The Hate-Fueled Murder Of 12-Year-Old Shanda Sharer

It was late morning on Jan. 11, 1992, when a hunter in Madison, Indiana walked through a quiet, empty field en route to his favorite spot. His eye caught something in the distance, and what he found was the beginning of a nightmare for a shattered family and the small Indiana community.

It was a badly burned body partially wrapped in a red blanket, and he quickly left the scene to call 911. Authorities arrived on the scene 20 minutes later to investigate the first homicide in Jefferson County, Indiana in more than three years.

They could tell the body was a female lying on her back with her arms stretched up into the air, but her charred body left her basically unidentifiable — investigators couldn’t even begin to venture how old the victim was. Nearby, there was a soda bottle filled with an accelerant.

The body was taken for an autopsy, and authorities began trying to identify her while an uneasy feeling grew. The early 90s was the height of the satanic panic, and officers were worried that the victim could have fallen prey to human sacrifice.

The case broke wide open that night when a hysterical teenage girl, 15-year-old Toni Lawrence, and her parents made a visit to the Indiana State Police. The teen needed to talk to an officer; she had information about a murder.

A Sinister Plan

The previous night, Jan. 10, Lawrence and her friend, 15-year-old Hope Rippey, met up with one of Rippey’s friends, Laurie Tackett, 17. Lawrence hopped into Tackett’s car and believed they were going to a concert, but Tackett let the younger teens know there was a different plan. There was a fourth passenger in the car, that Lawrence didn’t know — 17-year-old Melinda Loveless. Tackett announced they were going to kill a girl. Their intended victim was 12-year-old Shanda Sharer.

The only link between the girls in the car and Shanda was the fact that Shanda and Loveless had both dated the same person — 14-year-old Amanda Heavrin — and Loveless was jealous and seeking revenge because she felt like Sharer had taken Heavrin away from her.

Tackett drove the car to Sharer’s home where Lawrence and Rippey lured Shanda out with promises to take her to see Amanda, but it was a ruse. Instead, the teens spent the night beating and torturing the preteen before Tackett dragged her body into the field and set it on fire before heading to McDonald’s for breakfast in the early morning hours on Jan. 11. It was Sharer whom the hunters had found later that day.

The information that Lawrence brought to the police allowed them to arrest Tackett and Loveless within a day of the hunter's discovery of Sharer’s body. In time, Rippey and Lawrence were arrested and charged as well. The investigation found that Heavrin was uninvolved in the crime.

Plea Deals and Parole

Prosecutors announced their intent to charge the teens as adults, but they agreed they would not seek the death penalty against Tackett and Loveless as long as they pleaded guilty. Rippey and Lawrence also chose to plead guilty to their role in the murder. Tackett, Loveless, and Rippey were sentenced to 60 years in prison, while Lawrence received a 20-year sentence.

Lawrence was the first of the four to be paroled in 2000. Rippey followed in 2006. Tackett and Loveless were released in 2018 and 2019.

For more on this case, stream The 1990s: The Deadliest Decade “The New Girl” on discovery+.