Little Lost Angel (35 page)

Jacque ignored the outburst. “Although Steve and I are
divorced, Shanda lived in a very structured environment, and she was very loved by myself, her father, and other family members. Shanda was very compassionate and she could not stand to see anyone hurt. If Shanda had been in the position these girls were the night that they murdered her, and if they were trying to harm someone, I know my daughter would have done something to save the child from harm. I don’t think there’s anything worse than burying your own child. All my life I loved my mother so much that I used to pray that I would die before her because I couldn’t stand to lose her. Now I know that was a selfish prayer because I know that burying your own daughter is not a natural thing to go through.”

At Shanda’s funeral, Jacque said, her family was unable to “properly say goodbye” because the casket was closed. “She was so mutilated you couldn’t tell she was a human being. She had no face. We couldn’t put clothes on her, so we covered her with a blanket of roses.”

Directing a steely gaze at Melinda, Jacque said, “I want you to think of the person you love the most and I want you to imagine that person being burned and mutilated. Maybe then you could feel a small portion of the pain our family feels. The proper punishment for Melinda would be to place her in a cell with pictures of Shanda’s burned body and force her to continuously listen to a tape of my daughter screaming like she did that night. I know the law will only allow sixty years. To give anything less would be an atrocity equal to my daughter’s death. Anyone capable of such a horrendous crime should not be allowed on our streets.”

Allowing herself to cry for the first time, Jacque ended her testimony by turning to Melinda and saying, “I hope and pray you remember these words for the rest of your life. May you rot in hell.”

As soon as Jacque had finished her statement, the courtroom erupted into applause. Judge Todd banged his gavel. “Quiet. Quiet,” he shouted. Melinda dropped her head to the table and wept. Jacque stumbled back toward her family in the front row, seemingly exhausted after having held her emotions in check for so long. She hugged her mother and said, “I love you, Mom,” then received hugs and kisses from
other family members as she made her way to her seat alongside Doug Vaught, Steve, and Sharon.

After a minute or so of silence, Russ Johnson stood up and announced that Melinda had a statement to make to Shanda’s family.

Standing on trembling legs, Melinda looked directly at Jacque and Steve and the other members of Shanda’s family, then said in a choked voice, “I know I can’t take away your pain and I can’t bring Shanda back, but I do feel your pain.

“I’m so sorry. If I could trade places with Shanda I would. I’m so sorry.” Crying and moaning, Melinda swooned into the arms of defense attorneys Walro and Johnson.

*  *  *

Throughout the hearing, Steve Sharer couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew the man who sat next to Melinda’s mother each day in court: Mike Donahue, Melinda’s stepfather.

Finally it came to him: Donahue worked for a parts store that Steve frequented. The next time they passed each other in the courthouse stairwell, Steve pulled him aside. Donahue quickly acknowledged that he had also recognized Steve.

“He told me that he didn’t know what to say to me,” Steve recalled. “He said he’d married Melinda’s mother a year or so earlier and felt like he was living a nightmare. I kind of felt sorry for the poor guy.”

*  *  *

Townsend began his closing statement by sarcastically complimenting Melinda’s attorneys for diverting the blame away from their client. “They would have you think that Larry Loveless is responsible for this murder,” he said. “And Shanda did not die because Laurie Tackett hated her or because Laurie Tackett was jealous of her. She died because Melinda Loveless wanted her dead. Shanda lived a short life, but in one sense it was very long indeed. Can anyone doubt that the hours between eleven o’clock on the night of January 10, 1992, and nine o’clock on the morning of January 11 took an eternity to pass for Shanda Sharer? The hours locked in the trunk punctuated only by brief
episodes of being beaten and tortured and sodomized must have gone on forever for her. But that night did finally end for Shanda Renee Sharer. It ended in a flash of fire and smoke, which lasted only for a few minutes of your time and my time, of our time. But how long did that flash of fire and smoke last for Shanda? Surely it was another eternity before her life was choked out by the smoke and fire of her burning body. Forever. That’s how long that moment lasted for Shanda Sharer. Forever.

“The heinousness of the crime speaks for itself. For eight hours, unspeakable acts of torture were performed on a young girl. Melinda participated willingly and even gleefully. She could not contain her joy when Shanda was burned. Laughter burst out of her mouth and she said the words, ‘I’m glad she’s dead.’”

*  *  *

In Melinda’s defense, Russ Johnson argued that she should only get forty years, the standard sentence for murder by arson, since it was never proven that she did more than hit Shanda with her fist and knee and pour gasoline on her already-burning body.

Johnson said the court shouldn’t believe Laurie’s version of the events. “I find Laurie Tackett totally unbelievable and I think she is a young woman who has immense dangerous propensities. She came in here and admitted that she lied. Did she lie about some minor thing? No. She lied about who poured the gas on this poor little girl. The prosecutor wants us to believe the testimony of Laurie Tackett. That is probably the most absurd thing I’ve seen.”

Johnson pointed to his client. “The truthful intent of this girl when the evening started was to commit a battery. It was to fight and intimidate this girl. There’s no question about that, but I do not believe there was any intent to murder. This crime would not have occurred without the dominating influence of a sociopath named Laurie Tackett.”

At the conclusion of Johnson’s closing argument, Judge Todd announced that he would wait until after Laurie Tackett’s sentencing hearing, which would begin December 28, to pronounce both girls’ sentences.

*  *  *

In a few days, southern Indiana would be treated to its first white Christmas in seven years, but as Shanda’s relatives made their way out of the courthouse, they were greeted only by a cold rain.

“This should be the happiest time of the year for a family,” Jacque said, getting into her car. “But we have nothing but sadness.”

