain woman in other words, hillbilly right
back then, So I'm like, okay, where's the news the time,
I didn't have it. Newsweek had a blurb this big,
(08:08):
and I just understand, like, where's CNN? Where is everybody? Why?
This is a historic case. So I called my agent.
I had an agent, had Toady written a book about
the entertainment business, because that's the business I was in
and wanted to be in.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Same understand, let me talk.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
To killers and monsters, you know, and people who've lost
family members. That was not in the carts, I thought. Anyway.
I called the agent and he said, oh, you can't
do anything about this. This is a big story and
Rule is going to be calling. I thought, who the
hell is and Rule?
Speaker 6 (08:38):
At that time, That's how little I knew about it, right,
He said, you don't read this. I did a PhD
in literature.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
No, there was no true prime on the list at NYU,
so ps she he said, well, reading coulb what I did,
and somehow thought at that time I could do this,
and I wound up, you know, interviewing my family. It
became a TV movie with Patricia Cat Stephen Weber, and
the book was incredibly successful. And then I hit on
Curl Sacrifice, and when that happened, I went to the
(09:06):
New York Times list. I kind of got stuck with
the genre in particular writing Curl Sacrifice. When I look
back at it, and I did look back last night
in preparation for this, that was the hardest book probably
that I ever wrote, because of the subject matter. Of course,
I really didn't want another write intrade crime book after that.
I really did not.
Speaker 6 (09:27):
I was so.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Mentally drained, emotionally drained from the whole experience. I was
able to see the car that Shanda was in. I
was taken to the evidence area where that car was
in a lot, and they opened that trunk and dry
blood was still there and you could smell it. Oh,
(09:51):
and you could see areas where she tried to scratch
her way through because those old cars in those days,
you could get through the backseat through the speakers, and
and this poor girl was trying to do that right,
you know, when they asked me, did I want to
see the chunk? Wasn't expecting that. Then what happened was
when I got to the Hope Rippy's sentencing hearing in
(10:14):
South Bend, Indiana, a writer came up to me and said,
I'm writing this book. And I said, well, good luck
to you.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Oh, I said, good luck to you.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
You know, like I'm working with the family. I said, okay,
good luck to you.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
Yeah. I didn't know the name of the book at
the time.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
I just knew that Jackie bought the mom was working
with this writer, and in my mind, I had no choice.
But also the story was really to talk to these girls.
That was the story. What happened these children's lives. They're
fifteen and sixteen years old. What could have happened in
these girls' lives they could possibly have made them do this?
(10:52):
And in particular obviously Melinda Loveless because she was the ringleader.
So I wrote to her, oh you did, oh yeah,
and Melinda answered and when we comes here and I
have to say back then, I've seen pictures of her
recently where she was released. She was gorgeous in person.
She's not photogenic. Her pictures do not do her justice.
(11:13):
This girl was dropped dead gorgeous, I mean sixteen, but
she was absolutely stunning. And I could not believe I'm
sitting there with this beautiful girl who was telling me,
oh it was it was so sad. She was just
so nonchalant about it. I was just like, that's how
it was back then. I'm like, back then, you're sixteen.
When was back then when you were six?
Speaker 7 (11:35):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (11:36):
You know, wow, so weird.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
But she wanted she wanted me to tell the story,
and she connected me with her mom, who I worked with,
you know, for quite a while. And obviously then the
police and the evidence and all the rest of the
interviews came in. It was tough.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I can only imagine aphrodity, Like, you know, I'm just
sitting there listening to everything that you're saying and taking
it in, and you know, this crime was so incredibly brutal,
you know, And when we think about it, it was
in nineteen ninety two, like Russia and I were both
in Hawaii, so I hadn't heard of it at all.
(12:16):
But the fact that these girls right were so young
and we've all been through mean girls, teenage bullying. But
the extremeness the torture in which you were just talking about, right, Melinda,
like what they did to Shanda, How do we comprehend that?
(12:40):
You know from you writing your book and interviewing, like,
how did you so?
Speaker 4 (12:45):
First and foremost, I realized that Melinda, who was the ringleader,
was the only person who wanted to have this done,
so it had to be her backstory. I knew there's
something in her background that's horrific, which there was and
is apart from that. And her mother admitted to me
that she was a masochist, and I just she know.
(13:05):
The mother was raped by various people. The father raped
the mother in front of the girls. There was a
lot of sleeping with the girl's pistol whipping. I don't
you know, craziness in that household that I later discovered.
But also the thing that struck me was Lori Tackett
was out for blood. She was a ticking time on.
(13:26):
So when Melinda Loveless connected with Lori Tackett, she found
the person she needed. Tony Lawrence and Hope Rippy were
just in the car for the ride down from Madison
to no Obany. That's a pretty long ride right now.
It's not a fifteen minute you know drive away. It's
an hour plus two almost. It's quite a bit of
(13:47):
a distance. So you know, those girls went along for
a ride. They don't even know what they're getting into
until they got to Melinda's house, who they've never met
in their lives. And Melinda says, I just she pulls
out that knife, scare Shanda. They don't even know who
Shanda is. They don't none of them have met Shanda
first and foremost you have to say to answer your
question that this has to do partially with pure pressure,
(14:11):
because the other two girls that didn't have really either
a dog in this bite or a bloodlust. How did
they wind up participating? And that's an interesting dynamic here
because we see how people I don't know drop like lemmings,
especially when they're teenagers. The other thing with teenagers, as
(14:32):
we all know, everything is the end of the world, right, yeah,
there's no tomorrow here. Everything is the end of the world.
And it's all you met somebody two seconds ago and
your best friends, I love her.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
Hell for yesterday.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
But this is like she's so right, So you have
all these weird mixture of elements that you know, you
could say bullying. I mean, Shannon was bullied in the school, right,
Melinda was after her. But this goes beyond any kind
of bullying. I mean, let's face it, this is one
of the worst crimes in the history of teenagers.
Speaker 6 (15:12):
It really, truly is.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I have so much respect for you that you can
go in as you know, basically as a journalist with
open eyes and not look at Melinda or any of
these other young girls because they were young girls that
did this horrific.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Unthinkable thing.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
But again I don't want to give them a free
past because of their history and their home life had
to affect what they did to Shanda, right, like you said,
it wasn't just bullying like this was something deeper, something
horrific had been done to these young girls.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Well, so, Melinda, we believe was sleeping with their father.
We know they slept in the same bed. She never
admitted that he actually you know, had sex with her,
but we know he had sex with the other two
daughters and the mother had sex. He raped the mother
in front of the three girls. All that went on. Also,
there was allegations that he had molested her cousins, So
(16:33):
out of all females in that household, she's the only
one who didn't admit to that. When her parents got
a divorce and Larry Lovelace left the house, Melinda now
felt like she's deserved by the only man that she
cares about. Clearly she's in love with her father, and yes,
I'm sure she was, you know, being molested thinking that
(16:53):
this was okay in this incestuous relationship because kids don't
know what to think, especially if they've been groomed from
a young age. Is sitting happen when she turned sixteen.
