Real Crime/Paranormal/Conspiracy Theories Book III

Torture and Murder of Shanda Sharer

Shanda Renee Sharer (June 6,1979 – January 11, 1992) was an American girl who was tortured andburned to death in Madison, Indiana by four teenage girls. She was 12years old at the time of her death. The incident attractedinternational attention due to both the brutality of the murder andthe young age of the perpetrators, who were aged between 15 and 17years old. The case was covered on national news and talk programsand has inspired a number of episodes on fictional crime shows.

Shanda Sharer

Shanda Sharer was born in the PinevilleCommunity Hospital in Pineville, Kentucky, on June 6, 1979, toStephen Sharer and his wife Jacqueline, who was later known asJacqueline Vaught. After Sharer's parents divorced, her motherremarried and the family moved to Louisville. There, Sharer attendedfifth and sixth grades at St. Paul School, where she was on thecheerleading, volleyball and softball teams. When her motherdivorced again, the family moved in June 1991 to New Albany, Indiana,and Sharer enrolled at Hazelwood Middle School. Early in the schoolyear, she transferred to Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, aCatholic school in New Albany, where she joined the girls' basketballteam.

Girls involved in the murder

Melinda Loveless

Melinda Loveless was born in New Albanyon October 28, 1975, the youngest of three daughters, to Marjorie andLarry Loveless. Larry was drafted into the U.S. Army during theVietnam War and although horribly emotionally scarred, he was treatedas a hero upon his return. Marjorie later described him as a sexualdeviant who would wear her and her daughters' underwear and makeup,was incapable of staying monogamous, and had a mixture of jealousyand 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 theSouthern Railway after his military service; his profession allowedhim to work whenever most convenient for him. In 1965, Larry became aprobationary officer with the New Albany Police Department, but wasfired after eight months when he and his partner assaulted anAfrican-American man whom Larry accused of sleeping with his wife. In 1988, Larry briefly worked as a mail carrier but quit after threemonths and did very little work, having brought most of his mail hometo destroy it.

Marjorie had worked intermittentlysince 1974. When both parents were working, the family wasfinancially well off, living in the upper-middle-class suburb ofFloyds Knobs, Indiana. Larry, who was violent and abusive did notusually share his income with the family and impulsively spent anymoney he earned on himself, especially firearms, motorcycles andcars. He filed for bankruptcy in 1980. Extended family members oftendescribed the Loveless daughters as visiting their homes hungry,apparently not getting enough food at home.

The Loveless parents would often visitbars in Louisville where Larry would pretend to be a doctor or adentist 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 attheir house, Marjorie tried to commit suicide, an act she wouldrepeat several times throughout her daughters' childhoods. WhenMelinda was nine years old, Larry had Marjorie gang raped, afterwhich she tried to drown herself. After that incident, she refusedhim sex for a month, until he raped her as their daughters overheardthe event through a closed door. In the summer of 1986, after shewould not let him go home with two women he met at a bar, Larry beatMarjorie so severely that she was hospitalized; he was convicted ofbattery.