19

T
here was no jury box in Judge Todd’s court. The fourteen juror chairs—two reserved for jury alternates—sat facing the judge’s bench directly in front of a three-foot-high wooden partition that separated the spectators from the judge, attorney, and defendants.

From this vantage point, Wil Goering watched the Melinda Loveless hearing. He kept a legal notebook on his lap and a pen in his hand, ready to jot down observations that might better his chances of pleading Laurie Tackett’s case.

As he watched Melinda’s attorneys work their objections against Guy Townsend, Goering had to work hard to suppress a smile. “They’re stealing my act,” he thought.

Goering’s disdain for Townsend knew no bounds. The two had butted heads during Townsend’s campaign for office three years earlier, and the only thing they had in common now was their animosity toward each other.

To an unbiased observer it seemed as though Townsend had done an adequate and at times admirable job of presenting the state’s case against Melinda Loveless. But Goering didn’t see it that way. He felt that Townsend had let
Melinda off easy in order to build the case against Laurie. Had he been in Townsend’s shoes, Goering said later, he would never have allowed Russell Johnson to get in so much testimony about Laurie’s occult practices and her fascination with death.

“Townsend completely failed to counter the Melinda strategy of blaming Laurie,” Goering said. “Time and time again when Melinda’s attorneys would object and be overruled, Townsend would change directions completely. They were extremely successful in diverting his attention, and I know Melinda’s attorneys made a conscious effort to do that.”

Goering felt that Townsend had bungled the Toni Lawrence plea bargain—“He sold the farm to get her to testify”—and that he’d given Melinda and Laurie a better plea arrangement than they could ever have wished for.

“In the end it was probably in his best interest because I’m not sure he would have tried the case without a fundamental mistake that could get it reversed,” Goering said. “The cases against Melinda and Laurie were almost prosecutor-proof because Steve Henry had done such a thorough job.”

Goering went into Laurie’s hearing with high hopes, therefore. Although the evidence was stacked against his client, he was confident that on his worst day he could dance circles around Townsend in a courtroom.

He knew that his worst handicap was Laurie herself.

To Goering’s way of thinking, Melinda had pulled off a masterful acting job. She had the look of innocence down pat and had broken down into tears at all the right times. His client, however, had long lost contact with any semblance of innocence. There were no little-girl qualities left in Laurie. She’d been hardened by life, and its hardness was etched in her face and in her movements.

A couple of weeks before Melinda’s hearing, Laurie gave an interview to a Cincinnati television station. It was the first and last interview any of the girls would give the press. Laurie had styled her short hair and wore a modest, flower-print dress. But her attempt at evoking earnestness
and honesty didn’t play particularly well. She claimed unconvincingly that Shanda had hugged her and begged her to stop Melinda.

“She asked me not to let Melinda do it,” Laurie said, staring sadly into the camera. “She was crying. There wasn’t anything I could do.”

During this TV appearance, Laurie blamed everything on Melinda, saying, “She wanted to teach Shanda a lesson. I didn’t think she was going to go that far.”

Bad reviews of her performance must have gotten back to her, because it would be one of Laurie’s last attempts to portray herself with little-girl innocence. Despite Goering’s efforts to coach Laurie on how to carry herself in court, she seemed content in her sullenness and was reluctant to put on any airs in her subsequent court appearances.

“She is what she is,” Goering said later. “That blank look of hers is her true nature. She was someone who was incapable of feeling emotional pain. She’d shut that off years ago. She was a difficult person to establish a repartee with. She had many psychological problems and had a hard time trusting anybody.”

Although Laurie never opened up enough to let Goering get close to her, there were times when he could sense that she had tied all her hopes to him.

“She was looking for a white knight to rescue her,” Goering said. “I believe she thought that was me.”

“White knight” might be the last phrase Guy Townsend would ever use to describe Goering. The prosecutor had never forgiven Goering for what he believed was underhanded tactics during the election campaign, and they’d lived an uneasy co-existence in the courthouse ever since. But while Goering thought little of Townsend’s courtroom ability, that was the one venue in which Townsend afforded Goering respect.

“For whatever else I think about Wil Goering, I will concede that he knows his way around a courtroom,” Townsend said prior to the hearing.

And that as much as anything kept Townsend working at a fevered pitch during the Christmas break. He came to court on the crisp Monday morning of December 28, his arms
loaded with law books, his mind tired but determined, his purpose set: sixty years for Laurie Tackett, nothing less.

The strategy of Goering and his co-counsels, Ellen O’Connor and Robert Barlow, differed little from that of Melinda’s attorneys. They would try to shift as much of the blame as possible from their client and build sympathy for her. That meant portraying Melinda as the ringleader and Laurie as simply an obliging accomplice.

Like Melinda’s attorneys, Laurie’s had a lot to work with. She too had grown up in an abusive home. The difference was that the ogre of Melinda’s childhood, Larry Loveless, was an easy target. He wasn’t around to defend himself against charges of sexual molestation and violence. The problem facing Laurie’s attorneys was how far they could go in destroying the reputation of Laurie’s mother, Peggy Tackett.

Peggy Tackett had refused to have anything to do with her daughter after her arrest, not once visiting Laurie in the state prison. Putting her on the stand was out of the question, since Laurie’s defense hinged on making her mother look as bad as possible. Goering had no assurances that Laurie’s father or brother would substantiate Laurie’s attacks on her mother, so they too were ruled out as witnesses. That left Laurie herself.

“For what we wanted to do, we had to have Laurie testify in her own behalf,” Goering said.

As far as other witnesses, the pickings were slim. Goering struggled to find any classmates who had anything favorable to say about Laurie. After interviewing her teachers, he decided that none of them had anything to offer in her defense. Defense counsel Ellen O’Connor, an Indianapolis attorney with death-penalty experience, brought that out in her opening remarks at Laurie’s hearing.