This is going on from the time she's a little girl,
and with her older sisters. Now I found out from
the older sisters who I spoke with. So when you're
in that scenario and your only person in the world
(17:15):
who you trust, who you think is your protector and
your love of your life leaves, now obviously she doesn't
trust men. So that's why she's with the girls's with
Amanda Heaven and now Amanda Heaven, who she'd been holding
on to for dear life right as her person in
(17:35):
the world who had you know, more of a butch.
Speaker 6 (17:39):
Look, if you want to use that word.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
You know, the backwards baseball hat, the very short hair,
the whole opposite of Melinda with the long Floyd locks.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
And it was a male figure in her life as well.
And now that person.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Is leaving her for some little girl, whoever that little
girl is. In Melinda's mind, it's not a little girl.
It's a competition. They didn't separate themselves from whether they're
fifteen or twelve. Yeah, and that's interesting because you know
you think of, oh, that's the way it is today.
All these kids are produced and they mix it up
and Matt, no, this has been going on from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Of time, right, we were having this conversation about another case.
And if you think about everything that you just said
about what Melinda had gone through as a child, and
if you treat someone like a dog, they're gonna behave
like a dog. Melinda, she didn't know what love is,
(18:29):
but she believed that she loved Amanda. And now Amanda
is leaving her as well.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
And that's another thing. People redirect anger, right, So rather
than putting the anger toward her mother, who allowed all
of this and who admitted to me that she was
a massachist and allowed herself to be raped in front
of these girls, etc. Et cetera, and has swinging partners
and other people brought into the house and the girl's
hearing all of it and knowing the house it's small.
(18:56):
So Melinda is thinking that that the world is upside
down for her. It doesn't make any sense to her.
She needs some kind of validation, and that's what she
got from Amanda Hevron. So now her validation goes away.
Now her she doesn't know what's with life. And again,
you know, with teenagers's the end of the world. For her,
(19:19):
it was the end of the world. She had to
eliminate this competition at whatever cost.
Speaker 6 (19:26):
She didn't care, right, Yeah, I mean it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
You know. You look at the letters she wrote and
more of them which was read in the court said
I want Shanda dead and was very specific.
Speaker 6 (19:39):
Wow, it's not like.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
It was a laughterthought for her. This was premeditated, cold
blooded killed. That's what this was. Yeah, this was not
a lord Shanda from her house. Melinda was hiding in
the backseat of the car under a blanket, and then
once Shanna got in that car, Melinda jumps out the
knife to her throat, pulling her back from the front seat.
(20:05):
She had told the other girls that she just wanted
to scare Shanda. Lori Teckett, I'm sure knew more than that.
The other two girls who were along for the ride
did not. They really had no idea what they were
getting into. Those two girls would never have done this,
I'm convinced of that, had they not been in that car,
(20:26):
had they not been kind of prodded along the way.
Do you have to think about too and not making
any excuses for them, because we know Hope Rippy poured
the gasoline on Shanda. Part of the reason there was
so much torture, I think is that these girls really
didn't know how to kill someone. They thought that they
had killed her after they stabbed her a few times
(20:49):
and pulled the rope around her neck, thinking that they
strangled her.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
And next thing I know, she's banging in the back
of the car.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
But now you have two other girls in the back
seat here in Shanada. What are they thinking? Am I
going to be next? Like?
Speaker 6 (21:03):
Look what they just did to this little girl.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
We don't know Melinda, they never met before. She's holding
her knife to Shanna's neck and threatening at that witch's
castle that she's going to put her in with a
bag of bones with the other bones, and the girls
at that point all chimed in because that was just
kind of having fun, you know, it was a game
to them in the beginning. They drummed this whole thing
up and they scared her.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
This is just a whole another level of cruelty. And
when I think about, like for me, thinking about this case,
and it's probably it may be different for you because
you were, you know, right in the mix of it,
you know, interviewing, and you wrote a book about it.
Speaker 6 (21:42):
But do you.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Think that these girls should have been tried as adults?
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Absolutely. I met with one of their lawyers and I'll
never forget he said to me, this is a mind
feel out there. Every time you get another teen who's
coming to you for whatever reason in the you know,
violation crime. They've committed act of violence. They're just waiting
to blow up. Now, this was thirty years ago. It's
(22:08):
funny that right now we say that about now right
we see school careersoting those didn't even exist back then.
In nineteen ninety two, when this book in ninety three
was being written and came out, there was no schoolhouse shootings.
Speaker 6 (22:20):
Yet there was nothing.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
So when this lawyer said to me, I face a mind.
Feel out there every time. You know, he represented juveniles.
Every time another juvenile came to him for defense, he
would see what was behind their mask and the vulnerability
and sadness and just lack of ability.
Speaker 6 (22:42):
To cope with life.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:46):
Yeah, that does.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Not mean that you can go and take someone else's
life and give you any excuses.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
No, absolutely not.
Speaker 6 (22:53):
There's no getting around that.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
What these girls did, and they all participated, and the
way that Tony Lawrence, who eventually turned on the girls
and was chief in getting these guilty. Please Tony Lawrence
and Hope Rippy they went to her house right, yeah,
and they were there for two three hours while Melinda
(23:19):
and Laurie went country driving. So once they left the house,
and here's Hope and Tony very safe, why are they
not calling the police? I mean, I can understand you're
scared because you're for your own life. Okay, but how
about Shanda, how about what's going on right now? You
don't tell your parents? Oh my god, this girl's are crazy.
(23:40):
There's a girl in the trunk. You don't say anything.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, you just.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Sit there and read room stones and be in a magical,
bizarre world.
Speaker 6 (23:50):
It's incomprehensible to me.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Even Amanda, they had told her right to look in
the trunk and she still didn't call the face.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
That's after the fact, Hope Rippy and Tony Lawrence had
the ability to shave save Shanda's life. When Amanda was
shown that trunk, it.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Was all over all, was all done. Yes, that was.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Later No no, no, Tony Lawrence and Hope Rippy and
Tony got away with really murder in the sense that
she only did ten years was out of twenty. They
could have stopped this, and there were other opportunities. They
had stopped at gas stations, they were at a punk
rock thing in Louisville for a few hours waiting to
(24:33):
go back to Retreat Shanada. There were numerous times that
they got lost driving around where they had the opportunity
to stop it or to get out of it.
Speaker 6 (24:43):
Even though they didn't live down there.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
I understand, you're not supposed to have driven to the
three hours away. That you're sixteen and fifteen years old.
You don't want to get in trouble with.
