Actor

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Shanda Renee Sharer (June 6, 1979 – January 11, 1992) was an American girl who, at the age of 12, was kidnapped from her father's home in Jeffersonville, Clark County, Indiana, and tortured before being burned to death in Shelby Township, Jefferson County, by four teenage girls. The crime attracted international attention due to both its brutality and the youth of the perpetrators; aged between 15 and 17 years old at the time of the murder, the perpetrators have all since been released from prison, each one having served less than half her original sentence. The case was covered by national news and talk shows and has inspired several episodes of crime fiction TV shows.

Victim

Shanda Sharer was born in the Pineville Community Hospital in Pineville, Kentucky, on June 6, 1979, to Stephen and Jacqueline "Jacque" Sharer (later Vaught). After Shanda's parents divorced, her mother remarried and the family relocated to Louisville, Kentucky. There, Shanda attended fifth and sixth grades at St. Paul School, where she was on the cheerleading, volleyball, and softball teams. In June 1991, after her mother divorced again, the family relocated to New Albany, Indiana, and Shanda enrolled at Hazelwood Middle School. Early in the school year, she transferred to Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, a Catholic school in New Albany, where she joined the girls' basketball team.

Melinda Loveless

Melinda Loveless was born in New Albany, Indiana, on October 28, 1975, the youngest of three daughters to Marjorie and Larry Loveless. Larry was drafted into the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, attaining the rank of Sergeant, and although allegedly harmed emotionally, he was treated as a hero upon his return. Marjorie later described him as a sexual deviant who would wear her and her daughters' underwear and makeup, was incapable of staying monogamous, and had a mixture of jealousy and fascination with seeing her have sex with other men and women. They lived in or near New Albany throughout Melinda's childhood.

Larry worked irregularly for the Southern Railway after his military service; his profession allowed him to work whenever most convenient for him. In 1965, Larry became a probationary officer with the New Albany Police Department, but was dismissed after eight months when he and his partner assaulted an African-American man whom Larry accused of a sexual relationship with his wife. In 1988, Larry briefly worked as a mail carrier, but quit after three months and did very little work, having brought most of his mail home to destroy it.

Marjorie had worked intermittently since 1974. When both parents were working, the family was comfortable financially and lived in the upper-middle-class suburb of Floyds Knobs, Indiana. But Larry, who was violent and abusive, did not usually share his income with the family and impulsively spent any money he earned on himself, usually purchasing firearms, motorcycles, and cars. He filed for bankruptcy in 1980. Extended family members often described the marriage as loveless, and the daughters as visiting their homes hungry, apparently not getting enough to eat.

The Loveless parents would often visit taverns in Louisville, where Larry would pretend to be a doctor or a dentist and introduce Marjorie as his girlfriend. He would also "share" her with some of his friends from work, which she found disgusting. During an orgy with another couple at their house, Marjorie tried to commit suicide, an act she would repeat several times throughout her daughters' childhoods. When Melinda was nine years old, Larry had Marjorie gang raped, after which she tried to drown herself. After that incident, she refused to have sex with him for a month until he raped her as their daughters overheard the event through a closed door. During the summer of 1986, after she would not let him go home with two women he met at a tavern, Larry beat Marjorie so severely that she was hospitalized; he was convicted of battery.

The extent of Larry's abuse of his daughters and other children is unclear. Various court testimonies claimed he fondled Melinda as an infant, molested Marjorie's 13-year-old sister early in the marriage, and molested the girls' cousin Teddy from age 10 to 14. Both older girls said he molested them, though Melinda did not claim that this ever happened to her. She slept in bed with him until he abandoned his family when she was 14 years old. In court, Teddy described an incident in which Larry tied up all three sisters in a garage and raped them in succession; however, the sisters did not confirm this account. Larry was verbally abusive to his daughters and fired a handgun in the direction of Melinda's older sister Michelle when she was seven, intentionally missing her. He would also embarrass his children by finding their underwear and smelling it in front of other family members.

For two years, beginning when Melinda was five, the family was very involved with the Graceland Baptist Church. Larry and Marjorie gave a full confession and renounced drinking and swinging while they were members. Larry became a baptist lay preacher, and Marjorie became the school nurse. The church later arranged for Melinda to be taken to a motel room with a 50-year-old man for a five-hour exorcism. Larry became a marriage counselor with the church and acquired a reputation for being too forward with women, eventually attempting to rape one of them. After that incident, the Loveless parents quit the church and returned to their former professions and drinking.

In November 1990, after Larry was caught spying on Melinda and a friend, Marjorie attacked him with a knife; he was sent to the hospital after he attempted to grab it. She then attempted suicide again, and her daughters telephoned the authorities. After this incident, Larry filed for divorce and relocated to Avon Park, Florida. Melinda felt bereft, especially when Larry remarried. He sent letters to her for a while, but eventually severed all contact with her. Larry was killed in a car crash in St. Louis, Missouri, on December 16, 1998.

Mary Laurine "Laurie" Tackett

Laurie Tackett was born in Madison, Indiana, on October 5, 1974. Her mother was a fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian, and her father was a factory worker with two felony convictions in the 1960s. Tackett claimed that she was molested at least twice as a child at ages 5 and 12. In May 1989, her mother discovered that Tackett was changing from a dress into jeans at school, and, after a confrontation that night, attempted to strangle her. Social workers became involved, and Tackett's parents agreed to unannounced visits to ensure that child abuse was not occurring. Tackett and her mother had periodic conflicts. At one point, her mother went to Hope Rippey's house after learning that Rippey's father had purchased a Ouija board for the girls. She demanded that the board be burnt and that the Rippeys' house be exorcised.

Tackett became increasingly rebellious after her 15th birthday and was also fascinated by the occult. She would often attempt to impress her friends by pretending to be possessed by the spirit of "Deanna the Vampire". Tackett began to engage in self-harm early in 1991 when she began dating a girl who was involved with the occult. Her parents discovered the self-harm and checked her into a hospital on March 19, 1991. She was prescribed an anti-depressant and released. Two days later, with her girlfriend and Toni Lawrence, Tackett cut her wrists deeply and was returned to the hospital. After treatment of her wounds, she was admitted to the hospital's psychiatric ward. Tackett was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and confessed that she had experienced hallucinations since she was a young child. She was discharged on April 12. She quit high school in September 1991.

Tackett stayed in Louisville in October 1991 to live with various friends. There, she met Loveless; the two became friends in late November. In December…