Speaker 6 (24:52):
Your parents and this and that. But once they.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Got back to Madison, Indiana.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
They're safe and they're in Tony's house.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
So why would Tony Lawrence go along with knowing that
Lauri and Melinda.
Speaker 6 (25:07):
Are going to kill her.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Let's talk about their sentencing. Tell us how you felt
about the sentencing that the girls got.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
I think that even the Hope Rippy went on for
the ride and didn't know what she was getting into,
Hope allowed this to happen. And when Hope participated with
Laura Tackett taking that two liter bottle of soda, dumping
it out on the ground of a gas station a
circle k and filling that with gasoline, that's not Maybe
(25:58):
I don't know, Maybe that's deliberate knowing you are going
to kill someone. Now they may have thought she was
already dead. Who knows.
Speaker 6 (26:09):
It doesn't matter.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
At what point does it become your fault. That's when
it became help Rippy's fault, because not only does she
fill that two lead her bottle with gasoline, but then
she followed through when they got Shanda and put her
in that field, pouring that gasoline all over the child
and letting Laurie light the match. You know that Shanda
died of spoken inhalation.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, because she fought like she fought. I mean, she
fought she.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Was alive when they wrapped her in a blanket and
put her in that field. And then not only that, Melinda,
who is absolutely a savage, she realized I don't think
she's burned enough and had them turn back around and
lighted again.
Speaker 6 (26:48):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
And one of the things that happened to me when
I was researching this book is, yeah, I spent a
lot of time in courtrooms. I spent a lot of
time in evidence rooms, et cetera. And a court clerk
came to me and she said, Okay, you want to
see this video, said jud She goes, you want me
to sit with you while you watch it?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
I said, no, that's okay, that's okay. It was the
video of the hunters who found Shanda. And as I'm
looking at this thing and realizing she did look like
a mannequin that was burned, and the closer and they
got I mean the pictures I show in the book
are not anywhere near how horrific this image really was.
I mean, her face was I don't know how to
(27:30):
explain this in politically correct terms, but it was black
as coal. It was like the color of my hair
but all bubbled up and you know.
Speaker 6 (27:39):
Just horrifying.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Unfortunately, I can never get that image out of my head.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Yeah, you can never unsee that.
Speaker 6 (27:47):
I don't even like to revisit this story, honestly.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I can only imagine I can completely understand why, yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
You know, And then I think about how Jackie got
eventually forgave me Linda loveless. That is stunning to me.
I presume Jackie did that for on Sanity long before
Melinda was released, and Linda was only released in twenty nineteen.
This forgiveness and helping Melinda by giving her a dog
(28:18):
called Angels so she could train these dogs to help
disabled people and children.
Speaker 6 (28:23):
That are methylishes.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
Whatever it was, I'm sorry, no.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Right, Yeah, we talk about that, you know, a lot,
in facing evil, and we always end, you know, with
any mooa and Jackie is is anymua herself? Because like
you just said, to be able to forgive someone who
brutally tortured your daughter is I can't comprehend it, but
(28:52):
we've seen it many times before, you know, with Judy Shepherd,
who was Matthew Shepherd's mom. That you know, there's I
guess I could never speak for them, but there has
to be some type of closure for them.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
I have encouraged victims' mothers, okay, try to forgive so
that they're not suffering, because the longer they suffer throughout
the rest of their lives, the more this person who
did this has hold over you.
Speaker 6 (29:19):
Right, So you're continually.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Revictimized by what this person did, and it's just a
record that's going in your head all the time.
Speaker 6 (29:28):
So I think what Jackie Bah did there.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Because Melinda was using training dogs to help other people,
this was the idea in her mind. She was able
to finally go there. But you know, Steve Shearer, her
father drank himself to death and died at fifty two
years old. I mean, think about that, the guilt that
this man felt for allowing his daughter to go to
(29:51):
the front door, not once, but twice. But he knew
those girls didn't know his daughter because they asked is Shandy?
When Shanda opened the door and he heard, and he
questioned her and he says, who are these people? He
realizes they don't know his daughter. Now I have to believe,
and I mean my heart breaks for Steve Sharer that
(30:12):
he could never forgive himself for that.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
But at the end of the day, of course, yes,
you know, we can all you know, look back and
be like, you know, Steve should have done this, the
four girls should have done this, I mean, all these things.
But really, at the end of the day, sadly it
was those four girls that ended Shanda's life, of course,
But I think again, and we always, you know, we
(30:37):
do this on facing evil, like we have to look
for that light in the dark, right, like you said,
like that stunning gem of a human that Jackie had
to be to forgive Melinda, to forgive her ex Steve
to move onward and upward, and that's what he moved me,
(31:00):
to move onward and upward, like we have to who
like and we always want to focus on the victim,
but it's so hard.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
We didn't know much about Shanda.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
She was only twelve.
Speaker 7 (31:11):
Well, and that's you know, I mean, that's the other
thing here too, is when you talk about facing evil,
if you don't face it in a way that you
can get past it.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Then for example, Melinda was dealing with evil in her
household all her life, right, yes, and the evil that
transpired there she now projected onto someone else. So whether
it eats your soul, whether it makes you become angry,
and somebody who's going to lash out and do horrible
(31:46):
things to other people because you've been.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
Abused, now you're going to abuse your kids or whatever.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
And that chain of violence and that chain of abuse
that goes on, somebody's got to stop and say I
can face this, I can get past this.
Speaker 7 (32:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, Just going back to Shanda's mom, right, Jackie, because
you know, we're talking about her father, and we know
that they were divorced, you know, and living in separate households.
But the thing about Shanda's mom is she did everything right.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Talking about a sacrificial lamb. I mean, Shanda had no
idea what she was dabbling in there, right, no idea.
And Amanda Heaven swears up and down that it was
Shanda who went to her, that Shanda went after her,
that Shanda had been dating boys, Shanda was sexually active.
I'm not saying she certainly could have been sexually active
(32:37):
at twelve years old. I don't know why she's going
from boys to girls at twelve years old. I don't
know that twelve year olds necessarily are sexually with it, right,
you know, there's a whole other element of stuff.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
Here, like what is happening here?
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
So much time, so much to unpack.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yeah, before we wrap things up, Aphrodity, I would love
to ask you, just because of everything you've so brilliantly
shared with us today, how do you decompress?
Speaker 4 (33:11):
Like?
Speaker 3 (33:11):
How are you going to walk out of this interview
after this and go on with your life with things?
Speaker 7 (33:15):
You know?
Speaker 3 (33:15):
You can't unsee certain things or think in your head.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
There are a couple of things I'm going to say
about this. When I wrote this book, I was a drinker,
and I did this book throughout the night, writing un
till two or three o'clock in the morning. I wrote
it very quickly and in a frenzy. After that, I
had to give up drinking because I was drinking so
much that this book had consumed me. And I don't drink.
(33:42):
I haven't drank it thirty years.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
So, oh, congratulations, thanks.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
But talk about a mind vendor. You know, this story
in particular, I didn't know how I was going to
get past it, and even to write it, what I
had to do to get through it. It was so
so hard for me. But at the same time, I
knew this story had to be told because we had
to look at what's going on with teenagers, because it
(34:08):
wasn't just for girls. And yes, they've done the most
horrible thing of any teen I could think of, but
all these other teenagers in the minefield were still out
there and nobody was really paying attention to it. Back then,
it was like, I don't know, everybody's good. We're all No,
they weren't good. And I think the idea of parents
paying more attention of parents and not trying to blame
(34:30):
the parents, but just getting the lesson about this. And
it wasn't just not just Shanda's parents, what about all
the other parents. And I promised myself one thing that
when I was not writing, and I would never write
on a weekend again, which that book I wrote weren
a new night weekends. I decided, I'm never writing past
five o'clock at night anymore. Ever, I am never writing
(34:53):
on a weekend, and I am going to shut myself off.
Speaker 6 (34:57):
I'm going to have two lives, two lives.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
In which I'm dealing with this horror and all the
monsters I have dealt with since the killers that I'm
on the phones with that I can't imagine writing a
new book now. But when I finished the chapters, and
when my day ends, I go often to Judge Judy Lands,
I go off voting or whatever concert.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
I am not there anymore, you know, I can't be good.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah, thank you after Deity.
Speaker 6 (35:31):
Guy, It's so nice to talk with you both.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Today's message of hope and healing goes out to someone
whose life was turned into a living nightmare in January
nineteen ninety two, and that was Jackie Vaught, Shanda's mother.
Shanda was, by all accounts, a well adjusted girl who
just got involved with the wrong people. For many years,
Jackie Vaught quite understandably didn't want anything.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
To do with her daughter's killers. Then in twenty twelve,
she saw a videotape of Melinda loveless behind bars training
service dogs, and she says she saw something new in
her eyes, compassion. And then Jackie Vot did the unthinkable.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
She donated a puppy to the prison service animal training
program in her deceased daughter's name, and she even let
Melinda train her.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
The puppy's name was Angel, and she changed things for Melinda.
Melinda had been on a path of growth for years
and was remorseful now of her crime. Melinda said of Jackie,
she helped me to heal and grow. She did a
good thing and I couldn't think her enough. And I'm
doing it for Shanda.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Jackie Vaught still has no plans to meet her daughter's murderers,
but this small act of reaching out was an unbelievable
act of compassion, a bright spark in the dark.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
And so Jackie Vaught, today we honor you. Onward and
upward e moua emua. Well, that is our show for today.
We'd love to hear what you thought about today's discussion
and if there is a case that you'd like.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Us to cover, find us on social media at Facing
Evil Pod or email us at Facingevil Pod.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
At tenderfoot dot tv.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
And one request, if you haven't already, please find us
on iTunes and give us a good review and a
good rating. If you like what we do, your support
is always cherished.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Until next time, ah Loha.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Facing Evil is a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV.
The show is hosted by Russia Pacuerero and Avet Gentile.
Matt Frederick and Alex Williams our executive producers. On Behalf
of iHeartRadio with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk. Donald
albright In Payne Lindsay our executive producers on behalf of
(38:18):
Tenderfoot TV, alongside producer Tracy Kaplan. Our researcher is Carolyn Talmadge.
Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Find us on
social media or email us at Facing Evil pod at
tenderfoot dot tv. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(38:42):
to your favorite shows
You're listening to Facing Evil, a production of iHeartRadio and
Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast
are solely those of the individuals participating in the show
and do not represent those of iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV.
This podcast contains subject matter which may not be suitable
for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hi, everyone, welcome back to Facing Evil. I'm Yvette Gentila
and I'm Rasha Paccuerrero. This week, we are talking about
a truly shocking case, and that's the case of Shonda Cherer, who,
at the age of twelve, was abducted, tortured, and killed
by four teenage girls. Yeah. This is a case of
(00:48):
teenage bullying gone completely off the deep in and it's
been the subject of at least two true crime books
and a play featuring Chloe Sabagnier, and many poems about
this as well.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
And I think what fascinates everyone, or so it seems,
is how this crime was perpetuated by teenage girls. I
mean mean girls is an understatement on this case. It's
the original mean girls, right.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, And so we're going to be getting into that today,
and we're also going to be talking with our guest
who is a author and journalist. She is Aphrodite Jones,
and she's written a book about this case.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
But first our producer Trevor is going to take us
through today's case.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Jackie Vaught's daughter Shanda, was kidnapped and murdered in nineteen
ninety two by four teenage girls.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Court testimony showed some of the girls had been abused
by their parents.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
It turns into anger. If you keep that hurt and
don't let it go or don't forgive that person, that
hurt can turn into anger and hate, and I'll make
you do things that you would never really do. That evening,
there were four girls there that had a lot of
hatred inside of them, and it just all exploded.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Shanda Shearer was a twelve year old girl who was
killed in nineteen ninety two by four other girls in Madison, Indiana.
The year before, She and her family had just moved
to the nearby town of New Albany, Indiana. That fall,
she met a girl named Amanda Heron. Soon they began
exchanging romantic letters, and in October they went to a
(02:33):
dance together. At the dance, they were confronted by another
girl named Melinda Loveless. Loveless was older sixteen. The previous spring,
she and Amanda had been romantically involved, and although the
relationship had fizzled out, they had never formally ended things.
Seeing Amanda at the dance with someone else, Melinda got angry.
(02:58):
Melinda had a difficult home life with a violent and
sexually abusive father. She was close friends with seventeen year
old Laurie Tackett, who also had a difficult time at
home and had dropped out of high school that year.
Also in their orbit where two other girls named Hope
Rippy and Tony Lawrence, who were both fifteen years old.
(03:18):
The night of January tenth, nineteen ninety two, the four
girls were hanging out and Melinda Loveless told the girls
that she was going to use a knife to scare Shanda,
a girl they'd never met. She wanted to intimidate Shanda
for dating her girlfriend. The girls drove to Shanda's house,
where Tony Lawrence and Hope Rippy went to the door
(03:39):
and told Shanda they were friends of Amanda's and that
Amanda wanted to meet her at a building known locally
as the Witch's Castle, an abandoned stone house by the
Ohio River. When she got in the car with them,
Lawrence held a knife to Shanda's throat. The girls drove
to Witch's castle and dragged a sobbing Shanda inside. There,
(04:02):
Melinda Loveless tied Shanda's hands as Rippy taunted her with
the knife. The girls took her jewelry and a Mickey
Mouse watch that she was wearing. Later, Melinda Lovelass and
Lori Tackett made Shanda strip down to her underwear. Then
the girls began assaulting her, punching her and taking turns
stabbing her in the chest. Then they strangled her with
(04:24):
a rope until she passed out, and then put her
in the trunk. At one point, Shanda began screaming from
the trunk, and so Laurie Tackett went to go stab
her again with a pairing knife. Melinda Lovelace reportedly laughed
and bragged about the torture to her friends, and finally
the girls drove Shanda to a secluded area where they
(04:46):
poured gasoline on her and lit her on fire. Shanda's
body was found by two hunters and they alerted the police.
The next day. Hope, Rippy and Tony Lawrence went to
the county Sheriff's office and gave statements describing the night before.
They put most of the blame on Melinda Lovelace and
Lori Tackett. All four girls went to trial and entered
(05:10):
plea bargains to avoid the death penalty. Melinda and Laurie
were tried as adults and were both sentenced to sixty
years in prison. However, they were released on parole in
twenty nineteen and twenty eighteen, respectively. Hope Rippy received a
thirty five year sentence and was released on parole in
two thousand and eight. Tony Lawrence received twenty years and
(05:33):
was released on parole in two thousand and So what
led to the murder of Shanda Scherer and how could
four teenage girls be driven to torture and kill another
person so violently?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Hello?
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Everyone, We are so pleased to welcome our guests for
today's case. Writer, journalist, and crime expert Afrodyite Jones is
here with us today. She has written a book on
the case of Shanda Sharer entitled Cruel Sacrifice. She's also
written numerous other true crime books, including The FBI Killer
(06:13):
and A Perfect Husband. Many of Aphrodite's books have been
made into films and television shows, and she even produced
her own show, True Crime with Aphrodite Jones, which ran
for six seasons on Investigation Discovery. The list of amazing
credentials goes on and on and on. So, without further ado,
(06:36):
Aphrodite a komo mai or welcome to facing evil.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Thank you. I've been used to facing evil my whole
professional life.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Oh you and us both, Aphrodite, who we got a
lot to talk about.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
I'm like kidding when I say that.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
You know that, right?
Speaker 7 (06:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
I know.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Well, now that we know a little bit about you, Aphrodite.
You know, of course we want to talk today about Shanna,
but we want to learn even more about you. So
we fell into true crime because of our lineage and
its connection to our mom's story. How did you fall
into true crime? Like how did you first get interested
(07:16):
in it?
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Like?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
What led you to this, you know, facing evil of
your own?
Speaker 6 (07:21):
Well, it was it was honestly a calling for me.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
It was a fluke. I was living in Kentucky, Appalaysia
at the time. I was a professor college and I
also did a radio gig because I always was involved
with media and broadcasting. So I was doing a radio
gig as well, and an FBI agent killed his lover
informant and became the first FBI agent in history and
(07:46):
still to this day to cop a murder plated manslaughter.
He led them to her bones. She was pregnant and
threatening him and mountain woman in other words, hillbilly right
back then, So I'm like, okay, where's the news the time,
I didn't have it. Newsweek had a blurb this big,
(08:08):
and I just understand, like, where's CNN? Where is everybody? Why?
This is a historic case. So I called my agent.
I had an agent, had Toady written a book about
the entertainment business, because that's the business I was in
and wanted to be in.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Same understand, let me talk.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
To killers and monsters, you know, and people who've lost
family members. That was not in the carts, I thought. Anyway.
I called the agent and he said, oh, you can't
do anything about this. This is a big story and
Rule is going to be calling. I thought, who the
hell is and Rule?
Speaker 6 (08:38):
At that time, That's how little I knew about it, right,
He said, you don't read this. I did a PhD
in literature.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
No, there was no true prime on the list at NYU,
so ps she he said, well, reading coulb what I did,
and somehow thought at that time I could do this,
and I wound up, you know, interviewing my family. It
became a TV movie with Patricia Cat Stephen Weber, and
the book was incredibly successful. And then I hit on
Curl Sacrifice, and when that happened, I went to the
(09:06):
New York Times list. I kind of got stuck with
the genre in particular writing Curl Sacrifice. When I look
back at it, and I did look back last night
in preparation for this, that was the hardest book probably
that I ever wrote, because of the subject matter. Of course,
I really didn't want another write intrade crime book after that.
I really did not.
Speaker 6 (09:27):
I was so.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Mentally drained, emotionally drained from the whole experience. I was
able to see the car that Shanda was in. I
was taken to the evidence area where that car was
in a lot, and they opened that trunk and dry
blood was still there and you could smell it. Oh,
(09:51):
and you could see areas where she tried to scratch
her way through because those old cars in those days,
you could get through the backseat through the speakers, and
and this poor girl was trying to do that right,
you know, when they asked me, did I want to
see the chunk? Wasn't expecting that. Then what happened was
when I got to the Hope Rippy's sentencing hearing in
(10:14):
South Bend, Indiana, a writer came up to me and said,
I'm writing this book. And I said, well, good luck
to you.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Oh, I said, good luck to you.
Speaker 4 (10:22):
You know, like I'm working with the family. I said, okay,
good luck to you.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
Yeah. I didn't know the name of the book at
the time.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
I just knew that Jackie bought the mom was working
with this writer, and in my mind, I had no choice.
But also the story was really to talk to these girls.
That was the story. What happened these children's lives. They're
fifteen and sixteen years old. What could have happened in
these girls' lives they could possibly have made them do this?
(10:52):
And in particular obviously Melinda Loveless because she was the ringleader.
So I wrote to her, oh you did, oh yeah,
and Melinda answered and when we comes here and I
have to say back then, I've seen pictures of her
recently where she was released. She was gorgeous in person.
She's not photogenic. Her pictures do not do her justice.
(11:13):
This girl was dropped dead gorgeous, I mean sixteen, but
she was absolutely stunning. And I could not believe I'm
sitting there with this beautiful girl who was telling me,
oh it was it was so sad. She was just
so nonchalant about it. I was just like, that's how
it was back then. I'm like, back then, you're sixteen.
When was back then when you were six?
Speaker 7 (11:35):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (11:36):
You know, wow, so weird.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
But she wanted she wanted me to tell the story,
and she connected me with her mom, who I worked with,
you know, for quite a while. And obviously then the
police and the evidence and all the rest of the
interviews came in. It was tough.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I can only imagine aphrodity, Like, you know, I'm just
sitting there listening to everything that you're saying and taking
it in, and you know, this crime was so incredibly brutal,
you know, And when we think about it, it was
in nineteen ninety two, like Russia and I were both
in Hawaii, so I hadn't heard of it at all.
(12:16):
But the fact that these girls right were so young
and we've all been through mean girls, teenage bullying. But
the extremeness the torture in which you were just talking about, right, Melinda,
like what they did to Shanda, How do we comprehend that?
(12:40):
You know from you writing your book and interviewing, like,
how did you so?
Speaker 4 (12:45):
First and foremost, I realized that Melinda, who was the ringleader,
was the only person who wanted to have this done,
so it had to be her backstory. I knew there's
something in her background that's horrific, which there was and
is apart from that. And her mother admitted to me
that she was a masochist, and I just she know.
(13:05):
The mother was raped by various people. The father raped
the mother in front of the girls. There was a
lot of sleeping with the girl's pistol whipping. I don't
you know, craziness in that household that I later discovered.
But also the thing that struck me was Lori Tackett
was out for blood. She was a ticking time on.
(13:26):
So when Melinda Loveless connected with Lori Tackett, she found
the person she needed. Tony Lawrence and Hope Rippy were
just in the car for the ride down from Madison
to no Obany. That's a pretty long ride right now.
It's not a fifteen minute you know drive away. It's
an hour plus two almost. It's quite a bit of
(13:47):
a distance. So you know, those girls went along for
a ride. They don't even know what they're getting into
until they got to Melinda's house, who they've never met
in their lives. And Melinda says, I just she pulls
out that knife, scare Shanda. They don't even know who
Shanda is. They don't none of them have met Shanda
first and foremost you have to say to answer your
question that this has to do partially with pure pressure,
(14:11):
because the other two girls that didn't have really either
a dog in this bite or a bloodlust. How did
they wind up participating? And that's an interesting dynamic here
because we see how people I don't know drop like lemmings,
especially when they're teenagers. The other thing with teenagers, as
(14:32):
we all know, everything is the end of the world, right, yeah,
there's no tomorrow here. Everything is the end of the world.
And it's all you met somebody two seconds ago and
your best friends, I love her.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
Hell for yesterday.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
But this is like she's so right, So you have
all these weird mixture of elements that you know, you
could say bullying. I mean, Shannon was bullied in the school, right,
Melinda was after her. But this goes beyond any kind
of bullying. I mean, let's face it, this is one
of the worst crimes in the history of teenagers.
Speaker 6 (15:12):
It really, truly is.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I have so much respect for you that you can
go in as you know, basically as a journalist with
open eyes and not look at Melinda or any of
these other young girls because they were young girls that
did this horrific.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Unthinkable thing.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
But again I don't want to give them a free
past because of their history and their home life had
to affect what they did to Shanda, right, like you said,
it wasn't just bullying like this was something deeper, something
horrific had been done to these young girls.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
Well, so, Melinda, we believe was sleeping with their father.
We know they slept in the same bed. She never
admitted that he actually you know, had sex with her,
but we know he had sex with the other two
daughters and the mother had sex. He raped the mother
in front of the three girls. All that went on. Also,
there was allegations that he had molested her cousins, So
(16:33):
out of all females in that household, she's the only
one who didn't admit to that. When her parents got
a divorce and Larry Lovelace left the house, Melinda now
felt like she's deserved by the only man that she
cares about. Clearly she's in love with her father, and yes,
I'm sure she was, you know, being molested thinking that
(16:53):
this was okay in this incestuous relationship because kids don't
know what to think, especially if they've been groomed from
a young age. Is sitting happen when she turned sixteen.
This is going on from the time she's a little girl,
and with her older sisters. Now I found out from
the older sisters who I spoke with. So when you're
in that scenario and your only person in the world
(17:15):
who you trust, who you think is your protector and
your love of your life leaves, now obviously she doesn't
trust men. So that's why she's with the girls's with
Amanda Heaven and now Amanda Heaven, who she'd been holding
on to for dear life right as her person in
(17:35):
the world who had you know, more of a butch.
Speaker 6 (17:39):
Look, if you want to use that word.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
You know, the backwards baseball hat, the very short hair,
the whole opposite of Melinda with the long Floyd locks.
Speaker 6 (17:47):
And it was a male figure in her life as well.
And now that person.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Is leaving her for some little girl, whoever that little
girl is. In Melinda's mind, it's not a little girl.
It's a competition. They didn't separate themselves from whether they're
fifteen or twelve. Yeah, and that's interesting because you know
you think of, oh, that's the way it is today.
All these kids are produced and they mix it up
and Matt, no, this has been going on from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Of time, right, we were having this conversation about another case.
And if you think about everything that you just said
about what Melinda had gone through as a child, and
if you treat someone like a dog, they're gonna behave
like a dog. Melinda, she didn't know what love is,
(18:29):
but she believed that she loved Amanda. And now Amanda
is leaving her as well.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
And that's another thing. People redirect anger, right, So rather
than putting the anger toward her mother, who allowed all
of this and who admitted to me that she was
a massachist and allowed herself to be raped in front
of these girls, etc. Et cetera, and has swinging partners
and other people brought into the house and the girl's
hearing all of it and knowing the house it's small.
(18:56):
So Melinda is thinking that that the world is upside
down for her. It doesn't make any sense to her.
She needs some kind of validation, and that's what she
got from Amanda Hevron. So now her validation goes away.
Now her she doesn't know what's with life. And again,
you know, with teenagers's the end of the world. For her,
(19:19):
it was the end of the world. She had to
eliminate this competition at whatever cost.
Speaker 6 (19:26):
She didn't care, right, Yeah, I mean it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
You know. You look at the letters she wrote and
more of them which was read in the court said
I want Shanda dead and was very specific.
Speaker 6 (19:39):
Wow, it's not like.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
It was a laughterthought for her. This was premeditated, cold
blooded killed. That's what this was. Yeah, this was not
a lord Shanda from her house. Melinda was hiding in
the backseat of the car under a blanket, and then
once Shanna got in that car, Melinda jumps out the
knife to her throat, pulling her back from the front seat.
(20:05):
She had told the other girls that she just wanted
to scare Shanda. Lori Teckett, I'm sure knew more than that.
The other two girls who were along for the ride
did not. They really had no idea what they were
getting into. Those two girls would never have done this,
I'm convinced of that, had they not been in that car,
(20:26):
had they not been kind of prodded along the way.
Do you have to think about too and not making
any excuses for them, because we know Hope Rippy poured
the gasoline on Shanda. Part of the reason there was
so much torture, I think is that these girls really
didn't know how to kill someone. They thought that they
had killed her after they stabbed her a few times
(20:49):
and pulled the rope around her neck, thinking that they
strangled her.
Speaker 6 (20:53):
And next thing I know, she's banging in the back
of the car.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
But now you have two other girls in the back
seat here in Shanada. What are they thinking? Am I
going to be next? Like?
Speaker 6 (21:03):
Look what they just did to this little girl.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
We don't know Melinda, they never met before. She's holding
her knife to Shanna's neck and threatening at that witch's
castle that she's going to put her in with a
bag of bones with the other bones, and the girls
at that point all chimed in because that was just
kind of having fun, you know, it was a game
to them in the beginning. They drummed this whole thing
up and they scared her.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
This is just a whole another level of cruelty. And
when I think about, like for me, thinking about this case,
and it's probably it may be different for you because
you were, you know, right in the mix of it,
you know, interviewing, and you wrote a book about it.
Speaker 6 (21:42):
But do you.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Think that these girls should have been tried as adults?
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Absolutely. I met with one of their lawyers and I'll
never forget he said to me, this is a mind
feel out there. Every time you get another teen who's
coming to you for whatever reason in the you know,
violation crime. They've committed act of violence. They're just waiting
to blow up. Now, this was thirty years ago. It's
(22:08):
funny that right now we say that about now right
we see school careersoting those didn't even exist back then.
In nineteen ninety two, when this book in ninety three
was being written and came out, there was no schoolhouse shootings.
Speaker 6 (22:20):
Yet there was nothing.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
So when this lawyer said to me, I face a mind.
Feel out there every time. You know, he represented juveniles.
Every time another juvenile came to him for defense, he
would see what was behind their mask and the vulnerability
and sadness and just lack of ability.
Speaker 6 (22:42):
To cope with life.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:46):
Yeah, that does.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Not mean that you can go and take someone else's
life and give you any excuses.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
No, absolutely not.
Speaker 6 (22:53):
There's no getting around that.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
What these girls did, and they all participated, and the
way that Tony Lawrence, who eventually turned on the girls
and was chief in getting these guilty. Please Tony Lawrence
and Hope Rippy they went to her house right, yeah,
and they were there for two three hours while Melinda
(23:19):
and Laurie went country driving. So once they left the house,
and here's Hope and Tony very safe, why are they
not calling the police? I mean, I can understand you're
scared because you're for your own life. Okay, but how
about Shanda, how about what's going on right now? You
don't tell your parents? Oh my god, this girl's are crazy.
(23:40):
There's a girl in the trunk. You don't say anything.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, you just.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Sit there and read room stones and be in a magical,
bizarre world.
Speaker 6 (23:50):
It's incomprehensible to me.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Even Amanda, they had told her right to look in
the trunk and she still didn't call the face.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
That's after the fact, Hope Rippy and Tony Lawrence had
the ability to shave save Shanda's life. When Amanda was
shown that trunk, it.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Was all over all, was all done. Yes, that was.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Later No no, no, Tony Lawrence and Hope Rippy and
Tony got away with really murder in the sense that
she only did ten years was out of twenty. They
could have stopped this, and there were other opportunities. They
had stopped at gas stations, they were at a punk
rock thing in Louisville for a few hours waiting to
(24:33):
go back to Retreat Shanada. There were numerous times that
they got lost driving around where they had the opportunity
to stop it or to get out of it.
Speaker 6 (24:43):
Even though they didn't live down there.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
I understand, you're not supposed to have driven to the
three hours away. That you're sixteen and fifteen years old.
You don't want to get in trouble with.
Speaker 6 (24:52):
Your parents and this and that. But once they.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Got back to Madison, Indiana.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
They're safe and they're in Tony's house.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
So why would Tony Lawrence go along with knowing that
Lauri and Melinda.
Speaker 6 (25:07):
Are going to kill her.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Let's talk about their sentencing. Tell us how you felt
about the sentencing that the girls got.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
I think that even the Hope Rippy went on for
the ride and didn't know what she was getting into,
Hope allowed this to happen. And when Hope participated with
Laura Tackett taking that two liter bottle of soda, dumping
it out on the ground of a gas station a
circle k and filling that with gasoline, that's not Maybe
(25:58):
I don't know, Maybe that's deliberate knowing you are going
to kill someone. Now they may have thought she was
already dead. Who knows.
Speaker 6 (26:09):
It doesn't matter.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
At what point does it become your fault. That's when
it became help Rippy's fault, because not only does she
fill that two lead her bottle with gasoline, but then
she followed through when they got Shanda and put her
in that field, pouring that gasoline all over the child
and letting Laurie light the match. You know that Shanda
died of spoken inhalation.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, because she fought like she fought. I mean, she
fought she.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Was alive when they wrapped her in a blanket and
put her in that field. And then not only that, Melinda,
who is absolutely a savage, she realized I don't think
she's burned enough and had them turn back around and
lighted again.
Speaker 6 (26:48):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
And one of the things that happened to me when
I was researching this book is, yeah, I spent a
lot of time in courtrooms. I spent a lot of
time in evidence rooms, et cetera. And a court clerk
came to me and she said, Okay, you want to
see this video, said jud She goes, you want me
to sit with you while you watch it?
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
I said, no, that's okay, that's okay. It was the
video of the hunters who found Shanda. And as I'm
looking at this thing and realizing she did look like
a mannequin that was burned, and the closer and they
got I mean the pictures I show in the book
are not anywhere near how horrific this image really was.
I mean, her face was I don't know how to
(27:30):
explain this in politically correct terms, but it was black
as coal. It was like the color of my hair
but all bubbled up and you know.
Speaker 6 (27:39):
Just horrifying.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Unfortunately, I can never get that image out of my head.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Yeah, you can never unsee that.
Speaker 6 (27:47):
I don't even like to revisit this story, honestly.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
I can only imagine I can completely understand why, yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
You know, And then I think about how Jackie got
eventually forgave me Linda loveless. That is stunning to me.
I presume Jackie did that for on Sanity long before
Melinda was released, and Linda was only released in twenty nineteen.
This forgiveness and helping Melinda by giving her a dog
(28:18):
called Angels so she could train these dogs to help
disabled people and children.
Speaker 6 (28:23):
That are methylishes.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
Whatever it was, I'm sorry, no.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Right, Yeah, we talk about that, you know, a lot,
in facing evil, and we always end, you know, with
any mooa and Jackie is is anymua herself? Because like
you just said, to be able to forgive someone who
brutally tortured your daughter is I can't comprehend it, but
(28:52):
we've seen it many times before, you know, with Judy Shepherd,
who was Matthew Shepherd's mom. That you know, there's I
guess I could never speak for them, but there has
to be some type of closure for them.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
I have encouraged victims' mothers, okay, try to forgive so
that they're not suffering, because the longer they suffer throughout
the rest of their lives, the more this person who
did this has hold over you.
Speaker 6 (29:19):
Right, So you're continually.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Revictimized by what this person did, and it's just a
record that's going in your head all the time.
Speaker 6 (29:28):
So I think what Jackie Bah did there.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
Because Melinda was using training dogs to help other people,
this was the idea in her mind. She was able
to finally go there. But you know, Steve Shearer, her
father drank himself to death and died at fifty two
years old. I mean, think about that, the guilt that
this man felt for allowing his daughter to go to
(29:51):
the front door, not once, but twice. But he knew
those girls didn't know his daughter because they asked is Shandy?
When Shanda opened the door and he heard, and he
questioned her and he says, who are these people? He
realizes they don't know his daughter. Now I have to believe,
and I mean my heart breaks for Steve Sharer that
(30:12):
he could never forgive himself for that.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
But at the end of the day, of course, yes,
you know, we can all you know, look back and
be like, you know, Steve should have done this, the
four girls should have done this, I mean, all these things.
But really, at the end of the day, sadly it
was those four girls that ended Shanda's life, of course,
But I think again, and we always, you know, we
(30:37):
do this on facing evil, like we have to look
for that light in the dark, right, like you said,
like that stunning gem of a human that Jackie had
to be to forgive Melinda, to forgive her ex Steve
to move onward and upward, and that's what he moved me,
(31:00):
to move onward and upward, like we have to who
like and we always want to focus on the victim,
but it's so hard.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
We didn't know much about Shanda.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
She was only twelve.
Speaker 7 (31:11):
Well, and that's you know, I mean, that's the other
thing here too, is when you talk about facing evil,
if you don't face it in a way that you
can get past it.
Speaker 4 (31:23):
Then for example, Melinda was dealing with evil in her
household all her life, right, yes, and the evil that
transpired there she now projected onto someone else. So whether
it eats your soul, whether it makes you become angry,
and somebody who's going to lash out and do horrible
(31:46):
things to other people because you've been.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
Abused, now you're going to abuse your kids or whatever.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
And that chain of violence and that chain of abuse
that goes on, somebody's got to stop and say I
can face this, I can get past this.
Speaker 7 (32:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, Just going back to Shanda's mom, right, Jackie, because
you know, we're talking about her father, and we know
that they were divorced, you know, and living in separate households.
But the thing about Shanda's mom is she did everything right.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Talking about a sacrificial lamb. I mean, Shanda had no
idea what she was dabbling in there, right, no idea.
And Amanda Heaven swears up and down that it was
Shanda who went to her, that Shanda went after her,
that Shanda had been dating boys, Shanda was sexually active.
I'm not saying she certainly could have been sexually active
(32:37):
at twelve years old. I don't know why she's going
from boys to girls at twelve years old. I don't
know that twelve year olds necessarily are sexually with it, right,
you know, there's a whole other element of stuff.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
Here, like what is happening here?
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
So much time, so much to unpack.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yeah, before we wrap things up, Aphrodity, I would love
to ask you, just because of everything you've so brilliantly
shared with us today, how do you decompress?
Speaker 4 (33:11):
Like?
Speaker 3 (33:11):
How are you going to walk out of this interview
after this and go on with your life with things?
Speaker 7 (33:15):
You know?
Speaker 3 (33:15):
You can't unsee certain things or think in your head.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
There are a couple of things I'm going to say
about this. When I wrote this book, I was a drinker,
and I did this book throughout the night, writing un
till two or three o'clock in the morning. I wrote
it very quickly and in a frenzy. After that, I
had to give up drinking because I was drinking so
much that this book had consumed me. And I don't drink.
(33:42):
I haven't drank it thirty years.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
So, oh, congratulations, thanks.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
But talk about a mind vendor. You know, this story
in particular, I didn't know how I was going to
get past it, and even to write it, what I
had to do to get through it. It was so
so hard for me. But at the same time, I
knew this story had to be told because we had
to look at what's going on with teenagers, because it
(34:08):
wasn't just for girls. And yes, they've done the most
horrible thing of any teen I could think of, but
all these other teenagers in the minefield were still out
there and nobody was really paying attention to it. Back then,
it was like, I don't know, everybody's good. We're all No,
they weren't good. And I think the idea of parents
paying more attention of parents and not trying to blame
(34:30):
the parents, but just getting the lesson about this. And
it wasn't just not just Shanda's parents, what about all
the other parents. And I promised myself one thing that
when I was not writing, and I would never write
on a weekend again, which that book I wrote weren
a new night weekends. I decided, I'm never writing past
five o'clock at night anymore. Ever, I am never writing
(34:53):
on a weekend, and I am going to shut myself off.
Speaker 6 (34:57):
I'm going to have two lives, two lives.
Speaker 4 (35:01):
In which I'm dealing with this horror and all the
monsters I have dealt with since the killers that I'm
on the phones with that I can't imagine writing a
new book now. But when I finished the chapters, and
when my day ends, I go often to Judge Judy Lands,
I go off voting or whatever concert.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
I am not there anymore, you know, I can't be good.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yeah, thank you after Deity.
Speaker 6 (35:31):
Guy, It's so nice to talk with you both.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Today's message of hope and healing goes out to someone
whose life was turned into a living nightmare in January
nineteen ninety two, and that was Jackie Vaught, Shanda's mother.
Shanda was, by all accounts, a well adjusted girl who
just got involved with the wrong people. For many years,
Jackie Vaught quite understandably didn't want anything.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
To do with her daughter's killers. Then in twenty twelve,
she saw a videotape of Melinda loveless behind bars training
service dogs, and she says she saw something new in
her eyes, compassion. And then Jackie Vot did the unthinkable.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
She donated a puppy to the prison service animal training
program in her deceased daughter's name, and she even let
Melinda train her.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
The puppy's name was Angel, and she changed things for Melinda.
Melinda had been on a path of growth for years
and was remorseful now of her crime. Melinda said of Jackie,
she helped me to heal and grow. She did a
good thing and I couldn't think her enough. And I'm
doing it for Shanda.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Jackie Vaught still has no plans to meet her daughter's murderers,
but this small act of reaching out was an unbelievable
act of compassion, a bright spark in the dark.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
And so Jackie Vaught, today we honor you. Onward and
upward e moua emua. Well, that is our show for today.
We'd love to hear what you thought about today's discussion
and if there is a case that you'd like.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Us to cover, find us on social media at Facing
Evil Pod or email us at Facingevil Pod.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
At tenderfoot dot tv.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
And one request, if you haven't already, please find us
on iTunes and give us a good review and a
good rating. If you like what we do, your support
is always cherished.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Until next time, ah Loha.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Facing Evil is a production of iHeartRadio and Tenderfoot TV.
The show is hosted by Russia Pacuerero and Avet Gentile.
Matt Frederick and Alex Williams our executive producers. On Behalf
of iHeartRadio with producers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk. Donald
albright In Payne Lindsay our executive producers on behalf of
(38:18):
Tenderfoot TV, alongside producer Tracy Kaplan. Our researcher is Carolyn Talmadge.
Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Find us on
social media or email us at Facing Evil pod at
tenderfoot dot tv. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio or Tenderfoot TV,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
(38:42):
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